Farrar, Straus and Giroux

This year’s winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been revealed, celebrating the best books of the year. Below, we’ve linked to free samples of the award-winning books for your reading pleasure. The winners were announced at ceremony on Friday.

Los Angeles Times Book Prizes 2012 Winners:

Biography: Robert A. Caro / The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson(Knopf)
Current Interest

In 1999, a young writer named Jenny Offill published a debut novel called “Last Things,” about a young child being home-schooled by a mother who is slowly going insane. The New York Times called the book, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, “remarkable,” and The Los Angeles Times made Ms. Offill a finalist for its award to new writers.

Then Ms. Offill essentially retreated for 13 years.

After 40 years with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Tom Wolfe will publish his new novel, “Back to Blood,” with Little, Brown and Company. Wolfe is known for such best-selling titles as “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and “The Right Stuff.” According to The New York Times, the 76-year-old author received an advance of almost $7 million for the book, which will be edited by Little, Brown Senior Editor Pat Strachan. Strachan was formerly Wolfe’s editor at Farrar, Strauss. Publication is scheduled for 2009. The Canadian Press reported that, per a publishing official familiar with the negotiations, Farrar, Strauss and

A “who’s who” of the book industry convened in the Big Apple last month to mingle as the annual National Book Awards were bestowed on this year’s batch of winning authors. The black-tie affair, the award’s 57th ceremony, took place at New York’s Marriott Marquis on Nov. 15. This year, the judges chose from 1,259 books submitted by publishers for what has become a leading literary prize for Americans since it was first given in 1950. Richard Powers’ “The Echo Maker,” published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, earned the top award for fiction this year, while Timothy Egan took home the nonfiction award for “The Worst

Gather.com, a popular user-driven social networking community on the Web, is celebrating its first anniversary next month with a literary-themed cruise setting sail to Bermuda. The Web site, in conjunction with several major publishers, will present bestselling authors and literary guests who vacationers will have the opportunity to mingle with for the five-night event on Royal Caribbean’s new Jewel of the Seas cruise ship. Gather.com President and COO Carl Rosendorf, a former executive with Barnes & Nobel.com, chats with Book Business EXTRA! about the Book It to Bermuda cruise. Book Business EXTRA! -- What has Gather’s connection been with authors and publishers since the Web

‘Owen and Mzee: the True Story of a Remarkable Friendship’ The bond between a baby hippotamus orphaned during the Asian tsunami and a 130-year-old Aldabran tortoise is the basis for a recently released children’s book publsihed by Scholastic Inc. Written by Craig Hatkoff, his seven-year-old daughter, Isabella, and Dr. Paula Kahumba of Lafarge Eco Systems, operators of Haller Park in Kenya where the animals live, “Owen and Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship” tells the story of how these two animals came together. Inspiration for the Hatkoff’s to write Owen and Mzee’s story came after the two saw the pair’s picture

Talk of globalization is everywhere, even at the doctor's office—or mine, at least. A simple visit to the doctor last night turned into a discussion about offshoring. The doc had heard about the new book by New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, called "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). He was quite affected by the reports he had heard about it, and he is not alone. Despite the fact that almost every industry is individually trying to harness the impact that offshoring will have in the long run, and that offshoring has been a