From Publishers' Lunch today:

Today's Meal

The Australian Finds Written School Report On Beah to Confirm Their Timeline

The Australian continues to pursue the Ishmael Beah story with vigor, clearly piqued that "Beah and his handlers have remained adamant that the book is an accurate non-fiction account" and "have accused The Weekend Australian of having a hostile agenda.

"Their latest story reports that two men who say they were Beah's teachers, Abdul Barrie and Joseph Benya, have produced "the academic results sheet for the second term, from January to March 1993" at their school which includes marks for Beah. (In the book, Beah flees his town in January 2003 after the rebels attack.) They cite his grades and say he ranked second out of 47 students.

The paper also quotes the man Beah's acknowledges was his school principal, Sidiki Brima, saying "he had confirmed Beah's presence in 1993 and 1994 by asking his nephew, who was at school at the same time as Beah and knew him well." (Of course, you could argue for or against confirmation-by-nephew....)The story also quotes a Catholic priest who takes issue with Beah's chronology. "Beah wrote that in January 1993 the rebels captured an unnamed Catholic priest and forced him to carry a threatening message into Mattru Jong, a series of events which is known to have happened in 1995. The priest involved in the 1995 incident, Moses Sao Kailie, said yesterday: 'There is no coincidence at all because this only happened once ... in 1995.

I know because it was me. And it was just impossible for it to have happened to any other priest in 1993 -- I was the only priest in the (Mattru Jong) region from 1991 to November 1995."Reporter Peter Wilson is stalking Beah on his UK book tour trying to get an interview. In one breath Beah echoes the softer statement he made in an AP interview: "I never wrote the book about Sierra Leone's history 101. I wrote the book from my point of view, as my experiences as a child in the war.... So I wrote about my account and my account is accurate in my memories as far as I can remember it and that is what I stand by."

But an Oxford event (where Wilson was barred), a tape provided to him quotes Beah saying the newspaper "sent a reporter all the way to Sierra Leone and so they wanted to have a story, so the next thing they did was question all kinds of aspects of my memory and things like that. So this is what has been going on. How can I remember every single detail of the horrors that happened to me but forget simple dates? That's ridiculous, but that's the allegations that are being made.

When you try and stand for certain things people try to find ways to bring you down."

UK Discount Book Chain The Works Files for Protection

The Works, a discount bookstore chain in the UK with 317 stores, filed for bankruptcy on Friday with debts said to be over $40 million. Annual sales as of the last spring, the most recent full fiscal year, were approximately $185 million. The chain employs about 1,600 people. Stores will continue to operate while a rescue plan is put together.Times