If the eerie aerial photograph of Manhattan that graces the cover of Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Chronic City reminds you of something when Doubleday publishes it this October, do not second-guess yourself. It is indeed the same shot that was used on the cover of the first issue of Condé Nast’s Portfolio when that magazine—now Read More
Author Joe McGinniss has a new literary agent, having signed on with Dave Larabell of the David Black Agency after parting company with David Vigliano last spring.
According to several sources, Mr. Larabell has spoken with publishers about a book Mr. McGinnis has been wanting to write about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Read More
Random House surprised the publishing industry Monday with the hiring of GQ executive editor Andy Ward, who will be joining the editorial staff of the house’s flagship imprint in mid-September. Though Mr. Ward began his career in letters as an editorial assistant at Little, Brown, he has spent the past 13 years working in Read More
Wylie Agency director Scott Moyers has sold a highly sought-after biography of J. Edgar Hoover by Yale history professor Beverly Gage. The book, which Ms. Gage plans to research and write in about four years, was acquired by Wendy Wolf at Viking for several hundred thousand dollars after about two weeks after Mr. Moyers first Read More
Last week, Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit sold a book called Zoobiquity, about heretofore unrecognized similarities between animal and human pathologies, by UCLA cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers. The prevailing bidder on the book was Knopf, where it will be edited by Jordan Pavlin. According to Ms. Pavlin, the project came out of Read More
Late last week, a funny thing happened on Andrew Wylie’s Web site: V. S. Naipaul, one of the most distinguished authors the lit agent has signed up in recent memory, had disappeared from his online client list.
For a little while there, it was easy to let your imagination run wild. Honeymoon cut short as Read More
Morris Dickstein spent 29 years on Dancing in the Dark, his new book about the movies, books, theater and music that came out of the Great Depression. The book is being published on Sept. 14 by W. W. Norton, where it was edited by Robert Weil. Mr. Weil sees a big future for Mr. Dickstein’s Read More
There was a time not so long ago when authors never had to worry about handing in their manuscripts on time. Deadlines back then were a formality—something publishers took about as seriously in the course of contractual negotiations as they did the profit-and-loss statements they used to justify their acquisitions. If an author hit their Read More
Fall is coming.
In publishing, this signals the start of a season that many believe has the best chance of any in recent memory to redeem the industry after one of its darkest years, and to show that, even in 2009, big, beautiful hit books are still possible.
Many publishers are saying their fall catalogs Read More
V. S. Naipaul has a new literary agent. After 30 years of working closely with U.K.-based veteran Gillon Aitken, the Nobel Prize–winning author of A House For Mr. Biswas has signed on with the mighty and ruthless American Andrew Wylie.
Mr. Wylie is known—and in some cases, hated—throughout the publishing industry for routinely and Read More
