The metadata posted last month made Uwem Akpan’s SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THEM the odds-on favorite as Oprah Winfrey’s new book club selection (a Little, Brown book, available in 14.99 paperback and 23.99 hardcover editions). The Washington Post confirmed it yesterday, saying that additional information was accidentally leaked. The first version of the story named Ingram as the leaker; the version in today’s paper simply blames a “book distribution company.” Oprah Winfrey Show spokesperson Angela DePaul told the Post, “We don’t comment on advance speculation. Oprah announces her book club selections on her show and shares her reasons for choosing […]
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Sources Say Google and Plaintiffs Are Talking to Justice About Settlement Modifications
Citing two anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported last night that the parties are in discussions with the Justice Department in advance of tomorrow’s deadline for the DOJ to file their views on the Google Books Settlement case with Judge Denny Chin. “The discussions are aimed at modifying the settlement in ways that ease Justice Department concerns that the deal would let Google discourage other companies from competing for access to the books online, said one of the people.” Meanwhile, Google ceo Eric Schmidt tries a little pro-active public relations. In an interview with Search Engine Land he mostly addresses the specious […]
Shortlists and More
The FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year shortlist was announced, comprising: Lords of Finance, by Liaquat AhamedGood Value, by Stephen GreenImagining India, by Nandan NilekaniThe Match King, by Frank PartnoyAnimal Spirits, by George Akerlof and Robert ShillerIn Fed We Trust, by David Wessel The winner will be named October 29. And the Center for Fiction (formerly the Mercantile Center) announced the shortlist for their first novel prize (formerly the John Sargent Sr. prize): American Rust, by Philipp MeyerThe Cradle, by Patrick SomervilleTinkers, by Paul HardingThe Vagrants, by Yiyun LinWoodsburner, by John Pipkin Also, nature-reference publisher Waterford Press will move […]
Business Briefs: Quercus Still Losing Money; Hachette Can't Sell Chambers Harrap; MacAdam/Cage Hopes Money Troubles Will Ease by November
Riding a strong run for Stieg Larsson, the UK’s Quercus said sales for the first six months were up by more than 50 percent to 5.55 million pounds–but they still lost over 260,000 pounds. Chief executive Mark Smith tells the Bookseller they are almost paying authors on time now: “We’re pretty much there with catching up with [the agents]. We have made great headway in dealing with that issue.”Report Also in the UK, after failing to sell dictionary line Chambers Harrap, Hachette is closing the units Edinburgh office and eliminate up to 27 jobs, the Bookseller reports. They will merge […]
Dan Brown Has A New Book Coming; The NYT Keeps Breaking Embargoes
Last night the NYT broke the embargo on Dan Brown’s THE LOST SYMBOL, posting Janet Maslin’s review (which runs in today’s print edition). She likes this “rip-snorting adventure. As Browniacs have long predicted, the chase involves the secrets of Freemasonry and is set in Washington, where some of those secrets are built into the architecture and are thus hidden in plain sight…. Within this book’s hermetically sealed universe, characters’ motivations don’t really have to make sense; they just have to generate the nonstop momentum that makes ‘The Lost Symbol’ impossible to put down.” (Maslin’s most quoted graph is bafflingly nonsensical: […]
Menaker Looks Book at Publishing's "Negative Culture"
Former Random House executive editor-in-chief (he admits to conjuring the odd title in a dream) Daniel Menaker writes in the Barnes & Noble Review a series of observations about modern publishing, concluding, “I have to say I’m glad to have left this all behind, except in the tranquility of recollection.” Menaker starts by describing how “publishing is often an extremely negative culture” and the 12-point list primarily recounts negatives. “The sheer book-length nature of books combined with the seemingly inexorable reductions in editorial staffs and the number of submissions most editors receive, to say nothing of the welter of non-editorial […]