The New York Times and PBS NewsHour will launch a collaborative monthly book club, Now Read This, starting with Jesmyn Ward’s National Book Award-winning novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. The book club will debut tonight on PBS NewsHour, and over the course of the month readers can join in on both outlet’s platforms and websites as well as a dedicated Facebook group. The month’s reading will culminate in the author being interviewed by NewsHour arts correspondent Jeffery Brown. “With the launch of ‘Now Read This’, we’re excited to expand the NewsHour’s decades long commitment to coverage of books and the arts,” […]
Authors
Avedon Estate Calls for Withdrawal, Correction of Biography
The Richard Avedon Foundation called on Spiegel & Grau to cease publication of the just-released biography Avedon: Something Personal by Norma Stevens and Steven Aronson, saying that “much of the book needs to be corrected or retracted, if not entirely disavowed and discontinued, due to alleged factual inaccuracies.” The foundation asserts “the book is filled with countless inaccuracies” while also claiming “it has been written under false pretenses” and “contains substantial sections that are taken, with only light editing and rewriting, from an unfinished work of fiction that Richard Avedon had been writing prior to his death in collaboration with author Doon […]
Scout Press Wins Roupenian “Cat Person” Auction
Simon & Schuster imprint Scout Press has won the auction for a short story collection, YOU KNOW YOU WANT THIS, and a novel by Kristen Roupenian, whose story “Cat Person” went viral earlier this month and became the New Yorker’s second-most-read article for all of 2017. Executive editor Alison Callahan acquired Roupenian’s collection and novel from Jenni Ferrari-Adler at Union Literary in a major deal, for seven figures (in excess of $1.2 million, according to multiple sources). UK rights to the story collection sold to Jonathan Cape in a pre-empt last Wednesday, and the US auction carried over to this week. Subsequent […]
Briefs: New PRH UK Office Building, Hay House Puts Smiley Books On Hold, and More
Penguin Random House UK announced a lease agreement for additional new offices at One Embassy Gardens, between London’s Vauxhall and Battersea, “a short walk” from the existing RH UK office at 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road. The new space has 83,400 square feet across five floors, and includes event space on the ground floor. The company had announced in summer 2016 that it would vacate Transworld’s offices in Ealing and Penguin’s offices in the Strand to consolidate their employees. The new space will be ready at the end of 2019, and the two buildings with “both…be home to a mix of Penguin Random […]
People, Etc.
At Ten Speed Press, Kaitlin Ketchum has been promoted to senior editor. Georgia Bodnar has been promoted to associate editor at Viking. Natalie Hallak has been promoted to assistant editor at Park Row Books and Hanover Square Press. Alyssa Awe has been promoted to senior vice president, strategic operations and projects for Penguin Random House. At Simon & Schuster Audio, Elisa Shokoff has been promoted to vice president, executive producer; Sarah Lieberman has been promoted to vice president, associate publisher; Lauren Pires has been promoted to assistant director of marketing and publicity. Charlton Villavelez has been promoted to production coordinator for Simon […]
Emma Cline and Ex-Boyfriend Sue Each Other Over Plagiarism Claims
A two-year dispute between Emma Cline and her former boyfriend, Chaz Reetz-Laiolo has erupted in dueling lawsuits filed Wednesday in California federal court over allegations that Cline plagiarized portions of her 2016 debut novel The Girls through the use of computer spyware — allegations that Cline, in conjunction with Penguin Random House and The Clegg Agency vehemently deny. Reetz-Laiolo’s 79-page complaint (with more than 500 pages of supplemental exhibits) spins a story of Cline installing a keylogging software on a laptop that was once hers, later sold to him for $300, that was used to monitor his emails, as well […]