The spiegel bestseller 2023 is a list of best-selling books in the German language. It's compiled by a team of experts, and it is updated regularly.
"Finis Germania" by Rolf Peter Sieferle, a collection of essays about Germany's recent history, made
Der Spiegel's
bestseller list in June. It also made the prestigious Nonfiction Book of the Month list, which has been published by public broadcaster NDR and newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung for over 20 years.
However, the controversial essay has been removed from the magazine's rankings. The reason is because the work contains around 3,700 scholarly annotations from Christian Hartmann, Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plocking and others.
This is a problem for the publisher. It means that the 4,000 copies of the book that are still in print will likely sell out before they can be reprinted. The publisher's chief executive, Susan Kamil, has told employees that the imprint will be shuttered as part of the ongoing reorganization of Penguin Random House's publishing lines.
The reorganization isn't the first time that publishers have sought to consolidate and streamline their imprints. Earlier this year, Hachette, which has more than 250 imprints worldwide, moved its free-standing Hachette Books nonfiction line to Perseus Books.
A similar move was made by Penguin Random House last year, when it shuttered Blue Rider Press, its independent nonfiction imprint. The move was a way to cut duplication across its imprints, and it also allowed for better management of the books that were being published.
Many of the most notable titles published by the company in the past few years have come from its Spiegel & Grau imprint. That's because the company's cofounders, editors Gabrielle Spiegel and Jennifer Grau, have spent decades at Penguin and Random House, where they worked closely with authors like Junot Diaz, Nick Hornby, Khaled Hosseini and Chang-Rae Lee.
In addition to publishing books by some of the most influential writers in the world, Spiegel & Grau has also made a name for itself with bestselling self-help titles. They've published books by Suze Orman, Brene Brown and other popular self-help authors.
