As for the ending, bravo to Mr Pullman for going against the grain and not providing a ‘and they lived happily ever after’ ending. Thought it ended wonderfully well, not matter how touching he wrote Lyra and Will’s relationship, not having them be together is the reason the Book of Dust as so much anticipation. Be patient, writing good stories takes forever.

On the topic of “big box stores” and their bloodlust for fiscal success at the expense of local economies must first, as one previous commenter has already pointed out, reside with the consumer themselves.

I’m in the U.S. and frankly, I have never heard of the company in question,
but I will offer that I despise the stale and impersonal “Barnes & Nobles”, “Books-a-Million, and the likes of the former retail giant “Borders”. I will offer that as an aspiring author that recognizes the extremely unlikey prospect that I’ll ever be published, and as an avid reader and collector of books of all genres, that I for one am appaled at the cost of hard back books as a general rule. I’ll not claim to understand the full costs associated with the production, promotion, and distribution of a novel, but I have always believed that any book, with the exception of collectibles and of those books for which demand justifies to some extent the price (ie The New York Times Best Sellers) are obscenely overpriced at the retail level.

This belief took hold in college and continues some 15 years later. It’s appalling to me that a work of modern fiction can command a price in excess of 30 dollars, and as a result, I will not even buy books from ANY retail book store, regardless of size because publishers augment the cost of lesser known writers in a communistic fashion by more or less pricing all of their titles within a minor margin of deviation. The entire system is broken in my humble opinion and it needs a massive overhaul.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Grisham, and the late Crichton’s works as much as the average Joe, but I also like grabbing a novel of authors I’ve never heard of and then trying the book on, which I would NEVER do at the MSRP. Should I ever create a work I feel will be well received, I’ll likely self-publish and promote because I believe the consumer is getting gouged. I can go back and look at the retail price of a novel in 1985 and with few exceptiona, the price variance for a currently published book is essentially the same in 2012.

Someone needs to come up with a better way to expand the availability of books, while better managing the retail price. The very fact that reading is in dramatic decline tells me that even small press publishers don’t seem to understand that the average consumer can’t buy John Q author at 29.99 when they are faced with that same price for a known quantity like Grisham.

As such, my books, almost all of which are hardbacks and permanently part of my growing collection have come from used book stores, Amazon, and through wealthy communities Goodwill stores.

In some very unique situations, I’ve paid retail for a book, but I was disgusted that I had done so virtually every time. Bottom line, the publishers, based on this letter, are clearly inflating prices to bolster what to me seems like a purely ABSURD, business arrangement whereby the publisher is essentially consigning books, not selling them. It’s seems to me that the entire economy of books is on the verge of collapse due to gross inefficiencies and greed, but maybe that needs to happen in order to drive a new book economy that more effectively and efficiently brings the author and reader together in a manner that is more democratic and reflective of the actual costs.

I’ll leave you with this example. A brand new Toni Morrison novel in paper back is $7.99, but the hardback is $34.99. Someone justify that price difference for me, as it should be amusing to hear how a piece of cardboard, different binding method and likely finer quality & quantity of paper result in 4X price increase?

Bottom line, shame on this university, shame on the publishers, and shame on the the entire primary book market for robbing the consumer for so long. The worst part of it all, is that this behavior is driving down literacy indirectly because the poor can’t afford to develop a love of reading, which comes not just from the words, but also from the collecting and coveting books over time.

I for one will enjoy watching all of these players collapse under their absurdity.