There’s always a lot of book news, so here are five literary links!

1.  Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman was the most pre-ordered book in HarperCollins’ history.

But Peter Makin, the owner of Brilliant Books, an independent bookstore in Traverse, Michigan, is offering refunds.

After a customer explained that To Kill a Mockingbird was her favorite book, and she had only become aware of the controversial nature of Go Set a Watchman a few days before its publication, Makin gave her a refund.

He decided to offer refunds to other customers, too.

Here is an excerpt from his statement.

It is disappointing and frankly shameful to see our noble industry parade and celebrate this as “Harper Lee’s New Novel”. This is pure exploitation of both literary fans and a beloved American classic (which we hope has not been irrevocably tainted.) We therefore encourage you to view Go Set A Watchman with intellectual curiosity and careful consideration; a rough beginning for a classic, but only that.

2. Are you familiar with Pharos Editions, a publisher of gorgeously designed “out-of-print, lost or rare books of distinction”?  Check out their website.  I am looking forward to reading  Raymond Mungo’s Total Loss Farm: A Year in the Life, the story of a “back-to-the-land hippie commune in late 60’s rural Vermont.”

3.  Are you a Barbara Pym fan?  Watch Miss Pym’s Day Out, a film at Youtube starring Patricia Routledge as Barbara Pym.

4. The Willa Cather Foundation is sponsoring a Prairie Night Sky Viewing  and dinner on the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie, five miles from Red Cloud, Nebraska, on Friday, August 14, 2015, 6:30pm to 11:00pm. The price: $35.

5. Readers of vampire books will enjoy Jon Foro’s article, “On the (Un)Natural History of Vampires,” at the Amazon Review.  The excuse is a new novel by Ben Tripp, The Fifth House of the Heart, but this article on the history of the vampire in literature and film goes way beyond that.