Archives for October 2007

Booker Record Intact; Enright Wins The Booker judges continued their streak of overlooking the bettors’ favorites, passing over Lloyd Jones and Ian McEwan to honor “the rank outsider” (Times) Anne Enright’s “exhilaratingly bleak” THE GATHERING and thumbing their collective noses at the British literary establishment along the way. Chair of the judging panel Howard Davies hailed Enright’s book as “a powerful, uncomfortable and even, at times, angry book… an unflinching look at a grieving family in tough and striking language.” Davies said it was “not everybody’s first choice,” but did call it “a choice with which all the judges were […]

Personnel News Former ceo of Blackwell Publishing, and chief operating officer of the merged Wiley-Blackwell STM publishing unit Rene Olivieri has resigned, the Bookseller reports. That unit has been run by Wiley’s Eric Swanson since the merger. Olivieri co-led the transition team along with Wiley Europe svp Stephen Smith following the company’s purchase of Blackwell last November. Borders has hired Anne Frazer for the new position of svp, merchandise planning, replenishment and allocation, “responsible for building, transforming and leading the planning, replenishment and allocation function.” Frazer was vp of inventory planning and replenishment for The Home Depot Release Walter Lorraine, […]

Next: The Booker The Booker Prize will be awarded tomorrow night, and Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip has risen to the bettors’ favorite, at 6-4 odds (aka 3-2). He started as a 20-1 longshot but now has overtaken Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. On the other hand, the “favourite” almost always loses. Among them: Last year Sarah Waters lost to Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss; Julian Barnes lost in 2005 to John Banville’s The Sea; David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas lost to Alan Hollinghurst’s Line of Beauty in 2004; Monica Ali and Margaret Atwood lost to DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little in […]

Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up   FICTION Debut Pushcart Prize winner and philosopher Clancy Martin’s HOW TO SELL, about […]

Lessing’s Reaction Doris Lessing told reporters yesterday after the announcement of her Noble victory: “I can’t say I’m overwhelmed with surprise.… I’m 88 years old and they can’t give the Nobel to someone who’s dead, so I think they were probably thinking they’d probably better give it to me now before I’ve popped off.” She also said, “This has been going on for 30 years. I’ve won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I’m delighted to win them all. It’s a royal flush.” Academy secretary Horace Engdahl told Reuters that “members of the academy had discussed her […]

Lessing Wins Nobel A jubilant HarperCollins booth at Frankfurt was celebrating the naming of Doris Lessing, 87, as the new Nobel laureate for literature. Harper published her most recent book, THE CLEFT, this summer, and has an extensive paperback backlist of Lessing through Perennial. The company publishes Lessing in the UK as well. Evans is represented by UK-based agent Anne Evans at the Jonathan Clowes Agency. Judges praised her for her “skepticism, fire and visionary power.” Once again, all the “favorites” were passed over. Just earlier today, the AP was tipping Philip Roth, Amos Oz, and Haruki Murakami. And now […]