HBG Big News This Week: December 10-14, 2018

Following is a recap of major news at Hachette Book Group for the week of December 10-14, 2018:

Bestseller highlights:  HBG has 14 books on the New York Times list this week. Our distribution clients have one #1—Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown (Amulet), holds onto the #1 slot on the Children’s Series list. HBG also has 9 books on the USA Today list.

Worth reading: PEN America president and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan penned a letter on our democracy’s dependency on writers.

Méndez Award: Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno’s There Are No Dead Here (Nation Books) has won the Méndez Award from the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke. First awarded in 2008, the Méndez Human Rights Book Award honors the best current, fiction or non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy, and social justice in contemporary Latin America.

PEN Literary Awards: HBG has several semi-finalists for PEN Literary Awards, including Matthew Horace & Ron Harris’s The Black and the Blue (Hachette Books) for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction, Albert Samaha’s Never Ran, Never Will (PublicAffairs) for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, and Lauren Slater’s Blue Dreams (LB) and Adam Becker’s What Is Real (Basic Books) for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing. The finalists for all book awards will be announced on January 22, and the winners will be announced on February 26.  Please click here to see the full list of finalists in all categories.

#1 Indie Pick: Stephanie Land’s Maid (Hachette Books) is #1 on the February 2019 Indie Next List. See attached for amazing bookseller quotes about Land’s absorbing and inspiring memoir.

Dublin Literary Award: Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko (GCP) has been longlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award. The shortlist will be announced on April 4.

Paolucci Book Award: Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism (Basic Books) is a finalist for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Paolucci Book Award, which recognizes the conservative book of the year. The winner will be announced on March 30.

Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award: Adam Weymouth has won The Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award for his book Kings of the Yukon (LB). Sponsored by literary agency Peters Fraser + Dunlop, the Young Writer of the Year Award runs in association with the University of Warwick. In addition to the prize money of £5,000, the winner is also awarded a 10-week residential course with the program. All shortlisted authors receive overseas exposure through the British Council, the international partner of the prize. For more information and the full list of nominees, please click here.

Movie news: HBO announced the production of a limited series adapted from Zack McDermott’s memoir, Gorilla and the Bird (LB). Jean-Marc Vallée (Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects) will direct, and Channing Tatum is Executive Producer. The news was covered by Deadline Hollywood, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and The Wrap, among other venues.

Pennie’s Picks: Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco’s book buyer, has chosen The Paris Seamstress by Natasha Lester (Forever) as her pick of the month for December.