We’d like to congratulate our Publishing Services clients on their Foreword wins this year. Winning Independent Publisher of the Year was Other Press, and who can question that, with the outstanding list-after-list quality of their program.

Also, winning the overall Editors Choice for Nonfiction was La Cucina, published by Rizzoli, who dominated other categories as well this year (see below).

Some other winners included:

ARCHITECTURE:
Silver: The Atlas of American Architecture by Tom Martinson
Bronze: Frank Gehry: The Houses by Mildred Friedman

FICTION – TRANSLATED:
Gold: The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

FICTION – LITERARY:
Bronze: Appassionata by Eva Hoffman

GRAPHIC NOVELS:
Silver: Marvel Wall Chart

HEALTH:
Silver: An Apple a Day by Joe Schwarcz, PhD

HISTORY:
Honorable Mention: When Art Worked by Roger G. Kennedy

MUSIC:
Silver: The Velvet Underground by Johan Kugelberg
Bronze: Elvis 1956 by Alfred Wertheimer

PERFORMING ARTS:
Gold: Joan Crawford by Peter Cowie

PHOTOGRAPHY:
Gold: Lamu by Carol Beckwith, Angela Fisher, David Coulson and Nigel Pavitt
Bronze: Image Collection by National Geographic Society
Honorable Mention: Uncovered by Reed Massengill

REGIONAL:
Gold: New York: The Big City and Its Little Neighborhoods by Naomi Fertitta

I felt very refined this last Thursday, as I sat in a suit and tie nursing a $16 glass of wine at one of Manhattan’s snazziest lounges. This is a very far cry from my normal Thursday evening of “Supernatural,” Ovaltine, gym shorts, and peanut butter and jelly. But once a year, I can afford it. And I’ll do basically whatever Dennis and Valerie tell me.

Dennis and Valerie are the co-publishers of Melville House, a Brooklyn-based indie publisher known for their smart, quirky books…and, locally, for their parties. On Thursday, they threw what they called the “Oscars for Book Trailers,” officially named the Moby Awards. They got some 200+ nominations from their blog readers. I don’t know how many hours of book trailers that comes to, but wow, they watched a lot. The winners received little golden (or were they silver?) whales, which, according to Dennis, will be “properly mounted” next year (they also apparently were not the right species of whale).

The categories included: Best Big-Budget Book Trailer, Best Low-Budget Book Trailer, Biggest Waste of Conglomerate Money, Best Cameo, Trailer Least Likely to Sell the Book, Best Performance by an Author, Most Annoying Performance by an Author, Bloodiest Book Trailer, and Best Foreign Book Trailer.

Melville has posted the results on MobyLives, their renowned book blog. Check it out for at least 15 minutes of entertainment.

-David

That post title might be confusing for librarians who moonlight as chemists and/or are too familiar with the Periodic Chart of the Elements, but hopefully not those who live in Santa Fe, where a nice little book prize was just given out.

The 2010 Historical Society of New Mexico Gaspar Perez de Villagra Award for an outstanding publication by an individual went to The Santa Fe House by Margaret Moore Booker.

IF you’re a librarian in the area, she will likely be attending the award ceremony on May 1, as she’s already scheduled to give a talk at the Historical Society’s conference that day.

-David

As we all know, the Academy Awards took place last night. Congrats to all of the book-to-movie Random House, Inc. winners!

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique from Precious based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Best Animated Film: Up

Best Adapted Screenplay: Precious based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Among the other nominees were The Last Station, Up in the Air, and Julie & Julia (partially based on My Life in France by Julia Child).

Be sure to stock up on these titles as you will surely have patrons who have to read the book first!

The finalists for the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award have been announced and two Random House, Inc. books are among them.

Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs and Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor join literary heavyweight Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna) and two others who are nominated for the award, which was founded by writers in 1980 and partially named after William Faulkner.

Previous Random House, Inc. winners in recent years include: Netherland by Joseph O’Neill (2009), Everyman by Phillip Roth (2007) and The March by E.L. Doctorow (2006).

We just got word of another important list of awards for our books: The Amelia Bloomer Project list, a yearly round-up of strong feminist works. Here is what the project is all about:

“In an effort both to alert readers to society’s opposition toward women’s equality and to highlight progress toward this vital goal, the 2010 Amelia Bloomer Project members selected 54 books notable for feminist content, quality of writing, and appeal to young readers.”

And congratulations to the authors, editors, and contributors to the following books!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Delacorte Press)

Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis (Alfred A. Knopf)

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn (Alfred A. Knopf)

The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam (Spiegel & Grau)

The Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins (Delacorte)

Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce (Random House)

-Dave

Hi everyone! All the ALA committees have made their decisions! And now we would like to congratulate this year’s Random House Inc. award-winning books and all those who worked on them. Here is a list of what brought home the shiny stuff this year.

Random House Inc.’s ALA Notable Books 2010

Fiction:

Year of the Flood by Maraget Atwood
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Nonfiction:

The Snake Head by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

(Full List)

2010 Alex Award Winner

The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir by Diana, Liz, Amanda, and Dan Welch

BCALA Literary Award Winners

Fiction Honor Book

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction Winner

The Breakthrough by Gwen Ifill

Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation

In Search of Our Roots by Henry Louis Gates

2010 RUSA Reading List Picks (full)

Adrenaline

Winner:
Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child
Short List:
The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner
Shatter by Michael Robotham

Fantasy

Short List:
The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick
The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

Historical Fiction

Short List:
Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran
Etta by Gerald Kolpan
The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland

Mystery

Short List:
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Romance

Short List:
Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare

Women’s Fiction

Short List:
After You by Julie Buxbaum

2010 Sophie Brody Awards

Winner

Book of the Unknown: Tales of the 36 by Jonathon Keats

Honor Book

The Jewish Body by Melvin Konner

YALSA 2010 Best Books for Young Adults

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

YALSA Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Bayou, Vol. 1 by Jeremy Love
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld

2010 Stonewall Book Awards

Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award

Honor Book
Daddy, Papa and Me/Mommy, Mamma and Me by Leslea Newman

Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award

The Greeks and Greek Love by James Davidson

The New York Times Book Review has announced their Top 10 Books of 2009 and three wonderful Random House, Inc. titles have made the list!

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem

A Gate at the Stairs by Laurie Moore

The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes

Be sure these titles are available as your patrons will surely be asking for them! View the full list here.

What a night!  Not one, but TWO National Book Awards for Random House, Inc. authors!  Just wanted to give a little shout out of congratulations to our honored authors:

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPINby Colum McCann (Random House) received the 2009 National Book Award for Fiction right after THE FIRST TYCOON: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles (Knopf) was announced as the Nonfiction winner.

A thrilling night for our authors, as well as for us. 

And we just got the news today that a trade paperback edition of LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN  is being rushed to press and will be available on 12/08/09.  Perfect to help meet the surge in demand.

Did you know there were Video Book Awards? I confess, I did not. But three intriguing videos are finalists for Kirkus Reviews 2009 Book Video Awards. The Award “challenges student filmmakers to create video trailers based on three upcoming young-adult novels to be published by Random House Children’s Books. ”

The three finalist books are: Very Lefreak, The Maze Runner, and Fallen.

Vote for your favorite here and be sure to add these books to your YA collections.

-Marie