Harpercollins

The American Library Assn. announced its 2013 book award winners Monday at its annual national conference, held this year in Seattle. While the best-known awards are the John Newbery Medal and the Caledecott Medal, there are dozens of awards, each of which helps librarians bring excellent books to the attention of young readers and their parents. The Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children was awarded to "This Is Not My Hat," written and illustrated by Jon Klassen.

George R.R. Martin's "A Dance With Dragons," the fifth book in the hugely popular Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, is one of the most anticipated novel of the last few years. In the four previous volumes of this sprawling fantasy epic, which was inspired by England's War of the Roses in the 1400s, Martin has captivated readers with complex story lines, fascinating characters, great dialogue, perfect pacing, and the willingness to kill off even his major characters. His readers now number in the millions and a recent HBO series — "Game of Thrones" — based on the first installment in the series faithfully showcases all of Martin's strengths.

There is an old joke about one antisemite who complains to another that their troubles are "all the fault of the shoemakers and the Jews." "But why the shoemakers?" asks his friend. "Why the Jews?" he shrugs, as if there had to be a reason. And so with poor Freud in this new book by dissident psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey. Very few evils of modern American culture are not his fault.

The wave of book publishing cuts has now reached HarperCollins. The publisher of such authors as Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, Oprah Winfrey favorite David Wroblewski and Newbery prize winner Neil Gaiman has closed and dispersed a nonfiction division and a children's imprint and laid off what a spokeswoman described as a "small percentage" of employees.

Erin giggles about her parents' divorce. Of course, the 14-year-old from Redondo Beach said, she'd rather have her parents together. But they're not. Never will be. So she's "making the best of it by getting things I want"--things such as sympathy, money and "total freedom to do whatever." * For sympathy, she'll whine to one about how horrible it was visiting the other--even when she had a fine time.

In a push to adapt more of its books into films, HarperCollins will be joining forces with Sharp Independent, a New York-based film production company, the publisher announced Monday. Under the new arrangement, the publisher will work with the film production company to acquire films rights from HarperCollins future and current titles, as well as its backlist. The deal is similar in some ways to a venture announced two years ago by Random House Inc.

News Corp.'s HarperCollins plans to sell its titles over the Internet, joining Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. in offering books online. HarperCollins plans to spend as much as $1 million digitizing its books and is searching for a partner, group President Brian Murray said.

News Corp. said it is cutting 420 jobs at its New York-based HarperCollins book publishing unit and that it will take a one-time charge of $270 million for restructuring the troubled operation. But the huge media company, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said it has no plans to sell HarperCollins after a yearlong effort to restructure the book publisher. News Corp.

NEW YORK -- Walden Media, which has produced 15 films based on children's books, is getting into the publishing business in conjunction with HarperCollins. The company, which has adapted such HarperCollins titles as "The Chronicles of Narnia," "Bridge to Terabithia" and "Charlotte's Web" for the screen, will be launching Walden Pond Press, acquiring and publishing books for children, the companies said Monday.

HarperCollins U.K. has made an offer for the British rights for Woody Allen's yet-unwritten memoirs, a spokeswoman said Friday at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Allen's agents have been shopping the book fair in Germany to gauge interest in the definitive life story of the film director and actor best known for his neurotic characters. The status of the much-coveted U.S. rights was not immediately clear, although the New York Post reported that bidding was climbing after Allen rejected a $1.