BTW News Briefs

After Police Investigation, Bookstore Pulls Adult Magazines

Following a police investigation after some residents complained that a Cullman, Alabama, bookstore had been displaying and illegally selling "obscene materials," the store, Books-A-Million, decided to clear its shelves of all adult magazines, as reported by the Cullman Times.

The Cullman Times article noted that Cullman County District Attorney Len Brooks said "a criminal investigation is on-going in regard to complaints that Playboy and Playgirl magazines were being sold at the bookstore in the Cullman Shopping Center." However, the article continued, Books-A-Million's President Sandra B. Cochran wrote a letter to Brooks insisting that placement of the magazines in their store had been a mistake, and, furthermore, that they had removed the magazines from the shelves. The Cullman Times quotes Brooks as saying that his office would continue to doing everything in its power to "maintain and improve these standards in the future," including the continued "investigation and prosecution of magazines such as these being sold in Cullman County."

National Book Critics Circle Chooses Award Nominees

On January 19, the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced its award nominees for the publishing year 2003 in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, biography/autobiography, criticism, and poetry. The awards ceremony will take place on Thursday, March 4, at the auditorium of New York City's New School, 66 West 12 Street, at 6:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The nominees in the fiction category are:

• Monica Ali, Brick Lane (Scribner)
  
• Edward P. Jones, The Known World (Amistad/HarperCollins)
  
• Caryl Phillips, A Distant Shore (Knopf)
  
• Richard Powers, The Time of Our Singing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  
• Tobias Wolff, Old School (Knopf)
  

For a full list of NBCC finalists, go to www.bookcritics.org/2003Finalists.htm.

National Book Foundation Announces 2004 Gold Medal Tour

On January 20, the National Book Foundation announced that the winners of the 2003 National Book Awards in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people's literature will travel to libraries and schools in three cities along the East Coast for this year's "Gold Medal Tour." All events at which the four distinguished authors discuss their careers as writers and participate in question and answer sessions with readers are presented free of charge.

The tour kicks off on Wednesday, February 18, at 6:30 p.m. with An Evening With the Winners at the Celeste Bartos Forum of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. On Thursday, February 19, at 7:30 p.m., a second Evening with the Winners will be hosted by the Princeton (New Jersey) Public Library at The Jewish Center at 435 Nassau Street.

The tour will travel to Washington, D.C., in the spring, with details to be announced. More detailed information regarding these events are listed at www.nationalbook.org.

Penguin Group Names New Nonfiction Imprint

Laureen Rowland, publisher of Penguin Group's new adult hardcover nonfiction imprint, which she founded in May 2003, has announced that the imprint will be called Hudson Street Press and will publish its first titles in winter 2005.

When fully mature, Hudson Street Press will publish 30 hardcover nonfiction titles per year. Penguin Group's Plume imprint will publish Hudson Street Press's titles in trade paperback.