Former bookseller makes good.
Philip Turner, v-p and editor-in-chief at Carroll & Graf, Thunder's Mouth and Philip Turner Books at Avalon Publishing, is joining Sterling Publishing, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary, to direct a new narrative nonfiction imprint called Union Square Press.
Beginning next fall, Union Square Press will publish some 40 titles a year in a range of subjects, including adventure, biography, culture, current and international affairs, the environment, history, politics, social issues and sports. The company will also create a Union Square Press paperback program devoted to revivals of out-of-print books, reprints in trade paperback of both its own and other publishers' titles and paperback originals.
Turner will also take to Sterling a program he has been developing with Avalon for a line of books featuring "truthtellers, whistleblower, and muckrakers." An example of that line is the first Philip Turner Books title, On the Brink: An Insider's Account of How the White House Compromised American Intelligence by former CIA official Tyler Drumheller.
"I call them imperative books," Turner told Shelf Awareness. "Often the authors are the only ones who can write them, as is the case with On the Brink." He added, "I think booksellers being who they are will understand this concept and bring an energy to these books that will be significant."
During his seven years at Avalon, Turner acquired and published such books as The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk by Clinton family friend Susan MacDougal, The Politics of Truth by Ambassador Joseph Wilson whose wife was outed as a CIA employee by the White House and Shake Hands With the Devil by Lt. General Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian who led the U.N. mission in Rwanda during the genocide 12 years ago. Recently he also published Wendy Werris's An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the Business of Books, which was excerpted in Shelf Awareness this fall.
Turner began his career in 1978 as a co-founder with his family of Under Cover Books, an independent bookseller in Cleveland, Ohio. Since leaving Under Cover in 1986, Turner has held a number of senior editorial positions, including executive editor at Times Books and editor in chief of Kodansha America. He joins Sterling January 15.
Philip Turner, v-p and editor-in-chief at Carroll & Graf, Thunder's Mouth and Philip Turner Books at Avalon Publishing, is joining Sterling Publishing, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary, to direct a new narrative nonfiction imprint called Union Square Press.
Beginning next fall, Union Square Press will publish some 40 titles a year in a range of subjects, including adventure, biography, culture, current and international affairs, the environment, history, politics, social issues and sports. The company will also create a Union Square Press paperback program devoted to revivals of out-of-print books, reprints in trade paperback of both its own and other publishers' titles and paperback originals.
Turner will also take to Sterling a program he has been developing with Avalon for a line of books featuring "truthtellers, whistleblower, and muckrakers." An example of that line is the first Philip Turner Books title, On the Brink: An Insider's Account of How the White House Compromised American Intelligence by former CIA official Tyler Drumheller.
"I call them imperative books," Turner told Shelf Awareness. "Often the authors are the only ones who can write them, as is the case with On the Brink." He added, "I think booksellers being who they are will understand this concept and bring an energy to these books that will be significant."
During his seven years at Avalon, Turner acquired and published such books as The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk by Clinton family friend Susan MacDougal, The Politics of Truth by Ambassador Joseph Wilson whose wife was outed as a CIA employee by the White House and Shake Hands With the Devil by Lt. General Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian who led the U.N. mission in Rwanda during the genocide 12 years ago. Recently he also published Wendy Werris's An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the Business of Books, which was excerpted in Shelf Awareness this fall.
Turner began his career in 1978 as a co-founder with his family of Under Cover Books, an independent bookseller in Cleveland, Ohio. Since leaving Under Cover in 1986, Turner has held a number of senior editorial positions, including executive editor at Times Books and editor in chief of Kodansha America. He joins Sterling January 15.