Cover Stories: Ravi Mirchandani; Random House UK

*Ravi Mirchandani, ousted from Heinemann a couple of months back, is now free to enjoy a merry Christmas, safe in the knowledge that he has a new job to go to in the New Year. He has been appointed publishing director of Atlantic, the feisty indie house founded by Toby Mundy some five years ago. Mundy praises Mirchandani as "simply one of the most brilliant, versatile and internationally respected publishers of his generation". His authors include the historian Tony Judt and novelists Rachel Seiffert, Donna Leon and Michel Houellebecq, and at Atlantic he hopes to range similarly widely.

*Twenty years after it was all but killed off by Anthony Cheetham, then chief executive of the new-born Random House UK, the Bodley Head name is being revived. Restricted these last years to a handful of children's books, the name will grace the spines of "books of impeccable scholarship... which contribute to the intellectual and cultural climate of our times". It will publish about 25 titles a year - obviously not Jordan or Chantelle, those well known Random House authors.