Chronicle Books food and drink editorial director Bill LeBlond will retire on November 7 after 33 years with the company. Company president Jack Jensen says, “Bill has made a pivotal contribution to the ongoing success of Chronicle Books. I speak for many existing authors and colleagues, as well as probably hundreds who have come and gone over the years when I say Bill will be greatly missed.”
Alex Littlefield has been promoted to senior editor at Basic Books, which he joined in March 2010.
Pulitzer Prize winner for the novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love Oscar Hijuelos, 62, died on Saturday of a heart attack (while playing tennis).
The Boston Globe remembers former Houghton Mifflin editor Frances Mendelson Tenenbaum, who died in late September at age 94. She “became known as the grande dame of gardening book editing in America.”
The Amazon Crossing imprint “announced a commitment to bringing exceptional works from Brazilian authors into English through 2015” following Brazil’s turn as the guest of honor at last week’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Amazon’s Gabriella Page-Fort led the selection of works to be translated. The imprint translated 10 books from Iceland after that country was the FBF guest in 2011.
In the UK, publisher Jonathan Cape tells the Bookseller that Helen Fielding‘s BRIDGET JONES: Mad About the Boy sold 46,000 units on October 10, its first day on sale.