Scholastic Corporation today reported a $13 million loss in the last quarter of fiscal 2008, and a 15 percent increase in earnings for the whole year. It was a Harry Potter year, of course, and the release makes clear that excluding Harry, times are tough and will continue to be.

The sentence that jumped out at me in CEO Richard Robinson's statement, quoted in the release, was this: "In fiscal 2009 we also have plans to reduce costs by $25 to $35 million, through reductions in headcount and other spending areas."

Of course, "headcount" is just a technical accounting term, and has nothing to do with real human beings. That is to say, it's nothing personal. You could say, "nosecount," or "body count," and it would mean the same thing. It has to do with cost. In publishing, the biggest cost has a heartbeat.

Do you love Shakespeare? Right now, the Boston Public Library has one of its delicious small exhibitions in the third floor rare-book room: "All the World's a Page: 400 Years of Shakespeare in Print," continuing through Sept. 30. In a row of glass cases along the walls, in safely dim light, are bound editions of William Shakepeare's works, including the famous 1623 First Folio and even earlier quarto editions.

The historic notes, describing disputes over authenticity of various texts, and resolutions thereof, are fascinating. Also on display is a copy of Holinshed's Chronicles, which provided many of the old stories that the playwright used as raw material.

Jointly produced by the library and the University of Massachusetts at Boston, the exhibition includes holdings in the library's Barton Collection of Shakespeariana, the first major American collection and considered one of the greatest outside England.

The Rare Book Room is one of those places in this city where you can often be alone (apart from the staff member on duty) with priceless treasures. It's not hard to find: Take the elevator near the west door from the courtyard (the side away from Copley Square), get off on the third floor, and turn left. Free.

1 YOU CAN DO IT!, by Tony Dungy. Illustrated by Amy June Bates. (Little Simon Inspirations, $16.99.) How faith and dreams help us succeedd, by the coach of the Indianapolis Colts. (Ages 4 to 7)
2 GALLOP!, written and illustrated by Rufus Butler Seder. (Workman, $12.95.) Animals seem to move when you flip the page. (Ages 4 to 8)
3 ALPHABET, by Matthew Van Fleet. (Wiseman/Simon & Schuster, $19.99.) An interactive safari ABC. (Ages 2 to 6)
4 A VISITOR FOR BEAR, by Bonny Becker. Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton. (Candlewick, $16.99.) A mouse pops in on an antisocial bear. (Ages 4 to 8)
5 SMASH! CRASH!, by Jon Scieszka. Illustrated by David Shannon, Loren Long and David Gordon. (Simon & Schuster, $16.99.) A truck named Jack and a dump truck named Dan love to smash into things. (Ages 3 to 7)

Source: NY Times, week of July 27 - August 2

1. Three Cups of Tea
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Penguin.
2. Eat, Pray, Love
By Elizabeth Gilbert. Penguin.
3. The Omnivore’s Dilemma
By Michael Pollan. Penguin.
4. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
By Barbara Kingsolver. Harper.
5. Dreams From My Father
By Barack Obama. Three Rivers.
6. Big Russ and Me
By Tim Russert. Miramax.
7. Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar ...
By Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. Penguin.
8. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
By Tucker Max. Citadel.
9. A New Earth
By Eckhart Tolle. Plume.
10. The Audacity of Hope
By Barack Obama. Three Rivers.

Source: Boston area bookstores

1. On Chesil Beach
By Ian McEwan. Anchor.
2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
By Michael Chabon. Harper.
3. Out Stealing Horses
By Per Petterson. Picador.
4. The Last Summer (of You and Me)
By Ann Brashares. Riverhead.
5. In the Woods
By Tana French. Penguin.
6. The Friday Night Knitting Club
By Kate Jacobs. Berkley.
7. Second Chance
By Jane Green. Plume.
8. Away
By Amy Bloom. Random House.
9. Water for Elephants
By Sara Gruen. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
10. The Road
By Cormac McCarthy. Vintage.

Source: Boston area bookstores

1. When You Are Engulfed in Flames
By David Sedaris. Little, Brown.
2. The Last Lecture
By Randy Pausch. Hyperion.
3. The Dark Side
By Jane Mayer. Doubleday.
4. Life With My Sister Madonna
By Christopher Ciccone. Simon Spotlight.
5. Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea
By Chelsea Handler. Simon Spotlight.
6. The Secret
By Rhonda Byrne. Atria.
7. The Monster of Florence
By Douglas Preston. Grand Central.
8.The Four-Hour Work Week
By Timothy Ferriss. Crown.
9. The Last Fish Tale
By Mark Kurlansky. Ballantine.
10. In Defense of Food
By Michael Pollan. Penguin.

Source: Boston area bookstores

1. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
By David Wroblewski. Ecco.
2. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
By Junot Díaz. Riverhead.
3. Unaccustomed Earth
By Jhumpa Lahiri. Knopf.
4. Love the One You’re With
By Emily Giffin. St. Martin’s.
5. Chasing Harry Winston
By Lauren Weisberger. Simon & Schuster.
6. The Beach House
By Jane Green. Viking.
7. Sail
By James Patterson and Howard Roughan. Little, Brown.
8. Just Too Good to Be True
By E. Lynn Harris. Doubleday.
9. The Enchantress of Florence
By Salman Rushdie. Random House.
10. The Condition
By Jennifer Haigh. Harper.

Source: Boston area bookstores

1. Three Cups of Tea
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Penguin.
2. Eat, Pray, Love
By Elizabeth Gilbert. Penguin.
3. Dreams From My Father
By Barack Obama. Three Rivers.
4. Big Russ and Me
By Tim Russert. Miramax.
5. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
By Barbara Kingsolver. Harper.
6. The Audacity of Hope
By Barack Obama. Three Rivers.
7. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
By Tucker Max. Citadel.
8. A New Earth
By Eckhart Tolle. Plume.
9. Skinny B****
By Kim Barnouin and RoryFreedman. Running Press.
10. The Omnivore’s Dilemma
By Michael Pollan. Penguin.

Source: Boston area bookstores

1. On Chesil Beach
By Ian McEwan. Anchor.
2. The Last Summer (of You and Me)
By Ann Brashares. Riverhead.
3. In the Woods
By Tana French. Penguin.
4. Water for Elephants
By Sara Gruen. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
5. The Friday Night Knitting Club
By Kate Jacobs. Berkley.
6. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
By Michael Chabon. Harper.
7. Second Chance
By Jane Green. Plume.
8. Out Stealing Horses
By Per Petterson. Picador.
9. The Maytrees
By Annie Dillard.
Harper Perennial.
10. Away
By Amy Bloom. Random House.

Source: Boston area bookstores

1. When You Are Engulfed in Flames
By David Sedaris. Little, Brown.
2. The Last Lecture
By Randy Pausch. Hyperion.
3. Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea
By Chelsea Handler. Simon Spotlight.
4. The Monster of Florence
By Douglas Preston. Grand Central.
5. The Secret
By Rhonda Byrne. Atria.
6. The Drunkard’s Walk
By Leonard Mlodinow. Pantheon.
7. The Last Fish Tale
By Mark Kurlansky. Ballantine.
8. Deep Drive
By Mike Lowell. Celebra.
9. The Post-American World
By Fareed Zakaria. Norton.
10. What Happened
By Scott McClellan. PublicAffairs.

Source: Boston area bookstores

1. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
By David Wroblewski. Ecco.
2. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
By Junot Díaz. Riverhead.
3. Unaccustomed Earth
By Jhumpa Lahiri. Knopf.
4. Tribute
By Nora Roberts. Putnam.
5. Chasing Harry Winston
By Lauren Weisberger. Simon & Schuster.
6. The Beach House
By Jane Green. Viking.
7. Brida
By Paulo Coelho. Harper.
8. Love the One You’re With
By Emily Giffin. St. Martin’s.
9. The Spies of Warsaw
By Alan Furst. Random House.
10. Fearless Fourteen
By Janet Evanovich. St. Martin’s.

Source: Boston area bookstores

Publishers Weekly earlier this month published a list of the world's 50 biggest publishers. Not that it matters, but it was interesting to see that of the 50, only seven are wholly based in the United States. The top 10 are: Thomson (Canada), Pearson (U.K.), Bertelsmann (Germany), Reed Elsevier (U.K./Netherlands), Wolters Kluwer (Netherlands), Hachette Livre (France), McGraw-Hill Education (U.S.), Reader's Digest (U.S.), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (U.S./Cayman Islands), and de Agostini (Italy).

Pearson, Germany's Holtzbrinck (no. 12 on the list), and Bertelsmann own most of the American publishing brands you would recognize. Bertelsmann: Random House, Knopf, Crown, Doubleday, Bantam, Dell, Pantheon, Villard. Holtzbrinck: Faber & Faber, Henry Holt, Hill & Wang, Times Books, Farrar Straus & Giroux, St. Martin's Press. (Holtzbrinck uses the name Macmillan in the U.S.) Pearson: Putnam, Viking, Dial, Dutton. Little, Brown is owned by Hachette.

Wholly American publishers (unless you count Houghton, which is controlled by an Irish publishing tycoon), are fairly far down the list. HarperCollins, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is no. 16, while Simon & Schuster, owned by CBS, is no. 26. W.W. Norton, one of the best U.S. trade houses, owned by its employees, didn't make the top 50.

1. "The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time" by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M Kostigen (Three Rivers, paperback)
2. "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson (Houghton Mifflin, paperback)
3. "Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It" by Elizabeth Royte (Bloomsbury, hardcover)
4. "Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators" by William Stolzenburg (Bloomsbury, hardcover)
5. "An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It" by Al Gore (Rodale, paperback)

Source: Barnes & Noble (bn.com), New England sales, July 13-19

By Judith Maas
SUNDAY: Lloyd Schwartz and others read from the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop at 4 p.m., at the Longfellow National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., Cambridge. ... Sheridan Hay (‘‘The Secret of Lost Things’’) and Steve Almond (‘‘Not That You Asked’’) speak at 2 p.m., at Newtonville Books, 296 Walnut St., Newtonville. ... Patrick Papatiti, a leader of the Maasai in southern Kenya, speaks at 2 p.m., at Jabberwocky Bookshop, 50 Water St., Newburyport.
MONDAY: Robin Wright discusses ‘‘Dreams and Shadows,’’ at 7 p.m., at Rockport Public Library, 17 School St., Rockport. ... Poet Cleopatra Mathis and artist Vicky Tomayko speak at 7 p.m., at the Fine Arts Work Center, 24 Pearl St., Provincetown (donation, $5).
TUESDAY: Andre Dubus III reads from ‘‘The Garden of Last Days,’’ at 7 p.m., at Porter Square Books, 25 White St., Cambridge. ... Poet Martha Collins and artist Jim Peters speak at the Fine Arts Work Center (donation, $5). ... Brunonia Barry reads from "The Lace Reader," at 7 p.m., at the House of the Seven Gables, 115 Derby St., Salem.
WEDNESDAY: Novelists Amy Bloom and Theresa Williams read at 7 p.m., at the Fine Arts Work Center (donation, $5). ... Brunonia Barry reads from "The Lace Reader," at 7 p.m., at Abbot Public Library, 235 Pleasant St., Marblehead.
THURSDAY: Martin Clark reads from ‘‘The Legal Limit,’’ at 7 p.m., at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. ... Brunonia Barry reads from ‘‘The Lace Reader,’’ at 7 p.m., at Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner, Brookline. ... Marc Songini discusses ‘‘The Lost Fleet,’’ at 7 p.m., at the Hingham Public Library, 66 Leavitt St., Hingham.
FRIDAY: Xujun Eberlein, William Walsh, and Gloria Mindock read at 8 p.m., at Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect St., Cambridge. ... Henry Winkler discusses the Hank Zipzer children’s series at 7 p.m., at Sandwich High School, Quaker Meetinghouse Rd., East Sandwich.
SATURDAY: James Lecesne (‘‘Absolute Brightness’’) reads at 7 p.m., at the Fine Arts Work Center (donation, $5).

Announcements must arrive at globebookmaking@hotmail.com two weeks before publication date. Events are subject to change.

For anyone, whose curiosity about lightning has been aroused by the strike in Dorchester over the weekend, there's "Out of the Blue: A History of Lightning: Science, Superstition, and Amazing Stories of Survival" by John Friedman, a comprehensive mix of first-hand accounts and the science behind this force of nature. Just last Friday Robin Young interviewed him on "Here and Now."

The Longfellow House in Cambridge is the summer home for the New England Poetry Club. They're sponsoring a celebration of Elizabeth Bishop at 4 p.m. this Sunday, the 27th. Check out their site for the full lineup but among the readers will be Lloyd Schwartz, a friend of Bishop's who co-edited a new collection of her work called "Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose and Letters," and Frank Bidart, also a friend of Bishop's.

Four former editors of the Los Angeles Times Book Review signed and issued a letter deploring the planned elimination of the book review. The letter says, in part, "The dismantling of the Sunday Book Review section and the migration of a few surviving reviews to the Sunday Calendar section represents a historic retreat from the large ambitions which accompanied the birth of the section."

In a blog post yesterday, Teresa Budasi, book editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, rapped the quartet's wrists for being out of touch with reality. She writes, "Wake up, people! The fiscal health of the newspaper business was in the toilet long before they decided to ax a section. Now is the time to take what you're left with and do what you can with it."

Budasi has a point. As the walls close in around us, we might as well quit whining and start rearranging the furniture, and pitching a few inessential items out the window.

Nevertheless, I'm in sympathy with Steve Wasseman, Jack Miles, Sonja Bolle, and Digby Diehl. The death of a book review in a major city is a milestone. Do we just shrug and say c'est la vie? Act like it doesn't matter?

It's hard to watch great ambitions put out with yesterday's newspapers. No book section, with the possible exception of the New York Times, ever paid for itself in ads. Paying attention to books is one way a newspaper asserts its importance as a participant in the local or national cultural discussion. Avoidably or not, when you diminish attention to the culture, something is lost which might not be recoverable.

The Guardian newspaper reports that a German publisher plans to bring out a printed version of German Wikipedia, an instance of history seeming to go backward. Bertelsmann Lexicon, a division of the German publishing giant that owns Random House, Doubleday, and other famous American brands, in September brings out the Wikipedia Lexicon, which will have entries for the 50,000 most common inquiries on the German version of the free, volunteer-written, online encyclopedia which anyone can revise.

It's an odd reversal of the declining trend line for printed encyclopediae. You can still buy the Encyclopedia Britannica in bound-book form, 32 volumes, for $1,295, but not many people want the long row of heavy books any more, when you can subscribe to the entire content online for about $70 a year.

Yet it seems the Germans, some of them anyway, still want a bound book. The book will sell for about $27, and about $1.60 of the price of every hardbound copy sold will go to the nonprofit group that manages German Wikipedia.

Celia McGee's New York Times story today about Kathryn Walker's first novel, laced with characters and situations drawn from her past marriage to singer James Taylor, raises anew the question of how a writer can or should make use of real living people in fiction.

Due out the next month, the novel is called "A Stopover in Venice," and it concerns an American woman who leaves her difficult marriage to a musician and goes off to have adventures in Venice. Other real people who apparently figure in the book include singer Carly Simon, actor Jason Robards, and Douglas Kenney, co-founder of National Lampoon, who had been Walker's boyfriend before his 1980 death.

The reasonable question McGee asks is why Knopf, the publisher, did not make more of the real-life models and Walker's connection to them in its marketing of the book. Walker's agent, Helen Brann, is quoted as saying the publisher wanted the book to stand on the author's talent, not the celebrity gossip angle. But she also said that Walker would discuss Taylor if asked.

If it were me, I would never put in a novel any real living person who would be recognizable, even indirectly. Adapting real people is a common convention: Saul Bellow did it with several of his novels. But why take the chance of having your talent devalued, of eliciting the suggestion that you're a lightly-veiled-name-dropping opportunist? Perhaps Walker thought that no one would notice. Now the entertainment press will rush off to to find Taylor, Simon, and Robards to ask them if they've read the book and how they feel about being "in it."

David Wroblewski (Globe staff photo/Dominic Chavez)

Here's one more outtake from the interview for my Globe story about novelist David Wroblewski, author of the surprise bestseller, "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle." The story adapts Hamlet, as well as other echoes of Shakespeare, but one thing that is not at all Shakesperean is the central role of several dogs, including one that might be a ghost.

Even so, in a book with a Shakesperean narrative, one assumes, as I did, that the dogs are secondary. So I asked,

Q. I realize this book is not about dogs. What were you "getting at"?

A. I would say that it is about dogs. It was a way, through the fictional mode, to think about this ancient project, arguably the oldest project of mankind. Except maybe for fire, living with dogs predates everything about civilization. We call it domestication, but in fact, it's not. Because domestic implies there was a house, a domicile, and we know this goes back tens of thousands of years, before there were houses.

So, I think our oldest stories are probably dog stories, to begin with, and it is a very human experience, this almost abashed love affair that people have with their dogs. Many people are embarrassed to talk about how intense that relationship is. I wanted to see if I could talk about that, because that is the way it is for me -- incredibly intense -- and I think it's intense exactly because it is not about language. Somehow that makes the relationship different, more penetrating.