Nino Ricci won Canada’s Governor General’s award for fiction for his just-published novel ORIGIN OF SPECIES, and journalist Christie Blatchford won the non-fiction award for her book FIFTEEN DAYS: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army. (Both titles were edited by Doubleday Canada Editorial Director Martha Kanya-Forstner.) Rawi Hage’s COCKROACH was the only work of fiction nominated for all three of Canada’s top fiction prizes, but failed to win any of the top honors. Click below for all 14 Governor General winners (with prizes for writing in both English and French).CBC In the UK, […]
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Huckabee's Campaign Begins with A Book
Has the 2012 election season started? Mike Huckabee’s book DO THE RIGHT THING: Inside the Movement That’s Bringing Common Sense Back to America lands today, and most media interprets the book as the first part of an effort to build an Obama-esque movement among young conservatives for the next election. Time magazine leads: “in terms of payback, it will not disappoint. At once a memoir of his campaign, a treatise on the ills of the Republican Party and a blueprint for his own political future, Do the Right Thing is filled with sharp words for his fellow Republicans who frustrated […]
NY Judge Tentatively OKs Google Deal
While blog posts and press releases around the world have been full of carping about the proposed settlement of two lawsuits against Google related to their Book Search library project, the judge in the matter had a much simpler response: tentative approval. Judge John Sprizzo’s order was made public yesterday, and he set a June 11 date for a fairness hearing to “decide if the deal is fair, reasonable and adequate.” AP
People: Anderson Adds Children's Agency; Borders SVP Retires; and More
UK agent Darley Anderson has hired the former head of children’s at Borders, Becky Stradwick to build the client list of children’s book authors as part of a new offshoot, the Darley Anderson Children’s Literary Agency. Also in the UK, Robert Caskie has joined PFD as an agent. He was at MacFarlane Chard Associates, after six years at Capel & Land. SVP of merchandising for the children’s, multimedia (music and movies), newsstand, calendar and game categories at Borders Linda Jones will retire from the company December 19. She joined the company in 1995 as a merchandising director for Waldenbooks. Those […]
Hastings: "The Most Difficult Retail Environment We Have Ever Seen"
Hastings reported third quarter sales of $114 million, down six percent from a year ago. Leaving aside rental revenues, sales of merchandise were down 5.1 percent on a same-store sales basis. But books outperformed many of their other media categories, as “books comps increased 1 percent for the quarter, due to strong sales of new trade paperback as well as used trade paperback and used hardbacks, partially offset by lower sales of periodicals.” The company swung from a slim profit this time last year to a net loss of $3.7 million for the quarter. (That loss includes a special $400,000 […]
People: Shrinagesh Moves to RH India
Gaurav Shrinagesh will take over as managing director of Random House India, “responsible for the strategic development of the business and all publishing, operational, sales and marketing functions.” Shrinagesh has held a number of senior positions across Bertelsmann since joining the company in 1999. (Most recently he was the Hong Kong-based managing director for DSHK, part of the Direct Group.) Replacing Michael Moynahan, who is running HarperCollins ANZ, Shrinagesh will report to Brian Davies, md for overseas companies at Random UK.