Small Island is Big Winner For whatever reason, the UK’s Whitbread Award tends to honor the favorite much more than other British prizes. Thus 4/5 candidate Andrea Levy claimed the overall prize for SMALL ISLAND, making her the first person to win both the Orange and the Whitbread for the same book. Levy noted in accepting the award: “I’m just happy this money [25,000 pounds] will enable me to write a new book.” Head of the judging panel Sir Trevor McDonald called it, “A brilliantly observed novel of a period of English history that many people seem not to know […]

Counting Harry Scholastic has provided a page count for HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: 672 pages. A “special edition,” priced at $60, will have an extra 32-page insert with black and white art. Scholastic page Self-Published Treasure Trove The AP picks up on the surprise success of Michael Stadther’s self-published A TREASURE’S TROVE, a Masquerade-esque story that provides clues to 12 hidden gold tokens (which entitle the winners to 12 jewel-encrusted creatures). He reports selling 100,000 copies of books in three editions relating to the hunt. (Midpoint is distributing, and agent Bob Diforio reports over 300,000 copies in print […]

Award News of All Sorts The National Book Critics Circle can usually be counted on for a pretty traditional list of award nominees that corresponds closely to books that have received a lot of review attention during the previous year. In years when the National Book Award list has been particularly idiosyncratic — like this one — the expectedness of the NBCCs turns into a news hook. This year, a number of news stories also highlight the nomination for Bob Dylan. Also, as author of THE WISDOM OF CROWDS James Surowiecki might tell us, the NBCC nominees and winners are […]

New Generation for AMP; New Exec for Regan; And More Andrews McMeel Publishing has announced that as of the end of the year, longtime president and CEO Thomas Thornton will retire from that post — which he has held since 1987 — to be succeeded by scion Hugh T. Andrews (son of co-founder Jim Andrews and parent company Andrews McMeel Universal vice chairman Kathleen Andrews). Andrews, who has been vp of sales and marketing at the company, will remain evp of Andrews McMeel Universal. As part of the transition, on July 1 Andrews will take the titles of president and […]

No Change for Penguin Authors Here’s a shocker: in their follow-up meeting with authors’ representatives, Penguin UK “has rejected demands from some of Britain’s best-known authors for compensation after sales of their books were hit by a distribution crisis,” the Independent reports. Penguin argued that 2004 sales figures were solid; thus “it said that authors as a whole would therefore not be offered recompense but it would consider individual cases from writers who believe they had been particularly affected.” Independent Booker to Try It NBA-Style? While American awards covet the influence of British prizes like the Booker, Booker organizers are […]

Penguin Still Suffers In a preliminary market update in advance of their end-of-February reporting of earnings, Pearson advised that the Penguin Group still “suffered as tough trading conditions persisted through the holiday season, particularly in U.S. mass market and backlist titles.” Pearson expects earnings per share for the year to come in at the low end of forecasts, with the strong pound continuing to take its toll on the company’s significant US sales. Separately, we noticed this curiously underplayed note in the most recent issue of The Bookseller: “Penguin will not fulfill orders from its Rugby depot from 30th january […]