BTW News Briefs

CBC Names New Executive Director

The Board of Directors of the Children's Book Council (CBC) has announced the appointment of Robin Adelson as the organization's executive director, effective September 18.

Adelson is currently associate general counsel at Primedia, Inc., where she is responsible for copyright, trademark, and operational issues relating to both traditional publishing and new media. She is a graduate of McGill University, the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, and New York University Law School.

San Francisco Health Care Bill Signed Into Law

On August 7, San Fransisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed into law legislation that seeks to provide affordable health insurance to the city's approximately 82,000 uninsured adult residents. The bill, the San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance, which amends the city's administrative code, establishes the Health Access Program (HAP) for the uninsured and will require that medium-sized and large employers in San Francisco spend a minimum amount per hour on health care for their employees. The bill is scheduled to go into effect in January and city officials expect to see the program's first enrollees by July 2007, the Bay Area Reporter noted.

The Bay Area Reporter also noted that "some city business owners" fear that they will not be able to afford the co-payments that will fund HAP and reported that there is talk of "possible litigation against the plan's implementation." (Read a previous BTW article.)

NAIBA Announces Booksellers' Favorites

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association has announced its Books of the Year, those books chosen as the favorites among the booksellers in the NAIBA region this past year. The winning authors are invited to the Breakfast of Champions on Sunday, September 17, at the NAIBA Tradeshow to receive their awards.

Here is the NAIBA list of favorites:

• Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala (HarperCollins)
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster)
• Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor, Robin Preiss Glaser (illustrator) (HarperCollins)
• Rebel Angels by Libba Bray (Delacorte)

Knopf's Fisketjon Wins 2006 Maxwell E. Perkins Award

The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction has awarded the 2006 Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction to Gary Fisketjon, vice president and editor-at-large at Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

Announcing the winner, Noreen Tomassi, executive director of the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction, said, "The creation of the Vintage Contemporaries series was a landmark event in fiction publishing in America, and Gary also has an incredible track record working with some of the finest American writers. The Maxwell Perkins Award was presented for the first time last year to Nan A. Talese, and we can't imagine a more appropriate recipient for the second award than Gary Fisketjon."