Yes, the NYT foray into the wilds of Brooklyn is comedy gold, but we’ll leave the wisecracks up to individual readers. On the straight-faced side, take note that David Black managed to get the city to provide tax incentives of $3,000 per employee per year for the next 12 years to relocate from Manhattan.
NYT
Children’s publishing veteran Lori Benton has been named vp, publisher for the Scholastic Trade Publishing division, overseeing all imprints and reporting to president Ellie Berger. Benteon starts January 3.
Most recently she was general manager and publisher of the fiction division of Capstone Publishers, and is currently chairman of the board for Every Child a Reader. Previously Benton was publisher of Harcourt’s children’s division.
Brenda Copeland is joining St. Martin’s as an executive editor, starting November 20. For the past five years she has been executive editor at Hyperion, and prior to that worked at Pocket Books and Atria.
The UK presented their commercially-focused new Galaxy National Book Awards last night, across ten categories. The press release feigns surprise that the popular Stephen Fry prevailed in the biography category over the unpopular former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Among the winners:
Biography: The Fry Chronicles, by Stephen Fry
Nonfiction: The Making Of Modern Britain, by Andrew Marr
Popular Fiction: One Day, by David Nicholls
UK Author: Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
International Author: Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
New Writer: The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal
Children’s: Zog, by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler
Release
Having sold its map and atlas business to Universal Map Group earlier this year, Langenscheidt Publishers announced that it will “cease operations by the end of November 2010 due to a consolidation program.” The distribution company was already winding down their business, with their own lines–Berlitz, Insight Guides, and the Langenscheidt Dictionaries–having moved to Ingram Publisher Services. (Each of those publishing units has always reported to Langenscheidt headquarters in Germany.)
Langenscheidt Publishers has been still selling the Hammond Atlas, Mobil Travel Guide books, and Fluenz CD-ROMs in the US, with no more orders after November 10, and no more returns after November 22.