The New Starbucks Book

Let me start by saying that I love Starbucks. Each morning as I walk to work I pick up a Vente Caramel Macchiato, and the first taste always makes me shudder in pleasure. In addition, I loved A LONG WAY GONE, the memoir by Ishmael Beah, the former child soldier of Sierra Leone, a previous Starbucks book selection, and their newest pick, BEAUTIFUL BOY by David Sheff, looks good.

However, I'm still not convinced about the way in which Starbucks selects the books for their program. Starbucks hired William Morris to scout books and negotiate deal terms. But if Starbucks wanted a scout, why didn't they hire one instead of a literary agency? And I'm not sure you can convince me that it's possible for an WMA agent to be unbiased when one of their authors end up competing against a book from another agency.