Former Penguin Canada publisher David Davidar, who left the company and the country under a cloud of controversy after sexual harassment allegations, has joined forces with Rupa Publications India to start a new publishing house, the Aleph Book Company. The new venture will begin with a small and select group of fiction and non-fiction titles (evidently mirroring Faber and Faber in the UK.) Said Davidar in a statement: “I am thrilled to join hands with Rupa to launch this venture. We will be looking be ensure that each book we publish makes its mark and to that any title that Aleph takes on will be distinctive, original and outstanding literary quality.”
Times of India
Random House CEO Markus Dohle has joined the National Book Foundation’s board of directors for a three-year-term.
Michael Groth has joined Publishing Technology as senior marketing associate. Previously he was a marketing project manager with the New England Journal of Medicine.
The 2011 WNBA Pannell Awards went to Queen Anne Books in Seattle in the General Bookstore category and to Fairytales Bookstore & More in Nashville in the Children’s Specialty store category.
BTW
CNN weekend anchor Don Lemon‘s new book TRANSPARENT talks about his career in journalism and his life, but as he told the NYT, he has no illusions about what part of the book will garner him the most notice: his account of being molested as a child and of coming out to the public. Though Lemon never made a secret of his orientation at work, he still acknowledged that going public in his book carries certain risks. Originally Lemon was signed up to write an inspirational book, but realized during the writing he couldn’t hold back on the details of his personal life. “I abhor hypocrisy. I think if you’re going to be in the business of news, and telling people the truth, of trying to shed light in dark places, then you’ve got to be honest. You’ve got to have the same rules for yourself as you do for everyone else.”
The NYT also seems unduly taken aback at Little, Brown’s so-far-successful way of keeping THOSE GUYS HAD ALL THE FUN, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ 770-page oral history of ESPN under wraps before the book’s May 24 publication date. Magazine editors had to sign confidentiality agreements before viewing excerpts of the book, with Deadspin offering to pay $10,000 for an early copy.
And in something of a twist, science fiction writer Walter Jon Williams issued an open call on his blog for those who pirated his out-of-print novels to send him the best scanned versions so he can use them to publish those works in ebook format. Originally he figured on using what was available — “I figure I’d let the pirates do the work, and steal from them” — but the number of errors in those copies posed too great a problem.