Sam Raim has been promoted to editor at Penguin Books.
In the ever-changing landscape of German trade publishing, deputy publisher Kerstin Gleba is being promoted to publisher and ceo of Kiepenheuer & Witsch as of January 1. She will also join the board of Holtzbrinck Publishing. Current head Helge Malchow will serve as editor-at-large and “continue to work with selected authors.”
Quarto appointed Jane Moriarty as a non-executive, independent board director today. The former KPMG partner headed that firm’s London Region restructuring business for 12 years. Andy Cumming, chairman of Quarto, said in the company release that she “brings substantial professional and business expertise which will be invaluable as we continue to focus on improving business performance and strengthening the balance sheet.”
UK children’s publisher Imagine That is setting up a North American office based in New York, with Risa Beckett joining as vice president of North American sales. Most recently she worked for Parragon as evp sales and marketing, spending 14 years with the company.
Publisher Andrew Hoyem and senior editor Diana Ketcham are retiring from San Francisco’s publisher and fine letterpress printer Arion Press, with day-to-day operations managed by the current staff and the companies operating under the aegis of the Grabhorn Institute. Book Advisors continues to solicit and evaluate interest from potential investors/owners.
Juris Jurjevics, 75, cofounder of Soho Press and novelist (and husband of the late Laurie Colwin), died on November 7. Jurjevics founded the press in 1986 with Laura Chapman Hruska and Alan Hruska, after serving as editor in chief of Dutton and then The Dial Press. Author of The Trudeau Vector and Red Flags, he retired from Soho Press in 2006 to write full time. Soho Press publisher Bronwen Hruska writes in a statement, “Juris Jurjevics is a legend in the publishing world. Full stop…. To this day, people still ask me about Juris at conferences and publishing events. Juris and Soho are forever fused. He may have left publishing in body, but his soul never really did.”
Bookselling
Barbara’s Bookstore, which has multiple locations in and around Chicago and one in Boston, is opening a new two-story, 25,000 square foot bookstore in the former Barnes & Noble space at the Hawthorn Mall in Vernon Hills, IL. Owners say it should be open “within days of Thanksgiving.”
Update: CNBC ran a “clarification” to their story about Barnes & Noble that we summarized on Thursday: “An earlier version of this story stated [Len] Riggio said Barnes & Noble was feeling “highly anxious” and “paranoid” about the holiday season. He was speaking to how retailers as an entire group are feeling this year.”