National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow will be the speaker at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 27, 2019. He said in the release, “The White House Correspondents’ Association has asked me to make the case for the First Amendment and I am happy to oblige. Freedom of the press is always a timely subject and this seems like the perfect moment to go back to basics. My major worry these days is that we Americans will forget who we are as a people and historians should serve as our chief custodians in preserving that rich storehouse of memory. While I have never been mistaken for a stand-up comedian, I promise that my history lesson won’t be dry.”
Distribution
Independent Publishers Group will distribute Spanish publishers Ediciones Larousse, Cinco Tintas and Akiara Books starting January 1, 2019.
Awards
Esi Edugyan won Canada’s Giller Prize for the second time for her novel Washington Black. It’s probably the most-nominated title of the season, shortlisted for the Booker and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and still a contender for a Carnegie Medal. And the book is an early leader in our definitive, aggregated list of the Best of the Best Books of 2018, along with Tara Westover’s Educated. Edugyan previously won the Giller in 2011 for Half-Blood Blues.
Another Canadian prize, Quebec’s Prix littéraire des collégiens, has been suspended after all five finalists expressed “great unease” with Amazon coming on as the new principal sponsor. The organizers say they will relaunch the award if they can get new support from the community.
Bookselling
The next 20,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble prototype store is set to open today in Staten Island, NY.
Chicago’s Daily Herald has more details on the biggest-yet 29,000-square-foot Barbara’s Bookstore opening Wednesday at Hawthorn Mall in Vernon Hills, in a space vacated by Barnes & Noble when it downsized to a smaller space in the area.
Company president Don Barliant says, “Barbara’s is bringing a local neighborhood independent bookseller mentality to a monster-sized space…. We have spent more than 50 years taking up opportunities that have been presented to us. Hawthorn Mall is the latest.”
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