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 deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace.com if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form   FICTION Sci-Fi/Fantasy Diana Paxson’s SWORD OF AVALON, a posthumous sequel to Marion Zimmer […]

Blair Bidding The auction for Tony Blair’s book begins on Monday, and one participant says that as many as 10 publishers (or allied US/UK companies) are expected to bid. Blair held meetings with publishers in both the US and UK (and most US publishers sent at least one representative to sit in on the UK round of meetings, too.) There is no formal proposal in circulation, though attorney Bob Barnett followed up with participating publishers recently with a short list of topics and themes that will be addressed in the book. The UK trade press has been circulating the notion […]

Plame Book Is Real; Embargo Isn’t (Any More) Valerie Plame’s book FAIR GAME: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House is arriving on schedule, and the AP bought a copy in advance of Tuesday’s laydown. “The book represents the first time that Plame has publicly discussed the scandal in detail. After a lengthy trial, an FBI investigation, countless news articles and congressional testimony, however, few revelations were left for Plame’s book. “Some of the details Plame had planned to offer, including discussion of her CIA career and her job responsibilities, are redacted in the book. Sometimes […]

Booker Record Intact; Enright Wins The Booker judges continued their streak of overlooking the bettors’ favorites, passing over Lloyd Jones and Ian McEwan to honor “the rank outsider” (Times) Anne Enright’s “exhilaratingly bleak” THE GATHERING and thumbing their collective noses at the British literary establishment along the way. Chair of the judging panel Howard Davies hailed Enright’s book as “a powerful, uncomfortable and even, at times, angry book… an unflinching look at a grieving family in tough and striking language.” Davies said it was “not everybody’s first choice,” but did call it “a choice with which all the judges were […]

Personnel News Former ceo of Blackwell Publishing, and chief operating officer of the merged Wiley-Blackwell STM publishing unit Rene Olivieri has resigned, the Bookseller reports. That unit has been run by Wiley’s Eric Swanson since the merger. Olivieri co-led the transition team along with Wiley Europe svp Stephen Smith following the company’s purchase of Blackwell last November. Borders has hired Anne Frazer for the new position of svp, merchandise planning, replenishment and allocation, “responsible for building, transforming and leading the planning, replenishment and allocation function.” Frazer was vp of inventory planning and replenishment for The Home Depot Release Walter Lorraine, […]

Next: The Booker The Booker Prize will be awarded tomorrow night, and Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip has risen to the bettors’ favorite, at 6-4 odds (aka 3-2). He started as a 20-1 longshot but now has overtaken Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. On the other hand, the “favourite” almost always loses. Among them: Last year Sarah Waters lost to Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss; Julian Barnes lost in 2005 to John Banville’s The Sea; David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas lost to Alan Hollinghurst’s Line of Beauty in 2004; Monica Ali and Margaret Atwood lost to DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little in […]