Houghton Mifflin reported second quarter results on Friday that “reflect the expected decline in 2004 adoption opportunities in the K-12 marketplace,” with overall sales falling $27.2 million, or 7.5% compared to a year ago, to $334.1 million. Textbooks for the K-12 market dominate the company’s product lines, though they have a substantive and well-regarded trade and reference division.

In that unit, news was better, with sales rising 11.3% to $33.6 million. As the earnings statement notes, credit for the improvement goes to Oprah Winfrey’s selection of Carson McCullers’s classic “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” for her book club.

In Australia, Random House has closed the book on disgraced one-time best-selling author Norma Khouri. The publisher has made its withdrawal of the book “Forbidden Love” permanent, and has canceled the November publication of her second book, after finding the author’s evidence of the veracity of the life depicted in her memoir to be “inadequate and inconclusive.”

Managing Director Margaret Seale comments: “It’s just very disappointing that we haven’t had the evidence to prove to us that the allegations raised were incorrect.” In a different report, Random calls Ms. Khouri’s evidence “inadequate and inconclusive.”

Published as “Honor Lost” in America by Atria, corporate spokesperson Adam Rothberg says, “We have already withdrawn the book from sale and publication, and nothing we’ve seen or heard leads us to believe that there will be any reason to reverse that decision.”

Later this week no. 2 bookseller Borders and industry leader Barnes & Noble will both report quarterly earnings. But Borders preceded that news with a different kind of jolt. The company announced that they will convert the in-store coffee cafes in all Borders superstore locations to Seattle’s Best Coffee outlets. The coffee chain was bought by Starbucks last year. Some observers see it as the continuation of a desire to extract more sales from nonbook product, including DVDs and stationery products.