BTW News Briefs

Egmont USA for Sale

On Thursday, October 2, Denmark-based Egmont Publishing Group, which employs 2,400 people across 30 countries, announced a new focus on investing in books and magazine businesses where it can hold a leading market position. One of the outcomes of its decision is to sell Egmont USA as a going concern and to exit its standalone position in the U.S.

“Since 2009, and starting from scratch, Egmont USA has built a Children’s Fiction and Young Adult Fiction list, and it has a strong plan for the future under the excellent leadership of Managing Director and Publisher Andrea Cascardi,” said Rob McMenemy, CEO of Egmont Publishing International. “The simple reason for selling the business is that it does not fit with the strategic position of Egmont Publishing only to invest in countries where we can have a market-leading position. The company has a highly talented and experienced team, a readymade fiction list and a growing backlist. This makes it an attractive proposition for a children’s publisher looking for scale or a publisher looking to develop a children’s book business.”

Egmont has engaged Broadwater & Associates LLC, a New York-based investment banking firm specializing in publishing and other media and information businesses, to handle the divestiture.

Authors Guild Seeks Investigation Into Amazon’s Practices

The Authors Guild met with Justice Department officials in early August to request a government investigation into whether Amazon is violating antitrust laws as it puts pressure on Hachette Book Group in a dispute over revenue from e-books, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The meeting took place after the Authors Guild e-mailed Bill Baer, head of the antitrust division of the Justice Department, requesting that the department open an investigation into Amazon. There is no indication if the government will take action.

Authors United, a separate group that includes more than 1,000 members, said it is preparing a letter to the Justice Department that will also request an investigation into Amazon’s business practices.

Persepolis Reinstated in Ball-Chatham Classrooms

On September 30, the Ball-Chatham Board of Education unanimously denied requests to remove Marjane Satrapi’s acclaimed Persepolis (Pantheon) from the 12th grade English IV curriculum in Glenwood High School. The decision was made shortly after the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the National Council of Teachers of English, and PEN American Center sent a letter to the School Board urging them to reinstate the book, reported NCAC.

Earlier this month, the book was pulled from classrooms mid-instruction, and against the Board’s formal policy, after a parent issued a complaint to the superintendent. Though a review committee formed after the removal determined that the graphic novel met district educational standards, the complainant requested to take the issue to the school board. The board’s decision to keep the graphic novel was final.

Kirkus Announces Finalists for 2014 Prize

On September 30, Kirkus Reviews announced the six finalists for the first annual Kirkus Prize in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers’ Literature. The winner in each category will receive a $50,000 prize. Panels composed of a writer, a bookseller or librarian, and a Kirkus critic selected the finalists and winners from among all titles published between November 1, 2013, and October 31, 2014, that earned a Kirkus starred review.

The finalists for the 2014 Kirkus Prize are:

FICTION:

• The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt (Simon & Schuster)
• Euphoria by Lily King (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu (Knopf)
• Florence Gordon by Brian Morton (Houghton Mifflin)
• The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach (Algonquin Books)
• The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (Riverhead)

NONFICTION:

• Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
• Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World by Leo Damrosch (Yale University Press)
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (Holt)
• The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science by Armand Marie Leroi (Viking)
• Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty (Harvard University Press)
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)

 YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE:

 Picture Books:

• The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet (Eerdmans)
• Aviary Wonders Inc.: Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth (Clarion)

 Middle Grade:

• El Deafo by Cece Bell (Amulet/Abrams)
• The Key That Swallowed Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

 Young Adult:

• The Story of Owen, Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnston (Carolrhoda Lab)
• The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell (Scholastic)

The winners will be announced at a special ceremony in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, October 23, 2014.

John Kenney Wins Thurber Prize for American Humor

John Kenney has won the 2014 Thurber Prize for American Humor for his book Truth in Advertising (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster). The announcement was made the evening of September 30 at Carolines on Broadway in New York City. The annual prize is presented by Thurber House, the national, nonprofit literary center located in the boyhood home of author, humorist, and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber in Columbus, Ohio, with support from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and a family fund at The Columbus Foundation.

The runners-up for the Thurber Prize were Liza Donnelly for Women on Men (Narrative Library) and Bruce McCall and David Letterman for This Land Was Made for You and Me (But Mostly Me) (Blue Rider Press).

The National Book Foundation Names 5 Under 35 for 2014

National Book Awards Week will kick off with the annual party to honor this year’s 5 Under 35 authors at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO, Brooklyn, on November 17. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, acclaimed musician and author of Mo’ Meta Blues, will host the event.

This year’s five honorees are:

• Yelena Akhtiorskaya, Panic in a Suitcase (Riverhead, July 2014)
  Selected by Aleksandar Hemon, 2008 National Book Award Finalist for The Lazarus Project

• Alex Gilvarry, From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant (Viking, January 2012)
  Selected by Amy Bloom, 1993 National Book Award Finalist for Come to Me

• Phil Klay, Redeployment (Penguin Press, March 2014)
  Selected by Andrea Barrett, 1996 National Book Award Winner for Ship Fever and Other Stories

• Valeria Luiselli, Faces in the Crowd (Coffee House Press, May 2014)
  Selected by Karen Tei Yamashita, 2010 National Book Award Finalist for I Hotel

• Kirstin Valdez Quade, Night at the Fiestas (W.W. Norton & Company, March 2015)
  Selected by Andre Dubus III, 1999 National Book Award Finalist for House of Sand and Fog