The PW Morning Report, December 17, 2008
By Dermot McEvoy -- Publishers Weekly, 12/17/2008 5:34:00 AM
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
A da
ily round-up of the latest publishing news: James Frey to Rewrite Bible; Peter Osnos: Obama Must Read This Book; Lynne Cheney to Write Bio of President Madison; Poets & Writers Receives $2 Million Grant; Holiday Publishing Gloom; and Robert Draper to Write Book
James Frey to Rewrite Bible, reports The Guardian
The Word of God will have new meaning when Frey finishes writing The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. "It’s the third book of the Bible," said Frey, in which his version of Jesus will perform gay marriages. Oprah, warm up that couch!
Peter Osnos: Obama Must Read This Book
In a piece in TheDailyBeast.com, PublicAffairs editor-at-large Osnos recommends Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam by Gordon Goldstein (Times Books/Henry Holt). Bundy, one of David Halberstam's Best and Brightest, had this to say about the two presidents he served: "Kennedy didn’t want to be dumb; Johnson didn’t want to be a coward"
Lynne Cheney to Write Bio of President James Madison, reports AP
The veep’s wife’s book will be called Founding Genius: A Biography of James Madison and will be published in 2011 by Viking. It will be edited by Wendy Wolf
Poets & Writers Receives $2 Million Grant, reports AP
The nonprofit literary organization received the donation to support its Jackson Poetry Prize, a $50,000 award founded in 2007 for emerging American poets
FSG, Rest of Industry Feel the Holiday Gloom
Leon Neyfakh in the New York Observer has an interesting piece about the layoffs at FSG and how the industry in general has been changed in the last couple of months
Robert Draper to Write Book for the Free Press, reports Politico.com
The book begins with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and ends with Obama’s election. "It’s essentially a 40-year history of race in America," Draper said. The book will not be published until 2012. Draper is also the author of Dead Certain, a bio of George W. Bush
