Kent Haruf‘s final, posthumous novel OUR SOULS AT NIGHT is the ABA’s No. 1 Indie Next pick for June (and makes the iBooks Store’s top picks for May as well). The rest of the list features the following (including 5 books, asterisked, you can start reading right now in our free spring/summer Buzz Books ebook; download it now while you still can, since our big fall/winter Buzz Books collections will be landing soon in advance of BEA): Uprooted, by Naomi Novik The Sunlit Night, by Rebecca Dinerstein The Invasion of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen *The Water Knife, by Paolo […]
Awards
People, Etc.: Nowell to Depart Nielsen; Edgar Award Winners; and More
Jonathan Stolper will move up to svp and managing director of Nielsen Book as of July 1, as longtime president Jonathan Nowell steps down after 20 years at Nielsen. Nowell will be “helping with the transition through the end of this year,” though he says in the announcement “I feel it’s time to pursue other opportunities.” Stolper joined Nielsen Book in the US in 2010. President of Nielsen Entertainment Howard Applebaum comments: “This is bitter sweet for me. During his 20-year tenure, Jonathan Nowell has built a book business that is critical to the ongoing success of the wider book industry and […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Acting publisher at Running Press Allison Devlin will move to Time Inc. Books on May 4 as associate publisher, Publishing Trends reports. Susan Weinberg will fill in as acting publisher at Running Press when Devlin leaves, until a permanent publisher is named. At HarperAudio, Sean McManus has been promoted to associate publisher. Marjacq Scripts in London has hired two new associate agents, Catherine Pellegrino and Georgie Bouz. Children’s book specialist Pellegrino had founded her own agency in 2011; Bouz was previously an editor at Penguin Random House UK and specializes in women’s commercial fiction, commercial literary fiction and commercial non-fiction. Foreign rights agent Sandra Sawicka will work as a primary agent as well. […]
Six Writers Drop Out As PEN Gala Hosts, Objecting to Charlie Hebdo Award
When PEN American Center hosts its annual gala on May 5, six of its planned author hosts will not be in attendance. On Friday, novelists Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi alerted the organization of their withdrawal from the gala over the decision to award its Freedom of Expression Courage award to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which saw 12 staffers killed in the January 7 attack on its offices. Prose told the AP she was “quite upset” at the Hebdo honor, adding: “I couldn’t imagine being in the audience when they […]
Doerr, Kolbert Among Pulitzer Winners
After missing out on the National Book Award, Anthony Doerr was among those book authors winning Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, marking the second year in a row (after Donna Tartt’s THE GOLDFINCH) the Pulitzer went with a commercially successful title as the winner. Doerr told USA Today (from Paris, where he is currently on tour) he “can barely absorb any of it,” speculating that his novel resonates in our “time of overabundance” because “we are compelled by stories that remind us of our blessings, that remind us that not that long ago whole countries were struggling to feed their populations.” Doerr […]
LAT Book Prize Winners Include Hustvedt, Luiselli, Rankine, & Hobbs
The Los Angeles Times Book Prize announced the winners in ten categories on Saturday night. They include: Fiction Siri Hustvedt, The Blazing World (Simon & Schuster) The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction Valeria Luiselli, Faces in the Crowd (Coffee House Press) Current Interest Jeff Hobbs, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace (Scribner) Poetry Claudia Rankine, Citizen (Graywolf) Other winners include Adam Tooze (History); Elizabeth Kolbert (Science & Technology); Tom Bouman (Mystery/Thriller); Candice Fleming (Young Adult); Andrew Roberts (Biography); and Jaime Hernandez (Graphic Novel). As previously announced, T.C. Boyle won the Robert Kirsch Award and Levar Burton was […]