Bookend
It was chivalrous of Messrs Macmillan to take over the Stationers Hall to tiste the seventieth birthday of C. P. Snow — and, since it was a champagne evening, not cheap. With a proper sense of fair play Macmillans asked other firms with a vested interest in Lord Snow whether they would be prepared to help to4it the bill: Penguin (his regular paperback publishers), Rainbird (who produced and packaged his new biography of Trollope), Curtis Brown (his literary agents) and the Financial Times (for whom he reviews each week). All four agreed and a delicate share system was worked out. Alas, I am sorry to report that when the Financial Times discovered that it would have to fork out £300 it disassociated itself from the entire venture.
Don's bar
The antics of Donald Murray, deposed chief of the big remainder dealers Murray Sales, continue to produce much jocularity among his 'friends'. Since the acquisition of his company by the Howard and Wyndham theatre and publishing group the colourful merchant has been engaged in a spirited bid to persuade all and sundry that he remains a power within the firm. He even took an advertisement in the trade press reminding people that he was still a director (telegram address: Don's Bar) although he did not mention that a Mr Joe Scott Clark had actually been appointed managing director of the Murray Group (which, I hasten to add, has no connection at all with the distinguished publishers of Byron). Howard and Wyndham retaliated by drafting their own advertisement but, my Hill Street spies tell me, decided against going into print after talking to their solicitors.
Pork chopped
If anyone is thinking of inviting Anthony Blond out to lunch I had better offer a word of warning. The ebullient publisher has been seeing the Rabbi recently and plans to go Kosher.
120 days on...
Well, we can all talk about it now. Penguin and the American publishers Viking are hoping to merge and are no longer trying to deny it. Last week Penguin's chief executive Peter Calvocoressi had the honesty to admit to the Evening Standard that discussions are proceeding although "the finer details still have to be worked out". This is a rather different stance from that taken by Penguin when Bookbuyer first dropped the word in The Spectator of June 21.
Bookbuyer
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