The surprise EL James book people at Penguin Random House have been whispering about was announced on Tuesday: DARKER: Fifty Shades Darker as Told by Christian, continues the retelling of her trilogy from Christian Grey’s point of view that began with GREY. Vintage will publish the trade paperback on Tuesday, November 2. The publisher says they will be soliciting orders from accounts over the next week, and currently have paper on order and press time reserved for a first printing of more than one million copies.
James says in the announcement, “The inside of Christian Grey’s head is a fascinating place to be. In Grey we got the first glimpse of what makes Christian tick, but in Darker we go deeper, into his most painful memories and the encounters that made him the damaged, demanding man Ana falls in love with. Writing this novel has been a journey of discovery, and I hope readers will find what I’ve learned as compelling as I did.” PRH will publish simultaneously in Canada and the UK, and “soon after in territories around the world.”
The previous retelling, GREY, sold approximately 1.581 million trade paperbacks in outlets tracked by Bookscan followings its release in summer 2015 — though Penguin Random House reported that it registered unit sales in multiple territories and formats of more than 3.5 million in the first two weeks on sale in 2015.
Following the death of Ed Victor (and before that, in fall 2016, the death of Graham Greene), the Raymond Chandler estate has selected new representation. They are working with Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White for publishing, and Stephen Durbridge and Katie Haines at The Agency for film and TV. Greene’s son Alexander, director of Raymond Chandler Ltd., says in the release: “In choosing Peter and RCW and Stephen and the Agency we wanted to reintroduce Chandler to an audience who perhaps recognize his style but don’t immediately associate it with him or his archetypal character Philip Marlowe.”
Speaking on her television show Morning Joe on Monday, Mika Brzezinski changed her demands regarding going forward with her three-book contract with Weinstein Books, following the firing of Harvey Weinstein. “I said I would not do the book deal unless he” resigned, she said. “I have to say, though, I want more. I want to know that this company does not embrace sexual abusers, sexual harassers. And I want to have a conversation with them before I move forward, because this is step one. Step two is having a wider conversation about the culture within an organization. That, of course, starts at the top.”
Brzezinski did praise the “incredible” team of women at Hachette Book Group she has worked with — Weinstein Books is run by two women — and added, “I look forward to working with them more, so I hope this works out.” (Her formal statement over the weekend mistakenly named “Harvey Weinstein’s publishing company, Hachette….”)
Amazon’s imprint for literary works in translation Amazon Crossing has made its website for book proposal submissions navigable in 14 languages. They now accept submission in these languages: Arabic, Bengali, German, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Punjabi, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.
Awards
Austrian writer Robert Menasse won the German Book Prize for his novel “Die Hauptstadt” (The Capital; Suhrkampf).
Bookselling
Washington D.C.’s Politics & Prose will open its new location at The Wharf in Southwest on October 12. Another branch in Union Market will open later this fall.