TODAY'S NEWS

Comps Off at Barnes & Noble Retail, College Groups
By Jim Milliot
Barnes & Noble Inc. this morning released its first financial results since the September 30 completion of its acquisition of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. The figures show the college division performing better than the retail operations, although same store sales for both are down in the second quarter.

Total sales in the retail group fell 3% for the second quarter, which began August 2 and will close October 31, to $665 million, and comp store sales were down 4.1%. Barnes & Noble.com had a good period, with sales up 8%. Sales are through October 3. Sales in the quarter included sales of The Lost Symbol which B&N said broke one-day sales records for an adult fiction title. B&N expects comp sales to be down 1% to 3% in the retail group for the entire second quarter and to decline 2% to 4% for the full fiscal year which will end May 1, 2010 (B&N changed its fiscal year following the completion of the B&N College deal). Read on »

Free Speech Case Goes Before High Court
By Jim Milliot
First Amendment advocates were generally encouraged by Tuesday’s oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v Stevens. The case, which many First Amendment supporters have called the most important free speech case in 25 years, involves the conviction of Robert Stevens for selling a dog-fighting video that a federal court found violated a 1999 law that makes it’s a crime to create, sell or possess videos and other depictions of cruelty to animals. The original intent of the law was to prevent the sale so-called “crush videos.” Stevens conviction was overturned, but the U.S. Justice Department appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court. Read on »

Frank McCourt Remembered and Honored
By Michael Coffey
“An Evening of Reminiscence, Music, Poetry and Laughter” was promised for the memorial to Frank McCourt held at Symphony Space on Tuesday night, and it was amply delivered. A crowd of more than a thousand jammed the auditorium for an event that spanned two-and-a half hours, and featured a four-part program that covered McCourt’s teaching career in the New York City public schools, his roots in Limerick, his spectacularly productive retirement and the sensation that was Angela’s Ashes. Read on »

Florida Indie Inks Deal With Jean-Michel Cousteau
By Rachel Deahl
Florida-based independent press Ocean Publishing has signed Jean-Michel Cousteau to a four-book deal. Cousteau, an environmentalist and son of Jacques, is president of the Ocean Futures Society in Santa Barbara, Calif., will write about the country's 13 national marine sanctuaries, areas that the author calls "America's underwater treasures." Read on »

Herta Mueller Wins Literature Nobel
Romanian-born German author Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature. Mueller, who is 56 and the first German to win the literature Nobel since Gunter Grass in 1999 and, according to the New York Times, has had four of her books translated into English. Northwestern University Press has published two of those titles, a paperback edition of The Land of Green Plums--a hardcover edition of that title from Metropolitan Books is currently out of print--and a harcover of Traveling on One Leg. The prize carries with it a monetary reward of $1.4 million.

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MORE STORIES

Page to Screen: A Lauded YA Backlister and Amazon Breakthrough Winner
This week in Page to Screen—PW's column tracking film rights circulating and sold in Hollywood—a Brokeback Mountain producer nabs a YA backlister, and an Amazon Breakthrough Novel winner gets looks in Hollywood.

Proving that Hollywood's interest in YA fare is showing no signs of waning—and is scouring the backlist for more—producer Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain) optioned Robin Brande's Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature, which Knopf published in 2007. The novel, Brande's debut, is about a high school girl who becomes unwittingly embroiled in local controversy after shining a light on an organized push to "de-gay" a classmate—she's ostracized by friends, her church and her family. Eric Reid at William Morris Endeavor brokered the deal on behalf of Laura Rennert, at Andrea Brown. Read on »

The PW Morning Report
All the Publishing News from the Internet That’s Fit to Aggregate: 2009 Nobel Goes to German Novelist; Palin’s Turbo-Memoir; Google Speaks; Re-Covering ‘Lolita’; Book Sales Down. Read on »

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: I Love Your Style; Manhood for Amateurs; Brother West
This morning on The Early Show, fashion muse Amanda Brooks declared I Love Your Style: How to Define and Refine Your Personal Style (It Books, 978-0061833120, $19.99). Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Bouton's Bombers
AP corporate communications staffers posed with former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, who appeared on behalf of the AP book New York Yankees 365 (Abrams), at the Borders in New York’s financial district on Wednesday. Pictured (l. to r.) are: Paula Stone; Bouton; Megan Reichgott; and Nicole Timme. Photo credit: Chuck Zoeller Submit your pictures here »

JOB OF THE DAY

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