From PaidContent:

 The Department of Justice’s ebook pricing settlement was approved last Thursday, and HarperCollins, one of the three settling publishers, has already entered into new contracts with ebook retailers – including Apple. The retailers can now set their own prices on HarperCollins titles. So what kinds of changes are we seeing?

Go to that site to see a chart of some price changes.

This I know first hand:  I’ve been waiting for Michael Chabon’s new novel Telegraph Avenue to come out, which it did earlier this week.  Last week, the regular Kindle edition was priced at $12.99 and an enhanced version with some audio & video files was $16.99.  I just checked and the regular version is now $9.99 and the enhanced version is $12.99.   On the U.S. iTunes iBooks store, the regular edition is also $9.99 but the enhanced edition is $15.99.

The HarperCollins website says:

 This enhanced edition includes an original theme song, 10 stunning designs from the artist Stainboy, and a custom-made map of Telegraph Avenue, all commissioned by the author for the digital book. Also includes audio excerpts read by actor Clarke Peters (The Wire, Treme) and a video interview with the author.

I think for an extra 3 smackers over the regular edition I’ll go for the enhanced edition via Amazon.

David Byrne (yes, Talking Heads David Byrne) has a new book out with the intriguing title, How Music Works.

Dwight Garner, reviewing the book in the New York Times, absolutely hates it.

It ain’t no party, this book. It definitely ain’t no disco. Your money would be better spent on Mr. Byrne’s intermittently lovely new album,“Love This Giant,” made with Annie Clark (who performs as St. Vincent), out just this week.

But Cory Doctorow, reviewing the book for BoingBoing, is head over heels in love with it.

David Byrne has written several good books, but his latest,How Music Works, is unquestionably the best of the very good bunch, possibly the book he was born to write. … this is an insightful, thorough, and convincing account of the way that creativity, culture, biology and economics interact to prefigure, constrain and uplift art. It’s a compelling story about the way that art comes out of technology, and as such, it’s widely applicable beyond music.

Curiously, Amazon is only selling the physical book, a hard cover edition currently priced at $19.04.   (You can get a signed first edition from McSweeney’s for $50.)  The iTunes store does have an e-version of this, priced at $11.99.