Excerpting a piece of a book that can stand more or less alone like this is pretty standard practice.
Is this a problem? Better than filling the page with heavy ads.
I'd rather have commercial speech be confined to identifiable areas of the page, than have the content of a "news story" actually be commercially motivated.
Then disable your ad-blocker. We want:
- to block ads
- not have sponsorized pieces
- not pay or donate
Sponsored content is OK if I'm told in advance that it is. It's extremely deceitful and disingenuous to suggest that ad blocking justifies these sorts of shady journalistic practices.