On books - First Edition       
 Katie Allen  - The Bookseller's media editor.

Indies and chains were “excited” this week by the Man Booker longlist, announced on Tuesday (27th July), with booksellers planning to “pile them up” and predicting strong sales. Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap (Tuskar Rock) “every bookseller’s favourite” David Mitchell (Sceptre) are already troubling the tills, although the bookies were split over the likely winner; William Hill is quoting odds of 4/1 for Andrea Levy's The Long Song (Headline), while Ladbrokes is offering 3/1 odds for twice-winner Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber).

The controversial comment this time round comes not from Jamie Byng, but from academic Gabriel Josipovici, who was reported in the Guardian to have described the likes of Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes as “prep-school boys showing off” and that it was a “mystery” they won so many awards (although not this year perhaps). Josipovici’s own What Ever Happened to Modernism? (Yale) was published on the 23rd July, with further coverage expected in the broadsheet review pages, FT and New Statesman.

The biggest news for booksellers might just be today's announcement that Amazon is bringing its controversial Kindle store to the UK, set for 27th August, perhaps finally providing a 'tipping point' for digital reading this side of the Atlantic. The giant retailer has yet to reveal the price of UK Kindle books, but booksellers will certainly be worried if it follows the model of the US where the $9.99 price-point has alarmed publishers and rival booksellers alike. The Amazon PR has also been plugging its role in agent Andrew Wylie’s digital venture Odyssey Editions with Kindle's two-year window of exclusivity. For those who missed it, here was the smart response of one US bookseller Square Books, which put the offending titles on display with the sign "These Books Not For Sale". The shop commented: "We are not actually refusing to sell the books in the window (that wouldn't be smart!)—but we are trying to illustrate the point that an arrangement between a supplier (Wylie) and a retailer (Amazon) that excludes all other suppliers and retailers is dangerously limiting."