Sublime

but there was also a selection of the books the store’s staff decided were worth a closer look, a collective act of curation.

The executive editor of the most influential literary agency in the US said he could not risk his relationship with the paper, on which he depends for reviews and publicity for his authors. Publishers who are brand names in the industry balked. Even freelance designers and editors refused to work on the book, saying it was not a risk they could aff

It was as if you could buy only the books that appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, but the list was operated by an untrustworthy company, one solely devoted to treating books as fungible objects to be offloaded as quickly as possible.