BTW News Briefs

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

WNBA Announces National Reading Group Month Picks

The Women’s National Book Association has announced the 2013 Great Group Reads selections, featuring 21 titles, for National Reading Group Month, coming in October.

This year’s signature event will be at the Nashville Public Library on October 12 and will feature authors Jill McCorkle (Life After Life, Algonquin Books), Cathie Pelletier (The One-Way Bridge, Sourcebooks Landmark), John Milliken Thompson (Love and Lament, Other Press), Suzanne Rindell (The Other Typist, Amy Einhorn Books), and Margaret Wrinkle (Wash, Atlantic Monthly Press).

ABA members were sent information about National Reading Group Month in the September Red Box mailing. National Reading Group Month also offers a digital marketing kit, including bookmarks and shelf-talkers, for use in promoting the selections.

Changes Coming to the Man Booker Prize

Novels originally written in English, published in the U.K., and submitted by their U.K. publisher, regardless of the nationality of the author, will be considered for the Man Booker Prize beginning in 2014, trustees announced on Wednesday. The decision comes after 18 months of collecting opinions from writers, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, and others by an independent consulting team.

“We are embracing the freedom of English in its versatility, in its vigor, in its vitality and in its glory wherever it may be. We are abandoning the constraints of geography and national boundaries,” said Jonathan Taylor, chair of the Booker Prize Foundation.

Additionally, the number of books that publishers are able to submit will now range from one to five, depending on how many titles, if any, the publisher has seen longlisted in the previous five years.

Business Book of the Year Award Shortlist Announced

The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs have announced the shortlist for the 2013 Business Book of the Year Award. The titles on the list, now in its ninth year, provide insight into the modern business world. The shortlist includes:

  • The Alchemists: Inside the Secret World of Central Bankers, by Neil Irwin (The Penguin Press, Headline Business Plus)
  • Making it Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy, by Iain Martin (Simon & Schuster)
  • Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier (John Murray; Eamon Dolan Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • The Billionaire’s Apprentice: The Rise of The Indian-American Elite and The Fall of The Galleon Hedge Fund, by Anita Raghavan (Hachette Book Group/Business Plus)
  • Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg (WH Allen/Random House Group; Knopf)
  • The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, by Brad Stone (Transworld/Bantam Press; Little, Brown)

CEO Update Names ABA’s Teicher in Top CEO List

CEO Update, a publication and membership group following association news and executive careers, has named ABA’s Oren Teicher in its list of top association CEOs.

The article, published this month, noted that under Teicher’s tenure the American Booksellers Association’s membership has grown from 1,401 to 1,632 bookstores, and the association has taken on mega retailers Amazon and Overstock, fought for sales tax fairness, and developed a digital partnership with Kobo.

One nominator said of Teicher and ABA, “I can state for a fact that Amazon.com would not be collecting sales tax in any state in this country without ABA’s ability to organize grassroots lobbying efforts in the independent bookstore community,” CEO Update reported.

Winners of Glenn Goldman Bookseller Scholarship Named

Last Friday, the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association’s Glenn Goldman Bookseller Scholarship Fund committee announced the winners of two scholarships awarded annually to booksellers with a dedication to their bookselling careers in honor of Glenn Goldman, the founder of Book Soup in West Hollywood, California.

Suzanne Strawn of Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California, has won the SCIBA Trade Show Scholarship and Kris Vreeland of Once Upon A Time in Montrose, California, is the winner of the ABA Winter Institute Scholarship.

The decision-making panel included Adrian Newell of Warwick’s in La Jolla, California; John Evans of Diesel, A Bookstore, with four locations in California; and Tom Benton, secretary and treasurer of Penguin Group.