The U.S. Department of Justice investigates Apple and five publishers for alleged collusion over ebook pricing, the Wall Street Journal reports. Also, Apple won't carry ebooks that reference other works sold by Amazon.

The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) takes action over the latest Amazon book pricing battle -- the one with distributor IPG, which happens to distribute a lot of its author's books. And some random other stuff.

A lot of news in the book world recently, not the least of which is the appearance of journalist Anthony Shadid's memoir, House of Stone. Welcome to Random Book News, Volume V or so.