The PW Morning Report, November 12, 2008
By Dermot McEvoy -- Publishers Weekly, 11/12/2008 6:11:00 AM
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A dail
y round-up of the latest publishing news: Obama, Obama, Obama—and, Yeah, More Obama; Norman Mailer and the FBI; NBA "Head-Scratcher"; Joseph Boyden Wins Scotiabank Giller Prize; U.K. Booksellers Association Hits Google Deal; 2009 International Impac Dublin Literary Award Longlist; and Joe Hyams Dead at 85
And, Now, for Something Completely Different: OOOOOOOOOO-BAMA!
It’s sung to the tune to "Oklahoma!" and it means there are Obama books being signed up by the hour. Poor Leon Neyfakh at the New York Observer has his arm in a sling he’s typing so fast reporting the avalanche of new titles:
NBC’s Chuck Todd Signs With Vintage for Instant Obama Book
The network’s political director will collaborate with polling expert Sheldon Gawiser on How Obama Won, a state-by-state guide to the Obama victory. The book will be published before the inauguration in January
Ryan Lizza to Pen Obama Book for Penguin Press
The New Yorker’s Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza will write a book about President-elect Obama’s first year in office. The advance was in the reported mid-six-figures
Jonathan Alter to Write Obama Book for S&S
The Newsweek columnist will write a book about Obama’s first year in office
"American Clamoring for All Things Obama," sez Los Angeles Times
Your craic correspondent is quoted on the Obamania that is gripping America
Canongate U.K. Signs Third Obama Book, reports The Bookseller
The new book, acquired from Random House in the U.S., includes nine key speeches from the presidential campaign as well as the acceptance speech given last week. It is due out in hardcover the second week of December
Maya Angelou Writing Poem for Obama, reports AP
"I will approach it as the work it is," she said. "Try to put all my energies and my talents and my prayers and hopes and all that, my nervousness—all of those things will go into it"
FBI Kept File on Norman Mailer, reports New York Times
Recently we learned they were keeping an eye on David Halberstam. Hilariously, we also see the FBI as book reviewer, citing the literary merits of Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago: "It is written in his usual obscene and bitter style. Book contains reference to…uncomplimentary statements of the type that might be expected from Mailer regarding the FBI and the Director." "The Director," of course, would be that cross-dressing American hero—not you, Rudy Giuliani—J. Edgar Hoover
A "Head-Scratcher" of a Title for the National Book Award, reports New York Times
Is Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country (Modern Library) new or old? And should it be eligible for the NBA?
Joseph Boyden Wins Scotiabank Giller Prize, reports AP
New Orleans-residing novelist wins the prestigious Canadian prize in literature and its $41,000 prize for Through Black Spruce
U.K. Booksellers Association Hits Google Deal, reports The Bookseller
The trade body warned that the arrangement if adopted in Britain could create "a de facto monopoly" and "have a hugely damaging effect on the publishing and bookselling industry"
2009 International Impac Dublin Literary Award Longlist Announced, reports Irish Times
The €100,000 award is the most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English in the world
Joe Hyams Dead at 85, reports Los Angeles Times
The Hollywood insider wrote many bestsellers, including Bogie (1966), a biography of actor Humphrey Bogart, and James Dean: Little Boy Lost (1992)
