Oyster is selling ebooks now. But is it targeting Amazon?
Since launching in the fall of 2013, the ebook subscription app Oyster has set out to create a f”comprehensive e-reading environment.” The company has grown significantly in its eighteen month… Read more »
Back to 2014? Another Amazon-Publisher Battle Takes Shape
Ebola. The Sochi Olympics. MH370. The annexation of Crimea by Russia. The rise of ISIS. “All About That Bass.” Amazon v. Hachette. 2014 was a great year! So let’s roll… Read more »
Barnes & Noble’s new bags are a small, beautiful, very small step in the right direction
Last month, Barnes & Noble unveiled its newest attempt at revitalizing its flailing brand: a shopping bag. According to Bloomberg, the bags debuted in New York and will be making… Read more »
FAA gives Amazon permission to test publicity stunt
Yesterday, the FAA gave Amazon permission to test delivery drones that “that the company will use for research and development and crew training.” Amazon drones aren’t imminent, however—no, that isn’t… Read more »
Penn Books, Penn Station’s excellent independent bookstore, needs help
Penn Books, a small independent bookstore locating in New York’s iconic Penn Station, is in trouble. Vanishing New York reports that the store’s owner, Craig Newman, posted a call to… Read more »
Gone whaling
We’re moving offices, so MobyLives will be taking a short break. The blog will return on Tuesday, March 17. Orders placed between today (March 11) and next Wednesday (March 18)… Read more »
Brother of tall basketball man from The Arcade Fire records good song about ISIS
Will Butler is not the first Butler you think of when you think of the 113-piece Canadian rock band The Arcade Fire. That would be his brother Win, a tall man (7’1″)who is… Read more »
What does “bureaucracy” mean?
On Tuesday, we published David Graeber’s The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. On Wednesday, we decided that “bureaucracy” needed a new definition. If you google “bureaucracy,”… Read more »
There are no home runs left: What Jon Stewart’s departure from The Daily Show may mean for the publishing industry
For most of the last decade, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report were the two most important television shows in book publishing—and indeed, The Daily Show,… Read more »
Arrest made in Mark Twain plaque theft
Over the weekend, the Elmira Police Department announced they had recovered the plaque that had been removed from Mark Twain’s grave between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Yesterday, we learned… Read more »