Great Regulars: Director Alison O'Dornan said it did so

"on the basis that our title was actually bilingual and that the Cornish translation had been checked by an examiner for the Cornish Language Board, and also that the alphabet was the same as English so there were no extra characters needed". When this had no effect, she turned to social media for support.

"The great news is that Amazon have indeed backed down after the support that we have generated, and have now agreed to publish the Cornish title," said O'Dornan, who hailed it as a testament to the power of social media in "allowing a minnow such as ourselves to change the minds of a big company".

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Amazon backs down over Cornish-language children's book

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But despite [Otis] Chandler's reassurances, many readers and authors reacted negatively to the news. American writers' organisation the Authors' Guild called the acquisition a "truly devastating act of vertical integration" which meant that "Amazon's control of online bookselling approaches the insurmountable". Bestselling legal thriller author Scott Turow, president of the Guild, said it was "a textbook example of how modern internet monopolies can be built".

"The key is to eliminate or absorb competitors before they pose a serious threat," said Turow.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Amazon purchase of Goodreads stuns book industry

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They forget that the past was full of 'normal' everyday events, just like today, and a picture such as the one with the cat pawprints tends to remind everybody that people who lived in the past were not much different than ourselves."

I think that's spot-on--those of us with cats know exactly how annoying/endearing it is to have a purring feline trying to climb onto our keyboards while we're working, and I just love the thought of a medieval scribe being equally irritated. If not more--at least we can just delete.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Cats leave their mark on centuries of books

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JK Rowling's creation won 38% of kids' votes in a survey of 1,037 parents and their children, with Julia Donaldson's monster picking up 34%, and the Cat in the Hat 28%.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Harry Potter beats the Gruffalo in children's vote for best character

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