Both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are looking at Apple's recently announced plan to take a 30% cut of revenue from content subscriptions sold through its App Store, according to reports.

On Tuesday, Apple announced that the 30% cut would apply to subscriptions of digital newspapers and magazines. The 30% cut also applies to items sold through an app -- which, for book-lovers, notably includes the Kindle App and in-app purchases of Kindle e-books.

Our Technology blog writes:

The Department of Justice is in the "early stages" of a probe into the subscription service and what it means for competition after publishers made complaints, Reuters reported. The DOJ is currently contacting both Apple and publishers, Reuters said, citing an unnamed person who is "familiar with the department's procedures."

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Trade Commission is involved in the investigation as well.

The analyst firm Forrester has been among those arguing that Apple's 30% plan is too high, stating that such fees should be about 5%.

Whether any online retailer will settle for 5% is yet to be seen, but on Wednesday, Google made a move in that direction. In a clear effort to propose a more attractive alternative than Apple's to publishers, the Google tablet subscription model, dubbed Google One Pass, takes a cut of 10% or less.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Stephen Colbert with an iPad at the 2011 Grammy awards. Credit: Robert Gauthier / LA Times

There are few book trailers that measure up to the trailers we see for films. But one way to try to assure a book trailer will be as good as one from Hollywood is to put a Hollywood star in it. Not so easy, maybe, unless the author himself happens to have won an Academy Award.

As has Alan Arkin. Arkin won the best supporting actor Oscar in 2007 for his role in "Little Miss Sunshine." And his performing career stretches way back -- not only was he an Oscar nominee in 1967 and '68, but in earlier years he was a songwriter and a founder of the comedy improv troupe Second City.

That's what "An Improvised Life," his new book, is about, he explains in the trailer above. The book is due on shelves March 1, and can be ordered online now.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Today is Toni Morrison's 80th birthday. Born in Ohio, educated at Howard University and Cornell, Morrison's writing career started in earnest with her debut novel "The Bluest Eye," published in 1970. Her other works include "Sula," "Song of Solomon," and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Beloved," published in 1987.

In 1993, Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature; no American writer since has received the honor. In her acceptance speech, Morrison spoke about the importance and power of language.

The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity-driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek -- it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language -- all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

Morrison's most recent book is the 2008 novel "A Mercy," which was an LA Times bestseller. In our review, Judith Freeman wrote that the book is "a work of poetry and intelligence, and a continuation of what John Updike has called her 'noble and necessary fictional project of exposing the infamies of slavery and the hardships of being African American.'"

When Morrison was named the Nobel Laureate in Literature in October 1993, she said, "Winning as an American is very special, but winning as a black American is a knockout." Here's wishing her a knockout 80th birthday.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Toni Morrison in November 2010 at the ceremony where she was awarded the French Legion of Honor. Credit: Thibault Camus / Associated Press

Writer Daniel Hernandez and Slake threw a rollicking book party at the rock club The Echo on Thursday night. DJs? Yep. Bands in crazy outfits? Yep. Typical for an LA book event? Not exactly.

The book is Hernandez's "Down and Delirious in Mexico City," an intimate tour of the city's underground cultures. Thursday night's performers included two DJs, the bands Sister Mantos and Crazy Band and, of course, Hernandez, who read from his book. He read about the difference he felt in Mexico -- becoming aware of his California-ness, and of sensing other Americans -- and of the city's freewheeling nightlife.

Portions of "Down and Delirious in Mexico City" appear in Slake, the new Los Angeles literary magazine, which has just released its second issue.

Hernandez is in the U.S. talking about his new book; when he's in Mexico City, he writes for The Times.

-- Caorlyn Kellogg

Photo: Daniel Hernandez in Los Angeles' Chinatown on Feb. 14. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times

McSweeney's has created a newspaper half page for kids called The Goods, which has games and drawings and quizzes. It will have fresh offerings every week. Contributors include children's writers Mo Willems and Jon Scieszka and Colin Meloy from the Decemberists.

The Goods first ran in about a dozen papers, including the Chicago Tribune, on Feb. 8. The Goods is being distributed by Tribune Media -- but so far, we haven't seen it in the pages of The Times.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Image: McSweeney's

On Wednesday, Borders Group announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and would close about 200 of its stores. One of those stores slated for closure is the Borders at 475 S. Lake St., in Pasadena, which is our bookstore of the week.

As the morning ticked toward noon on Wednesday, with rain falling intermittently, the Pasadena Borders didn't have the feel of the recently condemned. The shelves were filled, and plenty of people came and went.

Customers sat at cafe tables inside, drinking coffee, reading, talking and working on laptops. Toddlers and their tenders wove through the expansive children's section at the rear of the store. People stood in the newsstand section, flipping magazine pages. A man stopped a staffer to ask a question as phones rang and the staff headsets crackled. On the second floor, a man scoured the graphic novel section. A woman in gray sweatpants gathered up a stack of books from the fiction section and headed down the stairs toward the checkout, passing a father coming up with his teenage son.

The store's enormous retail footprint -- which Borders bankruptcy filing lists as 40,000 square feet -- allowed for the depth of stock that once made Borders a true superstore. In the fiction section, literary favorites such as the National Book Award-winning "Let the Great World Spin" and Booker Award-winning "Wolf Hall" rested an arm's reach from "The Nanny Returns," the bestselling "Roses" by Leila Meacham, James Michener's behemoths and Herman Melville's classics, including a version of his "Bartleby the Scrivener" published by indie stalwart Melville House. Staff picks at the end of bookshelves were almost as diverse as a reader might find at an independent bookstore.

But there were also signs of a kind of shakiness. High bookshelves were unfilled. Near the upstairs entrance (off the parking structure), a good-sized area with plenty of space for tables or shelves simply sat empty. The corner selling music and movies was limited and dusty. A several-shelf section labeled Biography/Autobiography was taken up on one side with multiple copies of the Kardashian sisters' book, shining pink, and on the other by Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" (which is not Biography or Autobiography, of course, but a novel). The upstairs registers were closed. And the women's restroom was covered with tape barring its entrance, with notice that it would be closed indefinitely and directing customers in need to the nearby Macy's.

And, of course, there was evidence of the greater problem. In a row of seats set up for visitors taking advantage of the store's free WiFi, there were more people using their laptops, just like the people in the cafe below.

The rise of online bookselling is said to be one of the major hitches in Borders' giddyup. Although the chain was once neck-in-neck with Barnes & Noble, it has fallen on much harder times than its competitor. "Borders made a number of crucial gaffes including transferring its Internet operations to Amazon in 2001 and embarking on an overseas expansion that swelled its debt," the Wall Street Journal reported. And while Borders Kobo e-reader has been well-reviewed, it wasn't introduced until 2010, three years after Amazon's Kindle and about a year after Barnes & Noble's Nook.

It's possible that another problem for Borders was its expansion beyond books. It used to be a great place to go and buy music -- but big-box music retailers have faced even more challenges than booksellers. How much did Borders rely on selling CDs, and what did that contraction mean for the company? And if all those cute journals and bags once sold, they seem to be less attractive to shoppers these days, gathering dust near the outdated racks of Valentine's Day cards.

But the Borders store in Pasadena is still an entirely good bet for book shopping. That is, for now.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Borders in Pasadena on Wednesday. Credit: Carolyn Kellogg

Sen. Scott Brown, a first-term Republican from Massachusetts, has people talking about his upcoming memoir, "Against All Odds." The publisher described the book, which hits shelves Monday, as a "gripping memoir of resilience and redemption."

In the book, Brown reveals that his past includes being sexually abused by a camp counselor when he was 10, something he kept secret for 40 years. In an interview with "60 Minutes" scheduled to run Sunday, he tells journalist Lesley Stahl,  "When people find people like me at that young, vulnerable age who are basically lost, the thing that they have over you is they make you believe that no one will believe you."

Brown's divorced parents wrestled with their own difficulties, and they were sometimes poor. "At school, I was often a free-lunch kid, ravenous for whatever hot food came out of the cafeteria line," he writes in the book. "I remember days when the largest things we had in our fridge were milk and blocks of yellow government-issue cheese." Brown also had a physically abusive stepfather.

Later, Brown's life started looking up. He was a star basketball player in college at Tufts. While he was a law student and member of the Massachusetts National Guard, he was declared "America's Sexiest Man" by Cosmopolitan magazine, which jump-started a New York modeling career. In 2010, he was a member of the Massachusetts state Sentate and the surprise victor in the race for Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat.

Brown is bringing his story to Southern California next week. His book tour will bring him to the Ronald Reagan Library on Feb 25; tickets are $45.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Sen. Scott Brown at the Armed Services Committee meeting on Feb. 17. Credit: Harry Hamburg / Associated Press

Are you on Facebook? Of course you're on Facebook. We're on Facebook too, and we want to be friends.

This is where you find us: Facebook / LA Times Jacket Copy. Technically, because we are a page and not a single human being, I think we would like you to like us, the newer way of asking you to be our fan.

What will you find on our page? The latest is a gallery of Los Angeles writers who've been photographed by the L.A. Times. Ray Bradbury waxing either visionary, nostalgic or both at Clifton's Cafeteria; Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder playing a cigar-box ukulele of his own making; portraits of Bret Easton Ellis, James Ellroy, Janet Fitch. There's more than that, and more to come.

We also are posting links to the book reviews and features that run on Sundays, and in the daily paper as well. Sometimes Jacket Copy posts pop up on Facebook too.

We've got more plans, but first of all, join us. We'd be delighted to hear what you think of all of this, about what you're reading and on what comes next.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Ray Bradbury, 89, speaking at Clifton's Cafeteria about downtown Los Angeles in September 2009. Credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times

Humphrey Bogart was one of the biggest stars of the golden age of Hollywood; although he died of cancer more than 50 years ago, his movie performances remain indelible. Bogart, who played reluctant good guys and grudging criminals, was a hero and heartthrob.

In our pages today, Tim Rutten reviews a new Bogart biography, "Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart" by Stefan Kanfer. Rutten writes:

The book's title comes from a letter Raymond Chandler wrote to his English publisher, expressing delight over the casting of Bogart to play Philip Marlowe in an adaptation of "The Big Sleep": "Bogart can be tough without a gun. Also he has a sense of humor that contains the grating undertone of contempt ... Bogart is the genuine article."

Kanfer, whose previous work includes well-received biographies of Groucho Marx, Lucille Ball and Marlon Brando, does a nice, brisk job of tracing the roots of that authentic tough-guy persona, along with the unsentimental decency that characterized the star's personal life and won him so many fast friends in a town and a business where they're few on the ground.

Read the rest of the review of "Tough Without a Gun" here, and find out more about Humphrey Bogart here.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in "Key Largo" (1948). Credit: UCLA Film and Television Archive

The list of 200 Borders stores slated for closure includes 33 in California, with 11 in the Los Angeles area. Stores in Century City, Glendale and Pasadena are on the list.

The Borders Group Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing's Appendix A includes a list of stores across the nation that are set to close. Los Angeles area stores that appear on the list are located in:

Century City
Cerritos
Glendale
La Habra
Long Beach - Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach - S. Pine Ave.
Pasadena
Pico Rivera
Rolling Hills Estates
Valencia
Westchester

The largest Borders stores set to close are in Glendale and Pasadena; both have about 40,000 square feet of selling space. That's a lot of books.

As of this writing, it appears that Borders stores in Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Arcadia, Torrance, El Segundo and Northridge will stay open under the plan.

RELATED:

Borders files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

What's going on with Borders?

Westwood's Borders takes a bow

Borders moves toward financing, but doesn't rule out bankruptcy

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Borders Books & Music in Glendale. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Beleaguered bookseller Borders Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Wednesday. The move has been expected by publishing industry watchers, who have seen the nation's second-largest brick-and-mortar books retailer struggle -- and fail -- to secure needed funding in recent months.

Borders has received $505 million from GE Capital for "so-called debtor-in-possession financing," Bloomberg reports. In its Chapter 11 filing, Borders listed assets of $1.28 billion and debt of $1.29 billion.

A significant portion of that debt is owed to publishers. The Wall Street Journal reports that "Borders' five largest unsecured creditors are the book publishers Penguin Putnam Inc., Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster Inc., Random House and Harper Collins Publishers."

Publishers will take a double hit -- first as creditors, who will have to line up for payment, and second as vendors losing a reliable, if flagging, sales venue.

In its restructuring, Borders said it expects to close about 30% of its more than 600 stores nationwide.

There is no news yet about which Southern California stores -- in Glendale, Sherman Oaks, Pasadena and elsewhere -- might be subject to closure. Westwood's Borders closed in January.

RELATED:

Is Borders on the brink of bankruptcy?

What's going on with Borders?

Westwood's Borders takes a bow

Borders moves toward financing, but doesn't rule out bankruptcy

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Borders Books & Music in Glendale on Jan. 26. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

"Someone who knows what it's like to work for himself, and not let others feed off the profits of his energy." So begins the trailer for the movie version of "Atlas Shrugged," based on the book by Ayn Rand. It's coming to theaters April 15, as "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1."

"Atlas Shrugged" is a book that's part science fiction, part paean to capitalism. When the 1,168-page book came out in 1957, Robert Kirsch wrote in the L.A. Times:

It is probably the worst piece of large fiction written since Miss Rand's equally weighty "The Fountainhead." Miss Rand writes in the breathless hyperbole of soap opera. Her characters are of billboard size; her situations incredible and illogical; her story is feverishly imaginative. It would be hard to find such a display of grotesque eccentricity outside an asylum.

But Kirsch was not the only one to weigh in. Another staffer, Paul Jordan-Smith, found it entirely more palatable.

It's a book every businessman should hug to his breast, and the first novel I recall to glorify the dollar mark and the virtue in profit. ...

How the shabby little left-wingers are going to hate it!

Will the movie be equally likely to split audiences?

-- Carolyn Kellogg