Oprah’s Magazine Adds Books The Oprah Magazine will produce an annual series of hardcover books, beginning with LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE: A Treasury of Wisdom, Wit, Advice, Interviews and Inspiration from O, in partnership with Oxmoor House. They’ll push hard in direct mail marketing and sell to the trade through their Sunset Books and Leisure Arts divisions. Orange Shortlist Old Filth, by Jane Gardam The Mammoth Cheese, by Sheri Holman A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka Liars and Saints, by Maile Meloy We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver Billie Morgan, by Joolz Denby […]

Morrison Back to Penguin Stephen Morrison will return to Penguin, where he worked from 2000 to 2003, taking the position of editor-in-chief and associate publisher, reporting to Kathryn Court. He starts in early May. Altruda Named President in Borders Shift Borders announced a realignment of top management, naming Vin Altruda as president of Borders Group US, responsible for “the customer experience and performance” of all domestic operations. Chief marketing officer Mike Spinozzi has been named chief product officer, continuing to oversee merchandising and supply chain in the US, and “as international operations continue to grow, he will spend a larger […]

Confirmed: Mobi Is In Amazon’s Pocket Subsequent to our initial report based on Franklin Electronic Publishing’s disclosure to the SEC of the sale of their stock in e-reading software company Mobipocket to Amazon, Lunch has confirmed via Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith that the company has acquired Mobipocket outright. Franklin was part of a group of minority shareholders, with a group of Mobipocket founders holding the majority of shares. The motivation behind the purchase, Smith says, “was mainly because they’ve got a great group of innovative engineers and we thought it was a smart move.” As to what Amazon might do […]

Schedule Note I’ll be at a publishing conference at Toronto’s Humber College on Thursday and Friday. Lunch will be served, but it may be on Canadian time. New Peterson Deal in the Making — And More A large number of publishers will be heading to the offices of Trident Media Group over the next few days for confidential reads of a 56-page book proposal from Sharon Rocha, the late Laci Peterson’s mother. According to a source familiar with proposal, it includes “personal information between a mother and daughter that hasn’t been revealed before.” Agent Dan Strone, who is representing the […]

Book Sense Winners Following their new protocol, the ABA announced the Book Sense Book of the Year Award winners today, though formal presentations will still be held at BEA. The winners are: Fiction JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL, by Susanna Clarke Nonfiction SHADOW DIVERS: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II, by Robert Kurson Children’s (Literature) CHASING VERMEER, by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist Children’s Illustrated DUCK FOR PRESIDENT, by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin For the first time, the organization also named four honor […]

Business Book Trends The Financial Times looks at the current state of business book publishing. Currency’s Roger Scholl says, “The market has forced us to be more discerning,” while Berrett-Koehler president Steve Piersanti remarks, “There has been a flight to the tried and true.” The FT says: “Readers appear to be more interested in turning to management classics than devoting time to the work of arrivistes. Publishers report a steady demand for titles such as Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline, now in its 15th year in print, and Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard’s One Minute Manager, published in 1981 and […]