Publishing and Eating

     . . . . Publishing jam-up at printers -- NY Times paywall link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/books/printing-companies-backlog-book-publishing.html

[....]

...with September approaching, things are far from normal. Books that were bumped from spring and early summer are landing all at once, colliding with long-planned fall releases and making this one of the most crowded fall publishing seasons ever. And now publishers are confronting a new hurdle: how to print all those books.

The two largest printing companies in the United States, Quad and LSC Communications, have been under intense financial strain, a situation that has grown worse during the pandemic. LSC declared bankruptcy in April, and the company’s sales fell nearly 40 percent in the fiscal quarter that ended June 30, a drop that the company attributed partly to the closure of retailers during the pandemic and the steep fall of educational book sales. In September, LSC’s assets will be put up for auction. Quad’s book printing business is also up for sale; this spring, the company had to temporarily shut down its printers at three plants due to the pandemic.

At the same time, there has been a surprising spike in sales for print books, a development that would normally be cause for celebration, but is now forcing publishers to scramble to meet surging demand. Unit sales of print books are up more than 5 percent over last year, and sales have accelerated over the summer. From early June to mid-August, print sales were up more than 12 percent over the previous 10 weeks, according to NPD BookScan. The surge has been driven by several new blockbuster titles, including books by Suzanne Collins, Stephenie Meyer, John Bolton and Mary Trump. Publishers have also seen an unexpected demand for older titles, particularly books about race and racism, children’s educational workbooks and fiction.

“The infinite printer capacity hasn’t been there for a while, now enter Covid and a huge surge in demand, and you have an even more complex situation,” said Sue Malone-Barber, senior vice president and director of Publishing Operations for Penguin Random House, which is delaying titles at several of its imprints as a result of the crunch.

The backlog at the printers is creating havoc for authors and publishers. Reprints for books that are selling well, which normally take two weeks, are sometimes taking more than a month. [....]

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Holy Cow! el V's chopping and slicing some Saratoga basil and tomatoes.  The perfume is -- dense.  They may have the same names as what we've been getting here, but they are not the same at all.  Duh.

Such beautiful stuff.  I wish-wish-wish there were those close enough with whom I could share it out.

Celery!  Herbs like basil and chervil and parsley, onions and unfamiliar varieties of garlic.  Jolly, rotund eggplant. Early  potatoes. Incredible tomatoes. Bushels of corn on the cob. Late August apples, Williams Pride.  Climate change has been good for the state's peaches -- lordessa are they juicy.  S also sent back a buncha of his chicken fricassee sauce. (I have no plans for cooking chicken any time soon, not with all these vegetables, so into the freezer with that.)

Due to the insane traffic of pretend it's post-covid the produce hand-off for pork didn't happen with P, so that portion is here until later. It will be departing though.

S wants us up again in the fall.  I am thinking ... Thanksgiving?

So much wonderful food!  All perfect for meals in the again very hot and humid weather we're having.