David Hillman has been named evp, general counsel at Simon & Schuster, effective April 23, reporting to Carolyn Reidy. Hillman replaces Elisa Rivlin, who is leaving the company. He will be responsible for all legal affairs for S&S and its worldwide companies, working in close counterparts with his colleagues at CBS. Hillman was most recently chief administrative officer, general counsel, and evp, business affairs at Dial Global. The Orange Prize shortlist was announced, featuring three American authors. The winner will be named May 30: Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz Georgina Harding, Painter of Silence Madeline […]
Archives for April 2012
Pulitzers Fail To Award Fiction Prize
For the first time since 1977, the Pulitzer Prize failed to award a prize in fiction. The finalists for the prize were the late David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!, and Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams, selected from 341 titles read; the fiction category judges were NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan, author Michael Cunningham, and former Times-Picayune book editor Susan Larson. Traditionally the judging committee picks the finalists and the board reads those books and decides the winner. Prize administrator Sig Gissler confirmed to us that is the case, adding the board “failed to reach a majority” and […]
People, Etc.
Granta has hired Max Porter as a commissioning editor for the Granta and Portobello imprints. He is currently manager of Daunt Books’ Chelsea, London branch. At Conville & Walsh, Jake Smith-Bosanquet has been made managing director. There will be public memorial service to celebrate the life and spirit of Norris Church Mailer on April 22, at The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South in Manhattan, at 4:00. Among those scheduled to offer remarks at the service are Liz Smith, James Toback, Larry Schiller, Michael Mailer, John Buffalo Mailer, Sasha Lazard, Nancy Collins, Margo Howard, Dorris Goodwin, and Sondra Lee. The Pottermore web site […]
Ruckus Launches Own Reader App, Focused On Building Reading Skills
Ruckus Media Group is launching a Ruckus Reader app Monday through iTunes, in the vein of Scholastic’s Storia platform and PlayTales (originally Touchy Books). The focus of Ruckus Reader is on the acquisition of reading skills, and it includes learning assessment reports so that “parents can easily understand their child’s reading level and their progress week-to-week.” Focused on preschoolers through second graders, the Ruckus Reader has three different reading levels, for emergent, beginning, and independent readers. And it’s designed to “match age-appropriate standards determined by the Common Core State Standards. “Children practice early reading skills from letter sounds, word recognition, […]
A Glimpse of Nook At LBF
Since Nook’s presence at the London Book Fair is an object of fascination for some, here is a picture of where they will conduct business on the show floor (still being set up on Sunday): a closed meeting room (adjacent to regular booths.
Press Defends Publishers Over Justice (and Amazon)
It’s rare to see the NYT and WSJ philosophically aligned on how the government uses its power, but they and others in press seem to be coming together to raise questions about why the Department of Justice is beating up on publishers, apparently serving the interests of a retailer bigger than the entire industry. Holman Jenkins Jr. writes in the WSJ, “in essence, Justice says that, beginning in 2008, several plankton, in the form of five publishers, conspired against a whale, Amazon, whose monopoly clout had imposed a $9.99 retail price for e-books.” He argues: “Given Amazon’s dominance, it’s hardly […]