A number of controversies remain in the news: Author of THE HINDUS Wendy Doniger writes in an NYT op-ed about the circumstances around the withdrawal of her book in India, saying that “I was in high spirits.’ She explains: “The dormant liberal conscience of India was awakened by the stunning blow to freedom of speech that had been dealt by my publisher in giving in to the demands of the claimants, agreeing to take the book out of circulation and pulp all remaining copies.” Doniger points out: “If Mr. Batra’s intention was to keep people from reading the book, it certainly […]
Awards
PEN/Faulkner Finalists
The finalists for this year’s PEN/Faulkner Awards were announced in Washington this morning: Daniel Alarcon, AT NIGHT WE WALK IN CIRCLES (Riverhead) Percival Everett, PERCIVAL EVERETT BY VIRGIL RUSSELL (Graywolf) Karen Joy Fowler, WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES (Putnam) Joan Silber, FOOLS (Norton) Valerie Trueblood, SEARCH PARTY: Stories of Rescue (Counterpoint) The winner will be announced in early April and honored at a ceremony at the Folger Library on May 10.
Amazon’s March Picks, and Kindle First Tops their List Again
Amazon’s March books of the month were posted over the weekend, with Phil Klay’s Redeployment as their Spotlight pick, and Nickolas Butler’s Shotgun Lovesons as the featured debut. Their selections include Atavist Books launch title, the digital-only novella by Karen Russell, Sleep Donation (it releases towards the end of the month, on March 25). The rest of the March picks: Boy, Snow, Bird, Helen Oyeyemi Blood Will Out, Walter Kirn Savage Harvest, Carl Hoffman Bark: Stories, Lorrie Moore Sleep Donation, Karen Russell All Our Names, Dinaw Mengestu The Naked Future, Patrick Tucker The Cairo Affair, Olen Steinhauer The Enchanted, Rene Denfeld Speaking of Amazon, before you read another spate […]
Zevin Tops April Indie Next List
Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry from Algonquin is the No. 1 pick on the April Indie Next list. It includes one of our PL Spring/Summer Buzz Books, Maggie Shipstead’s second novel Astonish Me, which you can preview right now in our free ebook. (Another Buzz Book, Sally Green’s Half Bad, which publishes next week, is featured in the today’s WSJ. With rights sold in 45 languages plus a film option, her agent Claire Wilson says the deals total almost $1.6 million.) In other lists, Costco’s Pennie’s Pick for March is the modern classic Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin. […]
People, Etc.
Nathan Rostron has joined Restless Books as director of marketing. Previously he was an editor at Bookish. Former Bertelsmann ceo Thomas Middelhoff is leaving the board of the New York Times Company, where he has served as a director since 2003. The late Ali Gunn’s company Gunn Media said in a statement, “We intend to keep her business well cared for, as she would have expected. Any current contracts with Gunn Media will be treated as business as usual, whilst outstanding negotiations will be put on hold, for the time being.” The Bookseller says that queries should be directed to Douglas […]
Awards: New Cohen Prize, LAT Nominees, and More
The first two winners were named for a new prize honoring the late bookseller Carla Furstenberg Cohen, a co-founder of Washington, DC’s Politics & Prose bookstore. Anthony Marra (author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena) and Marra and David Finkel (Thank You for Your Service) will each receive a $5,000 prize, to be presented at Politics & Prose in May. The prizes were established by Cohen’s family and close friends. Contenders were drawn from books featured in two seasonal newsletters from the bookstore, and jurors “represent readers who have been part of the Politics & Prose community and reflect the values that Carla Cohen brought to the […]