Online Retailer Zola Books Buys Bookish

Bookish, a struggling website started by three large book publishers less than a year ago, has been sold to Zola Books, a start-up e-book retailer, the parties announced Monday. The purchase price was undisclosed.

The deal highlights the challenges that publishing houses are having in competing against Amazon.com.

Three of the five top publishers - the Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster and Penguin USA - conceived of Bookish in 2011 as a book recommendation site to compete with Amazon.