Deadline Hollywood brings more bad news for publishing:

The News Corp publishing unit [HarperCollins] has expressed interest in acquiring CBS Corp‘s Simon & Schuster book unit, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This is presumably a response to the Penguin/Random House merger that was announced in October, and I still think it's a terrible idea. These mega-publishers are going to be too big and unwieldy to move nimbly, but too small to have any control over the changing media landscape. I don't understand how any human being who has been paying attention to the American business climate over the last decade (and American entertainment industries in particular) can think that putting all these eggs in one basket would be a good idea.