THE POISONWOOD BIBLE selected for World Book Night
Barbara Kingsolver's novel THE POISONWOOD BIBLE has been selected as one of the books that will be given away during World Book Night on April 23rd. World Book Night is an annual even that started in the U.K. in 2011, and has since expanded to include the U.S. and Ireland. Thirty paperback books are selected to be distributed for free by thousands of designated "book givers." The event is designed to promote a love of reading, and will doubtless create many new Kingsolver fans.
Tom Robbins article in The New York Times Magazine
Tom Robbins, who has been a reporter for The Daily News and The Village Voice, published a compelling article in The New York Times Magazine last week about political radical Judith Clark. This week The Times' blog The 6th Floor also published a revealing Q&A with Robbins detailing how he went about researching and writing his magazine piece.
Publisher's Weekly Starred Reviews
It's not even the end of December yet, and the New Year is already looking bright for FGLA. Two of the agency's books that are being released in 2012 received starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly this month.
THE FOREVER FIX: GENE THERAPY AND THE BOY WHO SAVED IT by Ricki Lewis (St. Martin's)
Publisher's Weekly calls Lewis' book an "impressive, metiulously researched study of the exciting new developments in gene therapy." The review notes that, "with each success, as Lewis recounts in this rigorous, energetic work, possibilities in treating HIV infection and dozens of other diseases might be around the next corner."
THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT by John D'agata and Jim Fingal(W.W. Norton)
In this innovative work of non-fiction, acclaimed essayist D'agata spars with fact-checker Fingal over the verification of details in an article D'agata was publishing in The Believer. Publisher's Weekly declares it,"Very a propos in our era of spruced-up autobiography and fabricated reporting, this is a whip-smart, mordantly funny, thought-provoking rumination on journalistic responsibility and literary license."
Eula Biss Awarded National Endowment for the Arts' Fellowship
Eula Biss, who was also awarded a Guggenheim this year, was one of forty writers to recieve The 2012 National Endowment for the Arts’ Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing (Prose). Each fellow received $25,000 to help them in their writing. Her book Notes from No Man's Land won an NBCC last year.
Barbara Kingsolver Wins Dayton Peace Prize
Barbara Kingsolver was the recipient of the 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, at a ceremony held in Dayton, Ohio on November 13. The Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which was first awarded in 2006, "is the only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace." In addition to the Holbrooke Award, formerly the Lifetime Achievement Award, awards are also given for adult fiction and non-fiction books that have led readers to a better understanding of other peoples, cultures, religions, and political views. The other winners this year were Chang-Rae Lee for his book The Surrendered, and Wilbert Rideau, for In the Place of Justice.
A Discovery of Witches: Film Rights to Warner Brothers
Deborah Harkness's stunning debut novel A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, the first volume in her ALL SOULS TRILOGY, has been optioned for film by Warner Brothers, with Denise DiNovi and Allison Greenspan to produce; Rich Green at CAA handled the deal. No word yet on who will play Diana or Matthew, although there has been much debate about casting on Facebook! The announcement of the deal on deadline.com is here.
A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES shot right to the top of bestseller lists upon publication in early February. Debuting on the New York Times hardcover fiction list at #2, it spent a total of 15 weeks on the list. The book was a top-ten bestseller on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble for the entire month of February. Prior to publication it was featured in a Publishers Weekly "Galley Talk"; O, The Oprah Magazine called it a "romantic, erudite, and suspenseful first novel"; and Entertainment Weekly included it in their 2011 Preview Issue: "This might just be a Twilight for the tweedy set." The book was mentioned on "The Today Show," was an "Indienext" pick, was featured as one of Amazon.com's "Best Books of the Month" for February, and will be published in 34 different languages around the world. Learn more about the book, and read a sample chapter, at the author's website.
An insightful article about the author and the book appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
Also on the Times Bestseller List: Spider Web
Also making its debut on the New York Times hardcover fiction list is the latest in the beloved Benni Harper mystery series by Earlene Fowler, Spider Web, which landed at #27.
Haunting Book Trailer for Ryan Van Meter's Debut Collection
The Publisher's Weekly's blog PWxyz highlighted Ryan Van Meter's "stunning short film/book trailer" for his debut collection If You Knew Then What I Know Now.
This short film is a wonderful and haunting example of what book-related web videos can be, if they're riffs on the substance of books, rather than thinly disguised pitches.
If You Knew Then What I Know Now from Sarabande Books on Vimeo.
PW gave the book a starred review and Kirkus raved: "If You Knew Then What I Know Now [is] as compelling as a great novel, and as ethereally beautiful as a poem that you read and still remember years later. Which is all to say that I haven’t read many books like it--not just because, as the sum of its parts, it’s difficult to pigeonhole into one genre, but because it’s flawless. Van Meter is a young writer, and this is his first book, but he’s already mastered a literary form that takes most other writers decades and decades to get right."PJ Tracy's Play to Kill Debuts on London Times Paperback Bestseller List
Penguin UK reports that PLAY TO KILL, PJ Tracy's latest in their long-running series, debuted at #8 on the London Sunday Times Paperback Bestseller list on April 17th, after rising to #4 on the hardcover list last spring. This marks the fifth consecutive bestseller for the mother-daughter duo in the UK.
Seeing Stars
Two Goldin Agency books received starred reviews in advance of publication.
Library Journal Starred Review for James Kugel, IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW (Free Press)
James Kugel, Harvard biblical scholar and author of HOW TO READ THE BIBLE, chronicles his two years on an experimental treatment plan for cancer, exploring what happens when someone is told he will likely die soon, and how this connects to an innate sense of human "smallness" that lies at the heart of all religions. In its starred review, Library Journal said: "Written with eloquence suitable to a scholar of Biblical poetry, Kugel's memoir-cum-meditation will appeal to thoughtful Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike." Kugel speaks about the book in a video on the publisher's website here.
An excellent review in the New York Times Book Review, by Judith Shulevitz, is here.
Publishers Weekly Starred Review for Siva Vaidhyanathan's THE GOOGLIZATION OF EVERYTHING (University of California)
"University of Virginia media studies and law professor Vaidhyanathan thoughtfully examines the insidious influence of Google on our society," according to Publishers Weekly's starred review. He "admirably concludes with a design for an information ecosystem called the Human Knowledge Project, which would be a more democratic means of parsing and organizing knowledge."
In addition, PW featured the author and book in a cover story in their Jan. 31 issue, "How Google Rules the World."
Awards, Prizes and Nominations
George Polk Award. From the New York Daily News: "Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez has won the 2010 George Polk Award for Commentary for exposing massive fraud by consultants hired to eliminate chicanery in the city payroll system. Gonzalez's reporting uncovered a taxpayer boondoggle of more than $720 million in the CityTime contract. His hard-hitting columns led to the federal indictments of four consultants and their relatives, and the resignation of the director of the city's office of payroll administration. "It's a great honor, but best of all is the news that prosecutors seized $27 million from bank accounts of dummy companies tied to the fraud," Gonzalez said. "For once, taxpayers got some of their stolen money back." It is the second time that Gonzalez, 62, has won the prestigious honor named after the CBS newsman killed in 1949 while covering the civil war in Greece. Long Island University bestows the annual award to honor the best in American journalism. "All our judges agreed that his scoops and his doggedness were instrumental in bringing this scandal of waste to taxpayers' money to light," said John Darnton, curator of the George Polk Awards."
National Magazine Awards. Two Goldin Agency clients were nominated for this year's National Magazine Awards: Daniel Duane won in the Leisure Interests category for his essay "Five Meals Every Man Should Master," published in the August 2010 issue of Men's Journal. Gretchen Reynolds was nominated in the Personal Service category for her piece "The Complete Guide to Your Knee," in the March 2010 issue of Men's Journal. Kudos to both!
James Beard Awards. In addition, Daniel Duane was nominated for a James Beard Award, in the Personal Essay category, for a piece published in Gourmet Magazine, "How to Become an Intuitive Cook." Bravo!
Guggenheim Fellowships. We're proud to announce that four Goldin Agency clients have been awarded 2011 Guggenheim Fellowships: Eula Biss, John D'Agata, Ann Jones, and Eleanor Lerman--congratulations all!
Audre Lorde Award. And speaking of Eleanor Lerman, for the second year in a row she was nominated for a Triangle Award, given by the Publishing Triangle. Last year's nomination was for fiction; this year's nomination, named after Audre Lorde, is for poetry, for Lerman's most recent stunning collection The Sensual World Reemerges (Sarabande).
Orion Book Awards. John D'Agata's About a Mountain (Norton 2010) was a finalist for this year's Orion Book Awards, awarded by Orion Magazine and "given annually to a book that addresses the human relationship with the natural world in a fresh, thought provoking, and engaging manner."
Speaking of About a Mountain, the editors of the New York Times Magazine compiled a list of their all-time favorite nonfiction books, and we were pleased to see About a Mountain included there.
Briefly Noted
The Paris Review has posted a penetrating interview with Adrienne Rich, who talks about her new poetry collection Tonight No Poetry Will Serve (Norton, 2011). In answer to the question, "What are poetry's obligations?" she responds, "For a poet, in this time we call 'ours,' in this whirlpool of disinformation and manufactured distraction? Not to fake it, not to practice a false innocence, not pull the shades down on what’s happening next door or across town. Not to settle for shallow formulas or lazy nihilism or stifling self-reference." Read the whole thing here.
