No More Bookstores in Laredo, Texas, Le Guin Launches Petition in Google Settlement, and More

by Staff
1.25.10

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:

In what prominent rights activists are calling "a dangerous throwback to Soviet times," the Russian poet Yulia Privedyonnaya has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation (Google News).

The last bookstore in Laredo, Texas, closed this month, making it one of the largest cities in the United States without one (CNN). 

Due to increasing public pressure, Borders Group has scrapped plans to trash thousands of unsold books and instead will donate them to charity (Huffington Post).

As the Google Settlement deadline approaches, Ursula Le Guin and nearly three hundred fellow authors launched a petition asking that the United States "be exempted from the settlement (Guardian)."

The popular Jaipur Literature Festival provides a window into a resurgent Indian and South Asian literary scene (New York Times).

The London Review of Books is tens of millions of dollars in debt, but its long-standing editor is not overly concerned (Times).

The Sydney Morning Herald tracks the emergence of Lay-off Lit.

One out of every seventeen novels bought in the United States since 2006 was written by the same person, sort of (New York Times).