Nancy Pearl loses some luster

Susan Doupé Photography/SUSAN DOUPé PHOTOGRAPHY - 
Nancy Pearl, author of "Book Lust," has launced a 12-title series, Book Lust Rediscoveries, to be published by Amazon.

• By Nora Krug, Published: June 21 - The Washington Post

Nancy Pearl, the ex-librarian and frequent NPR contributor who inspired an action figure, has long been the toast of independent bookstores. Her first book — “Book Lust,” an annotated compilation of reading lists — “helped us pay the bills for a while,” said Mark LaFramboise, chief buyer for Politics and Prose Bookstore in the District. But her new series, a selection of formerly out-of-print novels, may be harder to find on the shelves of your local bookshop, independent or otherwise.
That’s because earlier this year, Pearl, a 67-year-old grandmother of three who lives in Seattle, joined forces with ­Amazon, the arch nemesis of brick-and-mortar bookstores. The online retailer is publishing and selling Pearl’s 12-title Book Lust Rediscoveries project. As e-books, the series is available exclusively on Amazon’s Kindle; in print, it is available only in paperback.
The series — with introductions and reading guides by Pearl — will include an array of genres, from coming-of-age novels to westerns. What the books share is Pearl’s straightforward dictum on what makes a book worth reading: “These are books with fabulously constructed three-­dimensional characters who remain with you long after the book is over.”

When the deal was announced in January, some 50 independent bookstores threatened to sign an open letter castigating Pearl. One store owner said that Pearl “can no longer continue to be accepted as an objective and impartial promoter of books.” According to one booksellers blog, people “were doing not-so-nice things to their Nancy Pearl action figures.”
“I am feeling a little bit not eager to go into places I was formerly eager to go into,” Pearl said, suggesting she might have to do so in disguise.
Full story at Washington Post