Thursday, April 09, 2015

Latest news from the world of books with The Bookseller

UK booksellers have welcomed the news that Penguin Random House will release the final novel in Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series this September, saying it will sell “amazingly well”.
Danielle Culling, a bookseller at Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, said The Shepherd’s Crown will do “amazingly well and we’ll definitely create space for it in the shop, we have dedicated display cabinets and I’m sure we will use one of those to create a special display.”
Chloe Mavrommatis of Dulwich Books said the news is “very exciting but also very sad."
Trisha Ashley is to move from Avon to Transworld, with the publisher saying it will take her to “a whole new level in popular fiction”.
Editorial director Harriet Bourton acquired Commonwealth rights in four new frontlist titles by Ashley, as well as three backlist titles, from the Judith Murdoch Agency.
Transworld will begin publishing Ashley in autumn 2016, with a Bantam Press hardback, followed by a Black Swan paperback in spring 2017.
Kobo is set to launch a new e-reader in the UK on 1st June.
The Kobo Glo HD will offer “the highest resolution screen available on the market and at the lowest price,” according to the Canada-based e-reading company.
HarperCollins has appointed Grace Cheetham as interim publisher of Harper Non-Fiction, covering for publisher Natalie Jerome while she is on maternity leave.
Cheetham is currently publisher for food and drink at Watkins, where she has created her own list, Nourish. Cheetham has spent 20 years in food and drink, health and craft publishing, having previously worked as Element and Ebury Press. She is also a published cookery writer and blogger in her own right.
Neil Gaiman will pay tribute to the late Sir Terry Pratchett at this year’s Hay Festival.
Also appearing at this year’s festival are authors including Kazuo Ishiguro, David Mitchell, Graham Swift, Irvine Welsh, Rose Tremain, Elif Shafak, Alexander McCall Smith, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín and Marian Keyes.
Hay Festival, which is now in its 28th year, will include more than 700 events over the 11 days from Thursday 21st May to Sunday 31st May.
Roger Fox, former trade sales and marketing director at Octopus Publishing Group division Philip’s, has died.
Fox died suddenly on Thursday 2nd April at his home in Essex, aged 66.
He joined Philip’s in 1987 from Macmillan, where he had been a sales representative for nearly 20 years.

Fox, who was retired, played a “crucial role in developing Philip’s road and street atlas business into a market leader”.
German e-reading company txtr will be adopted as the e-book platform for German-based consumer electronics retailer Media-Saturn-Holding (MSH).
The Bookseller reported that Berlin-based txtr filed for insolvency proceedings in January, with a provisional administrator Olswang Restructuring Solutions appointed to oversee a sale.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has launched a website containing the world's largest collection of video content in its fields.
The IET.tv platform includes over 6,500 multidisciplinary videos, with 750 new ones to be added each year. The improved platform allows users to manipulate, share and download videos, and find related content through context-sensitive links. It also offers webinar and webcast features.
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (Picador) is among the six books shortlisted for this year’s Arthur C Clarke award for best science fiction novel.
Mandel’s much hyped post-apocalyptic title is shortlisted alongside two Orbit books, M R Carey’s The Girl With all the Gifts and Claire North’s The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.
Speak Up For Libraries has launched a manifesto ahead of the general election, calling on library users to make public libraries a central issue.
The umbrella organisation for library campaigners is asking candidates for election to sign up to a pledge when running for their seat, promising to  "give libraries a long-term future, with a vision for their future development and clear standards of service."
Two titles published by Catnip are shortlisted for this year’s Little Rebels Children’s Book Award, announced today (7th April) by organiser Letterbox Library.
Catnip’s Trouble on Cable Street by Joan Lingard, set in London during the rise of Mosley’s Blackshirts, and Girl With a White Dog by Anne Booth, which explores discrimination, are both shortlisted for the prize, which is for books for children aged 0-12 that celebrate or promote social justice.
Century has acquired the first book by London street artist Stik.
Stik came to notoriety as an underground street artist who painted life-size stick figures during the night around London’s East End.
His artwork Big Mother is the tallest piece of street art in the UK, covering the façade of a block of soon-to-be-demolished council flats in Acton, London.
During periods of homelessness Stik regularly worked as an artist's life model at the Royal Academy of Art and Central Saint Martin's, where he gained an “accidental education in fine art”.

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