Amazon‘s spotlight pick for September is Esi Edugyan’s novel Washington Black and their featured debut is Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s memoir Small Fry. Also on the list are French Exit by Patrick Dewitt and The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar, both excerpted and available in our Buzz Books 2018 Fall/Winter. The rest of the list: Leadership, by Doris Kearns Goodwin 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, by Yaval Noah Harari The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris These Truths, by Jill Lepore Lake Success, by Gary Shteyngart Heartland, by Sarah Smarsh Barnes & Noble‘s top fiction list for the month includes Lies by T.M. Logan, […]
Awards
People, Etc.
Zachary Schisgal has joined Wiley as senior acquisitions editor. Florian Illies will become publisher of Rowohlt in Germany as of January 1, 2019, succeeding Barbara Laugwitz. Illies is the author of Generation Golf and 1913, and is currently the managing director of the auction house Grisebach. Picks The September Pennie’s Pick at Costco is The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle, which is excerpted in our Buzz Books 2018 Fall/Winter sampler and available for download now. And the month’s PBS NewsHour-New York Times Now Read This pick is Robert Kaplan’s Earning the Rockies. Awards The Academy of American Poets named Sonia Sanchez as […]
People, Etc.
Natasha Simons has been promoted to senior editor for the “revitalized” Free Press imprint, while continuing to acquire and edit for Simon & Schuster’s general list. Jonathan Karp said in the announcement: “In the search for a new Free Press editor, I met with numerous outside candidates, but after reading Natasha’s ideas for the imprint, I was quickly convinced that she would infuse Free Press with new vision. As she put it, ‘I look forward, as a conservative millennial woman, to bringing a unique perspective to building a fresh, modern, forward-thinking imprint.'” He also notes, “Natasha is committed to helping […]
People, Etc.
Hotchkiss and Associates is changing its name to Hotchkiss Daily & Associates, as Sean Daily is promoted. Founder Jody Hotchkiss comments: “I like to say that agenting is about ‘chopping the wood and hauling the water each day’—doing the work. Sean has certainly done the work since the day he started here, and he has also brought great insights while at the same time developing into an effective and respected agent.” Matthew Barblan will join the Association of American Publishers as vice president, public policy on August 27. He was most recently the executive director of the Center for the Protection […]
People, Etc.
Suzannah Bentley has joined Scribd as content acquisition associate focused on ebooks from international markets. Previously, she was foreign rights coordinator at Janklow & Nesbit. Emma Paterson will move to Aitken Alexander as an agent in October. She has been at Rogers, Coleridge & White the past five years. Also at the agency, Anna Watkins has been promoted to head of the translation rights department, continuing to report to rights director Lisa Baker. Picks Former president Barack Obama posted a new reading list on Facebook, writing: “This summer I’ve been absorbed by new novels, revisited an old classic, and reaffirmed my faith in […]
Celebrities, Clubs, Picks
The NYT writes about another celebrity publishing side project: “X Artists’ Books, a small press that [Keanu] Reeves launched in Los Angeles with the visual artist Alexandra Grant, has been producing aggressively esoteric titles…. They don’t accept submissions and haven’t worked with agents, preferring instead to unearth what Grant calls ‘secret books’ — knotty concepts that might seem unpublishable.” From the other side of the spectrum, it’s Reading Month at YouTube Kids. Dolly Parton — whose Imagination Library recently celebrated giving over 100 million books to young children — introduces a video playlist of read-aloud books, including readalongs from Fallon, […]