Book News, In Brief

A personal message to our valued customers: Try this, and we'll show you the door. Via Forbes.com: Haggling is no longer limited to used car lots...Retail prices are an artificial, arbitrary number. Ticket prices are not ordained by some almighty being. They are created by humans. Anything that results from a negotiation is negotiable.

Q: How is it that while book sales are down, poetry prospers? A: Filthy rich philanthropists. Via the AP: Poets & Writers, a nonprofit literary organization, has received a $2 million donation to support its Jackson Poetry Prize, a $50,000 award founded in 2007 for emerging American poets...The money comes from the Liana Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in N.J. and co-managed by poet Susan Jackson.

John Updike has written a promotional blurb for the first of a series of 500-word erotic e-book offerings. While Updike's 'elder statesman' status makes him an awkward choice, there's another, even less flattering reason he might want to refrain from putting his name on porn. Via The Guardian UK: What sets the story apart from other moby-lit offerings is the seal of approval from John Updike...Coincidentally or not, Updike last month won a lifetime award for Bad Sex in Fiction.