Penguin Group (USA) Weekly Update - 12/17:

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Top Thirteen Reasons Why Penguin Group (USA) Is "Simply the Best" in 2007 (because we couldn't limit it to just 10)

Penguin Group (USA) has done many amazing things in 2007; things that have reinforced our status as a major power in the industry. As this year comes to a close, we invite you to have a look at the top 13 reasons why we think Penguin Group (USA) can't be beat.

1. Penguin Group (USA) is up across the board in New York Times bestsellers.

* With 162 New York Times bestsellers so far in 2007-65 hardcovers, 61 paperbacks, and 36 young readers-we have 18% more bestsellers than last year!

* We had 16 #1 bestselling titles in 2007, and have dominated the #1 positions on the list with the staying power of our top titles. We've had at least one #1 bestseller for 43 weeks of the year-an amazing 84% of the time!

* With 30 New York Times hardcover bestsellers in 2007, G. P. Putnam's Sons once again reigns as the industry leader and has surpassed last year's total by four titles-with approximately 50% of all of the titles Putnam published in 2007 hitting The New York Times hardcover bestseller lists.

* Viking also had nine New York Times bestsellers in 2007, including Jan Karon's Home to Holly Springs, Garrison Keillor's Pontoon, Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought, Jane Green's Second Chance, and Rafe Esquith's Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire.

* In 2007, 25% of Dutton's books were New York Times bestsellers, with nine books hitting the list out of 36 titles published.

* Our mass market division continues to lead the publishing industry in New York Times paperback bestsellers. Berkley and Jove alone have had an amazing 29 New York Times paperback bestsellers in 2007. When you add in our other mass market imprints, including Signet, NAL, Ace and Onyx, the mass market division has a total of 44 New York Times paperback bestsellers-up ten titles from the Group's 2006 total. Currently, Leslie Gelbman's group holds both the #1 trade paperback book as well as the #1 mass market book on The New York Times paperback lists!

* Penguin Young Readers Group racked up an impressive 37 New York Times bestsellers this year, far surpassing last year's total of 27 bestsellers.

2. We had some of the most widely-talked about books in the nation-both fiction and nonfiction. In 2007, we had major #1 national bestsellers that garnered five-star media attention:

* A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) spent more weeks at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list (13) than any other hardcover book in the industry this year. The book has been on the hardcover fiction list for 28 weeks, and still growing. Since its May 22nd publication date, A Thousand Splendid Suns has shipped more than 2.15 million copies.

* The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan (The Penguin Press), which was published in September made international news everywhere, continues to be an international bestseller, and has been on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction list for 12 weeks.

 * World Without End by Ken Follett (Dutton) was an international. Follett is one of only two authors who holds three slots on the current The New York Times bestseller list: one for World Without End (Dutton); one for the trade edition of The Pillars of the Earth (NAL); and yet another for the mass market edition (Signet).

 * The Assault on Reason by Al Gore (The Penguin Press) was a huge success this Spring, as Al Gore met thousands of fans at sold-out events around the country. Then, this Fall, he added Nobel Peace Prize winner to his list of accolades.

3. In trade paperback, we continued to raise the industry bar by cultivating books into word-of-mouth phenomena.

Four of Penguin Group (USA)'s runaway trade paperback bestsellers have shipped nearly 14 million copies combined-that's almost six MILLION more books than there are people living in New York City!

*Eat, Pray, Love (Penguin), an Oprah Winfrey favorite, was the book in everyone's hands (from Hillary Clinton to Minnie Driver) all year long, and is one of the most talked about books of 2007. It's currently in its 46th week on The New York Times list-30 of those weeks at #1 with over 3.9 million copies shipped to date after only a little over 10 months.

* The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) is in its 146th week on The New York Times list and continues to grow, with more than 5.8 million copies shipped.

* The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (Penguin) has been on The New York Timespaperback fiction list every week so far in 2007. And the book has been on that list for 77 weeks overall, with more than 3.2 million copies shipped.

* Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson (Penguin) has spent 45 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and the message behind the book spread like wildfire around the country, with entire communities adopting the book, and fostering meaningful discussions around it. More than 800,000 copies of the book have been shipped.

4. Oprah Winfrey Reads, Picks and Praises Penguin Group (USA) Books.

 * The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (NAL) is the current Oprah's Book Club pick, and was also featured a second time during her famous "favorite things" special.

* Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin) was the focus two one-hour Oprah Winfrey shows within two month's time this fall: one in October and one just last week.

5. The Penguin Young Readers Group Reaches Record Heights in 2007

* Penguin Young Readers Group racked up a new record 37 New York Times bestsellers this year, far surpassing last year's total of 27 bestsellers.

* Among Young Readers top performing titles of 2007 were Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz (Philomel Books), The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett (G.P. Putnam's Sons), Summer Ball by Mike Lupica (Philomel); Slam by Nick Hornby (G.P. Putnam's Sons), and Seeing Redd (The Looking Glass Wars) by Frank Beddor (Dial).

* The Group continued to break and re-break its record for the number of bestsellers to make the Children's lists in the same week, in the week of November 25th, achieved an all-time best and had 9 titles hit, with representation in every category.

6. Berkley/NAL Makes Paranormal Hot

Berkley/NAL created the paranormal category and in 2007 put 13 titles (4 hardcover and 9 mass market paperback) on The New York Times bestseller list, which spent a combined 39 weeks on the list.

* Laurell K. Hamilton's The Harlequin hit as high as #2 on the hardcover fiction list

* Christine Feehan's Safe Harbor debuted at #1 on the paperback fiction list, her first #1 New York Times bestseller ever!

* J.R. Ward's Lover Unbound appeared at #2 on the paperback fiction list-an all-time high for this fast growing author.

7. First and Still on Top with Premium Paperbacks

Penguin Group (USA) created the Premium paperback format and Berkley/NAL scored 14 Penguin Premium Edition New York Times bestsellers in 2007.

8. Penguin titles are favorites on "Best Books of 2007" lists across the nation.

* Wow Wao! The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead) has been featured on more than 15 "Best of Lists," including Time magazine's #1 novel of the year, New York magazine's "Best Novel of the Year," a New York Times Notable Book, and #2 on Amazon.com's Editor's Pick Top 10 Novels of the Year, #2 on Amazon.com's Editor's Pick Top 100 Books of the Year.
* A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) hit six "Best of..." lists, including Time magazine, Amazon Editors Picks and The Washington Post.

The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan (The Penguin Press); The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu (Riverhead); Cheating At Canasta by William Trevor (Viking); The Long Road Home by Martha Raddatz (Putnam); Journals by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (The Penguin Press), Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man by Claire Tomalin (The Penguin Press), and Red Rover by Deirdre McName (Viking) are among some of our other titles that hit multiple "Best of..." lists.

9. Penguin Group (USA) authors take home major awards.

* We won four Quill awards, including "Best Book of the Year" (Nora Roberts' Angels Fall Putnam) for the second year running. Angels Fall also won the Quill for Best Romance book. Other Quill award winners included: Al Gore in the History/Current Events/Politics category for The Assault on Reason (The Penguin Press); Michael Weinreb in the Sports category for The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team (Gotham); and Patrick Rothfuss in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror category for The Name of the Wind: (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One) (DAW Books)

 * The Penguin Press' Ian Buruma nabbed the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Murder in Amsterdam

* Two of our debut authors-Riverhead's Dinaw Mengestu, and Viking's Anya Ulinich-were selected as the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" authors for 2007 by previous National Book Award winners.

* Junot Díaz took home the John Sargent First Novel Prize (Marisha Pessel won it last year).

* Putnam/Marian Wood's Olga Grushin won the New York Public Library Young Lion's Award.

* Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma (The Penguin Press) won the 2007 James Beard Book Award in the Writing on Food Category.

* Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem, which The Penguin Press is publishing in the US and Penguin Group is publishing globally in English in 2008, won the first Man Asian Prize.

* Viking Studio's Hip Tastes: The Fresh Guide to Wine won the 2007 Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year Award.

* Letters to a Young Brother by Hill Harper (Gotham) was a recipient of an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Debut Author.

* An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (Dutton Children's Books) took the Michael L. Printz Award Honor.

10. Great publicity and strategic national marketing and sales efforts turn distinctive books into bestsellers.

The Book of Useless Information (Perigee)-a #1 New York Times bestseller-Perigee's first!; Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire by Rafe Esquith (Viking) The House of Mondavi by Julia Flynn Siler (Gotham); Louder Than Words by Jenny McCarthy; Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable, Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford by Thomas DeFrank (Putnam); The Dip (Portfolio)-Seth Godin's first New York Times bestseller; Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos (Plume); Math Doesn't SuckThis is Your Brain On Music by Danica McKellar; (Hudson Street Press); by Daniel Levitin (Plume) and 2012 by Daniel Pinchbeck (Tarcher), plus DK's Reef, Bird, Starfinder and China, all fit the bill.

11. Penguin Audio grows and grows

* Three of our audio division's top sellers, The Age of Turbulence; The Assault on Reason; and Don't Make A Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, earned Grammy nominations.

* The unabridged editions of both World Without End and The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett span the most amount of time and include the most number of CDs ever published by Penguin Audio (a combined 86 ½ hours, on 68 CDs); released simultaneously with the publication of the new hardcover, they have seen incredibly strong sales.

12. Our authors' voices have spread beyond the printed word to television and the big screen.

* 'The Kite Runner' movie has garnered amazing reviews, with critics already calling it a potential Best Picture nominee. It opens in theaters nationally today. The film is based on Riverhead's #1 New York Times bestseller written by Khaled Hosseini.

* Lifetime Television devoted every Monday night in January of this year to a new movie based on one of Nora Roberts's bestselling novels.

* Director David Fincher's 'Zodiac' movie, based on Robert Graysmith's Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked (both Berkley Mass Market) premiered to incredible reviews, which came out earlier this year.

* The movie version of The Jane Austen Book Club, a Plume paperback and originally a Putnam hardcover, opened in October.

* An HBO series 'True Blood', based on Charlaine Harris's bestselling Southern Vampire novels (Berkley), is slated to start airing in early 2008.

* Tom Selleck received an Emmy nomination for "Best Actor in a TV Movie" for his role in the latest CBS-TV movie, based on Robert B. Parker's long-running Putnam series.

* Ed Harris began shooting his big-screen version of Parker's latest western novel, Appaloosa (Putnam/Berkley), this year.

* A film adaptation of James McBride's Miracle at St. Anna (Riverhead) is currently shooting in Italy. Spike Lee is directing.

* DreamWorks will begin shooting a movie based on The Soloist by Steve Lopez, which Putnam is publishing in hardcover in April 2008. Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. are starring in the film.

13. And, lest no one forget, Penguin Group (USA) Owned BEA 2007

* Penguin Group (USA)'s authors and senior executives, including David Shanks and Susan Petersen Kennedy, were in the spotlight at Book Expo America in New York, June 1 - 3. Our authors headlined many of the Expo's main events.

* BEA Keynote Speaker, Alan Greenspan, was introduced at the Expo's opening event by Susan Petersen Kennedy and interviewed in front of a full house by his wife, Andrea Mitchell, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for NBC News and a Viking/Penguin author.

* In what BEA show directors described as "the biggest advance response to any Book and Author Breakfast in the history of BEA," Khaled Hosseini was featured at Saturday's breakfast along with Master of Ceremonies Stephen Colbert.

* Russell Simmons, author of The New York Times bestseller, Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success for Gotham Books, was featured at BEA's Saturday Book & Author Luncheon.

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