Last Day for Borders UK, Amazon to Settle Cracked Kindle Suit, and More

by
Adrian Versteegh
12.23.09

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:

Amazon is close to settling a lawsuit filed earlier this year by a Seattle man, who claims that a Kindle he purchased for his wife developed cracks and eventually stopped working (TechFlash).

Prime View International, the Taiwanese tech firm that supplies the screens used in most e-readers, is expected to launch a lighter, more durable plastic display in 2010 (Financial Times).

Economic woes are forcing the closure of two independent bookstores in Nebraska, including thirty-year-old Lee Booksellers in Lincoln (Omaha World-Herald).

A bankruptcy sale marks the final hours of the Borders UK chain (Bookseller).

Meanwhile, with the sole bookstore in Laredo, Texas, slated to close next month, municipal and state leaders are trying to attract a replacement (Houston Chronicle).

The New York Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Baltimore Sun, and the Denver Post have joined the roster of wirelessly-delivered newspapers now available through Sony’s Daily Edition e-reader (Engadget).

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo: The explicit incipit from a first-century work by the Roman poet Catullus is at the center of a bizarre court case in Britain (Guardian).

Scholarly book depository BiblioVault and its parent, the University of Chicago Press, have unveiled a new platform that lets academic publishers sell e-books directly through the Web (Publishers Weekly).