Former BEA director of education Mark Dressler died December 23 from cancer. Dressler also programmed sessions for the Frankfurt Book Fair, and was co-owner of a wine shop in his home of Traverse City, MI.
USA Today named Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins as their “author of the year.” They write: “Before 2015, no one had heard of Hawkins, 43, who previously wrote chick lit under the pseudonym Amy Silver. Then Train hurtled into bookstores on Jan. 13 and immediately clicked with readers desperate for the next Gone Girl.” Riverhead has sold over 4 million units in the US.
But it wasn’t one of their reviewers top books; On Wednesday, USA Today added their top 10 books of the year. It only results in minor positional changes on our aggregated and now completely final and updated list of the Absolutely Best of the Best Books of 2015.
Meanwhile, the listmakers have moved on to previews of 2016, which are mostly aggregations of forthcoming titles from well-known fiction writers. Among the latest are pieces from the NYT, the Washington Post, and EW.
On Queen Elizabeth’s annual New Year’s honors list, literary agent Ed Victor was named a CBE (Commander of the British Empire), for “services to literature.”
The Costco Pennie’s Pick for January is Ruth Wariner‘s memoir, The Sound of Gravel (already an Indie Next selection as well). And the Target Book Club pick for the month is Island Of A Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera.
The ABA has posted an overview of the many dozens of authors attending Winter Institute 11 in Denver in late January.
HarperCollins India will distribute Lonely Planet India.