Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming sold more than 725,000 units on November 13, the day of its release. This is the biggest release-day sales total for any book published in the US in 2018.
Maya Jasanoff, the author of The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, has won the 2018 Cundill History Prize.
Ann Powers, the author of Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music, is working on a book about Joni Mitchell, title TBD.
The Pulitzer board has announced that fiction writer Junot Diaz will remain one of its members. A law firm recently reviewed allegations of Diaz’s sexual misconduct, and “did not find evidence warranting removal” from the board.
Time has released its list of the ten best novels of 2018, putting Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room and Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry in the number 1 and 2 spots.
Authr Harry Bingham says there’s a problem with the argument that there’s been a decline in sales for works of fiction: it doesn’t consider self-published books. Bingham, who himself has self-published novels, looks new approaches in publishing, particularly on Amazon, and argues that fiction is “doing just fine.”
