The National Book Critics Circle Awards went to:

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (Fiction)
The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes (General Nonfiction)
Cheever: A Life, by Blake Bailey (Biography)

[all of the above correspond to directly to our compilation Best of the Best of 2009 list]

Somewhere Towards the End, by Diana Athill (Autobiography)
Versed, by Rae Armantrout (Poetry)
Notes from No Man's Land, Eula Biss (Criticism)

In other awards news, the NY Public Library named the finalists for their annual Young Lions Award for a fiction writer 35 or under:

Jedediah Berry, The Manual of Detection
Katie Kitamura, The Longshot
Philipp Meyer, American Rust
C.E. Morgan, All the Living
Wells Tower, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

The regional winners of the Commonwealth Prize were also named, with the overall winners to be selected on April 12:

Best First Book
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubeni, I Do Not Come to You by Chance (Nigeria)
Shandi Mitchell, Under This Unbroken Sky (Canada)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (Pakistan)
Glenda Guest, Siddon Rock (Australia)

Best Book
Marie Heese, The Double Crown (South Africa)
Michael Crummey, Galore (Canada)
Rana Dasgupta, Solo (UK)
Albert Wendt, The Adventures of Vela (Samoa)

Wiley reported third quarter sales of $427 million this morning, a 14 percent increase driven in large part by currency gains (up 5 percent excluding foreign exchange). Operating income of $68.3 million was up eight percent, while adjusted net income of 71 cents a share was up 25 percent. Though the results are strong, analysts were anticipating earnings of 74 cents a share.

The professional/trade division grew 10 percent at $107 million for the quarter, up 7 percent on a currency neutral basis. The company says "sales growth was strong in all regions, especially the U.S., where the holiday season was solid. Business publishing was driven by social media books; technology by books on new windows operating systems and certification; and consumer by the Meredith publishing agreement and For Dummies brand sales."

They announced that in their next fiscal year they will publish a line of "official" licensed, branded Facebook instruction guides, The Definitive Facebook Guides.

Higher education "is having a record-setting year, out-performing the market with strong results in all geographic regions and subject categories," according to ceo William Pesce. At $91.6 million the group was up 23 percent, while STM recorded sales of $228.4 million, up 13 percent.
Release

At St. Martin's, Marc Resnick has been promoted to executive editor, after over thirteen years with the house.

Peggy Hageman has joined the Overlook Press as an associate editor. She was previously at HarperCollins.

Mark Levine has joined BookMasters Distribution Services as publisher relations manager, joining newly appointed vp of business development Tony Proe. Most recently Levine as an acquisitions editor for Barnes & Noble Publishing.

powerHouse will use Random House Publisher Services for sales and distribution to the book and specialty trades.

Gail Hareven's The Confessions of Noa Weber, translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction.

Google Books announced yesterday an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage to digitize "up to a million" out-of-copyright works from the National Libraries of Florence and Rome. It's their first partnership with Italian libraries, and "the first time we've worked with a ministry of culture." They will provide the ministry with copies of the scans so that they can be included in other aggregations, such as the EU project Europeana.

In July Penguin will debut their newest imprint, Current, focused on science books for general readers. Portfolio and Sentinel president and publisher Adrian Zackheim will have the same titles for Current as well, and the line will share  editorial, marketing and publicity staff with Portfolio and Sentinel. They plan to publish five to eight new titles a year. Zackheim comments in the announcement, "Once Current gets ramped up, we aim to publish in every subcategory from genetics to quantum physics to neuroscience."

The first title is a July release by journalist David Stipp, THE YOUTH PILL: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Aging Revolution, followed by Corina Yen's THE MAN WHO LIED TO HIS LAPTOP in September.

The Canadian Booksellers' Association has urged the country's government to reject Amazon's application to operate their own Canadian-based warehouse and fulfillment operation. But an article in the Globe and Mail quotes an unnamed senior official who indicates the Harper administration is "leaning towards" approving Amazon's plan, believing there is a "net benefit" to Canadians. That person added, "If you look at the issue specifically, it's Amazon setting up a warehouse to be able to distribute what they already distribute via the Internet. There's no change in terms of Canadian content."

Part of the booksellers' argument is that "individual Canadian booksellers have traditionally played a key role in ensuring the promotion of Canadian authors and Canadian culture." But Amazon vp of global public policy Paul Misener says: "At some level it seems preposterous that that claim could be made, especially given our track record of eight years serving Canadian customers and authors and publishers. To claim that somehow an American company can't help Canadian culture is just proved wrong by the facts." Misener points out that Amazon sells Canadian-published works to customers from over 170 countries. "I don't think anybody is doing anything near this to help disseminate Canadian cultural products globally."

He says they want to cut supply chain costs and pass them along to customers, while also "increasing the number of categories of products available, just like we have elsewhere in the world."
Globe and Mail