HBG Big News This Week: May 21-25, 2018

Following is a recap of major news at Hachette Book Group for the week of May 21-25, 2018:

Bestsellers: HBG has 17 titles on the New York Times Bestseller list dated June 3, including one #1— Dear Madam President by Jennifer Palmieri (GCP) remains in the #1 position on the Business Bestsellers (Monthly) list. HBG’s distribution clients have seven titles on the list this week, including one #1 – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo with Jill Twiss (Chronicle) stays at #1 on the Children’s Bestsellers (Picture Books) list. HBG also has 13 titles on the USA Today bestseller list, see the full list here.

Nebula Award: N.K. Jemisin won the Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Stone Sky (Orbit). This was Jemisin’s sixth nomination for the award and her first win.

New Alexa Skill: Amazon just launched the Echo Dot Kids Edition, an interactive device powered by Alexa that comes preloaded with content for children. HBG tapped into this exciting channel for book content, introducing our first Alexa Skill for kids: the Classroom 13 Skill for Alexa –  an innovative reading experience in a choose-your-own-adventure format that puts children in control as they choose where and how the story unfolds. Read more in this Publishers Weekly story: HBG, Amazon Partner on Narrative Content for Echo Device.

PBS’s Great American Read: The first episode of The Great American Read aired this week. The eight-part television series, hosted by journalist Meredith Vieira, celebrates the power, passion, and joy of reading through the lens of America’s 100 best-loved books as chosen by the public. This amazing list includes many HBG books – the Alex Cross series as a whole, The Catcher in the Rye, The Lovely Bones, the Twilight series, The Notebook, The Shack, Bless Me Ultima, and Little Women. Watch the trailer, and don’t forget to vote for your favorite books (you can vote every day!).  Black Dog & Leventhal’s gorgeously-produced companion volume, The Book of Books, goes on sale August 21.

Media blitz: David Sedaris’s Calypso – his first book of essays in five years – goes on-sale on May 29 with a terrific lineup. David gave fans a sneak peek last night in a great interview on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, the New York Times has a lengthy profile, and Alan Cumming reviews Calypso on the front page of the New York Times Book Review this Sunday. David will be interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition on Sunday, and will talk with Terry Gross on Fresh Air on Tuesday. Q&As in the Wall Street Journal and Money magazine, and a great feature in Garden & Gun are online now, and there’s much more to come, including a People magazine feature (October), appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers(November).  David embarks on an epic 30+ city book tour on May 29, running through June 29.

American Academy honors: this week, The American Academy of Arts and Letters  announced the recipients of its four highest honors for excellence in the arts, and David Sedaris has won the Medal for Spoken Language. He may be too busy to celebrate (see above) but we’re thrilled for him!

Acquisition news: Little, Brown announced the acquisition of #1 bestselling author of Obama: An Intimate Portrait, Pete Souza’s next book, Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents. The exciting book news was picked up in the Washington Post, USA Today , HuffPost, People, Bustle, The Hill and Mashable, among many other outlets.  Shade will be published on October 16.

International Dagger Award: Quercus has three titles longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger Award – Pierre Lemaitre’s Three Days and a Life, Roslund & Hellstrom’s Three Minutes, and Elena Varvello’s Can You Hear Me?. Quercus author Peter May was also nominated for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award (for authors especially popular with librarians).

(New Blood) Dagger Award: Joe Ide’s IQ (Mulholland) has been longlisted for the 2018 Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award, honoring the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality first published in the UK in English.