At Start Publishing, Meghan Kilduff has been promoted to associate publisher for the Salvo Press, Night Shade Books, Start Classics and Start Science Fiction imprints. In addition, Natalie Pao has been named production associate for ebooks. Kate DiCamillo has been named the Library of Congress’ next National Ambassador to Young People’s Literature, succeeding Walter Dean Myers, who was appointed in 2012. DiCamillo will spend the next two years traveling (including required appearances at the National Book Festival and Children’s Book Week) and told the NYT: “It wasn’t until my fifth or sixth book where I realized I’m trying to do […]
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William Morris Endeavor has hired former Microsoft chief financial officer Peter Klein. He will oversee the global finance operation for IMG Worldwide once that acquisition closes, along with WME. (Approvals for the acquisition are expected to take a number of months). First published last August but only available online now, Esquire ran an extensive look at Proof of Heaven author Dr. Eben Alexander, depicting him as “a neurosurgeon with a troubled history,” including documenting accusations of malpractice and in one case a “purported cover-up” in which he changed his surgical notes to eliminate evidence of an error. Reporter Luke Dittrich quotes […]
Briefs: A Harry Potter Play, Hachette UK’s New Office, and a Microsoft Employee Who Leaked Nook Deal
JK Rowling will co-produce a Harry Potter play intended to debut on London’s West End in 2015, and will collaborate with a playwright on the show, which will focus on “the previously untold story of Harry Potter’s early years as an orphan and outcast.” Already a year in “gestation,” it will be produced by veterans Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender. Rowling said their pitch “was the only one that really made sense to me, and which had the sensitivity, intensity and intimacy I thought appropriate for bringing Harry’s story to the stage.” As announced in September, Rowling is also working on […]
Apple’s Top Picks and Bestsellers, Google’s Lists, and Kobo’s Favorites
Apple has named a short group of “best books” for the year, picking George Saunders‘ Tenth of December as their best work of fiction; Bill Bryson‘s One Summer as best nonfiction; Brandon Sanderson‘s The Rithmatist as best YA; and Breaking Bad as the best “made for iBooks” title. The iBookstore has more top 10 lists, across about 20 categories. In general fiction and literature, Apple’s top 10 is: Tenth of December, George Saunders The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt Someone, Alice McDermott Enon, Paul Harding Dissident Gardens, Jonathan Lethem How to Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, Mohsin Hamid All That Is, […]
A New Millennium Series Manuscript, and Other Maybe Books
While there are still no signs that the late Stieg Larsson’s unfinished manuscript for what was actually to be the fifth installment in his envisioned 10-book Millennium series will ever be published, the originating publisher in Sweden Norstedts has hired David Lagercrantz to write a fourth installment in the series. In turn, Norstedts has again sold world English rights to Quercus’s MacLehose Press, which says in a release it plans to publish in August 2015. Larsson’s editor at Norstedts Eve Gedin tells a Swedish newspaper, “We are proud and excited to now have signed an agreement with David Lagercrantz who, urged […]
Friday Fun: New Shteyngart Trailer, Italian Stepford Wives, and Publishers’ Image
Gary Shteyngart aims for a Little Failure with his new memoir, publishing on January 7. James Franco returns in Shteyngart’s latest amusing trailer, this time playing Shteyngart’s husband and competing author (“Fifty Shades of Gary”). The short also features Rashida Jones, and Jonathan Franzen as the author’s therapist (“I’m so sorry; I’ve got to stop speaking the truth out loud.”), among others. Separately, the Telegraph “is appalled” by an Italian bestseller Cásate y Sé Sumisa (Get Married and Be Submissive), said to have sold almost 100,000 copies, that has just been published in Spain and selling well online there, too. A […]