Ibrahim Ahmad will join Viking as executive editor starting January 11, reporting to Andrea Schulz. He was previously editorial director at Akashic Books, where he worked for two decades. Selena James has joined Amazon Publishing as senior editor for Little A and Amazon Original Stories. She was previously at Kensington. Stephanie Purcell will join Bloomsbury UK…
More Best of 2020: NYT, Time, Oprah Magazine
The New York Times released its 100 notable books list, with its top 10 still to come. Elsewhere, Oprah Magazine published their 20 best titles. Titles by Kawai Strong Washburn, Raven Leilani, and Danielle Evans are excerpted and available for download in our Buzz Books 2020 samplers. The complete list: African American Poetry, edited by…
Stuart’s Shuggie Bain Wins Booker Prize
Douglas Stuart’s novel Shuggie Bain (Grove/Picador) was awarded the £50,000 Booker Prize, in a virtual ceremony on Thursday afternoon. Chair of judges Margaret Busby said in part: ‘Shuggie Bain is destined to be a classic — a moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values…. The poetry in Douglas…
Best of 2020: Washington Post, Amazon, and Indigo
The Washington Post released its year end books package on Thursday, including its top 10 Best Books of the 2020 list: Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson Hidden Valley Road, by Robert Kolker Memorial Drive, by Natasha Trethewey Unworthy Republic, by Claudio Saunt Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter Hamnet, by Maggie…
NAIBA Board Pauses to Acknowledge Covid Exhaustion, Shares Tools for Indies
Despite many positive indicators that publishing has rebounded amidst the pandemic, there is a parallel reality: Many in the bookselling community have continued to struggle, and the challenges have grown as the country faces the potential of more retail limitations or shutdowns during the critical holiday season. The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association sent an…
People, Etc.
In advance of the sale of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade division, senior executive editor Rick Wolff recently accepted a voluntary buyout package, and he will leave HMH in mid-December. Wolff, “who has no plans to retire, was a minor league baseball player in the Detroit Tigers organization before entering book publishing.” At Harper Christian and…
