Penguin Group

Sarah Palin isn't the only Republican with a big decision to make regarding her political future. You could argue that no one has benefited from the 2008 presidential race more than Mike Huckabee. His surprise finish in the Iowa caucuses and his success at winning over family-values voters has translated into a TV show on Fox News, a radio program, motivational speaking gigs and a string of bestselling books. Basically, Huck, as he is known, has become a mini-empire. And as such, the former Arkansas governor has as much to lose perhaps as Palin should he reenter the political sphere and run for the 2012 presidential nomination.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is drawing heat over his choice of ghostwriter for a forthcoming book. As the National Review online reported, Walker will team up with former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen on the book, which according to a source will "tell his story. " The book, which is not yet titled, will be published by Sentinel, an imprint of the Penguin Group. Thiessen, a Washington Post op-ed columnist, supports "enhanced interrogation" in the war against terror, as spelled out in his 2010 book "Courting Disaster.

A New York federal judge has ruled that the son and a granddaughter of Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck hold the book publishing rights to "Of Mice and Men," "The Grapes of Wrath" and eight other early classics. The ruling was a setback for Penguin Group Inc., which could lose the rights to Steinbeck books that it has held for decades. Mark S. Lee, a lawyer representing the author's surviving son, Thomas Steinbeck, of Montecito, Calif., and granddaughter Blake Smyle of Boonesboro, Md.

Giant bookseller Borders Group Inc., battered by poor sales, continuing financial losses and heavy debt, filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday and said it would close about 200 of its 642 stores and lay off about 6,000 of its 19,000 workers. In California, 35 stores will be shuttered, including 21 in Southern California. Among those being closed are stores in Century City, Glendale, Valencia, Tustin, Orange, Oxnard, Long Beach and Pasadena. All the stores that will be closed are underperforming superstores, Borders said.

WASHINGTON - Former Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs was a key player in a conspiracy with five major book publishers to drive up the price of digital books, federal and state officials said in antitrust lawsuits filed against the companies. Jobs helped orchestrate a complex price-fixing plan that cost consumers tens of millions of dollars over the last two years by boosting the price of many new releases and bestsellers by $3 to $5 each, federal investigators said. Apple even proudly described the maneuver - which gave the iPad maker a guaranteed 30% commission on each e-book sold through its online marketplace - as an "aikido move," referring to the Japanese martial art, according to the lawsuit.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main St.," Bill Cosby's "I Started Out as a Child" comedy album and musicologist Harry Smith's widely influential "Anthology of American Folk Music" collection are among 25 new recordings selected for the 2012 Grammy Hall of Fame, the Recording Academy announced Monday. The new entries, which also include Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A. " album, Cole Porter's pop standard "Anything Goes," Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's pioneering rap single "The Message" and Tina Turner's career-rejuvenating hit single "What's Love Got to Do With It" bring the total number of recordings chosen for the Hall of Fame to 906. Other selections this year include Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs' instrumental "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," Mahalia Jackson's "Precious Lord, Take My Hand," Gloria Gaynor's anthem "I Will Survive" and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 1940 recording of Roy Harris' Symphony No. 3. —Randy Lewis Penguin stops e-book loans Library patrons hoping to borrow e-books published by Penguin may have to wait.

Radiohead has postponed part of its European tour after a stage collapse in Toronto killed the band's drum technician. A statement posted on the British band's website Thursday said they are dealing with grief from the accident and practical considerations that have forced them to postpone shows in Italy, Germany and Switzerland scheduled through July 9. Scott Johnson was killed Saturday when the stage came crashing down as the crew set...

Since Amazon.com debuted its first Kindle e-book reader late in 2007, the reaction within the book industry has been a mix of welcome and scorn. Welcome because of the potential to tap an entirely new market -- before a wave of digital piracy similar to the one that decimated the music business. Scorn because of fears that the online retail giant, which already has a commanding share of the market for printed books, might use its leverage to seize control of the new market and push down prices even further.

Irrational exuberance? Not to Penguin Press, which said Tuesday that it won a bidding war to publish the memoirs of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The deal reportedly will pay Greenspan an advance of more than $8.5 million, which would be the second-largest amount ever for a nonfiction writer. The biggest was the $10 million Alfred A. Knopf paid in 2001 for the memoirs of former President Clinton.

In a bid to lure men in Britain away from watching TV soccer games and into bookshops, publisher Penguin Books will send out a sexy model to offer $1,800 prizes to males spotted reading a selected title. The publicity ploy, launched Monday, aims to boost sales among men, who on average buy fewer books than women. Penguin's so-called Good Booking Girl will canvass the streets this month for men older than 16 reading versions of Nick Hornby's "31 Songs" that bear a special cover sticker.