This week! Books!
It was a big week in the book world! Congrats to the National Book Award winners!
- Fiction: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
- Nonfiction: The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Tamara Payne and Les Payne
- Poetry: DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi
- Translated literature: Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles
- Young People’s Literature: King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender
And congrats to Douglas Stuart, who won the Booker Prize for Shuggie Bain.
Walter Mosely was honored at the National Book Award event with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Read his incredible acceptance speech.
We Need Diverse Books is partnering with Penguin Random House for a promotion where if you buy a book directly from Penguin Random House, they’ll donate one book for the WNDB in the Classroom program!
The New York Times released their 100 Notable Books of the Year in a really beautiful format. Lots of good covers this year too.
Soon-to-be-former President Trump’s hypothetical presidential memoir poses a dilemma for publishers, who are already thinking about editorial standards, fact checking (which contrary to popular belief is not a common practice for books), and potential blowback from authors and employees.
Another big domino in the trend of publishing industry consolidation looks set to fall as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (which owns HarperCollins) and Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House have emerged as the top bidders for Simon & Schuster, which is currently owned by ViacomCBS. Is the Big 5 (which used to be the Big 6) about to become the Big 4?
Meanwhile, in France, authors are protesting the COVID-related forced closure of bookstores as a moral outrage, and are offering to pay their lockdown fines.
How come that one author got all that money? An explanation from agent Kate McKean.
And a great reminder from agent Jessica Faust that the best things in life and writing happen outside of your safe zone.
This week in bestsellers
Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):
Adult print and e-book fiction:
- The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly
- A Time for Mercy by John Grisham
- The Sentinel by Lee Child and Andrew Child
- Marauder by Clive Cussler and Boyd Morrison
- Fortune and Glory by Janet Evanovich
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- Humans by Brandon Stanton
- Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
- Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
- First Principles by Thomas E. Ricks
- Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
Young adult hardcover:
- Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Middle grade hardcover:
- The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling
- Rowley Jefferson’s Awesome Friendly Adventure by Jeff Kinney
- This is Your Time by Ruby Bridges
- The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate
- The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
This week on the blog
Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:
In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:
And keep up with the discussion in all the places!
And finally, 2020 got the Rockefeller Plaza Christmas tree it deserves:
Have a great weekend!
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