My former boss at Penguin Books, Peter Mayer to receive LBF award
report from The Bookseller , 25.02.08

Former Penguin boss Peter Mayer is to be awarded with a lifetime achievement award at this year's London Book Fair, following in the steps of Lord Weidenfeld, Christopher MacLehose, John Lyons, and Lynette Owen.

Mayer will pick up the fifth annual LBF/Trilogy Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing at the London Book Fair on Tuesday 15th April at a special reception in the Earls Court Conference Centre.The award, voted for by the London Book Fair's advisory board, was unanimously agreed after the merits of a shortlist of six international publishing figures were debated. This year's judges commented that Peter Mayer had made an outstanding lifelong contribution to the international publishing industry through his various roles including Penguin India.

From 1978 to 1996 he was the chairman and c.e.o. of the Penguin Group, based in London and New York. Since 1996 he has held the position of president and publisher of The Overlook Press and since 2003 he has been the president and publisher of Duckworth Publishers in the UK.Simon Master, chair of the advisory board, said: "Peter Mayer has long been an inspirational figure in the publishing industry both in the UK and overseas.

His dedication to British and international publishing has distinguished his career and makes him fully deserving of the London Book Fair/Trilogy Lifetime Achievement Award 2008."

FOOTNOTE

Bookman Beattie offers Peter his warmest congratulations. This is well-deserved honour for the huge contribution he has made to English language publishing around the world.

Mayer took over as CEO Penguin in London in 1978 several months after I had been appointed MD of Penguin New Zealand, taking over from Patrick Wright who returned to Penguin UK.

A week or so after his appointment he phoned me one Sunday and after exchanging brief pleasantries he cut to the chase and asked me how many titles we were publishing in NZ this year. When I said none and explained that we were just a book distribution company he was surprised and said, "well, that's about to change, I want you to publish at least six titles in the next twelve months and grow the list from there." The rest, as they say, is history.

He was a brilliant, lateral-thinking, imaginative, and dynamic publisher. He was also a demanding, often unreasonable boss with totally unrealistic ideas of the number of books that could be sold in New Zealand! But my goodness I learned a lot from him.

I last spoke to Peter at the Man Booker Prize dinner in London last October and apart from being somewhat greyer and heavier (aren't we all) our conversation could just as easily have been taking place 30 years ago.

And nice to be reminded that my late, very dear friend, and former Penguin colleague, John Lyon, is a former recipient of this award.