News from The Bookseller

Evergreens mark 1,000 weeks in TCM Last week two books—Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Puffin) and Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Walker)—achieved a unique feat, notching up their 1,000th week in BookScan’s Total Consumer Market Top 5,000. The two books are the UK book trade’s only remaining Evergreens: titles which have never fallen out of the TCM Top 5,000 since records began.

PRH commercial director Waters to leave Penguin Random House UK’s group commercial director, Nigel Waters, is to leave the business at Easter. The company is still working out where Waters’ team will report, and an announcement about some new roles and responsibilities is to follow in the coming weeks, PRH said.  Ian Hudson, deputy c.e.o. of PRH UK, said Waters had decided over Christmas that "the time had come to try something new and we have reluctantly agreed”.

Bookseller Johns expands West Country portfolio Ron Johns above is to open a fourth bookshop, adding to his portfolio of West Country outlets.  The book trade veteran will open his latest shop in Dartmouth’s bustling Foss Street, 12 years after he opened his last venture, in St Ives.

Booksellers see surge in To Kill A Mockingbird sales Sales of To Kill a Mockingbird have increased by 1,000% at Waterstones and 500% at Blackwell’s Oxford since the news of a second novel by Harper Lee was announced. Penguin Random House’s William Heinemann, part of the Cornerstone division, will publish Go Set a Watchman, a novel written by Lee before she penned To Kill a Mockingbird and featuring some of the same characters, this summer.

National digital library network gets £30k funding A project to create a national digital network for all public libraries in England has begun, with a £30,000 grant from Arts Council England. The creation of a unified digital platform for library resources, including book catalogues and IT training, was one of the recommendations of the Sieghart report into public libraries. The Society of Chief Librarians (SCL), which is leading the project, has appointed Canadian firm BiblioCommons to begin research in the project, with the first phase expected to be completed at the end of March.

Laura Bates signs two more with S&S Simon & Schuster has signed two more books from Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates, in a deal for UK and Commonwealth rights. Commissioning editor Abigail Bergstrom signed the rights from Elinor Cooper at Rochelle Stevens & Co. The Everyday Sexism project has collated more than 80,000 person stories documenting sexism, harassment, discrimination and abuse. A book of the same name was released last year, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Books of the Year and Political Book Awards Polemic of the Year.