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Five Penguin Group Titles Longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize 

The longlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize was announced this week, and on it were five books published by Penguin Group. In addition to Sarah Waters' Little Stranger (Riverhead) and two Viking titles making the list: JM Coetzee’s Summertime (on sale 12/28) and William Trevor’s Love and Summer (on sale 9/21); Ed O’Loughlin’s Not Untrue & Not Unkind (Penguin Ireland) and Colm Toibin's Brooklyn: A Novel, published by Penguin UK, also made the cut.

The Prize, worth £50,000, is awarded to the author of the best full-length novel in the opinion of the judges, and usually guarantees major spikes in sales for the work.

The shortlist will be announced on September 8th, with the winner revealed on October 6th in a ceremony at London's Guildhall.

Read more about William Trevor’s Love and Summer here.

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NBC’s “Today Show” Selects Newbery Honor Winner Savvy For Next Al Roker Book Club

NBC’s “Today Show” announced yesterday that Ingrid Law’s Newbery Honor winner and New York Times bestseller Savvy will be Al Roker’s next Book Club Pick. The TV host and young fans will have a chance to interview the author in the studio during a live show later this summer. Savvy was published under the joint venture between Dial Books for Young Readers and Walden Media and will soon be a major motion picture from Walden Media.

Al’s Book Club for Kids has become synonymous with outstanding children’s literature. The club began in 2007 as a way to get kids to keep reading and not experience the “summer slide." Roker chooses books for kids between the ages of 9-11 and then gives them the opportunity to discuss what they are reading. Past selections have included The Golden Compass, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Tale of Despereaux, in addition to other acclaimed titles.

Savvy is the story of the Beaumonts, an eclectic family who can move mountains, stir up hurricanes and spark electricity and each of them possess a “savvy” or a special power that erupts when they turn thirteen.

Read an excerpt from Savvy.
 

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It was 1977 and I was on my first date.   It wasn't night, actually, but late afternoon, unremittingly frigid and dreary as only Chicago winter Saturdays can be.   I was eleven.  The boy's name was Toby, and he was also eleven, in my sixth-grade class at school.   He liked Abba.   I liked Rod Stewart.   When the weather was warm we biked over to each other's houses and listened to each other's records.   Sometimes we toted along our pet guinea pigs in our bike baskets so they could visit each other.   My guinea pig had short, sleek black hair and was named Streaker.  Toby's guinea pig, whose name I don't remember, was an exotic long-haired Peruvian and resembled a mop.

We'd met the year before, in fifth grade.   He ran up behind me on the playground while I was talking to my friends and kicked my butt as hard as he could, then ran off laughing.   We all knew what that meant.  He was a cute kid, skinny and freckled, with shiny white-blond hair in a classic '70s bowl cut and an incongruously deep, husky voice that stayed pretty much the same even after it officially changed a few years later.   I was also skinny and freckled, but my hair was long and almost black.  I wondered what it felt like to have blonde hair.  Did you feel being blonde inside yourself?   Maybe Toby wondered the same/opposite about me.

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Charlaine Harris’s Entire Sookie Stackhouse Series on the New York Times Bestseller Lists and Berkley/ NAL Owns 55% of the Mass Market Bestsellers for the Week of August 9th 

Publishing phenomenon Charlaine Harris and her Sookie Stackhouse series once again feature prominently on the August 9th New York Times bestseller lists. All eight mass market paperbacks, plus the latest Ace hardcover, Dead and Gone, will appear on the lists that run in next week 's New York Times Book Review. This may be a publishing record with an entire series placing on the list simultaneously!

Charlaine is fresh off a sensational trip to last week's Comic-Con International in San Diego, where she met fans and signed a ton of books. About 800 fans started lining up on Friday morning in hopes of scoring one of 150 tickets to Charlaine's afternoon autographing session. The excitement continued on Saturday with another autographing session with the cast and creator of HBO’s hit television series “True Blood” (which is based on Harris’ novels) and a panel discussion about the show in front of 5,000 cheering fans. Charlaine answered several questions and thrilled everyone with the announcement of a new three book contract, promising that Sookie Stackhouse's adventures will continue into 2014!