Bookselling Laurel Book Store in downtown Oakland, CA will close in August when their lease expires, as “ongoing sales have not been enough to meet expenses comfortably.” Owner Luan Stauss writes she is “continuing to engage with” potential business partners or buyers. Initiatives Simon & Schuster is launching consumer promotion program, Book Club Favorites, designed to highlight “noteworthy book club titles…from across the company.” Monthly picks will include bestselling authors as well as new voices. Debuting in July, the first title is the paperback edition Alice Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic. Discussion questions and other content will be available on the Book […]
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At JKS Communications, Sara Wigal has been promoted to senior manager; Angelle Barbazon move ups to lead publicist; and Max Lopez become new author ambassador. Hannah Robertson joins as junior publicist. Leila Siddiqui has been promoted to assistant marketing manager at Dutton. As part of the Queen’s annual birthday honors, knighthoods were given to Nobel winner Kazuo Ishiguro and historian Simon Schama, while Mary Beard was awarded a damehood “for services to the study of classical civilisations.” Anne Tyler’s new novel Clock Dance has been chosen as Barnes & Noble’s second selection for its Book Club.
Briefs: Carla Hayden to Interview Michelle Obama at ALA; Award Winners; and Apple Books Changes
Appearances When Michelle Obama addresses the opening general session of the 2018 ALA Annual Conference on June 22, she will be joined on stage by Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden, who “will moderate a conversation.” Awards The Jewish Book Council’s $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature has gone to Ilana Kurshan’s memoir If All the Seas Were Ink. The Lambda Literary Award announced winners in 23 categories at an awards ceremony Monday night. Roxane Gay and Edmund White were awarded Lambda’s Trustee and Visionary Awards, respectively. Apple Updates As Bloomberg reported back in January, Apple’s forthcoming iOS 12 […]
Accountant Charged With Embezzling $3.4 Million From Donadio & Olson
A recently unsealed federal criminal complaint revealed that longtime Donadio & Olson accountant Darin Webb was charged earlier this month with embezzling $3.4 million from the literary agency between January 2011 and March 2018. According to the 5-page complaint, Webb, who was employed by Donadio & Olson as their bookkeeper since 2001, “used his position as the Agency’s bookkeeper to transfer more than $3.4 million of funds, belonging to the Agency and the Agency’s clients, from the Agency’s bank accounts to bank accounts that [he] controlled. In order to evade detection of his criminal conduct and carry out his scheme, […]
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Carole DeSanti will leave Viking, where she is vp, executive editor, on June 1 after more than 30 years with the company “achieving a singular mixture of critical and commercial success and modeling the importance of the fierce editorial advocacy she offered all of her authors,” according to Viking publisher Andrea Schulz. She added in the announcement: “Personally and professionally, I will miss Carole terribly – I have relied so much on the acuteness and the generosity of her editorial judgement, not to mention her excellent cold remedies – but I hope you will join me in wishing her well […]
Briefs: Tokarczuk Wins The Booker International, and More
Awards Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft, won the Booker International Prize. (Riverhead is scheduled to publish in the US on August 24.) Initiatives Hachette Book Group has launched an online community for mystery and thriller fans, Novel Suspects. “The centerpiece will be the very best books in the genre–from HBG as well as all other publishers,” and promising to “fully integrate other publishers’ titles into the fabric of the site.” SVP marketing strategy Heather Fain calls it “a truly comprehensive catalog of all the books and authors [fans] love paired with fun and lighthearted short-form articles, listicles, videos and […]