Defending Independent Bookstores

Richard Russo, friend of the Institute and upstate New York native, contributes a New York Times op-ed about Amazon's price comparison tool and the new assault on independent booksellers.

"I wondered what my writer friends made of all this, so I dashed off an e-mail to Scott Turow, the president of the Authors Guild, and cc’ed Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, Andre Dubus III, Anita Shreve, Tom Perrotta and Ann Patchett. "These writers all derive considerable income from Amazon’s book sales. But when the responses to my query started coming in it was clear Amazon’s program would find no defenders in our ranks." More.

Also, Chris Churchill of the Times Union gets a reaction to the new Amazon promotion from Book House and Market Block Books proprietor Susan Novotny.