Wiley Purchases Sybex Wiley is buying computer book and software publisher Sybex, based in Alameda, CA. With revenues of over $10 million in 2004, Sybex publishes about 100 titles a year. The company’s backlist of about 450 titles focuses on graphics, digital photography, operating systems, programming, and gaming. Company release Logrolling at the Top: When Journalistic Institutions Take Care of Their Own NPR’s Scott Simon got to promote his first novel PRETTY BIRDS on the network’s Morning Edition and Fresh Air, and a number of listeners asked the NPR ombudsman if this wasn’t unseemly. VP of news Bruce Drake gives […]

Some PEN Winners Among the recipients of the just-announced PEN Literary Awards: The PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction The End of Faith by Sam Harris The PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn The PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize Fatelessness by Imre Kertész, translated by Tim Wilkinson The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship Amanda Jenkins The PEN Jerard Fund Award [for “a work in progress of general nonfiction distinguished by high literary quality by a woman at the midpoint in her career”] Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen […]

Putnam Adds Conaway and Kahan, Plus More Personnel News New Putnam president Ivan Held has moved quickly to bolster the imprint’s editorial staff, hiring Dan Conaway away from Harper as executive editor, and adding Rachel Kahan, who was at Crown since 1997, as a senior editor. Both will start at Putnam on June 1. Separately, Kris Puopolo has been given the new position of senior editor for Doubleday Broadway (she was at just Broadway), reporting to Bill Thomas and taking on additional responsibility for acquiring serious nonfiction for the Doubleday list. Puopolo already edits Pulitzer winner Anne Applebaum, along with […]

Huffington Posts Book News The new celeblog the Huffington Post launches today with an uncredited lead story highlighting Gerald Posner’s forthcoming SECRETS OF THE KINGDOM: The Inside Story of the Saudi-US Connection, scheduled for publication next week. They say the book cites NSA reports that Saudi Arabia has “a nationwide, self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and dirty bombs” installed throughout their oil industry infrastructure, dubbed “petroleum scorched earth.” The idea is to protect the House of Saud from attack, from outside the country but also from within, ensuring that any such incursion would “leave the country a contaminated […]

Book Sense June Picks The June picks and notables have been posted online. My wife can certainly vouch for this month’s number one pick — she devoured THE HISTORIAN over spring break and happily declared it one of the most enjoyable books she’s read in a long time. 1. THE HISTORIAN: A Novel, by Elizabeth Kostova DARK HARBOR, by David Hosp ZORRO: A Novel, by Isabel Allende THE THIRD SECRET: A Novel of Suspense, by Steve Berry IF YOU LIVED HERE, I’D KNOW YOUR NAME: News From Small-Town Alaska, by Heather Lende FREAKONOMICS: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side […]

Soft Quarter for Harper As part of News Corp.’s just-released third quarter results, sales at HarperCollins fell 6.5 percent compared to the same period last year, registering $300 million. Profits fell 17 percent, to $30 million for the quarter. The new results come in comparison to a particularly strong quarterly report for Harper a year ago, driven by THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE. News Corp. release Oprah Boosts You A Tuesday feature on the Oprah Winfrey show for Michael Roizen and Memhet Oz’s health reference YOU: The Owners Manual has lifted the book to the top position at both Amazon and BN.com. […]