Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, January 27, 2010


William Morrow & Company: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Del Rey Books: Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Peachtree Teen: Romantic YA Novels Coming Soon From Peachtree Teen!

Watkins Publishing: She Fights Back: Using Self-Defence Psychology to Reclaim Your Power by Joanna Ziobronowicz

Dial Press: Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood

Pantheon Books: The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera

Peachtree Publishers: Leo and the Pink Marker by Mariyka Foster

Wednesday Books: Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

Quotation of the Day

Happy Apple Tablet Day!

"Apple is in a killer position. The majority of reading we do cannot be done on current e-readers. The Apple tablet will be first to make the claim that you can read everything from Sesame Street to Dan Brown to the Atlantic to the Denver Post, all on the same device."--James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, talking to Bloomberg about today's highly anticipated (to put it mildly) announcement by Steve Jobs regarding Apple's new tablet. We'll have more details about the Apple iSlate, MagicSlate, iGuide or iPad (all names that have been mentioned as possibilities) in tomorrow's Shelf Awareness.

 


Now Streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME: A Gentleman in Moscow


News

Marshall Rides Out of Borders; Edwards Becomes Interim CEO

Effective immediately, Ron Marshall has resigned as president and CEO of Borders Group after just a year at the company. The head of his own private equity firm, Marshall had been hired on the basis of his reputation for turning around troubled companies. According to the Wall Street Journal, he will become CEO of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, another troubled company. (He has been CFO of Pathmark, which is now part of Great Atlantic & Pacific.)

Michael J. Edwards, who joined Borders four months ago as executive v-p and chief merchandising officer (Shelf Awareness, September 15, 2009), has been named interim CEO. Borders has begun a search for a permanent CEO. Edwards is the fourth CEO at Borders in five years.

After thanking Marshall for helping Borders "make substantial operational and financial improvements that are driving increased cash flow, reducing debt and positioning Borders to pursue new growth opportunities," Borders chairman Mick McGuire praised Edwards as "the right person to take on this responsibility at this time given his experiences as a CEO and proven track record of successfully repositioning and growing specialty retail businesses. Since joining Borders, he has distinguished himself as a collaborative leader with a strong commitment to revitalizing the Borders brand and a focus on driving traffic and profitable sales."

During Marshall's tenure, Borders has laid off several thousand employees, closed about 200 Waldenbooks outlets, brought in a new management team, most of them from outside the book business, shrunk and changed most of the board members, reduced debt and entered into a potentially important e-book alliance with Kobo (formerly Shortcovers).

Sales have dropped substantially in the last three quarters, and holiday sales were particularly disappointing, falling 13.7%, nearly three times that of bricks-and-mortar rivals Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million.

Wall Street seemed unhappy with the change at the helm: yesterday Borders stock closed at 92 cents, down 15.6%, in more than five times the usual trading volume, on a day the Dow Jones was flat. This was the first day Borders traded below $1 a share since April. By contrast, Barnes & Noble closed at $19.70 a share, up 13.3%, in four times the usual trading volume. Much of B&N's popularity stemmed from rumors that it will provide an e-bookstore for the new Apple device that is unveiled today.



GLOW: Greystone Books: brother. do. you. love. me. by Manni Coe, illustrated by Reuben Coe


Notes: 'Crunch Time' for Schuler's Downtown; 'Paige' Helps Haiti

"How important is a downtown bookstore to you?" asked the Grand Rapids, Mich., Press, noting that the upcoming third year of Schuler Books Downtown's existence will be key to its survival: "When Schuler co-founders Bill and Cecile Fehsenfeld took over River Bank Books two years ago, they expressed cautious optimism about downtown. But they also were realistic. Their commitment to the space in the old Steketee's building was for three years. Three years is up in October of this year. It's crunch time for the business. It's also crunch time for people who beat the drum for a quality downtown bookstore but turn around and spend their money online or in the suburbs."

Fehsenfeld said that while the cafe is making money, "the bookstore has been lagging behind the cafe. It has yet to be seen what the long-term outlook for that store may be. This year will be a test for us."

The Press cautioned that 2010 will also "be a test for those of us who said they wanted and believed in the viability of a downtown bookstore. We have a good one in Schulers. We need to put our money where our mouths were."

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More bookseller help for Haiti. Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., "had an unusual opportunity" to assist with the post-earthquake relief efforts "thanks to Paige, our in-store book-making machine. At the request of Google, we rush-printed dozens of copies of an English/Haitian Creole Medical Dictionary to be sent to medical aid workers in Haiti. When disasters strike so far from home, it's gratifying to have a hands-on, albeit small, way to help," the bookshop's e-newsletter observed.

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As the spring semester began at Cornell University, Kraftees Bookstore, Ithaca, N.Y.--which specializes in textbooks--added a touch of class to Rush Week by commissioning a limousine "to provide free transportation to their customers on North and West Campus to its store location in Collegetown before the start of classes," the Cornell Daily Sun reported.

The textbook limo "was part of the store’s mission to 'create the most convenient way possible' to buy textbooks," said manager Christopher Cave.

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What will they be reading on the island this season? On MediaBistro's Morning Media Menu, Chad Post of Open Letter Books "revealed a book that will play an role in an upcoming episode of Lost--our first glimpse into the mysterious world of the final season of the show. According to Post, episode six will reference Japanese author Shusaku Endo's book, Deep River."

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This week, NPR's What We're Reading showcased The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris; Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph E. Stiglitz; and A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova.

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Lady Mary Warnock, "a crossbench life peer, moral philosopher and author of a number of books on philosophy," chose her top-10 philosophy books for the Guardian.

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The London Review of Books is £27 million (US$43.6 million) in debt, but the Wilmers Family Trust allows the publication to continue with "no intention of the lender seeking repayment of the loan in the near future," the London Times reported

"Yes, it's family money and the debts have been rising for many years," said LRB editor Mary-Kay Wilmers. "But I really just look after the commas."

Among of the beneficiaries of the publication's continued existence are fans of LRB's unique personal ads, some of which, as Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life blog pointed out, "reach the level of near-poetry. It's as if Edward Lear, Philip Larkin and Gonzo the Muppet collaborated to try to get a date for Saturday night."

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Book trailer of the day: The Declaration of Independence from A to Z by Catherine Osornio, illustrated by Layne Johnson (Pelican Publishing).

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If you're a fan of big books, have we got one for you. The Guardian reported that "it takes six people to lift it and has been recorded as the largest book in the world, yet the splendid Klencke Atlas, presented to Charles II on his restoration and now 350 years old, has never been publicly displayed with its pages open. That glaring omission is to be rectified, it was announced by the British Library today, when it will be displayed as one of the stars of its big summer exhibition about maps."

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Under a new venture concluded between Above the Treeline and the Association of American University Presses, AAUP members will be eligible for discounted access to Edelweiss.

"The members of AAUP are seeking the most efficient and creative ways to use new technologies to communicate with librarians, booksellers, reviewers, and scholars," said Brenna McLaughlin, AAUP's electronic and strategic initiatives director. "Edelweiss has already proven its value as a new tool to market books; now, our discount program will expand its availability to many more university presses."

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Summer Smith has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as publicity manager in the New York office. She was previously a senior publicist at Putnam/Riverhead.

 

 


BINC: Apply Now to The Susan Kamil Scholarship for Emerging Writers!


Media and Movies

Media Heat: No Less Than Victory

Today on Oprah: Michael Pollan discusses the film Food Inc., based on the book of the same name edited by Karl Weber (PublicAffairs, $14.95, 9781586486945/1586486942), and his own book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (Penguin, $11, 9780143116387/014311638X).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Steven Ward and JoAnn Ward, authors of Crash Course in Love (VH1, $17.99, 9781439177334/1439177333).

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Tomorrow on KCRW's Bookworm: Jonathan Lethem, author of Chronic City (Doubleday, $27.95, 9780385518635/0385518633). As the show put it: "Jonathan Lethem began his career with Philip K. Dick-inspired science fiction, then he turned to writing the more realistic books (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) that brought him to prominence. Here, we discuss the fusion of the two in Chronic City, a new novel in which cultural criticism and science fiction come together."

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Tomorrow on WETA's Book Studio: Jeff Shaara, author of No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II (Ballantine, $28, 9780345497925/0345497929).

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Tomorrow on Talk of the Nation: Bernard Cornwell, author of Burning Land (Harper, $25.99, 9780060888749/0060888741).

 


Television: Huge

Described as Glee meets Ugly Betty, an hour-long show based on Huge, Sasha Paley's YA novel, is close to being greenlighted by ABC Family. "The untitled light drama has not been officially greenlighted, but casting is under way. A detailed breakdown for the project released last week lists March 29 as a target production start date," the Hollywood Reporter wrote. Creator Winnie Holzman (My So-Called Life) co-wrote the script with her daughter, Savannah Dooley.

 


Movies: 3D Harry Potter?

The box office success of recent 3D conversions, including Avatar, has convinced Warner Bros. to release the upcoming two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 3D versions as well, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which noted that although the company has not confirmed the decision yet, an announcement regarding a 3D conversion for the remake of Clash of the Titans "is expected by week’s end, and official word on the Potter pics surely will follow." Part one of Deathly Hallows is scheduled for release November 19, with part two set for July 15, 2011.

 



Books & Authors

Awards: Costa Book of the Year

The £30,000 (US$48,442) Costa Book of the Year prize went to Christopher Reid for his poetry collection A Scattering, which has sold fewer than 1,000 copies. The Guardian reported that Reid, only the fourth poet to win the prestigious award, bested a strong field that included Colm Tóibín, whose novel Brooklyn had been a strong favorite.

Chair of the judging panel Josephine Hart called A Scattering a "devastating piece of work and all of us on the jury felt it was a book we would wish everybody to read."

"It is always significant when a work of poetry wins the Costa," said Alister Babb, Waterstone's poetry buyer. "Christopher Reid now joins giants such as Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney as one of the few poets to take the prize, and in doing so, bring more people to this undervalued art form."

Jonathan Ruppin of Foyles added that the collection was "an extraordinary tribute to his late wife bursting with love and vitality. Poetry is inevitably more of a niche market than the other categories, but this collection seems to have struck a chord: his dignity and eloquence puts into words the feelings of anyone who has lost someone dear to them."

 


Shelf Starter: The Postmistress

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, $25.95, 9780399156199/0399156194, February 9, 2010)

Opening lines of books we want to read:

There were years after it happened, after I'd returned from the town and come back here to the busy blank of the city, when some comment would be tossed off about the Second World War and how it had gone--some idiotic remark about clarity and purpose--and I'd resist the urge to stub out my cigarette and bring the dinner party to a satisfying halt. But these days so many wars are being carried on in full view of all of us, and there is so much talk of pattern and intent (as if a war can be conducted like music), well, last night I couldn't help myself.

"What would you think of a postmistress who chose not to deliver the mail?" I asked.... "This is true?"

"Perfectly true.... It's the war story I never filed."

"Because it would have been too much for us?" The host tried to laugh it off.

"It was too much for me," I answered.

--Selected by Marilyn Dahl


Book Brahmin: Marian Keyes

Irish author Marian Keyes writes "comedies about serious issues" that pertain to the lives of contemporary women. Her 10th novel, The Brightest Star in the Sky, was published on January 25 by Viking. She lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband, Tony, and their two imaginary dogs, Patch and Sox.
 
On your nightstand now:
 
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I love Margaret Atwood. I've read almost every book she's written, and I know she objects to some of her fiction being categorised as sci-fi, but this is sci-fi, right? It doesn't mean it isn't brilliant. Also on the nightstand is Neuro-linguistic Programming for Dummies by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton. I'm always trying to fix myself and this is my latest attempt. I haven't actually opened it yet, I think I felt that simply buying it was enough to bring about an improvement.
 
Favorite book when you were a child:
 
Anything by Enid Blyton. Do you know her in the U.S.? She wrote books set in the 1950s about posh British children with remote, haughty parents and stiff upper lips; children who went to boarding school and had nannies and a massive sense of entitlement. Being unposh and Irish myself, and with no sense of entitlement, I was desperate to be one of them.
 
Your top five authors:
 
Michael Connelly. He's just so good, and as I  consider myself to be a bit of a tormented loner, I get great identification with Harry Bosch. Wally Lamb--so compassionate. But why only three novels in 15 years? Please write more! John Bradshaw--more compassion, this time in nonfiction form. Healing the Shame that Binds You had a huge effect on me. Philippa Gregory--intelligent, wonderfully researched, gripping historical fiction. Her latest, The White Queen, was so satisfying. Bill W., because he saves my life on a daily basis.
 
Book you've faked reading:
 
Ulysses by James Joyce. Hey, I'm Irish. Everyone expects me to have read it. Paradoxically my English husband has read it, and tells me it's quite good.... But so many books, so little time.
 
Book you're an evangelist for:
 
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. Everyone in the whole world must read it! It's beautifully, wittily written, has a gripping saga-like plot, great characterisation and a bit of magic realism thrown in for good measure.
 
Book you've bought for the cover:
 
Handbags: The Power of the Purse by Anna Johnson, because it features a fabulous Sonia Rykiel purse. And indeed every page inside also showcases a beautiful bag. Your enjoyment of this book might be enhanced if you love purses. If you don't, it may not speak to you in the same way.
 
Book that changed your life:
 
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolff. I was horrified to read how I (and millions of women) are conned into undernourishing ourselves on a daily basis, in order to be as thin as the 16-year-olds who model the clothes we buy. And how we are persuaded to spend money we haven't got on snake oil (i.e., "miracle" nightcream, eyecream, lip-plumpers, etc.)
 
Favorite line from a book:
 
"There will be no butter in hell!"--From Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. (A Christian evangelist is urging people to live a godly life in the here and now because when we're burning in hell's flames, there will be no butter to apply to soothe our wounds.)
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
 
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. It was such glorious fun and every line a beautifully crafted gem.
 
 


Book Review

Children's Review: The Lonely Hearts Club

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg (Point, $17.99 Hardcover, 9780545140317, January 2010)



In this insightful debut novel, Eulberg takes an intelligent, funny and kindhearted approach to a topic rarely addressed in books for teens: the way many teenage girls sacrifice their sense of self and their friendships in order to attract and keep a boyfriend. One high school junior is determined to put a stop to that kind of behavior--beginning with herself and then attracting other peers who see the wisdom of her ways. The catalyst for Penny Lane Bloom (yes, her parents named her for the Beatles song--note the cover's homage to Abbey Road) is Nate Taylor, son of her parents' oldest friends, who visit the Blooms every summer. When, the summer before their junior year, their relationship becomes physical, Penny decides "to go for it." She borrows her older sister's lace robe and surprises Nate one night while the parents are out. And what a surprise! She finds Nate in bed with another girl!

Penny becomes "the sole member and founder of the Lonely Hearts Club." When she tells her best friend, Tracy, her idea, Tracy looks at Penny like she's "an escapee from a mental institution." That same summer, Diane, who became Penny's ex-best friend after Diane hooked up with football star Ryan several years before, breaks up with Ryan. She comes to Penny looking for a friend when school starts again. To Penny's credit, she levels with Diane about how she felt when Diane dumped her, but she also winds up telling Diane about the club. Much of Penny's charm stems from her ability to be both compassionate and direct (she calls Missy, a freshman who throws herself at Ryan, a "freshmonster" and "She Who Would Not Be Named"). Soon the Lonely Hearts Club is growing in number, and the members must weigh situations that fall into the gray area. What if someone actually meets a guy they like and who "deserve[s] a chance"? What if a friendship grows into something more? Can someone have a boyfriend and still honor her female friendships? Can the club's rules be adjusted? Eulberg handles dilemmas of identity, female friendships and male-female dynamics with humor and candor.--Jennifer M. Brown

 


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