As we reported earlier last month, Kirkus Reviews came back from the brink of extinction with the promise of a new buyer in the works. That buyer has now been revealed and is Herb Simon, an entrepreneur who owns the NBA basketball team the Indiana Pacers.

It’s not so strange of a match, really. It turns out that Simon is quite the bibliophile and has been a longtime subscriber to Kirkus. Marc Winkelman, who has been named CEO of the company, describes Simon as “an inveterate and unquenchable and voracious reader.” Winkelman is co-owner with Simon of Tecolote Book Shop in Montecito, California. The 80-year-old bookstore was facing closure in May 2007 and a longtime manager persuaded Simon to invest.

Simon issued a statement, saying:

With the growth of e-books and e-reading devices, no one can really see the future of publishing. But turmoil like this creates opportunities. At a time when even the definition of a book is changing, my love of books makes me want to be part of the solution for the book publishing industry.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Barnes & Noble ran out of inventory of its e-book reader the Nook shortly after its holiday launch, but announced a couple of days ago that the device is back in stock on its website. It should be in stock in B&N stores soon, too.

B&N recently unveiled version 1.2 of the Nook’s software. Owners can update their readers’s software by manual download or over the air (OTA) update.

Image from B&N/fair use: reporting.

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Medallion Press from Illinois debuted their first “action interview” this week. These action interviews use actors and sound effects to portray scenes in the book, similar to the golden days of radio. The first, for author Kathy Carmichael’s book Diary of a Confessions Queen, is online at the publisher’s BlogTalkRadio page, where you can either stream or download the audio. As you listen, “You’ll get to meet the characters in a pub, sip tea in their home, and join a wicked séance! Oh, you also get sprayed by a skunk.”

Check out Kathy’s FiledBy profile!