Melville House Books

Crowd gathers to protest against Dan Brown.

Okay, so it’s not a recession, let alone a depression. So even if it were, the book business and its not-so-expensive distractions are fairly depression-proof (hey, think Grapes of Wrath!). So Random House imprint Doubleday just “laid off” 10 percent of its workforce, including some editors who are fairly well-known — though never identified in the hard-hitting world of book industry reportage, such as this New York Times report by the intrepid Motoko Rich. According to Rich, at least one thing is certain: we know who to blame. Doubleday spokesman David Drake tells the paper of record that “the decision was not related to the delay in delivery of the next novel by Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code,” which he was supposed to deliver in, er, 2005.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.