John Hitchin obituary

My father, John Hitchin, who has died aged 88, was a marketing and publicity specialist in the publishing industry who spent three decades with Penguin Books, where he was responsible for a number of innovations, including the first paperback gift set and the first display “dump” bin. As Penguin’s development director in the early 1970s he also launched the Puffin school book club and persuaded Sainsbury’s to start selling books.John initially trained in retail at Harrods, becoming the haberdashery department manager there before joining Penguin in 1959. He started in Penguin’s publicity department, becoming the company’s first European representative (under Allen Lane), and then publicity manager in 1962, after which he was its first educational marketing manager, in which role he launched the Penguin Education division. It was after he became development director in 1973 that John launched the Puffin school book club. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2021-10-28 19:33:32 UTC ]

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‘I Saw a Peacock’: The 400 Year-Old Nonsense Poem

In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle analyses a poem that represents the meeting-point of ancient riddle and modern nonsense ‘I Saw a Peacock’ is an anonymous nonsense poem that is included in Quentin Blake’s The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse (Puffin Poetry), a... Continue reading at Interesting Literature

[ Interesting Literature | 2020-07-03 14:00:44 UTC ]
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'Why We Swim' by Bonnie Tsui is July's book club read

Journalist Bonnie Tsui, author of "Why We Swim," joins the L.A. Times Book Club for a July 28 virtual meetup. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-07-01 14:00:34 UTC ]
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The Most Anticipated Debuts of the Second Half of 2020

There’s no doubt COVID-19 has forever changed the world as we know it. A small slice of life that had to shift trajectory is the publishing industry. Debut authors are especially struggling as the books they have worked on for countless years are released into a world without in-person book... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-06-30 11:00:00 UTC ]
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This Week's Bestsellers: June 29, 2020

James McBride’s ‘Deacon King Kong,’ the latest Oprah’s Book Club pick, climbs back onto our hardcover fiction list. Plus children’s books new and old introduce concepts of race, and for ‘28 Summers,’ Elin Hilderbrand meets fans where they are. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-26 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Want to Be in Stacey Abrams’s Book Club? Sorry, It’s Family Only.

The best-selling author and former minority leader for the Georgia House of Representatives has a lot going on, but she still makes time for fiction. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-06-25 09:00:09 UTC ]
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B2B Publishers Call to End Data Misuse in Online Ad Auctions

A group of B2B publishers and ad tech firms are banding together to curtail the harvesting of publisher-specific data from online ad auctions by third-parties, a practice they argue is an unauthorized breach which places their relationships with their audiences at risk. Referred to as data... Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2020-06-17 21:29:40 UTC ]
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Can #BlackoutBestsellerList be the reckoning the publishing industry needs?

The social media campaign could force publishers to focus on black writers by encouraging readers to buy their booksCould the New York Times’ Best Seller book list ever be filled entirely by black authors?As industries undergo reckonings around race, in the wake of international demonstrations... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-06-17 10:00:17 UTC ]
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Allen Lane acquires new exploration of social history by Isabel Wilkerson

Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin UK, will publish Caste: The Lies that Divide Us, an exploration of social history by Isabel Wilkerson.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-17 01:31:24 UTC ]
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Oprah’s next book club pick is Deacon King Kong.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-16 20:04:23 UTC ]
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Novelist Tayari Jones braves COVID-19 and voter suppression in Georgia

In a new kind of quarantine diary, the author of the Oprah's Book Club bestseller "An American Marriage" dons a mask and waits nearly four hours to vote. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-06-16 15:00:07 UTC ]
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Bookshops need to be representative too

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-15 19:31:29 UTC ]
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This Week's Bestsellers: June 15, 2020

Brit Bennett lands at #6 in hardcover fiction with ‘The Vanishing Half.’ Plus Megha Majumdar’s debut novel, ‘A Burning,’ Is #18 in hardcover fiction, and 2018’s ‘I’m Still Here’ by Austin Channing Brown is one of two Reese’s Book Club picks. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-12 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers want more black authors. Why have they silenced us for so long? | Candice Carty-Williams

As Black Lives Matter protests take place across the world, the publishing world is rushing to support those ‘ignored by the mainstream’. Who is the mainstream, then?The publishing industry is stilted and archaic. I worked in it for seven years, and left due to reasons I can’t legally talk... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-06-11 09:44:22 UTC ]
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Changing the story with Hashtag BLAK and The Diverse Book Awards

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-11 01:22:51 UTC ]
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Dorothy Koomson: 'publishing is a hostile environment for Black authors'

Author Dorothy Koomson has written an open letter to the publishing industry, in which she describes it as a “hostile environment for Black authors”.   Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-10 06:37:48 UTC ]
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Puffin title to celebrate animals living in the cities

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-07 21:00:45 UTC ]
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Frontline booksellers are the first people customers see when they set foot in bookstores across America, and are among the most vulnerable workers in the publishing industry. This is what their world looks like now. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-05 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Parakeet Brings out the Delightfully Weird, Unexpectedly Wise Side of Marie-Helene Bertino, by Taylor Hickney

Cultural Cross Sections Taylor Hickney In this profile, one of Marie-Helene Bertino’s students at the New School provides a personal glimpse of the author, whose new novel, Parakeet, was published June 2. On the evening of the National Book Awards,... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-04 19:40:55 UTC ]
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Puffin acquires 'truly original' picture book about climate change

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Coronavirus Response: Spain’s Publishing Industry Mobilizes Bookstore Support

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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-06-04 13:07:04 UTC ]
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