Genre: Not Genre-Specific

It’s not what most people expect from a book conference. There are no scholars huddled together discussing the latest piece of literary fiction that is keeping them up late at night; no gangs of poets arguing about who will make up the future canon of Western literature. Instead, what people found at this year’s BookExpo America, held last weekend at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, was actress Julianne Moore (really her), America’s Test Kitchen host Christopher Kimball (really him, but not quite as exciting as Moore), the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean (look-alikes, pretty good), Borat (another look-alike, not so good), and the Knight Bus from the Harry Potter series.

Last year's book sales rose slightly over 2005, the New York Times reports today. According to a study by the Book Industry Study Group, publishers sold 3.1 billion books in 2006, up just 0.5 percent from 2005, when 3.09 billion were published.

A used bookstore owner in Kansas City, Missouri, began burning his collection of books yesterday, the Associated Press reported.

German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG recently initiated major changes to Bookspan, the company responsible for Book-of-the-Month Club, that it acquired from Time, Inc., last month.