Reed Elsevier, a British-Dutch publisher, pursued the deal primarily for Harcourt's legal, scientific, technical and medical publishing businesses.
Turcan has worked in media and publishing businesses since the early 1990s.
Bertelsmann and Pearson announced the deal to merge their book publishing businesses in October last year.
Hungry Minds' computer books would complement Wiley's technical and professional publishing businesses.
Selling one of the two publishing businesses to sidestep regulatory questions would probably fetch at least $2 billion.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union most publishing businesses had stopped functioning so Kurkov had to publish himself.
Mr. Peterson headed his own music publishing businesses in Scottsdale since moving to Arizona in the 1970's.
The latter businesses generated an operating profit of $4.6 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 2011, more than five times what the publishing businesses earned.
After the success of its first copier, Xerox expanded into other information products and publishing businesses and founded PARC, a research lab in Palo Alto, Calif., in 1970.
His father is the president and chief executive of MLR Holdings, a Philadelphia concern that invests in media and publishing businesses.
In July, Mr. Murdoch duly conceded that, announcing that all of his publishing businesses would be split off into a separate company.
