Lessing Wins Nobel A jubilant HarperCollins booth at Frankfurt was celebrating the naming of Doris Lessing, 87, as the new Nobel laureate for literature. Harper published her most recent book, THE CLEFT, this summer, and has an extensive paperback backlist of Lessing through Perennial. The company publishes Lessing in the UK as well. Evans is represented by UK-based agent Anne Evans at the Jonathan Clowes Agency. Judges praised her for her “skepticism, fire and visionary power.” Once again, all the “favorites” were passed over. Just earlier today, the AP was tipping Philip Roth, Amos Oz, and Haruki Murakami. And now […]

NBA Finalists If you haven’t already seen the lists, the National Book Award finalist were announced this morning: Fiction Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown & Company) Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Jim Shepard, Like You’d Understand, Anyway (Alfred A. Knopf) Nonfiction Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying (Alfred A. Knopf) Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA) Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (Hill and […]

Hachette Will Widget Hachette Book Group USA is developing an OpenBook program to provide browsable and searchable online access to their titles, accompanied by book widgets. In keeping with model of other such publishers as Random House and HarperCollins, individuals will be able to search books in their entirety, and view a percentage of the text. The are working with LibreDigital as their technology partner, using their digital warehouse product. The company’s vp of digital media Maja Thomas says it’s “one initiative in our ongoing digital strategy, which includes planned upgrades to our Digital Asset Management system and the state-of-the-art […]

Literature Nobel Timed for Frankfurt The Swedish Academy announced on Friday that the 2007 Nobel Laureate for Literature will be named this Thursday, October 11, at 1 PM Stockholm time. “Odds-makers [are] tipping well-tried names to take a prize that often goes to the obscure or controversial.” One British bookmaker ranks the favorites in this order: Italian novelist and essayist Claudio Magris; Australian “bush” poet Les Murray; Philip Roth; Swedish poet Thomas Transtromer; and perennial contender Syrian-Lebanese poet Adonis. Reuters says Ladbrokes has “called it right for three years running with the leader in its wagering winning the Nobel, including […]

A Big Batch With Frankfurt coming, our weekly round-up is at record strength, with 180 deals in all. Keep reporting your transactions and we’ll keep sharing them, throughout the Fair week and beyond. Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice […]

Hot Blair and Frankfurt Dreams The selling of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s memoir is just one of the many deals in progress making news as the industry readies itself for next week’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Though Blair is said to have met with some publishers and discussions are actively underway with the major publishing groups that have strong US and UK divisions (and other US/UK alliances), participants in the process do not expect a deal to close any time soon, and certainly not until after the book fair. A world English sale is considered a given at this point, […]