Following internet rumors, the LAT says that Penguin Press has confirmed that they will publish a new novel by Thomas Pynchon in August 2009.LAT
New Releases/Forthcoming
Keep Knitting
Putnam has announced that Kate Jacobs’ The Friday Night Knitting Club has over 1 million copies in print after 38 straight weeks on the NYT trade paperback fiction list, with a sequel volume KNIT TWO now setfor publication on November 25. It was just about a year ago that Jacobs’ former agent Barbara Zitwer announced that she would take over the series and write two sequels for Grand Central. At the time, Zitwer told us, “I wanted to create a series and to write the sequels and keep the series growing and Kate very much wanted to write something new […]
Will Buffett Book SNOWBALL?
A little like Warner’s launch of Jack Welch’s first book right after 9/11, Bantam faces uncertainty as their expensive authorized biography of legendary investor Warren Buffett releases next Monday in the midst of what Buffett himself calls an “economic Pearl Harbor.” Will current conditions make readers hungrier than ever for insights into one of the greatest investors ever, or leave them with no appetite for personal details about one of the world’s richest men? Time magazine appears to have had the first official look at the book, which they say “reveals that in his personal life, the Oracle of Omaha […]
Scholastic Announces Deathy Hallows Paperback
The final Potter novel, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, will release on July 7, 2009 from Scholastic, just under two years after the hardcover publication, priced at $14.95. With an announced first printing of 2 million copies, Scholastic says the total of Potter books in print in the US will reach 143 million copies. Separately, Amazon announced that for Rowling’s next charity book, THE TALES OF BEETLE THE BARD, they will provide December 4 release-day delivery for the standard shipping price on pre-orders (and free for their “prime” members). They anticipate first-day orders for “hundreds of thousands” of copies.
A "Feast" of Lincoln Books
“At least 50 titles about Lincoln are due out between next month and early 2010, not counting those recently published,” the Boston Globe notes, with the bicentennial of his birth on Feburary 12, including “at least seven children’s books.” Simon & Schuster editorial director Alice Mayhew says, “People are hungry for details about Lincoln. He’s clearly the greatest hero, with a poignance and a sadness – what he had to endure as president and in his personal life.”Globe
Sparks Writes for Both Grand Central and Miley Cyrus
Nicholas Sparks’s new novel, for publication in fall 2009, is being written simultaneously with the author’s own adaptation of that story as a starring vehicle for Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus (Offspring Entertainment is producing, for Walt Disney Pictures). Sparks had pitched “a premise for a novel that intrigued Cyrus, her family and the producers,” Variety says, though no details are being shared. Sparks says, “This is similar to the way it’s gone with movies based on my novels; it’s just out of order. Certain opportunities garner your interest, and this was one of those.”Variety