As President-elect Barack Obama begins to assemble tough, pragmatic problem-solvers for his team, he ought to consider Joel Klein. We cannot think of anyone more qualified to be secretary of education than New York’s schools chancellor. He has just the right mix of abrasiveness and charm to take on this important task. We’re hesitant to Read More
Random House has a new CEO today. Markus Dohle, 39, officially started this morning after a weekend spent at the Book Expo in Los Angeles. Mr. Dohle has already spent some time here in New York since being appointed to his new position by the head of Random House corporate parent Bertelsmann, spending a Read More
The Wall Street Journal has the story: Peter Olson's successor at Random House Inc. has been selected, and it's a German guy whom none of the publishers in New York have ever heard of. The name is Markus Dohle, and he comes from Arvato, the printing operation at Bertelsmann.
Mr. Dohle took over the Read More
This past January, Gunter Thielen wrapped up his six year tenure as C.E.O. of Bertelsmann AG, the German corporation that owns the largest American publishing operation, Random House Inc.; today the Bookseller reports that Thielen has been named chairman of the company’s supervisory board.
Bertelsmann was most recently in the news when a German magazine Read More
The Prince has left the Aspen
Every year, New York's publishing world issues a collective complaint about the zoo-like nature of the fall Frankfurt Book Fair, the feeding frenzy of foreign-rights directors, agents and publishers who come to this dreary German city to do face-to-face what they do by fax and e-mail throughout the year: buy and sell the rights to Read More
Every year, New York's publishing world issues a collective complaint about the zoo-like nature of the fall Frankfurt Book Fair, the feeding frenzy of foreign-rights directors, agents and publishers who come to this dreary German city to do face-to-face what they do by fax and e-mail throughout the year: buy and sell the rights to Read More
If you were wondering what might send the world's third-largest media conglomerate into a swivet, look out the window: There's a 7 percent vacancy rate in midtown Manhattan, and Bertelsmann A.G., the $16.4 billion German-based behemoth, is feeling the strain. They may know how to partner up with everyone from venture capitalists to Web geeks Read More
Ten weeks out of an intensive care unit, Sonny Mehta could be found in Bemel-mans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel, hunting for cashews in a silver bowl. He asked for a glass of Côtes du Rhône and popped a cashew. Mr. Mehta, the editor in chief and president of Alfred A. Knopf Inc., and president Read More
Its arrival has been as secretive as that time Holden hid in Phoebe's closet.
In the fall of 2000, Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc., plans to publish a memoir by J.D. Salinger's daughter, Margaret (Peggy) Salinger. The book, entitled Dream-Catcher , is about her childhood and as such will incorporate her Read MoreJudging by the turnout for his 46th-birthday party, Bertelsmann A.G.'s chief executive, Thomas Middelhoff, has successfully tunneled his way into America's media landscape. What a strange, brief trip it's been. Seven months ago, Mr. Middelhoff ascended to the top spot of the world's third-largest media conglomerate, a sprawling empire based in Gütersloh, Germany, that produces Read More
On Dec. 14, Peter Olson, Random House Inc.'s mild-mannered chairman
and chief executive, issued a memo addressed to "everyone" at the company, having to do with Random House's corporate parent, German media giant Bertelsmann A.G. "Over the weekend," Mr. Olson began, "published reports raised questions about Bertelsmann's publishing program in the 30's and 40's and the Read MoreWhen Tom Wolfe took the microphone in the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago on Friday, May 29, he looked a bit peaked. After all, he was having a very busy day. First, he had gone straight from O'Hare International Airport to a noon luncheon at the tony North Lake Shore Drive spread of prominent Read More
In the same week that S.I. Newhouse Jr. dumped Random House into Bertelsmann's maw, the news that someone in power cares a hoot about books was faintly heartening. Of course, the someone in question was Kenneth Starr, and the way the independent prosecutor cares about books is to conduct surveillance of them, specifically by subpoenaing Read More
After four months of clandestine negotiations, Bertelsmann A.G., the German media giant, closed the deal to acquire Random House Inc., on the morning of March 23. By that evening, Bertelsmann's chief executive designate, Peter Olson, and a half-dozen of his colleagues were making themselves quite at home in another New York institution, the restaurant "21." Read More
