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Granta owner Sigrid Rausing has used the opportunity of a BBC Radio 4 interview conducted over a game of chess to criticise Amazon, calling the online retail giant "quite petty" and "exploitative".
Rausing was interviewed by Dominic Lawson for an edition of "Across the Board" broadcast earlier today (29th October).
Rausing, who plays chess every day with husband Eric Abraham, talked about her family, her book Everything is Wonderful (Grove Press) and her views on the "difficult" conditions for publishing.
"Amazon are squandering a lot of goodwill through their actions and business is built on goodwill. In business terms they would do better by being slightly less exploitative," she commented. "They have a history of being quite petty in punishing publishers who take up issues with them by not helping to promote the book."
Meanwhile Lawson commented on Rausing's "turbulent" experience as owner, now editor, of Granta, commenting: "You got through two editors [John Freeman and Alex Clark] and now you're the editor."
Rausing lost the chess game to Lawson, whose style of play she said husband Abraham "would not approve of".