At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade and reference division, Josh Harwood has been promoted to national accounts director, based in New York, and Beth Ineson moves up to director of field sales & distribution clients (still based in Boston.) As has been expected, Carol Ann Duffy was named the UK’s poet laureate, the first woman to hold the position in 341 years. Along with a small stiped, the honor comes with a “butt of sack” — 600 bottles of sherry to stoke the muse — which the Guardian says she asked for upfront after hearing the previous laureate Andrew Motion never […]
Awards
LAT Festival: Prizes, and Wind Damage
The Los Angeles Times kicked off their weekend festival of books with the naming of their annual book prize winners, which included: Fiction: Marilynne Robinson, HOMEFirst Fiction: Zoe Ferraris, FINDING NOUFYoung Adult: Terry Pratchett, NATIONCurrent Interest: Barton Gellman, ANGLER: The Cheney Vice Presidency Though this year’s awards presentation was downsized to the newspaper’s offices and not open to the public, LA Observed says “LAT publisher Eddy Hartenstein pledged publicly that the Times Book Prizes would continue next year, and at least some judges were already asked to return.” On Saturday afternoon, heavy winds knocked down a scaffolding on the UCLA […]
Orange Prize Shortlist Announced
To fuel some rights sales, the shortlist was named this morning in London: Scottsboro, by Ellen FeldmanThe Wilderness, Samantha HarveyThe Invention of Everything Else, by Samantha HuntMolly Fox’s Birthday, Deirdre MaddenHome, by Marilynne RobinsonBurnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie
Pulitzers to Kitteridge, Meacham and More
The Pulitzer Prizes for books included a repeat win for NBA winner Annette Gordon-Reed. Sales as tracked by Nielsen BookScan show relative parity among three of the four winners to date in the outlets tracked by the service. The fiction winner sold close to 12,000 copies in hardcover and almost 44,000 in paperback so far; The Hemingses of Monticello is up to just over 45,000 hardcovers after the NBA win; and Slavery by Another Name has sold approximately 22,000 hardcovers and 4,000 trade paperbacks. American Lion is in a completely different class, with registered sales of close to 360,000 copies, […]
BOMC First Fiction Award
Somebody did like Andrew Davidson’s novel THE GARGOYLE: Book-of-the-Month Club has named the book the 2008 winner of their First Fiction Award.
GUERNSEY Tops Indie Choice Awards
The ABA has announced the 2009 Indie Choice Award winners: Best Indie Buzz Book (Fiction)The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (The Dial Press) Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction)The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead) Best Author DiscoveryThe Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (Ecco) Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book (Fiction)The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins) Best New Picture BookBats at the Library, by Brian Lies (Houghton Mifflin) Most Engaging AuthorSherman Alexie ABA