Current Writers House president Amy Berkower will serve as the new chairman and Simon Lipskar will be the agency’s president. Zuckerman will maintain his list of authors, including: Ken Follett, Stephen Hawking, Michael Lewis and the estates of Hermann Hesse.

Here’s more about his career, from the release: “Under his guidance, Writers House has grown from a closet-like space on West 42nd Street in New York City to two Victorian buildings on West 26th Street erected for the Astor family in 1872, with offices also in London and San Diego. Its staff has grown from one to 43, eight of whom have been with the company for more than 25 years.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Martin Scorsese‘s award winning adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick has lead the Academy Award nominations this year, earning 11 Oscar nominations.

We’ve embedded the trailer above–what did you think of the film? Earlier this year, we wrote about Selznick’s personalized tours of the American Museum of Natural History.

The Best Picture nominees included a host of adapted novels. Below, we’ve linked to free samples of books adapted into Best Picture-nominated films.

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The library books can only be read on Amazon Kindle devices: the Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Keyboard or Kindle Fire–excluding readers on mobile devices and rival tablets. Customers can sign up for the $79-a-year Amazon Prime membership to access the library.

Amazon was frank about the terms of the deal with publishers: “Titles in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library come from a range of publishers under a variety of terms.  For the vast majority of titles, Amazon has reached agreement with publishers to include titles for a fixed fee.  In some cases, Amazon is purchasing a title each time it is borrowed by a reader under standard wholesale terms as a no-risk trial to demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and revenue opportunity that this new service presents.”

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Senior editor Chris Schluep had this statement: “This is one of the best seasons for literary novels to come along in several years … We’ve highlighted Murakami and Eugenides in our Amazon Editors’ Top 10, as well as three of the finest debuts–by Amy Waldman, Erin Morgenstern, and Chad Harbach–to come across our desks in a long time.”

We’ve listed all the books below–what books are you looking forward to this fall?

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Back in March, Michael Lewis‘ bestselling book, The Big Short, had a contentious audience in the Amazon customer reviews section–facing pricing protests and angry critics.  In Google’s new eBookstore, the same book has zero one-star ratings (pictured on the left). Currently, his book counts 86 one-star ratings at Amazon (pictured on the right). At the same time, Amazon has 319 five-star reviews and Google eBookstore only has 28 five-star reviews.

Most of the Google  eBookstore ratings are drawn from the GoodReads community, a very supportive network for book lovers. Do you think this new set of ratings from Goodreads will help make Google a kinder, gentler reviews section? Or will the conversation grow more contentious over the next few months?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

According to Hildick-Smith, his audience research and pre-publication book testing company polled thousands readers, asking them if they would be more likely to buy a book with an “Only in Hardcover” sticker. When looking at the results, he noticed a more positive response to books marked with the “Only in Hardcover” sticker.

“I absolutely, one hundred percent believe that windowing is the only way this industry is going to survive,” Hildick-Smith told GalleyCat when asked about the experiment. “For whatever reason, the major publishers don’t agree … [simultaneous release] is lethal.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The memoir is scheduled for hardcover release in February 2011. Scott Waxman from Waxman Literary Agency negotiated the deal, and Gotham Books editorial director Megan Newman will edit. Earlier this year, Sandra Bullock won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in an adaptation of The Blind Side–a Michael Lewis book (pictured, via) that told Oher’s story for the first time.

Gotham Books publisher William Shinker had this comment: “From reading the book The Blind Side and seeing the award-winning movie of the same name millions of people think they know Michael Oher’s story, but they really don’t. He gave only two interviews for the book and none for the movie. This will be the first time he will be able to tell his story in his own words with details that only he knows, and to offer his point of view on how anyone, no matter their background and upbringing, can achieve a better life.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As you enjoy the weekend, check out the video embedded above and learn how to make a cover for your Amazon Kindle (or other eReader)–from scratch. If you want more weekend reading, here are our favorite headlines from the week.

We learned how to use Google TV ads to promote your book (cheaply!) on television.

Novelist Tim O’Brien gave us writing tips and reflected on the 20th anniversary of The Things They Carried.

While President Barack Obama used an indie bookstore in Iowa to illustrate his health care plan, the Washington Post and PublicAffairs decided to rush a new book about the health insurance reform bill.

A Gossip Girl producer landed a book deal for a YA trilogy. In semi-related news, two Jersey Shore castmates also cut a book deal.

Following controversial reviews of a Michael Lewis bestseller, readers debated Amazon’s customer reviews policy.

Missed these stories? Email GalleyCat to get all our publishing stories, book deal news, videos, podcasts, interviews, and writing advice in a simple email newsletter.

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As of this writing, 74 readers have given the book a low one-star rating against the 51 five-star reviews. Valleywag spotted the trend earlier this afternoon, pointing out that many of the critics are dismayed by the lack of a Kindle edition.

Here’s one angry comment from Cristiano Pierry: “‘The coolest thing, by far, is that you think of a book you’d like to read, someone tells you about a book you’d like to read, and in 30 seconds, it’s on your screen, all of it.’ That’s author Michael Lewis, talking about the wonders of the Kindle in a 2007. Say one thing and do another? Well, I won’t be buying this book, or any other paper book ever again. There are lots of other ones covering the same event that available for me to access in 30 seconds.”

UPDATE: Reader P. Bradley Robb points us to counter-protests in the Amazon forums. Excerpt after the jump.

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The adapted films nominated for Best Picture were: The Blind Side (based on a Michael Lewis book), Up in the Air (based on Kirn’s novel novel), An Education (based on a Lynn Barber memoir and adapted by Hornby), and the indie film that includes the adaption credits in the title: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.

In addition, a number of literary films were nominated for “Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published.” They included: An Education, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, and Up in the Air.

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After polling hundreds of independent booksellers around the country, IndieBound released the Indie Bestseller List for the sales week ended Sunday, June 21, 2009. “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell topped the nonfiction hardcover list. Here are the top five fiction hardcover books on the list. Nonfiction hardcover list follows after the jump…

1. ‘The Angel’s Game’ by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Doubleday
2. ‘Shanghai Girls’ by Lisa See, Random House
3. ‘The Scarecrow’ by Michael Connelly, Little Brown
4. ‘The Help’ Kathryn Stockett, Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
5. ‘Gone Tomorrow’ by Lee Child, Delacorte

UPDATE: A previous version of this post mistakenly identified ‘The Angel’s Game’ as a debut novel.

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Editor-in-Chief Joanne Lipman broke the news to staffers, media reporter Jeff Bercovici reports on his Portfolio blog: “Lipman said the magazine is ahead of its business plan on various business metrics, and also noted that it won a National Magazine Award last year after publishing only a handful of issues, a rare accomplishment. But a sharp and extended downturn in ad revenue has made success elusive.”

In December 2008, Lewis (the author of “Liar’s Poker”) wrote the cover story: “The End.” In May 2007, Wolfe (the author of “The Bonfire of the Vanities”) wrote “The Pirate Pose” for the magazine.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.