While most of the book world remains focused on what’s happening in Frankfurt, a select group of authors, performers, thinkers and others are gathering outside of Santa Fe, NM for the second-annual Amazon Campfire, where the theme is “storytelling.” Convened by Jeff Bezos and a small group of Amazon executives (including Audible.com founder Don Katz), the informal three-day idea-fest will feature discussions in morning and activities or free time in the afternoons. Among those said to be enrolled–with all guests traveling and staying at Amazon’s expense–are Armistead Maupin, Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Neil Gaiman, and Khaled Hosseini (plus […]
Authors
National Book Award Nominees; New Literature Prize Proposed In UK
The National Book Award nominees were announced on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud program. The winners will be named on November 16. Fiction Andrew Krivak, THE SOJOURN (Bellevue Literary Press) Tea Obreht, THE TIGER’S WIFE (Random House) Julie Otsuka, THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC (Knopf) Edith Pearlman, BINOCULAR VISION (Lookout Books) Jesmyn Ward, SALVAGE THE BONES (Bloomsbury) Non-Fiction Deborah Baker, THE CONVERT: A Tale of Exile and Extremism (Graywolf) Mary Gabriel, LOVE AND CAPITAL: Karl & Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution (Little, Brown) Stephen Greenblatt, THE SWERVE: How the World Became Modern (Norton) Manning Marable, MALCOLM […]
People, Etc.
Eileen Lawrence will join Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as executive director of marketing on October 19. Previously she was senior executive director of advertising, promotion and creative services at the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. At Headline, John Wordsworth has joined as editor, focusing on science fiction and fantasy titles. Previously he was an editor at John Blake Publishing. In addition, Ben Willis will join as publicity manager starting November 7. Previously he was a senior press officer at Transworld. Cover to Cover Booksellers founder Nicky Salan, 77, died yesterday at her home in San Francisco. She founded the […]
Imprints: Dennis Lehane Books; Amazon’s SF/F Imprint Called 47North
Recently Ecco announced its longtime author Anthony Bourdain would acquire and edit a handful of titles each year under his own eponymous imprint. Now William Morrow has followed suit in working with Dennis Lehane, whom they have published since 1994, on an imprint of his own. Dennis Lehane Books will “help identify and acquire literary fiction with a dark urban edge.” The announcement did not specify a launch title or a release date beyond saying Lehane would oversee publication of a “select number” of fiction titles annually and that he would work with his longtime editor Claire Wachtel. (Lehane’s agent […]
Nobel Peace Prize Trio Includes Two Authors
The Nobel Peace Prize is being shared by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karma. Gbowee’s book MIGHTY BE OUR POWERS: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, was published last month by Beast Books and attracted attention for an author tour that’s being underwritten by Len Riggio. Sirleaf’s book THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT was published by Harper in 2009 and is available in trade paperback and ebook. In other awards news, The Crime Writers’ Association announced the winners of various Dagger Awards in a ceremony that will be televised on ITV3 on October 11: Gold Dagger For […]
Tomas Transtromer Wins Nobel Literature Prize
Despite a flurry of bets that installed Bob Dylan as the improbable front-runner, in the end, the Nobel Prize in Literature stayed close to home, going to Swedish poet and perennial favorite Tomas Transtromer, the eighth European winner over the past 10 years and the first Swedish writer to win the prize since 1974. In a statement the Nobel Prize committee said Transtromer, 80, won “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality”. Transtromer’s Swedish publisher Bonniers had just released a collection of his work from 1954 to 2004 to celebrate his 80th birthday. “We […]