BTW News Briefs

House Moves Closer to Health Care Reform

The Chicago Tribune reported that House Democrats reached an important but tenuous agreement on President Obama's health care campaign that may facilitate a chamber vote for an overhaul in September. The agreement, worked out between a set of Blue Dog Democrats and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, alters the way the proposed government-operated insurance plan would function to ease concerns that private insurers would be obviated, said the Tribune.

Created with assistance from the White House, the agreement slashes more than $100 billion from the bill's price tag of more than $1 trillion, according to lawmakers who worked on the deal, the Tribune noted. It also exempts more small businesses from being required to provide health insurance for employees.

Longlist for Man Booker Prize for Fiction Announced

On July 28, the judges announced the longlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. A total of 132 books, 11 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the 'Man Booker Dozen' longlist of 13 books.

The longlist includes:

The Children's Book, A.S. Byatt (Chatto and Windus)
Summertime, J.M. Coetzee (Harvill Secker)
The Quickening Maze, Adam Foulds (Jonathan Cape)
How to Paint a Dead Man, Sarah Hall (Faber)
The Wilderness, Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape)
Me Cheeta, James Lever (Fourth Estate)
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate)
The Glass Room, Simon Mawer (Little, Brown)
Not Untrue & Not Unkind, Ed O'Loughlin (Penguin - Ireland)
Heliopolis, James Scudamore (Harvill Secker)
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin (Viking)
Love and Summer, William Trevor (Viking)
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (Virago)

For more information, visit www.themanbookerprize.com

Barnes & Noble to Offers Free Wi-Fi

On July 28, Barnes & Noble, Inc. announced an agreement with AT&T that will provide free Wi-Fi to in-store customers. Customers shopping in Barnes & Noble stores can now download and preview any of the over 700,000 eBook titles with hundreds of thousands of public domain titles available from Google. The company said its number of eBook titles is expanding everyday and expects to hit the one million mark soon.

Tim Hepp Helmuth Sales Rep of the Year

On July 29, New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association booksellers announced that Tim Hepp from Simon & Schuster has been selected as the Helmuth Sales Rep of the Year.

One of the booksellers who nominated Tim Hepp for the Helmuth Award, Michael Fox of Joseph Fox Bookshop in Philadelphia, wrote: "Tim has been visiting the shop for well over 10 years ... and I can't think of anyone more deserving.... We were a much smaller account ten years ago, but his one goal has always been to see how he can help me make the store better and he has indeed helped me grow."

Hepp has been the sales manager for booksellers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, D.C., and New Jersey, and calls on Bookazine, Books Management Inc., Politics & Prose, Joseph Fox Bookshop, Mendham Books, Chester County Book and Music Company, Spencer's Gifts, and other accounts. Hepp has worked for S&S for over 15 years, earning outstanding sales achievement honors twice.