The National Book Awards announced their final longlist on Friday morning, for the fiction award. (Asterisked titles have not been released yet.) Independent presses fared well, with 5 titles in contention: Elliot Ackerman, Dark at the Crossing (Knopf) Daniel Alarcón, The King Is Always Above the People: Stories* (Riverhead) Charmaine Craig, Miss Burma (Grove Press)…
Corporate: Carolina Wren Buys Blair; Laurence King Acquires BIS; and More
Carolina Wren Press is acquiring the titles of John F. Blair, Publisher, and will relaunch the combined list in January publishing under the name Blair, distributed by Consortium. (John Blair has been winding down its own distribution arm this summer.) The Durham, NC-based nonprofit will officially change its name to Blair after the acquisition is completed….
Next, the Nonfiction Longlist
Today the National Book Awards released the nonfiction longlist, with judges Steve Bercu, Jeff Chang, Ruth Franklin, Paula J. Giddings, and Valeria Luiselli selecting politically-skewed reading: Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge (37 Ink) Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America (Simon & Schuster) James…
Clinton V. Trolls: Movement on Both Sides
Following Tuesday’s release of Hillary Clinton’s What Happened, publisher Simon & Schuster lamented to the AP that the Amazon product page was filled with customer “reviews” that were commentary on Mrs. Clinton rather than appraisals of her books. Publisher Jonathan Karp said, “It seems highly unlikely that approximately 1,500 people read Hillary Clinton’s book overnight and…
The NBA Poetry Longlist
Next up from the National Book Awards is the poetry longlist: Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016 (Farrar, Straus) Chen Chen, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions) Leslie Harrison, The Book of Endings (University of Akron Press) Marie Howe, Magdalene: Poems (Norton) Laura Kasischke, Where Now:…
Canongate Acquires Severn House, and More
Canongate announced that it has purchased Severn House, for an undisclosed sum from Edwin Buckhalter and his family. Buckhalter, who founded the publisher in 1974, and Mandy Shaw will serve as consultants going forward. Kate Lyall Grant remains as publisher and the staff will relocate to Canongate’s west London offices. The deal was financed in part by…