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. […]
Awards
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 […]
People, Etc.
At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Teresa Ronquillo has been promoted to marketing coordinator. Novelist and spoken-word artist Maggie Estep, 50, died Wednesday in Albany two days after suffering a heart attack in her Hudson, NY home. Estep was most recently the author of ALICE FANTASTIC (2009) and earlier, a trio of crime novels set in and around New York City published between 2003 and 2006, as well as two works of fiction based on her spoken-word poems. In the UK, Waterstones announced shortlists for their three children’s book prizes, to be awarded April 3 (honoring picture books; fiction for children 5 […]
People, Etc.
Kate Johnson has joined Wolf Literary Services, where she will focus on adult fiction, based in Scotland. Kate was previously an agent and vice president at Georges Borchardt. Adriann Ranta is now vp and senior agent, and Allison Devereux has been promoted to associate agent and foreign rights manager. Sara Sargent has joined Simon Pulse as editor. Previously she was an associate editor at Balzer + Bray. At Metropolitan Books, Guy Connor has been promoted to assistant editor. Nathan Filer’s Costa Award-winning debut novel, published in the UK as THE SHOCK AND THE FALL but in the US as WHERE […]
Folio Prize Names Eight Nominees
The UK’s new literary award The Folio Prize was set to announce their inaugural shortlist Monday afternoon, until the embargo was broken via Twitter. The nominees, culled from 80 titles; are: Red Doc, Anne Carson Schroder, Amity Gaige Last Friends, Jane Gardam Benediction, Kent Haruf The Flame Throwers, Rachel Kushner A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, Eimear McBride A Naked Singularity, Sergio De La Pava Tenth of December, George Saunders McBride’s book, which already won the Goldsmith Prize, comes from Galley Beggar Press. It is not available in ebook form, but last summer Coffee House Press bought rights for the […]