The National Book Awards’ move towards greater visibility and recognition culminated in much the same way as in previous years: a mixture of expected and surprise winners. New Yorker staff writer George Packer took the nonfiction prize for THE UNWINDING, while James McBride’s THE GOOD LORD BIRD (Riverhead) won the fiction prize, surprising the author — who did not prepare a speech, since he was among those who expected one of the other nominees to prevail. “They are fine writers,” McBride said of the other nominees, “but this sure is nice.” The judges called him “a voice as comic and original as […]
Awards
Awards: Business, NBAs and More
The FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award was presented in London to Brad Stone for THE EVERYTHING STORE. Goldman ceo Lloyd Blankfein commented:”Amazon is a remarkable force that has revolutionized the retail world since Jeff Bezos founded the company almost two decades ago. Brad Stone offers a provocative take on how Jeff Bezos and Amazon have transformed industries as varied as publishing, consumer electronics, and cloud computing.” It’s National Book Awards week in New York, and many of the events will be streamed or broadcast this year. Tonight the finalists in all four categories read from their works […]
Passings: Lessing, Park, Rubin and Weaver
The world of letters lost a number of prominent voices in recent days: Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature Doris Lessing 94, died at home in London on Sunday. Her 1962 book The Golden Notebook remains her best-known work, and her editor Nicholas Pearson at Harper UK tells the NYT it was a handbook for an entire generation. The NYT adds: “The 1962 book was daring in its day for its frank exploration of the inner lives of women who, unencumbered by marriage, were free to raise children, or not, and pursue work and their sex lives as they chose.” Author of the Junie B. […]
People, Etc.
At Penguin Random House, Nihar Malaviya has been promoted to evp, deputy chief operating officer, reporting to Madeline McIntosh. He will continue with his existing duties overseeing strategic planning, analytics, and program development, while also adding direct oversight for the company’s combined corporate technology teams and for the Random House operations teams. McIntosh writes in the internal announcement : “Over the past few years, Nihar’s mandate has been to apply his uniquely powerful gifts for strategic planning to the task of expanding our competitive advantages in the evolving marketplace. The direct results of his leadership are seen in the Random […]
LJ’s Top 10; Guardian First Book; O Magazine Favorite Reads
Library Journal has selected their top 10 books of 2013. (Four of those ten titles were first previewed early in the year prior to publication in our newly-added spring/summer “Winter Institute” edition of our free Publishers Lunch Buzz Books ebook samplers. We’re putting together the new version of that WI-timed sampler right now for release next January–and you can still download and share the big fall/winter edition, which included an additional title on the LJ list.) Claire of the Sea Light, Edwidge Danticat The Panopticon, Jenni Fagan NOS4A2, Joe Hill A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Anthony Marra Bleeding Edge, Thomas […]
Maclean Tops December Library List
The LibraryReads initiative has announced their fourth monthly list of librarian favorites for November. Their No 1. pick is Sarah Maclean’s new novel No Good Duke Goes Unpunished: The Third Rule of Scoundrels, and also includes: The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles: A Novel, Katherine Pancol, translated by William Rodarmor and Helen Dickinson Vatican Waltz, Roland Merullo How to Run with a Naked Werewolf, Molly Harper The Supreme Macaroni Company, Adriana Trigiani The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret, Catherine Bailey Dangerous Women, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois […]