Amazon‘s Spotlight Pick for August is Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean, and they skipped a featured debut this month. Also on the list is Alex North’s The Whisper Man, excerpted and available for download in our Buzz Books 2019 Spring/Summer sampler. The rest of the picks: The Beekeeper of Aleppo, by Christy Lefteri The Turn of the Key, by Ruth Ware How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi Things You Save in a Fire, by Katherine Center Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olda Tokarczuk Gods with a Litte G, by Tupelo Hassman The […]
Awards
August Picks
The PBS NewsHour-New York Times Now Read This pick for August is Maxine Hong Kingston’s THE WOMAN WARRIOR, selected by Celeste Ng. Separately, the New York Times chose 11 titles to read in August: The Dearly Beloved, by Cara Wall Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk A Door in the Earth, by Amy Waldman Everything Inside, by Edwidge Danticat Inconspicuous Consumption, by Tatiana Schlossberg Inland, by Tea Obreht The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa A Particular Kind of Black Man, by Tope Folarin Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino White Flight, by Jess Row The Yellow […]
People, Etc.
Pamela Barricklow has joined the William Morrow Group as executive managing editor, reporting to Liate Stehlik. At Penguin Random House Audio, Taraneh Djangi has been promoted to associate director, strategic marketing; Nicole Morano to senior publicity manager; Linda Schmidt to director, project management and art/design; and Heresa Capan to director, art/design. Juliette Koronkiewicz joins as senior social media manager. Andrew LaVallee is promoted to deputy, news and features for the books desk at the New York Times. Daniel Marrs will join Ave Maria Press as vice president and editorial director on August 19. He was previously publisher of the Thomas Nelson […]
Briefs
Margaret Stead has been promoted to publisher of Zaffre and new literary imprint Manilla, coming at the end of the year from Bonnier Books UK. Matt Phillips becomes publisher of non-fiction imprints Blink and John Blake. Awards Romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice is launching an award for excellence in romantic fiction sponsored by Sony Pictures Television, with winners to be named on Valentine’s Day 2020. Up to 12 winners will receive a cash prize of $1,000, as well as a $100 donation in their name to the charity of their choice. Penguin Random House has offered a second round of […]
Booker Longlist All But Omits Americans
As the tipsters suggested when we first published ahead of the official release, the Booker Prize longlist all but entirely spurns work by Americans for the first time since they started accepting nominations from beyond the Commonwealth in 2014. One candidate, Lucy Ellmann, is American-born, though she has lived in the UK since she was a teenager, now residing in Scotland, and is classified as Anglo-American. She’s in contention for Ducks, Newburyport, a 1,000-page monologue composed almost entirely of a single sentence. (It was published in the UK by Galley Beggar Press; the US edition is forthcoming from Biblioasis.) Up […]
Forthcoming Booker Longlist Said to Shut Out Americans For the First Time Since Rule Change
Since the Booker Prize first started accepting nominations from beyond the Commonwealth in 2014, American authors have claimed a healthy portion of the annual longlist: Four slots in 2014, five in 2015 and 2016 (when Paul Beatty became the first American to win the prize); four in 2017; and 3 in 2018. When Crankstart took over from The Man Group as the prize sponsor earlier this year, there was renewed hope from the UK that they would get their prize back and not have to face competition from the US, though the Booker Foundation indicated there would be no changes. […]