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Our Longlisted Books for the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation has announced its 10-title longlist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, which includes three books published by Penguin Random House imprints and one book published by a Penguin Random House Publisher Services publisher client.  The five finalists will be announced in March. The winner will be named in April and presented with a $15,000 prize at the 40th Annual PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony on Monday, May 4, in Washington, DC.

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PRH Semi-Finalists: WHERE REASONS END by Yiyun Li (Random House) WE CAST A SHADOW by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (One World/Random House) ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press) PRHPS Client Semi-Finalist: THE NIGHT SWIMMERS by Peter Rock (Soho Press) To view the complete 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction longlist, click here. Congratulations and good luck to our authors, their editors and publishers.

Featured Author Event: Melvin I. Urofsky (Washington, D.C.)

Colleagues who will be in the vicinity of our nation’s capital this weekend take note: author Melvin I. Urofsky is discussing his new Knopf book, THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PUZZLE, on Saturday, February 15, at Politics & Prose Bookstore (5015 Connecticut Ave. NW) in Washington, D.C.   This free event begins at 6:00 p.m.  

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Urofsky presents a history of affirmative action from its beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to the first use of the term in 1935 with the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) to 1961 and John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, mandating that federal contractors take “affirmative action” to ensure that there be no discrimination by “race, creed, color, or national origin” down to today’s American society. In this important, ambitious, far-reaching book, readers will come to fully understand the societal impact of affirmative action: how and why it has helped, and inflamed, people of all walks of life; how it has evolved; and how, and why, it is still needed. Melvin Urofsky is a professor emeritus of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and was the chair of its history department. He is the editor (with David W. Levy) of the five-volume collection of Louis Brandeis’s letters, as well as the author of The Affirmative Action Puzzle, Dissent and the Supreme Court, and Louis D. Brandeis. He lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Featured Author Event: Simone St. James (Manhattan)

All Penguin Random House employees are invited to hear Simone St. James discuss her new Berkley thriller, THE SUN DOWN MOTEL in conversation with fellow Berkley author Rachel Harrison. Abby Endler, creator of Crime by the Book, will be the moderator.  The event takes place on Wednesday, February 19 at Barnes & Noble Upper West Side (2289 Broadway) from 7:00 to 9:00 pm and includes a book signing with the authors.

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In her chilling new novel, St. James takes readers alongside protagonist Carly Kirk as she attempts to solve the mysteries of her family's past.  Something hasn’t been right at the Sun Down Motel for a long time, and Carly is about to find out why. Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isn’t right at the motel, something haunting and scary. Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.  Simone St. James is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls, Lost Among the Living, and The Haunting of Maddy Clare. She wrote her first ghost story, about a haunted library, when she was in high school, and spent twenty years behind the scenes in the television business before leaving to write full-time

HAIR LOVE Wins Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film

HAIR LOVE, Matthew A. Cherry’s bestselling children’s book for Kokila that was conceived as an animated short film, won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at last night’s 92nd annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.  A tender and empowering ode to loving your natural hair, and a celebration of daddies and daughters everywhere – HAIR LOVE was transformed into a bestselling children’s book, written by Cherry, a former NFL wide receiver, and illustrated by Vashti Harrison, published in May 2019 by Penguin Young Readers’ Kokila Books imprint.

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In accepting his Oscar, Cherry said, “HAIR LOVE was done because we wanted to see more representation in animation; we wanted to normalize black hair … This award is dedicated to Kobe Bryant.  May we all have a second act as great as his was.” The late Los Angeles Lakers legend was the first African American and only other former professional athlete to win a Best Animated Short Film Oscar, which Bryant received in 2018 for Dear Basketball. HAIR LOVE was directed by Cherry and produced by Karen Rupert Toliver.  The film’s team of animators included Everett Downing Jr. (Up, WALL-E) and Bruce W. Smith (The Proud Family), Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and Frank Abney (Toy Story 4). Our congratulations to Mr. Cherry, our colleagues at Kokila and Penguin Young Readers, and everyone involved with the creation of HAIR LOVE.

Atwood, Rushdie Booker Prize 2019 Finalists

We celebrate the respective publications today and September 10 of Salman Rushdie’s QUICHOTTE  and THE TESTAMENTS by Margaret Atwood with the happy news that both novels make the shortlist for the 2019 Booker Prize.  In all,  4 fiction works from our U.S., Canada, and U.K. imprints have been selected as finalists by the London-based judges for this coveted English-language fiction annual award. 

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THE TESTAMENTS by Margaret Atwood U.S.: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday Canada: McClelland & Stewart UK: Chatto & Windus   QUICHOTTE by Salman Rushdie U.S.: Random House Canada: Knopf Canada UK: Jonathan Cape   GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernardine Evaristo UK:  Hamish Hamilton 10 MINUTES 38 SECONDS IN THIS STRANGE WORLD by Elif Shafak UK:  Viking UK Click here for the complete 2019 Booker Prize short list. Hearty congratulations to   Mr. Rushdie and Ms. Atwood as well as Ms. Evaristo and Ms. Shafak, and their publishing teams across our companies. On to the awards dinner in London on Monday, October 14.
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RHCB’s Random House Graphic Imprint Announces Inaugural Publishing List

 Random House Graphic (RHG), a new imprint dedicated to publishing graphic novels for kids and teens of every age and interest, fiction and nonfiction, will launch its first list in Spring 2020, it was announced by Gina Gagliano, Publishing Director, Random House Graphic. The list includes four titles of varied genres that span from young chapter books to YA, reflecting the rapidly growing popularity of the format among young readers.  This inaugural list announcement was made in coordination with the launch of the Random House Graphic website, now live at rhkidsgraphic.com.

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Random House Graphic believes in the importance and power of comics storytelling, and the central place of visual literature in our world and culture today. The imprint’s mission is to transform the childhood reading experience by making high-quality graphic novels accessible to every type of reader. The imprint is made up of a team of experts in the format, led by Director Gina Gagliano, who came to Random House from First Second Books, and includes Senior Editor Whitney Leopard, previously an Editor at BOOM! Studios, and Designer Patrick Crotty, Co-Founder of Peow. RHG also will have a dedicated Marketing and PR Manager, Nicole Valdez, joining the team in August. The imprint’s debut list includes two middle-grade graphic novels, THE RUNAWAY PRINCESS by Johan Troïanowski and ASTER AND THE ACCIDENTAL MAGIC by Thom Pico and Karensac; the young adult graphic novel WITCHLIGHT by Jessi Zabarsky; and the chapter book graphic novel BUG BOYS by Laura Knetzger. Following the publication of these first four titles, Random House Graphic will publish a contemporary middle-grade by Lucy Knisley, the critically acclaimed, award-winning New York Times bestselling comic creator of Relish and Kid Gloves. Inspired by Knisley’s own childhood, STEPPING STONES follows a young girl forced to move with her mom from the city to a farm in the country, where she eventually gets a new stepfather and stepsisters. Publication is scheduled for May 2020. “Random House Graphic is dedicated to publishing the best in kids and YA graphic novels,” explains Gagliano. “It’s an incredibly exciting time for the graphic novel medium—with more readers coming to these stories, and new groundbreaking books being published, the category is expanding by leaps and bounds. We can’t wait to share our contributions to it with readers, booksellers, comic book sellers, educators, librarians, and everyone who loves books and comics.”                       THE RUNAWAY PRINCESS (on sale January 21, 2020) follows a young princess who finds her castle intolerably boring and runs away to find adventure, make friends, and learn more about the fantastical world around her. BUG BOYS (on sale February 11, 2020) is a chapter book that follows two young bugs as they learn about friendship and the science of the world around them. ASTER AND THE ACCIDENTAL MAGIC (on sale March 3, 2020) is an action-packed middle-grade adventure about a girl whose parents move their family to the middle of nowhere. Aster’s new home seems far from exciting, until she figures out that the countryside might have some magic in it. WITCHLIGHT (on sale April 14, 2020) is a queer YA fantasy romance, filled with friendship, family, falling in love, and dealing with the hardest bits of your past along the way. Additional titles to be published by Random House Graphic in 2020 include Kerry and the Knight of the Forest by Andi Watson, Witches of Brooklyn by Sophie Escabasse, Séance Tea Party by Reimena Yee, Crabapple Trouble by Kaeti Vandorn, Donut Feed the Squirrels by Mika Song, The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen, and Suncatcher by Jose Pimienta. The RH Graphic program expands on the current list of acclaimed graphic novels published by Random House Children’s Books, including series like Babymouse by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm; 5 Worlds by Mark Siegel and Alexis Siegel and illustrated by Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller, and Boya Sun; and Hilo by Judd Winick, as well as stand-alone titles including The Cardboard Kingdom by Chad Sell. RH Graphic is an imprint of Random House Children’s Books (rhcbooks.com), the world’s largest English-language children’s trade book publisher. Creating books for toddlers through young adult readers, in all formats from board books to activity books to picture books, novels, and nonfiction, the imprints of Random House Children’s Books bring together award-winning authors and illustrators, world-famous franchise characters, and bring together award-winning authors and illustrators, world-famous franchise characters, and multimillion-copy series. Visit Random House Graphic online at @RHKidsGraphic | rhkidsgraphic.com

Sophie Mackintosh, Michael Ondaatje Among Our 2018 Man Booker Prize Semi-Finalists

The longlist of thirteen semi-finalists for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, one of the most influential annual English-language international literary fiction honors, has been announced from London. They were chosen from more than 170 submitted books being published in the UK between October 1, 2017, and September 30, 2018.

Here are our longlisted titles published by Penguin Random House imprints in the U.S., Canada and the UK:

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THE WATER CURE by Sophie Mackintosh US: Doubleday Canada: Hamish Hamilton Canada UK: Hamish Hamilton U.K. WARLIGHT by Michael Ondaatje US: Knopf Canada: McClelland & Stewart UK: Jonathan Cape (Earlier this month, Mr. Ondaatje’s THE ENGLISH PATIENT was awarded the Man Booker Golden Prize, honoring the best work of fiction from the last five decades of the Man Booker Prize, as chosen by five judges, and then voted on by the public.) WASHINGTON BLACK by Esi Edugyan U.S.: Knopf NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney U.S.: Hogarth (4/16/19) Canada: Knopf Canada (4/16/19) THE LONG TAKE by Robin Robertson U.S. Knopf (1/22/19) FROM A LOW AND QUIET SEA by Donal Ryan U.S.: Penguin Books UK: Doubleday Ireland EVERYTHING UNDER by Daisy Johnson UK: Jonathan Cape THE OVERSTORY by Richard Powers UK: William Heinemann THE MARS ROOM by Rachel Kushner UK: Jonathan Cape SNAP by Belinda Bauer UK: Bantam Press View the complete 2018 Man Booker Prize longlist here. The shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize will be announced on September 20, and the winner revealed on October 16. We warmly congratulate our semi-finalists, their editors and publishers.

Penguin Random House Donates Books to Save the Children as Part of “Grand Central Reads”

Penguin Random House has launched a limited-time charitable-giving opportunity as part of our Grand Central Reads partnership with MTA Metro-North Railroad and Grand Central Terminal, a brand new program that allows commuters and visitors to use their mobile devices to download free Penguin Random House book excerpts.

In celebration of Penguin Random House’s five-year anniversary, the company is offering Grand Central Reads users a special 5-minute Reads section on the mobile platform, which will trigger book donations from Penguin Random House to its charitable partner, Save the Children, empowering New Yorkers to give back to those in need. For every five minutes read in this section, Penguin Random House will donate one of its book to global humanitarian organization Save the Children, up to 25,000 books, which will be distributed during community events, family activities and holiday celebrations at parks, schools, and libraries in the areas the organization serves.

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“Inspiring a culture of reading in communities is central to who we are and what we do as Penguin Random House,” said Claire von Schilling, EVP, Director, Corporate Communications, Penguin Random House. “This special initiative on the Grand Central Reads mobile platform is a wonderful opportunity for us to come together with Save the Children and our home-town New Yorkers to give back and make a positive difference in the lives of others through books.” “Save the Children is committed to ensuring every last child gets the opportunity to learn,” said Carolyn Miles, President & CEO, Save the Children. “We know the significant impact reading can have on a child’s life, and are grateful for Penguin Random House’s support and the Grand Central Reads partnership in helping us give more children the best chance for success.” Grand Central Reads features a platform created by Penguin Random House that offers users free access to extensive excerpts from a wide range of its book content, including thrillers, nonfiction, classics and cookbooks, via free wi-fi, inside Grand Central Terminal, on terminal platforms, and in the Park Avenue Tunnel. The program highlights the works of New York authors and stories featuring the Big Apple, Grand Central Terminal, and eventful train rides. Among the featured titles are:   For more information about the GCR program, please visit grandcentralreads.com.

Penguin Random House Colleagues Participate in 2018 NYC Pride March

On Sunday, June 24, the Penguin Random House LGBTQ Network participated in the NYC Pride March that was organized to celebrate, advocate for and support the LGBTQ community. For the sixth year in a row, Penguin Random House employees and their spouses, partners, friends, and family marched to support LGBT rights.

Read on for pictures and to hear what marchers had to say about the day!

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“It was an absolute joy to march with PRH’s LGBTQ Network! There was a tremendous amount of support from both members of the Network and from parade spectators. LGBTQ inclusion in the publishing industry was definitely showcased by our participation.” –Matt Romano, DK “This was my first time walking in Pride, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. But seeing so many people celebrating themselves freely and confidently—and celebrating each other—made me feel empowered and proud to be who I am.” –Jennifer Huang, Riverhead “It was such an honor to be able to participate in Pride as a member of PRH's LGBTQ Network. It was not only incredibly heartwarming to witness the strength of New York's thriving and compassionate LGBTQ community by marching alongside the hundreds and thousands of Pride's fellow marchers and attendees, but it also reminded me of how incredibly proud, honored, and thankful I am to be welcomed and accepted as a member of the PRH family.” –Tiff Ferentini, Kodansha Comics “It was exhilarating walking in the parade with the PRH LGBT Network, knowing I was surrounded by the most supportive, wonderful colleagues—and knowing that our company has been equally supportive at every turn.” –Max Felderman, PPG Sales The Penguin Random House LGBTQ Network was conceived to provide: a supportive environment to all employees who share the common idea of nurturing workplace diversity; a forum for professional and social opportunities; a community among the LGBTQ individuals at Penguin Random House; and an increased awareness of LGBTQ authors and books within the community.  

How One World’s Chris Jackson Discovered and Published Dr. Mona’s Story of Truth, Change and Hope

In WHAT THE EYES DON’T SEE: A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City (One World), Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha shares her powerful first-hand account of how an Iraqi-American pediatrician used science to prove Flint, Michigan kids were exposed to lead. In riveting detail, she takes readers into the heart of the crisis and how she successfully stood up against the government that accused her of spreading hysteria. But this book is not only about environmental injustice, it is a story of hope. It is about how each of us – no matter who we are, where we are, or how we ended up in this country – has the power to fix and change things.

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Here Chris Jackson, Vice President, Publisher, Editor in Chief, One World, reveals how he first came in contact with Dr. Mona, the process of working with her to develop her story and experiences into book form, and ultimately publishing WHAT THE EYES DON’T SEE: “I met Mona Hanna-Attisha at the Ridenhour Prize ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, back in 2016. I was there to present an award to one of my authors, Jill Leovy, author of GHETTOSIDE: A True Story of Murder in America; Dr. Mona was there to receive the Ridenhour Truthteller Prize for her work in Flint, Michigan, where she was a key whistleblower in that city’s devastating water crisis. Dr. Mona delivered a few remarks that day that moved me then and have stuck with me ever since. Mona spoke about whistleblowing being a 'choiceless choice' – that having seen what she saw, she had no choice but to risk her professional reputation and the wrath of her own state government to tell the truth she’d uncovered: that the state was poisoning its own children. She also generously dedicated most of her short talk to shining the spotlight on other heroes in Flint – activists, mothers, reporters, scientists – creating a portrait not of a singular, heroic savior, but of a community that came together to save itself. I approached her after her talk – wading through a crowd of other admirers – and asked her if she’d ever thought about writing a book. She took my card and six months later her proposal landed in my in-box. “Working with Dr. Mona has been its own process of discovery. At our first meeting back in Washington, all I knew about her was she was a pediatrician and a whistleblower. But in some ways, Dr. Mona had been preparing for her role in the crisis for her entire life. She was the child of Iraqi immigrants who came to this country fleeing a tyrannical dictator who poisoned his own people and by the time the crisis in Flint hit, she was an established pediatrician, researcher, and educator who had oriented her practice toward social justice. The book as we initially conceived it, wove these strands together – the immigrant story, the story of her incredible work before and after the crisis at the Hurley Pediatric Center, and, of course, the thrilling core narrative: the crisis and the bold detective work and outspoken advocacy that forced the whole country to pay attention. But the sum of the book had to be more than those three pieces. “A great book always needs to elevate its story with a theme that gives it deeper meaning – in other words, Dr. Mona and I had to figure out what the bigger story was that she was trying to tell. We didn’t just want a riveting, thrilling story of rule-breaking citizen activism; and we didn’t just want to provide much-needed information about lead and water. We realized that we wanted readers to be changed by the book – to see in the incredibly important story of Flint an even bigger story. Flint wasn’t just an anomalous event or even a tragedy. It was a deliberate government-abetted crime that reflected a twisted set of values. And we wanted the book to show how a different set of values–fighting for justice, respecting science, caring for the most vulnerable, especially children, and choosing truth over personal security or careerism—might point us toward a different way, with different outcomes. Dr. Mona and others have used the crisis as an opening for incredible, creative work in Flint, where they are building models for how communities can recover from histories of policy-driven violence and deprivation. We wanted the book to be a creative model in its way, too. “Our goal was to get all of this into the book and I think Mona succeeded. The book is a thriller about a crisis – ‘Grishamesque’ is how O Magazine described it—but more than that, it’s a book about the most urgent and timely challenges we’re facing right now as a society. It’s about how we must care for each other better. How we must tell the truth, even in the face of awful repercussions. And it’s about how we – as citizens – don’t have to wait for our politicians to get their acts together. We can fight for change where we stand, right now, because the stakes are too high to wait. “Dr. Mona will be appearing all over the media and traveling the country over the next weeks and months talking about her book and these deeper ideas. And just as Flint discovered in the water crisis, I think the country at large will find that our present crisis has met its ideal advocate: the daughter of immigrants, a driven scientist and caregiver, a passionate defender of children, and a powerful, fearless truthteller.” See and hear Dr. Mona talk about WHAT THE EYES DON’T SEE in conversation with Chelsea Clinton tonight at Barnes & Noble Union Square in NYC beginning at 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.