Amazon puts its foot in it

If you read one book this week

Life or Death by Michael Robotham (Sphere) R285

Bank robber Audie Palmer is jailed for 10 years following a disastrous heist. Puzzlingly, on the very last day of his sentence, he escapes from prison to go on the run. It's a mystery that a young FBI agent, Desiree Furness, has been sent to untangle - and she soon discovers that the authorities hunting Palmer have a few dark secrets of their own. Robotham, an award-winning Australian writer, is a real find. A gripping, original thriller.

The issue

The battle with Amazon over digital book pricing is hotting up. Talks between the retailer and the giant Hachette publishing group have dragged on for four months now, during which time Amazon has halted preorders of some Hachette books and delayed shipment or pared discounts on others in a bid to force them to lower prices.

Meanwhile, more than 900 US writers - including Douglas Preston, Stephen King, John Grisham, Robert A Caro, Junot Diaz, Michael Chabon, Scott Turow, Sebastian Junger and Michael Lewis, among others - took out a full-page advert in The New York Times on Sunday under the banner "Authors United" demanding that Amazon stop using writers as ''hostages" in the negotiations.

In response, Amazon created its own campaign, "Readers United", and urged consumers to write directly to Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch, demanding he end the standoff.

In a statement, the retailer repeated its argument that e-books should be less expensive than physical ones and recounted how the book industry loathed cheaper, mass-market paperbacks when they were introduced in the 1930s.

"The famous author George Orwell," it continued, ''came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if 'publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them'. Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion."

Embarrassingly for Amazon, Orwell said no such thing. What he did say, in March 1936, in celebration of paperbacks, was: "The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them."

He then added: "It is, of course, a great mistake to imagine that cheap books are good for the book trade. The cheaper books become, the less money is spent on books."

Crash course

"You could bandage someone up, their entire body, attach a pencil to them, wave them about, and the result would be at least as good as that book." - Comedian and writer Dylan Moran on Fifty Shades of Grey.

The bottom line

"For obvious reasons, he wants the machine to bear some of his guilt. 'I cannot believe there is so much [child pornography] out there! Why on earth was it so easy for me to find it?'" - The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld by Jamie Bartlett (William Heinemann)