In going from the 13-title longlist to the 6-title shortlist, the Booker Prize judges kept two Americans — Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler — and left behind a number of heavily touted works as usual (including books by Sirit Hustvedt, David Mitchell, and Richard Powers). Though the prize has often lifted books by independent publishers, this year we already know that Penguin Random House will win. They publish five out of six contenders in the UK, and even on that one outlier — by Fowler — the publishing giant has US rights. Smith’s book is currently set for US release by Pantheon […]
Awards
People, Etc.
Longtime editor Tom Miller will join Sanford J. Greenburger Associates as a literary agent on September 15. He will represent primarily nonfiction projects in the areas of diet and wellness, psychology and self-help, business, popular culture, spirituality, cooking, and narrative nonfiction. Most recently, he was an executive editor at McGraw-Hill. Annie Nybo has been promoted to assistant editor at Margaret K. McElderry Books. In the UK, Bonnier Publishing has hired Justine Smith as publisher of Templar, starting October 20. She was previously a publisher at DK. Also in the UK, the shortlist was announced for Swansea University’s Dylan Thomas Prize to an author 39 or […]
Jodi Picoult Tops October Indie Next List
Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult is the top selection of ABA booksellers for October. Their list also includes A Deadly Wandering by Matt Richtel, included in our Publishers Lunch Fall/Winter Buzz Books. You can download our free sampler from any ebookstore (or from the Buzz home page) to read substantial excerpts from Richtel’s book and all other included authors right now. The full Indie Next list is: #1: Leaving Time: A Novel, by Jodi Picoult The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters Nora Webster: A Novel, by Colm Tóibín On Immunity: An Inoculation, by Eula Biss Good Grief: Life in a […]
People, Etc.
Former ceo of Atlantic Books Toby Mundy has established his own literary agency, Toby Mundy Associates. He will use Ed Victor Ltd.’s service operation Bedford Square Literary Management for “turn-key back-office service.” TMA is the first client for the new service. Amazon cfo since 2002 Thomas Szkutak will retire from the company in June 2015. Brian Olsavsky, vp of finance for the company’s global consumer business, will take over. Olga Massov has joined Phaidon in New York as project editor, food, reporting to Emily Takoudes. Melanie DeNardo has joined Little, Brown Children’s as publicity director. Previously she was deputy director of publicity at Henry Holt. In addition, […]
People, Etc.
Alessandra Bastagli has joined Nation Books as editorial director, filling the position vacated earlier this year when Carl Bromley moved to The New Press. Most recently she has been digital features editor at Al Jazeera America, after working at Free Press until it was merged into the Simon & Schuster Publishing Group in fall 2012. Meg Cassidy has left Simon & Schuster, where she was a publicity manager, to pursue freelance work in publicity, culinary pr, and event planning from Portland, OR. She can be reached at mcassidy9@gmail.com. At their annual meeting later this month, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) will honor […]
Bone Clocks Tops Amazon’s September List
David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks is Amazon’s September Spotlight pick, and Michael Pitre’s novel Fives and Twenty-Fives (already a featured Indie Debut and Indie Next book) is their featured debut. Two of our Publishers Lunch Fall/Winter Buzz Books make the list — Matt Richtel’s A Deadly Wandering and Tana French’s The Secret Place — along with these titles: Cosby: His Life and Times, Mark Whitaker What If?, Randall Munroe I’ll Drink to That, Betty Halbreich, Rebecca Paley Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Jeff Hobbs Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood The Paying Guests, Sarah […]