The Blog Post that’s a “Literal Leap”

As we’re sure you know, a leap year happens every four years: an attempt by science to correct the terrifying quarter-day deficit we operate at every other year (and by month pathologists to console February for being so short). But a lot can happen in four years, especially in books. We scoured the headlines from Februaries past to bring you these snapshots of what was going on the last few leap years.Header image from xkcd. 

2012

After failing to get its way with Macmillan, Amazon picked on indie publishers instead, targeting US distribution company IPG by pulling 4000 ebooks from sale. The two companies came to an undisclosed agreement in May of that year. Shameless plug: All Lit Up would never do that to you, indies. <3Co-creator Jan Berenstain of the Berenstain Bears series died, as did our childhoods.  

As if to hammer the last nail in, J.K. Rowling announced she’d be writing a new book, but for adult audiences (The Casual Vacancy, which would be released in September 2012). The National Book Count confirmed that Canada reads (phew).

Speaking of Canada Reads, Carmen Aguierre’s Something Fierce won the first-ever non-fiction version of the popular CBC competition (it was championed by Shad).Anonymous author writing under Inger Ash Wolfe revealed to be Michael Redhill. 

2008

With perhaps a hat-tip to then still relevant Paris Hilton, a Toronto Star columnist declares black literature “hot” (to his defence, he was paraphrasing Lawrence Hill).HarperCollins announced it would be offering free previews of books online. In case you’re thinking, “That couldn’t have been that recently!”, Mashable also refers to MySpace in the article as a “popular social network.”  No one seems to know who Inger Ash Wolfe is (see 2012). 

2004

A slew of books were slated to be published about then-President George W. Bush, specifically about his terribleness. Remember when he seemed like the most terrible Presidential option ever? Miss those days. See Dick and Jane reprint. Reprint, Dick and Jane, reprint!  Canada is called out for apologizing in advance of joke books, in perhaps the most Canadian news item ever.  * * * And, as this is kind of where the Google News archives end, so, too, does our analysis of the past. Happy Feb 29th, everyone.