Europe Set to Rule the US Book Industry

A French company just bought up Little, Brown and the rest of Time Warner's book publishing operation. Slate has the big picture, ranging from Bertelsmann's ownership of Random House and Georg von Holtbrinck's (we have no idea who that guy is, but his name is awesome) ownership of Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Picador. And Penguin, the British publisher for the masses, owns just about every other print house out there. Why are the Europeans interested in American books? The book market in Europe sucks so bad that it the few publishers left in Europe drool at the prospect of making a few hundred million by cornering the NYTimes best seller list.