‘Shuggie Bain’ wins Book of the Year at the British Book Awards
14 May 2021
Douglas Stuart’s Booker Prize-winning debut novel Shuggie Bain (Picador) has won book of the year at the British Book Awards, reports the Bookseller. Stuart’s novel, which also won the debut...
UK’s CMA clears Bertelsmann’s S&S acquisition
13 May 2021
In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has cleared Penguin Random House (PRH) owner Bertelsmann’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster (S&S) following an investigation, reports the Bookseller. Bertelsmann...
Gilligan wins Ondaatje Prize for ‘The Butchers’
12 May 2021
In the UK, Ruth Gilligan has won the £10,000 (A$18,000) Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize for The Butchers (Atlantic), a literary thriller set in the Irish Borderlands during the 1996...
Oseman wins YA Book Prize for ‘Loveless’
7 May 2021
Alice Oseman has won the Bookseller’s 2021 YA Book Prize for Loveless (HarperCollins), a ‘joyful’ coming out story about a romance-obsessed teenager who realises she is aromantic and asexual. Loveless tells the...
Shortlist announced for £40k Wolfson History Prize
3 May 2021
In the UK, the shortlist for the £40,000 (A$76,200) Wolfson History Prize shortlist has been announced. The shortlisted titles are: Survivors: Children’s lives after the Holocaust (Rebecca Clifford, Yale University Press)...
Lagardère makes ‘peace agreement’ between shareholders
30 April 2021
In France, Hachette Livre parent company Lagardère has confirmed the group’s transformation into a joint-stock company as part of a ‘peace agreement’ to end all legal disputes between shareholders, reports...
Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 shortlist announced
29 April 2021
In the UK, the shortlist for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced. Now in its 26th year, the £30,000 (A$53,600) prize is presented annually to the best...
UK publisher consumer sales up 7% in 2020
28 April 2021
In the UK, Publishers Association (PA) figures show UK book sales—particularly fiction and audiobooks—soared in 2020, with consumer sales up 7% on 2019 despite bookshop closures, reports the Guardian. The...
Lagardère in discussions to revamp company governance
27 April 2021
In France, the Lagardère group, owner of Hachette Livre, has confirmed that negotiations are under way to transfer the group into a joint stock company, reports the Bookseller. The move...
Publisher halts Philip Roth biography after sexual assault allegations
26 April 2021
In the US, publisher W W Norton has halted the distribution and promotion of Blake Bailey’s Philip Roth: The biography after several women accused Bailey of grooming and sexual assault....
International Booker Prize shortlist announced
23 April 2021
The shortlist for the 2021 International Booker Prize for translated fiction has been announced. The six shortlisted titles are: At Night All Blood is Black (David Diop, trans from French by...
S&S US to publish Pence books despite staff petition
22 April 2021
Simon & Schuster US (S&S) will proceed with publishing two books by former US vice president Mike Pence despite a petition from staff, reports the Bookseller. In the petition, staff...
LBF to run as digital-only event
16 April 2021
This year’s London Book Fair (LBF) will run as a series of digital-only events at the beginning and end of June, after having previously been rescheduled to run from 29...
Rathbones Folio loses £30k prize money to cyber scam
15 April 2021
In the UK, the Bookseller has revealed that the Rathbones Folio Prize lost £30,000 (A$53,500) to an email fraudster last year, while other awards, publishers, agents and industry bodies have...
Shortlist announced for 2021 Jhalak Prize for BAME writers
14 April 2021
The shortlist for the UK’s Jhalak Prize for Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) writers, and the inaugural Jhalak Children’s & Young Adult Prize have been announced. The titles shortlisted...
Survey of UK publisher catalogues shows representation on the rise
12 April 2021
In the UK, a survey of the country’s most prolific publishing houses by the Bookseller has found that there were 200 books by British writers of colour this northern spring....
Bologna cancels in-person events
9 April 2021
The organisers of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Bologna Licensing Trade Fair and BolognaBookPlus have announced the cancellation of in-person events, due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions in Italy and Europe....
PRH revenue up 4.6%, earnings up 23.3% in 2020
7 April 2021
Penguin Random House’s (PRH) global sales in 2020 were up 4.6% and its operating EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) was up 23.3%, according to PRH parent company...
Hachette Livre CEO replaced
1 April 2021
Long-time Hachette Livre CEO Arnaud Nourry has been replaced by Pierre Leroy, co-managing partner of Hachette's parent company Lagardère. Nourry, who had run Hachette since 2003, was replaced on Monday,...
International Booker Prize longlist announced
31 March 2021
The longlist for the 2021 International Booker Prize for translated fiction has been announced. The 13 longlisted titles are: I Live in the Slums (Can Xue, trans from Chinese by...
HarperCollins to acquire Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade division
30 March 2021
HarperCollins parent company News Corp will purchase the trade publishing division of US publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) for US$349 million (A$457 million), reports Publishers Weekly (PW). According to PW HMH...
National Book Critics Circle Awards winners announced
29 March 2021
In the US, the winners of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Awards have been announced. The winners include: Fiction Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell, Tinder Press) Nonfiction Island on Fire: The...
Dublin Literary Award shortlist announced
26 March 2021
The shortlist for the 2021 Dublin Literary Award, worth €100,000 (A$155,200), has been announced, reports the Bookseller. The shortlisted titles are: Girl, Woman, Other (Bernardine Evaristo, Hamish Hamilton) Lost Children...
Machado wins 2021 Folio Prize
25 March 2021
In the UK, American writer Carmen Maria Machado has won the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize, worth £30,000 (A$54,100), for In the Dream House (Serpent’s Tail), an examination of her experience...
Bertelsmann’s S&S merger faces scrutiny in US, UK
24 March 2021
Penguin Random House (PRH) parent company Bertelsmann’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster (S&S) is facing scrutiny from government agencies in both the US and the UK, reports the Bookseller. In...
Windham-Campbell Prize recipients announced
23 March 2021
In the US, the recipients of the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prizes, worth US$165,000 (A$213,000) each, have been announced. This year’s recipients are US playwrights Michael R Jackson and Nathan Alan Davis...
UK publishing staff ‘crushed’, ‘unfocused’ after one year of Covid
22 March 2021
In the UK, publishing staff are predicting a 50-50 split between home and office working in the future, while many feel ‘crushed, tired, unfocused and lacking in motivation’ after a...
Greenaway, Carnegie Medal shortlists announced
19 March 2021
In the UK, the shortlists for this year's CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals, celebrating outstanding achievement in children’s writing and illustration respectively, have been announced, reports the Bookseller. The works...
BolognaBookPlus to open with rights and licensing training event
18 March 2021
BolognaBookPlus, the general publishing conference running in parallel with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, has announced a new rights and licensing training event to take place on the eve of...
Egmont rebrands as Farshore
15 March 2021
HarperCollins standalone children’s division Egmont Books has rebranded as Farshore. The publisher said the rebrand ‘reflects the company’s mission to make every child a proud reader through a broad and...
