Sonny Mehta, venerable publisher known for spotting great books, dies at 77

Sonny Mehta, the literary savant who guided the reading hours of millions of people and the fortunes of the venerable publisher Alfred A. Knopf for 32 years at a time of changing tastes, aggressive merchandising and demands for profits, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 77.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, a Knopf spokesman said.

In an age of blockbuster best sellers by presidents and prime ministers, of sometimes surreal and shocking literary breakthroughs, and of cutthroat competition in a shrinking industry, Mr. Mehta was an almost ideal editor and publishing executive: a voracious reader and instinctive decision maker who could spot great books and, coming from a paperback world, had no qualms about aggressively marketing them.

On his watch, first as Knopf’s president and editor in chief and since 2009 as chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Mr. Mehta delivered literary quality and runaway sales, backed by clever promotion — he once invited 250 booksellers to a Los Angeles Dodgers game to launch a baseball book — that drew reviewers and sellers to almost anything stamped with Knopf’s colophon: the leaping Borzoi wolfhound. Read More