The £25,000 Whitbread Book of the Year award has gone to
Matisse the Master by Hilary Spurling (Knopf, $40, 0679434291), which had won the best biography Whitbread award earlier this month (
Shelf Awareness, January 4).
The chair of the judging panel said Spurling "has opened our eyes to
great art, and done it in an extraordinary way." For her part, Spurling
told
the BBC that she was "gobsmacked."
Whitbread, since 1971 the main sponsor of the awards, which are open to
residents of the Britain and Ireland, has announced that it will no
longer be involved in the awards. A search is on for what next year may
be the non-Whitbread.
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A front-page
Wall Street Journal feature today examines the
latest brand of pressure put on textbook publishers and the schools and
government entities that adopt texts: pressure from religious groups
that "is growing well beyond Christian fundamentalists' attack on
evolution." Now following the "watchdog" efforts of some Islamic
groups, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh groups want to make sure that their
faiths are cast "in a better light," leading to some battles. As one
California Curriculum Commission member put it: "It tends to be scholar
pitted against believer."
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Retail Week
reported that the U.K.'s Competition Commission has called on bookstore
customers to send in their views on the proposed takeover of Ottakar's
by HMV's Waterstone's subsidiary. The chair of the inquiry group
indicated that it has "yet to reach any conclusions at this early
stage."
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Cool idea of the day (via SIBA): Quail Ridge Books & Music in
Raleigh, N.C., said that "the best staff idea during the busy holiday
season was serving (nonalcoholic) champagne to the customers in the
long lines at the registers, making a very cheerful occasion,"
according to the store's newsletter.
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Part of an unusual ad/promo campaign? Or perhaps an attempt to insure he is a billionaire?
As was widely reported yesterday, Donald Trump has sued Warner Books and Timothy L. O'Brien, a
New York Times reporter, for $5 billion concerning O'Brien's suggestion in his October book
TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald that the Donald's net worth is merely "somewhere between $150 million and $250 million."
Warner stands by the book.
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Linda Kennedy, president of Globe Pequot since 1994 and an employee since 1978, has resigned.
"I am very grateful for my years at Globe Pequot, but I feel that it is
the right time to explore new challenges," Kennedy said in a company
statement. "I am proud to leave behind a company that over the years
has matured and blossomed into a market leader in travel and outdoor
recreation information."
Owned by Morris Communications Co., Globe Pequot under Kennedy bought
Falcon Press, Lyons Books, the Cadogan Guides and several other book
publishers. She also oversaw the opening of a new book distribution
center in Springfield, Tenn.
Globe Pequot distributes titles by
Appalachian Mountain Club Books, the Boone and Crockett Club, Menasha
Ridge Press, Mobil Travel Guides, New Holland Publishers and Thomas
Cook Publishing, among others.
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Barnes & Noble will open a store in Colonie, N.Y., near Albany, in
April 2007, in the Colonie Center Mall. The day before the new store
opens, B&N will close its existing store at 20 Wolf Road across
the street. The new store will stock the usual nearly 200,000 book, music, DVD and
magazine titles and have about 33,000 square feet of space,
according to the
Business Review. The Colonie Center Mall is renovating and includes a Waldenbooks that has five years left on its lease.