Where do global bestsellers come from? We hear from Judith Curr on her fascinating worldwide publishing journey. From a one-room schoolhouse in Australia to a career full of international bestsellers like The Celestine Prophecy, The Secret, and breakout bestselling authors like Colleen Hoover and Lisa Jewell, Judith has always had an eye for the next big thing.

This episode marks the one-year anniversary of the Open Book Podcast, so we thought we would do something a little different. We often ask our guests to share their journey as readers, including the earliest books that they read that really made an impression. For this special one-year anniversary episode, we're going to listen to a number of our guests from the past year and their thoughts about the books that made a difference to them when they were young.

Sally Kim is the President and Publisher of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group that includes the flagship imprint originally founded in 1837, with a catalog that boasts authors like JD Salinger, Louisa May Alcott, Malcolm Gladwell, Nelson Mandela and David Sedaris, to name a few. Sally’s journey from intern to editor and then publisher is both fascinating and comprehensive—she is one of the few people in the industry to work at all of the Big 5 publishing houses.

James Daunt is a busy man, leading three iconic booksellers on two continents. In this episode, he shares his journey from founding a single independent bookstore in London in 1990 to rescuing and turning around the two largest bookstore chains in the English-speaking world: Waterstones in the UK and Barnes & Noble in the US.

Journalist Elizabeth Harris reports on books and the publishing industry for The New York Times. She shares her 16-year career journey from clerk to staff writer, her thoughts on the book industry, and the process of writing her first novel, How to Sleep at Night.

Andy Hunter is one of the most interesting players in the discovery and commerce of books. Andy’s career took him from mainstream cultural behemoth Disney to beloved counterculture publisher Soft Skull Press, before founding online literary communities Electric Literature and LitHub. From there, he launched the indie e-commerce platform Bookshop.org in 2020 and stewarded its exceptional growth. Andy discusses the critical value of independent publishing and independent bookstores to culture, the wiring together of community and business model, and the power in a changing technology landscape.

Madeline McIntosh is a trailblazing publisher whose career spans leading roles at storied companies like Norton, Bantam Doubleday Dell, Amazon, and Penguin Random House. Madeline talks about her newest venture, Authors Equity, which just celebrated its first anniversary. Authors Equity uses a new kind of business model where publisher and author collaborate to drive a book’s success.

HarperCollins is a storied worldwide publisher with roots that go back more than 200 years, possessing a catalog of 200,000 titles from authors like Mark Twain, the Brontë sisters, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Barbara Kingsolver. Brian Murray talks about the company’s legacy of navigating changes in culture, technology and law, becoming a truly global publisher, and navigating evolving AI technology while protecting intellectual property.