Hisae Matsuda has been promoted to publisher at Parallax Press.
Jenny Hewson will join Lutyens & Rubinstein as associate agent starting September 23. She was with Rogers, Coleridge and White.
Chrysothemis Armefti has been promoted to senior agent at 2 Seas Agency.
Springer Nature Group has promoted chief commercial officer Frank Vrancken Peeters to ceo, as Daniel Ropers leaves the company, “per his agreement with the Board, having ensured a smooth transition with his Springer Nature colleague.” Peeters joined the company two years ago.
Bookselling
Toronto’s Ben McNally Books in Toronto will vacate its space “at some point during 2020” when their building is replaced by an open-air walkway. “This doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Ben McNally Books,” they write. “We are currently assessing our options for the future. This does, however, mean the end of Ben McNally Books in its current remarkable form” and “the wonderful space and atmosphere we have now will be difficult to recreate.” They note, “We are very sad to be leaving but hopeful for our future in this wonderful city.”
Picks
The PBS-NYT Now Read This Book Club has moved up the announcement of their October and November selections: “You asked for more advance notice on book picks, and we heard you! We’re excited to provide you a list of the next three book club selections, in case you’d like to pre-order from your public library, local bookstore, or wherever you get your books.” For October they’ll be reading We the Corporations by Adam Winkler, and November’s pick is The Overstory by Richard Powers.
Margaret Atwood‘s The Testaments is the September Barnes & Noble book club pick.
Acquisitions
Iron Stream Media, which bought New Hope Publishers in 2017, has acquired Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. LPC founder and ceo Eddie Jones says in the announcement, “When God called my ministry partner Cindy Sproles and I to launch a book publishing company, we understood LPC was not ours. It was God.’s He has simply allowed us to work for him. For that I feel deeply blessed…. When God led me to Iron Stream, I sensed it was God’s hand at work.”