The Toronto Star published a quick but interesting interview with Nora Roberts that's full of interesting tidbits. For example, did you know she first wrote in 1979 when she was trapped at home in a snowstorm? She picked up paper and pen and started writing to stay sane. Did you know she fell in love and married a carpenter she'd hired to build some bookshelves? They've been together now for 24 years.

According to the Star, Roberts grosses $60 million a year writing romance and crime novels. (Yes, let's all dream for a moment!) Last year, she sold an amazing 18 million books in the U.S. and Canada under her name (romance) and J.D. Robb (crime).

A couple quotes from the interview:

On solitude: "I like being alone with myself. I like having time to think of my story lines and develop my characters. It's hard to do that if somebody's talking to you. They should go away and leave me alone."

On her favorite book: "I'm going to have to say it's a toss-up. Between To Kill a Mockingbird, which I think probably is the perfect book, as close to perfect as any book can be, and Catch-22 because it's just brilliant.

Walmart and Amazon are duking it out in an unprecedented book price war, offering some holiday-season hardcovers for as low as $8.99—as much as 75 percent off the cover price. This has some publishers and analysts concerned that such deep price-cutting will hurt the industry in some fundamental ways.

David Gernet, John Grisham's literary agent, tells The New York Times: "If readers come to believe that the value of a new book is $10, publishing as we know it is over. If you can buy Stephen King's new novel or John Grisham's Ford County for $10, why would you buy a brilliant first novel for $25? I think we underestimate the effect to which extremely discounted bestsellers take the consumer's attention away from emerging writers."

Booksellers are concerned as well. Daniel Goldin, owner of Milwaukee's Boswell Book Co., writes in his blog Boswell and Books: "The whole thing reminds me of the drug trade somehow, and I feel like some Joe caught in a shootout. I'm currently hiding in an alley down the block, but with all those flying bullets, I'm getting a little nervous."

--Jeff Reich, editor

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