Much-admired Canadian indie McNally Robinson Booksellers has entered bankruptcy and will close two of its four stores immediately: one in Polo Park in Winnipeg and their Toronto store in the new Shops at Don Mills mall. 170 of the bookseller’s 425 full- and part-time employees will lose their jobs as result. Co-owner Paul McNally says that as long as the company’s bankruptcy plan is approved the other two stories, in Winnipeg and Saskatoon, will remain open. “They make money,” he said. “They have a loyal following,” while the other two “new stores absolutely did not perform.” The Winnipeg Free Press […]
Archives for December 2009
Remembering Joyce Engelson, Paul Nathan and Mark Gates
Richard Marek reports to us that longtime book editor Joyce Engelson died on Christmas of pneumonia. In her long career she was editor-in-chief at Abelard Schuman, executive editor of The Dial Press, editor-in-chief of Richard Marek Publishers at St. Martin’s and Putnam, editor-in-chief of Dutton, and editor at large for Crown. Among the hundreds of authors she edited were Richard Condon, Samuel Shem, Norman Cousins, Heywood Hale Broun, Irving Howe, Gael Green and Ishmael Reed. Marek writes: “Known for her fierce honesty with authors – young editors at Richard Marek Publishers used to stand by her office door when she […]
More on 2009 and Stories
The Guardian echoes a suggestion of ours from earlier this month, saying that 2009 “was the year of the short story.” They add, “the consensus running through the end-of-year reviews is that it’s been a vintage year for short fiction.” On top of the releases we already mentioned, they cite collections from Kazuo Ishiguro, Ha Jin, James Lasdun, and AL Kennedy–plus the reissued versions of Raymond Carver’s stories. They praise David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide, “supposedly a novel [but] originally published as a story collection in America.”Guardian
Possibilities for Kirkus
Twitter-watchers spotted a brief tweet from Kirkus Reviews noting the publication has “a few interested buyers.” Sarah Weinman reported the managing editor telling her, “no new info at the moment. Just still working through possibilities, but nothing to report.”
Making 2010 Wimpy
One of the 2009’s sales all-stars announced a new book for early next year: Jeff Kinney’s The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary will have a one-day national lay-down on Tuesday, March 16. It releases a couple of weeks ahead of Fox’s Wimpy Kid movie, and “goes behind the scenes to humorously chronicle the making of the film.” Kinney says “I was fascinated by the filmmaking process, and I thought my readers might be as wide-eyed and interested as I was. In The Wimpy Kid Move Diary, I’ve tried to tell the story of how a movie gets made in a way […]
On the Year and the Decade
USA Today picked The Help as their book of the year, and added these ten top critics’ picks:Spooner, By Pete DexterThe Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, By Katherine HoweStitches, By David SmallUnder the Dome, By Stephen KingTriangular Road, By Paule MarshallLet the Great World Spin, By Colum McCannLosing Mum and Pup, By Christopher BuckleyDorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, By Linda GordonRevelation, By C.J. SansomHow to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, By William J. MannUSAT And the newspaper’s Bob Minzesheimer wrote on a essay on the decade in books. Looking further forward, “asked about 2019, Stephen King […]