Modern Library To Choose 100 Best Nonfiction Titles at BEA
Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 1/11/1999
If you loved the literary storm generated by the Modern Library's list of the best English-language novels last year, you'll be pleased to learn there's a nonfiction list on the way this spring. In addition, the Modern Library has also expanded its board; is launching several new publishing series; and expanding into trade paperback publishing.David Ebershoff, its publishing director, told PW that the Modern Library, in conjunction with BookExpo America, will release its list of the best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th century April 29 in Los Angeles, at the opening party for the BEA show.
The list will be kept secret until then, "I don't even know what's been chosen," Ebershoff said. And "despite the hits the board took for the first list," he said, "they were happy to do another." He was quick to note that the 81-year-old Library is addressing many of the criticisms -- the age of the board members, the lack of women and minorities, and the seemingly arbitrary rankings -- aimed at the fiction list. The American Booksellers Association will solicit its members for their own lists and there will be a site on www.randomhouse. com for readers to post the inevitable backlash of alternative lists.
Joining the Modern Library board are Caleb Carr, Ron Chernow, Stephen Jay Gould, Charles Johnson, Jon Krakauer, Elaine Pagels and Carolyn See. The board has gone so far as to contract the services of a statistician, who will numerically weigh the subtleties of each member's expertise in compiling the nonfiction rankings.
The Modern Library is also expanding into trade paperbacks, launching with frontlist titles and several new series of literary nonfiction "that will appeal to a general reader." This spring it will debut the Harlem Renaissance Series and in the summer it launches Modern Library War, edited by bestselling novelist and military historian Caleb Carr. Next fall the imprint will launch Modern Library Exploration, edited by Jon Krakauer; and in spring 2000 it will unveil Modern Library Hollywood, edited by Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese.
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