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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  15
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.
Which of the following statements best represents Lownie’s view?
选项 A、Small publishers ought to stick together.
B、Big publishers will lose their dominance.
C、The publishing industry is having a hard time.
D、The merger of publishers is a worrying trend.
答案D
解析 根据题干中的Lownie’s view定位到倒数第二段，其中提到Lownie的观点为“出版业会谈论作者和员工的多样性，但出版业也需要用多种方式来传递知识、人们的选择和不同的声音”，他所说的出版业谈到的多样性，指的就是出版业现在的合并趋势，显然，从他的话中可知他认为这样的合并是令人担忧的，故正确答案为D。文中关于Small publishers的内容为“近年来许多最有趣的书籍都来自小型出版商"，并未提及它们团结在一起（stick together）的事，故排除A选项。同理，B选项“大型出版商会失去其主导地位”也是对该句话的曲解，故排除B选项。文中涉及The publishing industry的内容并未提及出版业处境很艰难，只是说出版业倾向于作者和员工的多样性，故排除 C 选项。
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