Author of the 2006 book STATE OF WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration and NYT reporter James Risen faces an appeal to the Supreme Court or the prospect of going to jail in his continuing efforts to protect his sources. Prosecutors still want Risen to testify in what seems now like a minor case — against CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, accused of leaking information about a Clinton-era effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear research. On Tuesday, the full Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declined to hear Risen’s appeal — by a 13-to-1 vote — […]
Authors
People: LeBlond, Hijuelos, and More
Chronicle Books food and drink editorial director Bill LeBlond will retire on November 7 after 33 years with the company. Company president Jack Jensen says, “Bill has made a pivotal contribution to the ongoing success of Chronicle Books. I speak for many existing authors and colleagues, as well as probably hundreds who have come and gone over the years when I say Bill will be greatly missed.” Alex Littlefield has been promoted to senior editor at Basic Books, which he joined in March 2010. Pulitzer Prize winner for the novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love Oscar Hijuelos, 62, […]
People, Awards, Etc.: Munro, Charkin, Levinson, Potter Postage, and More
Vintage is reprinting a total of 100,000 copies across their backlist of 14 story collections by Nobel laureate Alice Munro. Random House Canada ceo Brad Martin told the Globe and Mail, “As far as we know, we have stock of all of Alice’s active titles,” though booksellers were light on copies and ran out quickly. Indigo placed “nice, substantial orders” for fresh inventory. You can read (or hear) Munro’s short phone call interview with the prize organizers here. She said in a written statement Thursday: “This is so surprising and wonderful. I am dazed by all the attention and affection that has […]
Munro Wins the Nobel
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded this morning to Alice Munro, cited briefly as “master of the contemporary short story.” She is the 13th woman and first Canadian (aside from 1976 winner Saul Bellow, born near Montreal) to win the literature prize, which comes one year after her most recent short story collection DEAR LIFE and several months after telling the National Post and the New York Times she had retired from writing. In a follow-up interview with press Swedish Academy permanent secretary Peter Englund said: “I think no one has better deconstructed the central myth of modern romantic […]
People, Etc.
Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is the latest pick for the Today Book Club. Hachette Book Group filed suit against Stephen Baldwin in New York Supreme Court, seeking to recover a $110,000 advance against a nonfiction originally due in 2009 that they say he never delivered. Harper UK is setting up a new fiction imprint, within their Harper Fiction division, called The Borough Press. Launching in 2014 — and publishing their already-announced Austen Project that has well-known authors retelling Jane Austen’s classics — it is led by Katie Espiner. As part of a reorganization that consolidates all […]
People, Etc.
Melina Gerosa Bellows has been promoted to publisher of National Geographic Books, adding responsibility for sales, marketing and distribution to her current role as National Geographic’s chief creative officer for Books, Kids and Family. Ken Rhodes has been promoted to managing director, NBN International. Will Lach is joining the American Museum of Natural History as director, licensing and publishing. Previously he was manager of product development, Department of Printed Product, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, Ross Harris has been promoted to literary agent. At Harper Children’s, Melissa Miller has been promoted to editor […]