Penguin Group (USA) Weekly Update - 3/11:

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Penguin Group (USA) Has Nine Finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards; Viking Alone Garners Six Finalists

Penguin Group (USA) has nine finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards for 2007. Six of these titles are from Viking, which garnered more finalists than any other imprint in the industry. The nominated authors and their books are as follows:

• Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Viking) - Biography
• Ronald Brownstein, The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America (The Penguin Press) - Current Interest
• Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead Books) - Fiction
• Stewart O'Nan, Last Night at the Lobster (Viking) - Fiction
• Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead Books) - Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
• Åke Edwardson, Frozen Tracks: An Inspector Erik Winter Novel (Viking) - Mystery/Thriller
• Tana French, In the Woods (Viking) - Mystery/Thriller
• Christine Kenneally, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (Viking) - Science & Technology
• Gino Segrè, Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics (Viking) - Science & Technology

The winners will be announced on Friday, April 25th, at UCLA, as part of the Los Angeles Times Book Festival.

Great Media Pickup for the Announcement that Razorbill Will Publish New Book by Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen

Announced last week, Razorbill will publish a new book by Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, Influence (the working title), this Fall. Influence introduces readers to respected artists, seasoned designers and others who have influenced Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen over the past decade. The book will feature influential figures including; Christian Louboutin, Lauren Hutton, Bob Colacello, Terry Richardson, Jack Pierson and Robert Lee Morris. A coffee table book, Influence includes exclusive photographs of Ashley and Mary-Kate from world renowned photographer Rankin, and a wide variety of other never-before-seen materials and interviews from Mary-Kate and Ashley's personal collections. This unique book is edited by fashion and arts writer Derek Blasberg and designed by eminent book designer Rodrigo Corral.

The Razorbill announcement about Influence received a tremendous amount of media attention. Blog stories were in the hundreds and traditional outlets including: Associated Press, People, US Weekly, New York magazine, OK!, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, and many, many others did on-line stories as well.

Gotham Author, Kristen Laine Wins L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award

Gotham author Kristen Laine has won the 2007 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award - given annually to a New England author or a book with a New England setting - in the nonfiction category. American Band: Music, Dreams, and Coming of Age in the Heartland is a look into the soul of one of America's favorite traditions, marching band. Through the eyes of the Concord High School marching band in Elkhart, Indiana; Laine takes you through the rite of passage of being a part of a musical community and shows how its affect can take over an entire town.

The L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award was established by the Boston Globe in 1975 to honor long-time Boston Globe editor, Laurence L. Winship. It has been awarded in the past to E.B. White, Andre Dubus, Susan Cheever and many more renowned authors.

Leaves by David Ezra Stein (Putnam) has won the 2008 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. The Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Awards are given annually to an outstanding new writer of picture books for children and are presented jointly by the New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. A cash award of $1,000 coupled with the esteemed Ezra Jack Keats medallion inscribed with the recipient's name will be presented to the winning David Ezra Stein at the Keats Awards Celebration on May 15th.

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis (Dial) has been selected as a Golden Kite Honor Recipient. Given by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the Golden Kite Awards are chosen annually to recognize excellence in children's literature.

Three Penguin Group (USA) Titles Land on the BusinessWeek Bestseller List

Penguin Group (USA) has three books on the BusinessWeek business bestseller list for the month of March. The books are: You're Broke Because You Want To Be by Larry Winget (Gotham) at #6; The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann (Portfolio) at #9; and Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston (Portfolio) at #11.

New on the Penguin Website

Read the prologue to John Lescroart's new legal thriller, Betrayal, in this month's Mystery & Suspense feature.

Listening to Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody on the Penguin Podcast.

The New York Times Bestseller Highlights for the Week of March 16th

Penguin Group (USA) has five new debuts on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of March 16th: Betrayal by John Lescroart (Dutton) appears at #8 on the hardcover fiction list; Predatory Game by Christine Feehan (Jove) is at #2 on the mass-market fiction list; Grace (Eventually) (Riverhead Trade) its at #20 on the paperback nonfiction list; A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Dutton) debuts at #6 on the hardcover advice, how-to and miscellaneous list; and Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (Speak) is #4 on the children's paperback list.

Here are more New York Times bestseller highlights for the week of March 16th:

On the hardcover fiction list, Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb (G. P. Putnam's Sons) is at #4 in its second week; A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) is #10 in its 41st week; World Without End by Ken Follett (Dutton) is #11 in its 21st week; The Killing Ground by Jack Higgins (G. P. Putnam's Sons) is #12 in its third week; People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) is #14 in its ninth week; and Stranger in Paradise by Robert B. Parker (G. P. Putnam's Sons) is #15 in its fourth week.

On the hardcover nonfiction list, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (The Penguin Press) is #2 in its ninth week; and The Reason For God by Timothy Keller (Dutton) is holds at #11 in its second week.

On the trade paperback fiction list, The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (NAL) is #3 in its sixteenth week; The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs (Berkley) is #6 in its ninth week; The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) is #7 in its 156th week; The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (Penguin) is at #11 in its 89th week; and Oil! by Upton Sinclair (Penguin) is #12 in its second week.

On the mass market paperback fiction list, Tom Clancy's Endwar by David Michaels (Berkley) is #10 in its fourth week; and The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (Jove) is #11 in its fifth week.

On the paperback nonfiction list, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin) holds in the #1 position in its 58th week; Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin) follows right behind at #2 in its 57th week; The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (Penguin) holds at #10 in its 27th week; and A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink (Riverhead) is #18 in its tenth week.

On the advice, how-to, and miscellaneous paperback list, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Plume) holds at #1 in its fifth week; and Getting Things Done by David Allen (Penguin) holds at #7 in its sixteenth week.

In the young readers sector, Barack Obama by Roberta Edwards, illustrated by Ken Call (Grosset & Dunlap) is at #10 on the children's paperback list; and The Alex Rider Adventures by Anthony Horowitz (Philomel/Speak, hardcover and paperback) is #10 in its 51st week.

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