The nominees for the FT/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award. The winner will be named October 14: A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World William J. Bernstein (Atlantic Monthly Press) Cold Steel: The Multi-billion-dollar Battle for a Global IndustryTim Bouquet & Byron Ousey (Little Brown Book Group UK) When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic ChangeMohamed El-Erian (McGraw-Hill) McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal UnderworldMisha Glenny (Knopf) Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid EconomyLawrence Lessig (The Penguin Press) The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of LifeAlice Schroeder (Bantam)
Awards
German Book Prize Nominees, and Australian Winners
The 25,000-euro prize for Germany’s best novel will be given October 13, right before the Frankfurt Book Fair. The contenders are: Dietmar Dath: Die Abschaffung der Arten (Suhrkamp, September 2008)Sherko Fatah: Das dunkle Schiff (Jung und Jung, February 2008)Iris Hanika: Treffen sich zwei (Droschl, January 2008)Rolf Lappert: Nach Hause schwimmen (Hanser, February 2008)Ingo Schulze: Adam und Evelyn (Berlin Verlag, August 2008)Uwe Tellkamp: Der Turm (Suhrkamp, September 2008) Schulze appears to be the only author who has been published previously in English (with works including Simple Stories and 33 Moments of Happiness: St. Petersburg Stories and New Lives, set for release […]
Oprah's Telle?; BN's Pick
There’s good circumstantial reason to believe the online speculation covered on Galleycat and elsewhere that David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a prime candidate as the selection for Oprah’s Book Club to be announced this Friday. Based on the scant metadata displayed by online booksellers, we know that it’s a recently published HarperCollins book available only in hardcover at $25.95 and in a Harper Luxe large-print edition. The best giveaway comes from Amazon’s Canadian site, where they also indicate the page count of 576, the same as Sawtelle. Amazon.ca lists the publisher as “unknown” to try and avoid […]
Oprah Book Club #62
Penguin’s had a long ride with Eckhart Tolle; now Oprah is finally ready to select another title for her Book Club, to be announced on September 19. The lucky publisher is HarperCollins, and for now, contrary to recent custom, both Amazon and BN.com are showing the new selection as a $25.95 hardcover. One other potentially meaningless clue: the collaborative filtering on Amazon tells me that customers who bought items like this also bought….almost all thrillers (Kathy Reichs; Jeffery Deaver; Tess Gerritsen; Nelson Demille; Robert Crais; James Patterson, etc…–plus an add assortment of Little Golden Books.)Amazon page
National Book Foundation Honors Kingston and Rosset
At this year’s National Book Awards ceremonies on November 19, the National Book Foundation will give its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Maxine Hong Kingston “in recognition of her outstanding achievements as a writer of fiction, memoir, and nonfiction.” Publisher Barney Rosset will receive the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Executive director Harold Augenbraum says in the announcement, “This year’s distinguished honorees broke new ground in American literary publishing. Kingston exposed the great story of American immigration to a new, rich blend of fiction, memory, folk-tale and political idea. Rosset opened a […]
People and Prizes
* At Jossey-Bass, Karen Murphy has been promoted to senior editor for the business trade group. At Other Press, Megan Feulner has been promoted to associate publicist. Gregory Cowles has been promoted to preview editor at the New York Times Book Review. He’s been at TBR since 2004. New Regency “continues to expand and enhance its motion picture division” with new hires that include Michelle Kroes as director of feature and literary development. She will “focus on mining the literary community for film projects as well as acting as the contact for east coast talent.” Kroes has been a scout […]