BTW News Briefs

Outstanding New England Sales Rep to Be Recognized

On Tuesday, August 17, the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) announced that John Muse was named the recipient of the 2004 Saul Gilman Award for outstanding New England Sales representative. Presented annually, the Gilman Awards were established in 1990 to recognize outstanding service to independent bookstores in New England by publishers' sales representatives. The award is accompanied by a $1,000 grant from NEBA to a literacy organization chosen by the winner.

Muse began his career as a publisher's sales representative in 1985 for Macmillan Publishing in western New England and remained in that role until Simon & Schuster purchased the company in 1993. He was then hired by S&S in January 1994 to be the sales representative for S&S adult books in New England. After a brief hiatus with National Book Network, he returned to S&S. Presentation of the award takes place Friday, October 8, at the "Industry Luncheon" during the New England Booksellers Association Trade Show at the World Trade Center in Boston.

Half Price Books Purchases Penguin Archive

The Austin, Texas-based Half Price Books, a new and used bookstore chain, recently announced that it had purchased a Penguin archive of some 100,000 titles from Penguin's British publishing house. In addition, Half Price Books has made 5,000 collectible Penguin Books, which were a part of the Penguin archive storage, available for sale exclusively on Abebooks.com. These books include paperback copies of books by Isaac Asimov, D.H. Lawrence, Iris Murdoch, George Orwell, John Buchan and James Joyce, some of which include notes written by Penguin's editorial staff.