Archives for April 2005

Pulitzers As you have likely seen elsewhere already: Fiction Marilynne Robinson, GILEAD [Finalists: “War Trash” by Ha Jin and “An Unfinished Season” by Ward Just] Nonfiction Steve Coll, GHOST WARS: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 [Finalists: Suketu Mehta, “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found” and Luis Alberto Urrea, “The Devil’s Highway: A True Story”] Biography Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, DE KOONING: An American Master [Finalists: “Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare” by Stephen Greenblatt, and “Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the […]

Perseus Closes CDS Purchase After lengthy negotiations, Perseus has closed their acquisition of Client Distribution Services. With over $200 million in annual sales volume on behalf of client publishers (including Harvard Business School Press, Taschen, Abbeville, and Tokyopop), the privately-held CDS quickly rose to become the largest independent distributor, though the company has faced increasing challenges as start-up units from Ingram and Random House have added to the intensely competitive distribution environment. (The alliance follows the recently-announced departure of large CDS client O’Reilly to Ingram.) CDS was majority-owned by private equity firm Olympus Partners, which financed the purchase of what […]

Lunch Returns For those who didn’t remember (or notice in the first place) that we indicated last week Lunch was taking a vacation break, we’re back, and now you know why you haven’t gotten e-mails for a little while. Bookselling Doldrums: AMS Suffers Further; Softness at Hastings and Ottakar’s; Ailing Australian Chain Will be Sold (and Borders Is a Potential Buyer) Every time Advanced Marketing Services issues a bulletin it appears to contain bad news. Though the company remains long behind in filing formal earnings reports with the federal government, they indicated in a statement earlier this week that they […]