Over the weekend pieces from the NYT, WSJ, and the AP filled in some blanks about the discovery of Harper Lee’s GO SET A WATCHMAN and how cognizant Lee is about the novel’s forthcoming publication on July 14. Though the Harper Collins press release from last week said the manuscript was discovered last fall, Lee’s lawyer Tonja Carter tells the NYT via emails and texts that she found the work “in late summer.” When Carter visited Lee and asked her about the manuscript and if it was finished: “She said: ‘Complete? I guess so. It was the parent of MOCKINGBIRD.” Separately, the WSJ reports that foreign rights […]
New Releases/Forthcoming
Buzz Books for Spring/Summer, and Winter Institute: Fiction
As usual, our free adult spring/summer Buzz Books ebook sampler opens with Sarah Weinman’s broader surveys of over 100 notable books from the forthcoming season. This is the second portion of those overviews, which we are running in advance of the ABA’s annual Winter Institute next week in Asheville, NC. (Added to the Winter Institute mix this year is genuine early interest in and promotion for two fall titles, debut fiction from Garth Risk Halberg and Bill Clegg. Both will be shared as WI galleys, which will make things interesting when they are positioned as hot BEA titles later this year.) You can […]
More Details From Harper and Nurnberg On Forthcoming Harper Lee Novel
The rediscovery and forthcoming publication of Harper Lee’s GO SET A WATCHMAN dominated Tuesday’s cultural news cycle, as excitement over the novel, said to have been written in the 1950s and set 20 years after the events depicted in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, was played against some skepticism over Lee’s current condition and how the manuscript was found. Two representatives from Lee’s publisher Harper Collins shared thoughts and background with the media. Harper vp, publisher Jonathan Burnham told NBC the company “instantly read it, devoured it” while asserting his confidence the manuscript was, in fact, Lee’s: “Everyone had believed it to been lost, […]
Buzz Books for Spring/Summer and Winter Institute: Nonfiction
As usual, our free adult spring/summer Buzz Books ebook sampler opens with Sarah Weinman’s broader surveys of over 100 notable books from the forthcoming season. We’ll be running portions of those overviews the next couple of days in advance of the ABA’s annual Winter Institute next week in Asheville, NC. You can read the complete previews anytime in the new editions of Buzz Books, and start reading exclusive pre-publication excerpts of almost 40 forthcoming adult titles and over 25 YA and middle grade books. In today’s installment, we look at forthcoming nonfiction. And also as usual, publication dates may have changed, […]
True: Harper Lee to Publish Second Novel with Harper
The AP reported on Tuesday that HarperCollins will issue Harper Lee’s second novel, GO SET A WATCHMAN, on July 14, with a planned North American first printing of 2 million copies. The book is “essentially a sequel” to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, though it was written first. The 304-page book was “rediscovered last fall.” The 88-year-old Lee says in a statement: “In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called ‘Go Set a Watchman.’ It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to […]
Pat Strachan Leads Editorial At Start Up Publisher Catapult
Former Little, Brown editor Pat Strachan has joined publishing start up Catapult as editor in chief, with the company launching in September 2015, distributed by PGW. Padgett Powell’s story collection Cries for Help, Various is the first title, followed by Gavin McCrea’s first novel, Mrs. Engels in October. Both manuscripts will be shared with booksellers at next week’s Winter Institute, and by spring 2016 Catapult expects to publish 12 titles a year. Strachan says in the announcement: “Catapult will promote American and international fiction and narrative nonfiction that is alive, insightful, illuminating, stirring, and surprising by way of singular writers—whether emerging or established—who […]