As Borders ceo Mike Edwards recently leaked in part, Monday morning at BEA the Kobo executive team announced their new ereader — a $129.99 model with an eInk Pearl screen—which raises the bar for tomorrow’s announced features and price point for Barnes & Noble’s expected touchscreen ereader. Kobo will have the new model on display starting tomorrow at their BEA booth, and visitors to Borders’ Columbus Square location can test it out between noon and 2 PM Tuesday. Kobo says the new model will ship in early June, though Borders’ release says it won’t ship until July. Kobo’s wi-fi model will […]
New Releases/Forthcoming
Michael Crichton’s Last Book, Finished By Robert Preston, Set for November
When Michael Crichton died in November 2008 he was working on another thriller. At the time, Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham told us that he left behind approximately 90 manuscript pages of a novel-in-progress, along with detailed notes for the rest of the book. The following spring an assistant discovered a different, completed Crichton manuscript that was published later that year as PIRATE LATITUDES. Now HarperCollins has announced publication this fall for the completed version of that manuscript Crichton was working on before he died. Completed by Richard Preston, it will be published as MICRO, about a biotech company in Hawaii […]
On the Way: Trump and Townshend
Though not yet confirmed, RealClearPolitics claims that Donald Trump is working on a “policy book” in connection with his potential presidential ambitions that Regnery has “tentatively” set for late-summer publication. They say that Regnery’s Harry Crawford will edit the manuscript, “which will be heavily ghostwritten, with Trump playing a supporting role in generating content.” More certain is that guitarist for The Who Pete Townshend is working on a memoir, currently titled PETE TOWNSHEND: WHO HE?, that agent Ed Victor is currently auctioning. Townshend has met with the finalists and the auction is expected to conclude next week. Waterstone’s spokesman Jon […]
Children’s Edition of ‘Heaven Is For Real’ Due In November, As Sony Acquires Film Rights
Thomas Nelson will publish a children’s edition of Todd Burpo & Lynn Vincent’s bestseller HEAVEN IS FOR REAL on November 9, priced at $14.99. The book has sold over 2 million copies and spent the past 17 weeks at #1 on the NYT non-fiction bestseller list. The new edition, titled HEAVEN IS FOR REAL FOR KIDS, will include illustrations by Wilson Ong, a Q&A for children and a prayer page. In related news, Sony Pictures has acquired film rights to the book, with Joe Roth and T.D. Jakes slated to produce. Roth told Deadline he became curious about HEAVEN IS […]
Publishers Line Up Instant eBooks on Bin Laden Death
President Obama’s announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death Sunday was followed quickly by book publishers planning what they could issue digitally as quickly as possible. The WSJ reports that Random House executive editor Jon Meacham will oversee and write the introduction for “Beyond Bin Laden: America and the Future of Terror,” an essay collection featuring a half-dozen other contributors that the publisher hopes to release as an ebook next week. (One essay that seems certain to be included is Salman Rushdie’s op-ed published by The Daily Beast yesterday.) In addition, Free Press is “eager” for a digital book on the […]
Life with Harper Lee Publishers Shares Confirmation from Alice Lee
On Tuesday The Penguin Press announced their acquisition of Marja Mills’s THE MOCKINGBIRD NEXT DOOR: LIFE WITH HARPER LEE, saying it was written with “direct access to Harper and Alice Lee” and their friends and family. But the next day, the NYT reported on a statement from the Alabama law firm, Barnett, Bugg, Lee & Carter, signed by Harper Lee (who celebrated her 85th birthday yesterday). It read: “Contrary to recent news reports, I have not willingly participated in any book written or to be written by Marja Mills. Neither have I authorized such a book. Any claims otherwise are […]