At Workman Publishing, Vaughn Andrews will join the company as creative director for the Workman imprint on April 22. Most recently a freelance designer, he worked for 26 years at Harcourt, including serving as executive art director and creative director. Raquel Jaramillo, who has been acting creative director for two years, will return full time to her position as director of children’s publishing.
At Touchstone, Jessica Roth has been promoted to publicity manager.
At Yale University Press, Jaya Aninda Chatterjee has been promoted to assistant editor for politics and international relations.
William Boyd‘s new authorized James Bond novel, publishing this fall, will be titled SOLO. The author said at the London Book Fair it features Bond on a “self-appointed mission of his own, unannounced and without any authorization,” traveling three continents, “with the main focus honing in on Africa.” Boyd said, “It’s what happens to Bond in Africa that generates his urge to ‘go solo’ and take matters into his own hands in the USA.” In further Bond trivia, a 60th anniversary release of an early version of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale shows that the spy was originally named “Secretan… James Secretan.”
Separately, Ian Rankin tweeted his new novel’s title, the Guardian noted: It “will be called SAINTS OF THE SHADOW BIBLE… Rebus is back on the force, but under investigation by Malcolm Fox.”
The American Library Association’s list of most challenged books for 2012–based on “464 reports on attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves”–features:
1. Captain Underpants series, by Dav Pilkey
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
3. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
5. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
6. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
8. Scary Stories series, by Alvin Schwartz
9. The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls
10. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Open Road is partnering with more international publishers to distribute English-language versions of “a wide selection of their books” in digital formats in North America (and in many cases throughout the world). RCS Libri, Grupo Planeta–including their French lines Robert Laffont and Univers Poche (they already work with Planeta’s Place des Editeurs in France)–and Arbeiderspers/Bruna all have agreements with Open Road, announced at the London Book Fair. The partnerships begin with 10 to 25 titles from each of the companies.
And Bookmasters will distribute the Spanish edition of Javier Fernández Malumbres’ April 23 book, Francisco, Nuevo Papa (Francis, New Pope). The biography is being published by prominent Spanish-Catholic publisher Edibesa.
WH Smith has purchased the bankrupt Past Times retailing brand in the UK.