Joe Pike enjoys early morning walks in the canyons in Southern California--and taking pictures--just like Robert Crais, his creator. And so this picture--snapped by Pike or Crais or both--is an appropriate way to mark pub date for The Sentry (Putnam), the newest Joe Pike novel. Entertainment Weekly put The Sentry on its "Must List," the "Top 10 Things We Love This Week," calling it "a rip-roaring read and a smart and careful character study."

Clare Vanderpool won the 2011 Newbery Medal for her debut novel, Moon over Manifest (Delacorte/Random House), about 12-year-old Abilene Tucker, who visits her father's hometown in 1936 Kansas. The Depression-era story line alternates with a narrative set during World War I, and the book is inspired by tales the author heard as a child. The Association of Booksellers for Children chose it as a 2010 New Voices Pick. The last time a debut novel received the Newbery Medal was 1980, when Joan Blos won for A Gathering of Days. Vanderpool is a former bookseller for Watermark Books, Wichita, Kan.

Erin E. Stead, a first-time illustrator, won the 2011 Caldecott Medal for A Sick Day for Amos McGee (Neal Porter/Roaring Brook/Macmillan); her husband, Philip C. Stead, wrote the text for the picture book. Elderly Amos McGee rides the bus to the zoo, where he plays chess with the elephant and spends time with his other animal friends. But when Amos falls ill, his zoo pals take the bus to visit him and lift his spirits. The most recent first-time illustrator to win a Caldecott Medal before this was David Diaz in 1995, for his work on Eve Bunting's Smoky Night.

Four Newbery Honor Books were named: One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Amistad/HarperCollins), which also received the 2011 Coretta Scott King Author Award and last week won the Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction, and was also a National Book Award Finalist; Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm (Random House), who received a Newbery Honor in 2000 for her debut novel, Our Only May Amelia (HarperCollins); Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus (Amulet/Abrams); and Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen (Houghton Mifflin). Last year, Sidman's poems in Red Sings from Treetops inspired Caldecott Honor illustrations by Pamela Zagarenski.

Two Caldecott Honor Books also were selected: Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Laban Carrick Hill (Little, Brown), which also received the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. Collier was awarded a 2006 Caldecott Honor for Rosa, written by Nikki Giovanni (Holt). The other Caldecott Honor book is Interrupting Chicken, written and illustrated by David Ezra Stein (Candlewick). Stein received the 2008 Ezra Jack Keats Author Award for his book Leaves (Putnam/Penguin).

The Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in YA literature went to Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown), which was also a National Book Award finalist. Four Printz Honor Books were chosen: Stolen by Lucy Christopher (Chicken House/Scholastic); Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (Knopf); Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick (Roaring Brook/Macmillan); and Nothing by Janne Teller (Atheneum/S&S).

See the rest of the awards here.--Jennifer M. Brown

Boneshaker Books will open this coming Saturday in the Seward area of Minneapolis, Minn., and will host a reception that evening at 7 p.m., according to the Minneapolis City Pages.

The store, in a former movie theater, will feature "progressive/radical literature, children's books and a curated fiction section," the store said. Sections include international politics, LGBTQ issues, people's history, green living, international fiction, labor and economics, science fiction and much more. Boneshaker Books will also carry zines and house the Women's Prison Book Project, which provides literature to female inmates across the country through mail requests.

Boneshaker fans raised $20,000 to start the store, which will be run by volunteers. One unusual service: free bike delivery for local orders made online or on the phone.

Boneshaker Books is located at 2002 23rd Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn. 55404; 612-871-7110.

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The Twin Cities Daily Planet profiled Once Upon a Crime, the mystery bookstore in Minneapolis, Minn., that is co-winner of the 2011 Raven Award, sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America. Owners Gary Shulze and Pat Frovarp will receive the award at the Edgar Awards banquet in April.

The store is quite a labor of love for the pair: in 2002 they were dating and Frovarp was working at the store, which was put up for sale. They bit, and five years after becoming business partners, the two made their personal relationship official, marrying on the fifth anniversary of their purchase of the store.

Among highlights of the store: a bookshelf dedicated to local authors and the annual Write of Spring event, which features all local mystery authors who are published. "It's good for the authors because it's a lot of publicity," Frovarp told the paper. "They appreciate it; it's our biggest sales day of the year."

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Random House, Carlei Wines and Brooklyn Brewery are sponsoring the World's Most Literary Rent Party Ever!, a fundraiser to support Random House novelist Charles Bock (author of Beautiful Children), his wife, Diana, and his baby girl, Lily, as Diana enters her second year of expensive and difficult treatments for leukemia.

The part will be held Sunday, February 6, at P.S. 122. Hosts include Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mary Gaitskill, Susan Cheever, Joshua Ferris, Rivka Galchen, Amy Hempel, A.M. Homes, Mary-Beth Hughes, Nicole Krauss, Rick Moody, Richard Price, George Saunders, Gary Shteyngart, Wesley Stace, Hannah Tinti and Sean Wilsey. The Magnetic Fields's Claudia Gonson will perform music at the event.
 
For more information and to buy tickets go to www.most-literary-rent-party-ever.info.

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After seeing The King's Speech this past weekend, we wish to bow in appreciation to the director, cast and crew of this marvelous movie and note again the publication late last year of The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi (Sterling). Logue is the grandson of Lionel Logue, the speech therapist who worked for years with King George VI on his stammer--which is the focus of the movie. The book is based on Logue's diaries, which had been "locked in an attic for 50 years," as well as letters from the King and Queen. Colin Firth plays George VI; Helena Bonham Carter is his wife, Queen Elizabeth; and Geoffrey Rush plays Logue.

See the book trailer here.

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In a q&a in Business News Daily about how businesses can use social media, Sherrie Madia, a professor at the Wharton School of Business and author of The Social Media Survival Guide, cited one of our favorite bookstores, saying:

"On the small business side, Liberty Bay Books (@LibertyBayBooks), an indie bookstore out of Poulsbo, Wash., does a super job of optimizing the social media space through consistent branding, an authentic voice, networking its blog, website, Facebook page and Twitter account, and providing content of value such as upcoming events and book reviews."

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Congratulations to the Voracious Reader, Larchmont, N.Y., named by Westchester Magazine as "best of the decade" for kids. Owner Francine Lucidon noted that her daughter said the store gets to hold the title for 10 years.

The magazine wrote: "Blogs and Seventeen have their place, but the best way to make sure those are not the only reading materials your kids will get their hands on is to take them to the Voracious Reader. Since 2007, parents have flocked to this indie shop to find books for their kids, from babies through teenagers--and yes, sometimes for themselves, too. (Who among us hasn't dipped into Harry Potter?) But the books aren't the only attraction here. The staff understands what gets young readers excited, knows the hot books (Mockingjay, anyone?), and throws parties, brings in authors to read, and hosts book clubs to make reading a fun, social thing to do. Blogs seem boring in comparison."

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In a long piece in the Traverse City Record-Eagle about Michael Moore, who founded the Traverse City Film Festival, the filmmaker said one of his New Year's resolutions is to "spend more time hanging out in bookstores." He recommended Brilliant Books, Sutton Bay, Mich., where, he said, "You'll find things there that you won't find elsewhere, so there's that sense of discovery."

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Washington, D.C., tops this year's most literate cities list, based on Central Connecticut State University's annual study ranking the "culture and resources for reading" in the nation's 75 largest metro areas, USA Today reported. Rounding out the top five are Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Pittsburgh.

"What difference does it make how good your reading test score is if you never read anything?" asked researcher Jack Miller, the university's president. The study examines not just whether people can read, but if they actually do. "One of the elements of the climate, the culture, the value of a city is whether or not there are people there that practice those kinds of behaviors."

Among the study's highlights: "Washington's climb to number one this year was likely helped by troubles in Seattle, which has claimed or shared (with Minneapolis) the top spot four of the past five years. In recent years, Seattle has lost a newspaper and some legendary local bookstores have struggled.... New Orleans, which ranked 42nd in 2005, then dropped off the list because its population dipped after Hurricane Katrina, has more than bounced back. It returned last year at 17 and this year climbed to 15. Changing demographics likely explain the spike."

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Flavorwire showcased 10 Great Works of Literature for America's 10 Most Literate Cities, advising readers not to worry "if you're not conversant in the literary classics of our most well-read cities. We've matched each with a book that’s set there. Take a virtual roadtrip through America's most literate metropolises."

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"Throughout December, I'd say fully one quarter of all the people who came in to the store have said, 'I'm shopping here because I want to support an independent bookstore.' I've never heard that as a refrain before," said Simone Lee, owner of Pages Books on Kensington, Calgary, Alberta, in Quillblog's roundup of Canadian indie bookstore holiday sales.

Expressing similar thoughts was Deb McVittie, owner of 32 Books & Gallery,  Vancouver, B.C. She cited the spring closure of the last Duthie's Books location in Vancouver as "a real wake-up call" for her customers: "For local people here, independents closing [across] Canada... got them thinking, 'If we don't want our independents to close, we have to show up. People are thinking more about buying local, buying independent."

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Mark Twain's use of realistic language may offend many, but his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer topped the list of ParentDish.com's Top 100 Books for Tweens.

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The Kindle app has made a successful debut in the Mac App Store. TechCrunch reported that, as the "first e-book app in the Mac App Store, it is already the fifth most downloaded free app."

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The Huffington Post asked 13 fiction writers to name the author they each considered "the most important contemporary fiction writer, and what had been his/her influence on their own writing and on the writing of other contemporary fiction writers."

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For NPR's Three Books series, Gish Jen recommended "Three Modern Fables to Capture Your Imagination": Michael Kohlhaas: A Tale from an Old Chronicle by Heinrich von Kleist, Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee and Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain.

"Perhaps it is time for something fabulous," wrote Jen, "by which I mean not something great to wear to your next party, but something fable-like in its imaginative insight into the human condition."

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Book trailer of the Day: The Memory Palace by Mira Bartók (Free Press), whose pub date is today. Our Maximum Shelf issue about The Memory Palace appeared last December 7.

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The Wall Street Journal surveyed a book genre that probably doesn't have a BISAC subject code: national record books.

"Up-and-coming nations have long published books along the lines of the Guinness Book of World Records, chronicling the feats of their fearless citizens to help provide that sense of national purpose politicians love," the paper wrote. "India and Malaysia were among the first, shrugging off the yoke of colonialism to bake giant pizzas or weave enormous carpets. Former Soviet satellites including Poland and Ukraine followed, publishing their own national record books. Even the tiny Mediterranean island Malta, population 411,390, published a slender volume, the Malta Book of Records and Facts."

Now Vietnam is joining the competition. Viet Books is publishing Vietnam Book of Records, which includes statistics about, among other things, "the village with the most portraits of revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh; the largest model turtle made of dried squid; and, not least, Tran Minh Thiem, a 75-year-old pensioner credited with spinning around more times than any other Vietnamese without falling down."

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Effective tomorrow, Allison Verost joins HarperCollins's children's publicity department as assistant director of publicity. She has worked for nearly eight years in publicity at Penguin Young Readers Group.

Sam Dorrance, publisher of Potomac Books, remembers Jim Tenney of Olsson's Books & Records, who died last Thursday.


I met Jim at Olsson's in 1976 where he bought publishers' lists at a small desk in the cavernous back room of the Georgetown Wisconsin Avenue branch. He loved to play "stump the rep" and would closely question you about the availability of obscure and often out-of-print backlist. We were causal buddies and would occasionally share a joint on the loading dock of the store after business was done.

For many reps, Jim was a benchmark buyer. Many reps would rush to show him their new list and would learn a lot about what they had of value. As the Oxford University Press rep, I learned far more about the press from him than from any colleague. Several presses, including, I believe, the University of Chicago Press, put him on an advisory board specifically to bird-dog OP titles that they should return to print.

Jim's knowledge of publisher's backlists was legendary; he would scour the complete Harvard University Press catalog, snapping up the remaining copies of long forgotten titles he knew he had specific customers for. That exercise was an education in itself--certainly for me! Of course, no buying session with Jim was complete until he had sold me at least a couple of titles he personally recommended.

He could sell anything to anyone and loved to name drop the latest beneficiary of his attentions. Whenever I popped in, Jim would walk me through the store to show me wonderfully obscure and very often very expensive sets, saying, "I sold that to the CIA last week," or "Rolie Evans (Evans and Novak columnist) special ordered that so I bought the last inventory from the publisher. They didn't even know that they had it in stock." Blackwell's in Oxford, with whom he corresponded, even invited him to visit to advise them; he was deleriously happy to have been so honored.

Jim eventually moved to the Olsson's Alexandria store, where he worked part-time, no doubt torturing younger staff with off-the-wall suggestions or criticisms. He was first and foremost great company.

This morning on Imus in the Morning: Denise Austin, author of Get Energy!: Empower Your Body, Love Your Life (Center Street, $16.99, 9781599952475).

Also on Imus: Jonathan Alter, author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One (Simon & Schuster, $16, 9781439101209).

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Today on NPR's Diane Rehm Show: Kathryn Bolkovac, author of The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman's Fight for Justice (Palgrave Macmillan, $25, 9780230108028).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Glenn Beck and Keith Ablow, authors of The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life (Threshold Editions, $24.99, 9781451625516). They will also appear tomorrow morning on Imus in the Morning.

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Tomorrow on the Judith Regan Show: Jessie Sholl, author of Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding (Gallery, $15, 9781439192528).

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Tomorrow night on Conan: Denis Leary, author of Suck on This Year: LYFAO @ 140 Characters or Less (Viking, $18, 9780670022892).

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Tomorrow night on the Daily Show: former Governor Tim Pawlenty, author of Courage to Stand: An American Story (Tyndale House, $26.99, 9781414345727).

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Tomorrow night on the Colbert Report: Bernard Henri-Levy, co-author with Michel Houellebecq of Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World (Random House, $17, 9780812980783).

Summit has acquired worldwide film and TV rights to Erin Morgenstern's debut novel The Night Circus, which will be published by Doubleday in September. Variety reported that the story centers "on two young illusionists battling out their fathers' age-old rivalry amidst an enchanted circus, bound by a fated love, and destined to affect the lives of all around them."

"The Night Circus sets a spell on the reader from its very first page and we cannot wait to find the right filmmaker and cast to make the world come as inordinately alive as it does in the mind's eye," said Erik Feig, Summit's president of production.

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Frodo returns. Elijah Wood will reprise his role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, Deadline.com reported.

In another literary twist, Wood will play Ben Gunn in Stewart Harcourt’s miniseries adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island for SKY TV in the U.K.

In Elena Mauli Shapiro's debut novel, 13, rue Thérèse (Reagan Arthur Books/Little, Brown, February 2), American academic Trevor Stratton discovers a box of pictures, letters, rosary beads, pressed flowers and other mementos in his Paris office. On the page and in real life, the items belonged to Louise Brunet, a Frenchwoman who lived through both World Wars and once resided at the title address--as did the author.

No relatives claimed the elderly Brunet's belongings after her death, and the landlord offered them to other occupants of 13, rue Thérèse. Shapiro's mother salvaged the cache of keepsakes, which was brought along when the family moved stateside several years later. "The story behind the objects is lost; the objects are now the story," writes Shapiro in the afterword of 13, rue Thérèse. "As I have carried this strange box through life and across the world, I have always intended to make a book out of it."

Color photos depicting more than 70 of the objects are interspersed throughout the narrative, which weaves together storylines set in modern-day Paris and the war years. The images are a key component of the publisher's marketing campaign. In a section at the back of the book are thumbnail-size pictures of 16 items, each one accompanied by a quick response (QR) code.

Scanning the codes with a smartphone leads readers to corresponding pages on www.13RueTherese.com, where they can view larger versions of the images and find out additional details. "It's instant gratification," Amanda Tobier, a marketing manager at Little, Brown, said. "The QR codes eliminate any legwork a consumer might have to do by taking them directly to the next thing. We want to enhance the reader's experience of the book but not to interrupt it."

Visitors who come to 13RueTherese.com via a QR code see a message inviting them to explore other features on the site, which immerse visitors in the sights, sounds and tastes of 20th century France. There are links to music sung by Edith Piaf and from the opera Carmen, a production of which two of the novel's characters attend, a recipe for boeuf bourguignon, a dish made by the fictional Louise, and more. "It's the perfect experience of reading a book, to see and hear the things the characters did," said Tobier.

Videos made by Tobier and a colleague give viewers an up-close, three-dimensional look at some of Brunet's vintage treasures, including a pencil case made from a bullet (an example of "trench art") and a postcard and matching envelope adorned with delicately embroidered gossamer fabric. Also on the site are audio clips of the author reading a poem by Baudelaire and Tobier's friend from Strasbourg, France, reading one of the letters in French.

For Tobier, professional duties dovetailed with personal interests while working on this project. When she first heard about 13, rue Thérèse, she asked the acquiring editor, "Did you buy the book just for me?" Not only is she a collector of old photographs and letters, she is a self-described Francophile and has visited Paris at least once a year for the past several years.

The box of mementos is currently in Tobier's possession, hand-delivered by one of the publisher's sales reps, who brought it from Shapiro's house in the San Francisco Bay Area. Items that might have aroused the suspicion of airport security, like a pair of sewing scissors, were shipped by FedEx.

Seeing the actual box and its contents has been a highlight for Tobier and other staffers, as well as for visiting foreign publishers who were treated to a peek at it. By using the QR codes and creating an interactive website, readers are able to more directly experience the objects "the way we've had the advantage of seeing them," Tobier said. "The marriage of old archival material and new technology brings them into the novel's world."--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

Robert Caro has won the 2011 BIO Award, given each year by members of Biographers International Organization (BIO) to a colleague who has made "a major contribution to the advancement of the art and craft of real life depiction."

Best known for his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, and winner of the National Book Award and other book honors, Caro will receive the honor during the 2011 Compleat Biographer Conference on May 21 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., where he will deliver the keynote address.

"Robert Caro exemplifies the relentless drive for truth," BIO president Nigel Hamilton said. "He has dedicated his life as a biographer not only to understand his subject in all his personal complexity, but within the subject's background and professional setting over time. We owe him a debt that can never be repaid; in an age of sound bites and Twitter, Caro has become the Moses of serious life writing." (But not the Robert Moses of serious life writing!)

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The Sydney Taylor Book Awards, honoring "new books for children and teens that exemplify the highest literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience" and sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries, have been announced. The winners are:

Younger Readers: Gathering Sparks by Howard Schwartz, illustrated by Kristina Swarner (Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan)
Older Readers: Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch, author and illustrator (Amulet Books/Abrams)
Teen Readers: The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House)

The judges also named nine honor books and 27 notable books. The winners will receive their awards at the AJL convention in Montreal June 19-22.

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, January 18:

Strategic Moves by Stuart Woods (Putnam, $25.95, 9780399157110) is the 19th novel featuring quasi-secret agent and lawyer Stone Barrington.

The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960 by Douglas Brinkley (Harper, $29.99, 9780062005960) chronicles the history of environmental conservation in Alaska.

Call Me Irresistible: A Novel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Morrow, $25.99, 9780061351525) follows the romantic and comedic fallout of a small town, high profile wedding canceled at the last minute.

The New Reagan Revolution: How Ronald Reagan's Principles Can Restore America's Greatness by Michael Reagan with Jim Denney (Thomas Dunne, $25.99, 9780312644543) outlines the elements of the former president's political plan that his older son says is as relevant today as in 1976.

My Father at 100 by Ron Reagan (Viking, $25.95, 9780670022595) is a memoir by the president's younger son marking the centennial of his father's birth on February 6.

Even if you're an avid reader of literary fiction, there's at least a chance Charles Baxter is one of those writers whose quiet, underappreciated output you may have missed. With the publication of this volume of 23 stories, seven of them not previously collected, there's no longer any excuse to overlook a body of work that's noteworthy for its keen, often startling, insights into human character, and its consistent craftsmanship.

Most of Gryphon's stories are set in Michigan (especially the fictional town of Five Oaks, the locale of several of his novels) or Minnesota, the two states where Baxter has spent more than three decades teaching. But unlike other modern realists like Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff and Richard Ford, Baxter concentrates on decidedly middle-class characters--teachers, journalists, artists and less-than-prosperous professionals--whose uncertain economic status frequently is matched by evident bewilderment at the disconcerting turns their lives have taken.

There's no false drama and little to titillate or shock here. More than anything, Baxter is a candid, unsparing chronicler of fragile relationships. "Poor Devil," the portrait of a divorcing couple united for a final afternoon of cleaning in the house they're about to abandon, is a painfully observant portrait of aversion and longing in a fractured marriage. In "Surprised by Joy," Baxter traces the poorly matched paths of grief navigated by a husband and wife after the sudden death of their young child. "The Flood Show" depicts one man's enduring passion for the woman who had left him and their young son more than a decade earlier, while a conservative, churchgoing man and his "social progressive" mother grope toward a sort of reconciliation in "Fenstad's Mother."

Baxter seasons these realistic offerings with a generous helping of more unconventional tales. Perhaps the best example is the title story, in which a substitute teacher uses Tarot cards to tell the fortunes of her elementary school charges. In "The Next Building I Plan to Bomb," a "harmless" banker finds a piece of paper containing a drawing with that caption and soon senses his life unraveling. A "fat balding man with horrible yellow-green eyes," who calls himself the "Genie of the Magic Lamp," grants three wishes to a young woman who's involved with an attractive but dangerous lover in "Kiss Away." The urban desolation of modern-day Detroit takes on an apocalyptic tinge in "The Disappeared."

In one penetrating scene after another, Charles Baxter demonstrates his mastery of the nuances of character, plot and language. While there's little that's tidy about the lives depicted in this collection, taken together they offer some revealing pieces of the puzzles that are love and life.--Harvey Freedenberg

Shelf Talker: A modern master of short fiction offers a generous sample of his collected work along with seven uncollected stories.