On Monday night the National Book Critics Circle announced select awards along with nominations in 6 categories. National Book Award winner Phil Klay adds the NBCC’s John Leonard Award for outstanding first book for REDEPLOYMENT. Toni Morrison, 83, is the recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, and Alexandra Schwartz at the New Yorker is the winner of their award for excellence in reviewing. In their broader nominations, NBA fiction nominees Rabih Alameddine (An Unnecessary Woman) and Marilynne Robinson (Lila) are in contention again, as are NBA nonfiction nominees Roz Chast (for autobiography, for Can’t We Talk About Something […]
Awards
People, Etc.: ICM to Represent Crichton
ICM is now representing rights to “the majority of titles” written by the late Michael Crichton (including most of his best-known novels, with the exception of Jurassic Park). Sloan Harris and Jennifer Joel will lead representation on the literary side, and the agency says it will “work closely with Sherri Crichton and licensees of rights licensed in Michael Crichton’s work to broaden the reach of his stories, worlds, characters and brands across all media.” There is work for potential posthumous publication and exploitation as well. ICM says it will also focus on “the exploration of Crichton’s heretofore unknown and unpublished works […]
People, Etc.
Rachel Meier has been named to the newly created position of publishing manager for Crown, Crown Archetype, Hogarth, Broadway, Three Rivers Press, and Tim Duggan Books. Ami Webster McConnell has joined Howard Books as vp, editor in chief. Most recently she was senior acquisitions editor for fiction at Harper Christian and helped launch the fiction program at Thomas Nelson. Michael Eisenberg has joined the book publishing group at Highlights in the newly created role of director, book marketing, reporting to Jack Perry, after consulting with the company for the past five years. Previously he was svp, co-publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux […]
Briefs: Saramago Estate to Wylie; THE HUSBAND’S SECRET in Paperback; and More
Once again, a prominent literary estate has switched representation to The Wylie Agency. The estate of Jose Saramago announced the change as of December 30, 2014, saying “this shift to a larger literary agency emerges as a natural step to ensure greater presence” of Saramago’s work. They briefly thanked Nicole Witt at Literary Agency Mertin, Saramago’s longtime agency (first under the late Ray-Gude Mertin). Witt expressed “great surprise” at the “short email” from the estate notifying her of the change. She writes, in part, “When I said goodbye to José Saramago in Lanzarote in June 2010, shortly before he passed away, I […]
Hannah Leads February Indie Next List; Tyler Tops Library Reads List
The preview version of the February Indie Next List has The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah as indie booksellers’ No. 1 selection for the month. The rest of the list features: Etta and Otto and Russell and James, by Emma Hooper A Spool of Blue Thread, by Anne Tyler Of Things Gone Astray, by Janina Mathewson Get in Trouble, by Kelly Link Sweetland, by Michael Crummey Leaving Before the Rains Come, by Alexandra Fuller The Jaguar’s Children, by John Vaillant First Frost, by Sarah Addison Allen Wolf Winter, by Cecilia Ekbäck The Swimmer, by Joakim Zander Mort(e), by Robert Repino Migratory […]
More January Picks, and Beyond
New lists highlight the iBooks Store’s top 20 titles for January, as well as USA Today’s 10-title winter preview. A consensus pick among those two lists as well as the January Indie Next list, the Library Reads list, and Amazon’s picks is Paula Hawkins’ THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, which publishes January 13. Most of the rest of the USA Today’s list focuses on well-known authors with releases due over the next four months, including books by Nick Hornby, David Duchovny, Kazuo Ishiguro, Erik Larson, Dennis Lehane, Sara Gruen, Candace Bergen, Toni Morrison and Peter Slevin (on Michelle Obama). Apple’s other January picks are: Fiction […]