The FBI arrested Filippo Bernardini, 29, on Wednesday afternoon when he landed at JFK Airport in New York, and unsealed an indictment, in a long overdue deal, charging him with with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Bernardini is accused of conducting “a multi-year scheme to impersonate individuals involved in the publishing industry in order to fraudulently obtain hundreds of prepublication manuscripts of novels and other forthcoming books.” Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York FBI office Michael Driscoll said in a news release: “We allege Mr. Bernardini used his insider knowledge of the industry to get authors to send him […]
Authors
The Next Buzz Books Editors Panel Coming Soon
We are open for registration for our fourth, much anticipated, virtual Buzz Books Editors Panel, convening on Wednesday, January 26th at 7 PM Eastern. Once again, we are honored to have the American Booksellers Association join us as co-presenter, with co-owner of Books Are Magic bookstore and bestselling novelist Emma Straub as the host. (Her latest novel, This Time Tomorrow, is out in May.) You can register here — and the first 50 booksellers who enroll will get a package of galleys for the featured titles. On January 18th, a week ahead of the panel, we’ll release the next packed edition of our popular digital sampler, Buzz […]
Obituaries: Joan Didion, and More
Joan Didion died on December 23 at her home in Manhattan of complications from Parkinson’s disease. Didion was the writer of Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays, The White Album, and other novels, works of nonfiction, and films. Born in Sacramento in 1934, Didion began her career writing for magazines including Life and The Saturday Evening Post. Her 2005 memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2007, she received the National Book Foundations Medal for Distinguished […]
Andrew Cuomo Ordered to Pay Book Advance to State
The New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics ordered Andrew Cuomo to turn over whatever portion of his $5.1 million book advance he has already received to the state within 30 days. The commission had previously approved the book deal, but rescinded that decision in November after the state Assembly found in its impeachment report that Cuomo used state employees to work on the book. The ethics commission voted 12-1 for Cuomo to relinquish his profits to the New York attorney general’s office. According to the New York Post, AG Letitia James will decide how to distribute the money. The […]
FEC Allows Random House to Rent Campaign Email List
The Daily Beast reports that the Federal Election Commission has allowed Random House to rent Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) campaign email list to promote his October book, Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could. Significantly, the decision opens up the possibility of the same for other politicians. The FEC decided that it would allow the rental as long as Random House pays fair market value for the list, and “no Committee resources or personnel would be used to promote the book.” Schiff petitioned the FEC for the use of the list after his book came […]
Ace Atkins Retires From Spenser Series
Ace Atkins announced that he is finished writing Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books to focus on other projects. His tenth book in the series, ROBERT B. PARKER’S BYE BYE BABY, comes out from Putnam in January. Putnam tells PL that Mike Lupica will take over writing the Spenser books and continue writing Parker’s Jesse Stone series. Allison Gaylin will take over the Sunny Randall titles from Lupica, whose last book in that series, ROBERT B. PARKER’S REVENGE TOUR, publishes in May.