The ownership of the American publishing house Simon & Schuster has been much in the news over the past couple of years. First Penguin Random House tried to swallow it up, then a fascinating antitrust trial put a bunch of agents and writers on the witness stand. A judge eventually quashed that merger as potentially monopolistic, and more recently, a private-equity fund, KKR, swooped in to buy the company.
If you’re a shareholder or an employee of any of those companies, these have been hugely consequential events. But I can’t be the only person who has wondered: If you’re just someone who enjoys reading good books, why does any of this matter at all?
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