HARCOURT BRACE JOVANOVICH DROPPING THE ‘J’

On March 26, Doug Brinkley’s book The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey will become a footnote in publishing history as the first book published under the new Harcourt Brace & Co. name.

General Cinema, which bought Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1991, has decided to “simplify and modernize the corporate identity” of the publishing house.

“Quite honestly, Jovanovich is a long name and very difficult to pronounce,” said Peter Farwell, a General Cinema spokesman. “The whole name was so long and cumbersome, and our studies showed that most people used to just say Harcourt, or Harcourt Brace, or HBJ.”