People: Wood Up at Anova

Robin Wood, chairman and chief executive of the independent U.K. publisher Anova Books, was named chairman of the company. Wood will step into the role on November 24. Also at Anova, Polly Powell will move up from managing director to chief executive.

Ashley Gordon has been named v-p of business development at SharedBook Inc. Gordon arrived from Lightning Source, where she was director of channel development.

Kathleen Spinelli has been named publisher of custom packaging at Walter Foster Publishing. Spinelli had been a principal at Brands-to-Books Inc., a literary agency and packager she cofounded; before that, she worked in marketing roles at various imprints including Ballantine Books, Broadway Books and St. Martin's Press.

Tim Brazier and Brett Sandusky have joined the publicity and marketing department at Kaplan. Brazier, who was at Basic Books, has been named publicity director; Sandusky, who was at Shared Marketing Service, has been named marketing manager.

Well-known Israeli literary agent Ilana Pikarski died on Friday, September 26 in Tel Aviv. She was 62. Pikarski, who started her own eponymous agency in Israel in 1982, saw it grow to one of the country's largest, representing a number of major publishers from the U.S. and Europe.

In a People announcement in one of last week's Dailies, Edward Benitez was incorrectly listed as joining Parragon Books in the position of regional sales manager; he's been brought on as sales director.