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  3. If you’re heading for your nearest branch of Waterstones, the biggest book retailer in the UK, in search of the Duchess of Susse

If you’re heading for your nearest branch of Waterstones, the biggest book retailer in the UK, in search of the Duchess of Susse

admin2023-03-14  9
问题     If you’re heading for your nearest branch of Waterstones, the biggest book retailer in the UK, in search of the Duchess of Sussex’s new children’s book The Bench, you might have to be prepared to hunt around a bit, the same may be true of The President’s Daughter, the new thriller by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Both of these books are published next week by Penguin Random House (PRH) , a company currently involved in a stand-off with Waterstones.
    The problem began late last year, when PRH confirmed that it had introduced a credit limit with Waterstones " at a very significant level". The trade magazine The Bookseller reported that Waterstones branch managers were being told to remove PRH books from prominent areas such as tables, display spaces and windows, and were " quietly retiring them to their relevant sections".
    PRH declined to comment on the issue, but a spokesperson for Waterstones told me-. "Waterstones are currently operating with reduced credit terms from PRH, the only publisher in the UK to place any limitations on our ability to trade. We are not boycotting PRH titles, but we are doing our utmost to ensure that availability for customers remains good despite the lower overall levels of stock. We do this generally by giving their titles less prominent positioning within our bookshops. We are hopeful with our shops now open again that normality will return and that we will be allowed to buy appropriately. Certainly, our shops are exceptionally busy and book sales are very strong. The sales for our May Books of the Month surpassed any month since 2018. "
    In the meantime, PRH authors have been the losers—as have customers, who might expect the new titles from the country’s biggest publisher to be prominently displayed by its biggest book retailer. Big-name PRH authors may suffer a bit, but it’s those mid-list authors, who normally rely on Waterstones staffs passion for promoting books by lesser-known writers, who will be praying for an end to the dispute.
    It comes at a time when authors are already worried about the consequences of the proposed merger between PRH and another big publisher, Simon & Schuster—the reduction in the number of unaligned UK publishers is likely to lead to fewer bidding wars, lower advances, and more conformity in terms of what is published. And one wonders if PRH would have been confident enough to deal with Waterstones in the way it has if it weren’t quite such a big company (it was formed with the merger of Penguin and Random House in 2013) and likely to get bigger.
    "This is all part of a wider change towards concentration of power," says literary agent Andrew Lownie. "The publishing industry talks about diversity in terms of authors and staff but it also needs a plurality of ways of delivering intellectual contact, choice and different voices. After all, many of the most interesting books in recent years have come from small publishers. "
    We shall see whether that plurality is a casualty of the current need among publishers to be big enough to take on all-comers.
What can be one consequence of the current dispute?
选项 A、Sales of books by mid-list PRH writers fall off considerably.
B、Lesser-known PRH writers become the target of criticism.
C、Waterstones staff hesitate to promote big-name authors’ books.
D、Waterstones branches suffer a severe reduction in revenue.
答案A
解析 根据题干中的 one consequence of the current dispute定位到第四段，其中提到“企鹅兰登书屋的知名作者可能会受到一些影响，但想让争议快点结束的正是那些排名中间的作者，因为不太出名的作者通常依靠水石书店的工作人员的热情来宜传他们的书”，那么可知受这场争论影响最大的是那些排名中间的作家，他们的图书销量会大幅下降，故正确答案为 A。文中提到Waterstones 的工作人员会宣传 PRH 不太知名的作家的书，但是文中并未提到 PRH 不太知名的作家是主要的被批评对象，故排除B选项。文中关于Waterstones staff的内容为“但想让争议快点结束的正是那些排名中间的作者，因为不太出名的作者通常依靠水石书店的工作人员的热情来宣传他们的书”，水石书店的工作人员并不是宣传 big-name authors 的书，也没有所谓的hesitate（迟疑，不愿意），故排除 C 选项。D选项“水石书店分公司收入大幅减少”在文中并未提及，属于无中生有，故排除 D 选项。
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