"I know a lot of kids who want to grow up to play shortstop for the Yankees, but this may well be the first case of a shortstop for the Yankees wanting to grow up to be in publishing--which makes it a fine day indeed for publishers."
Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 and author of The Golden Notebook, among many other works, died yesterday. She was 94.
The New York Times obituary summed up much of why "the cavalier and curmudgeonly" author simultaneously attracted and irritated many readers, noting that she won the Nobel "for a lifetime of writing that shattered convention, both social and artistic" (her first comment on hearing that she won the prize was "Oh, Christ. I couldn't care less."), writing that was usually "long, dense and complex. Her prose, one critic said, can be 'indigestible.' "
Still, her autobiographical Golden Notebook was one of the most important novels of the 20th century and considered a feminist icon, although typically she was critical of feminism. (One comment: "Things have changed for white, middle-class women, but nothing has changed outside this group.") Her Children of Violence series, particularly the first few books, were also very powerful autobiographical works of fiction marked by a strong female protagonist who, like Lessing herself, sought to find and make her place in the world regardless of what was expected of her socially, sexually, artistically or politically.
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Louis Rubin, writer, editor, literary critic, professor and co-founder of Algonquin Books, died on Saturday. He was 89.
"As an educator and mentor, he humbly and generously kindled the muse in many--including such noted Southern writers as Lee Smith, Jill McCorkle, Kaye Gibbons, Clyde Edgerton, Annie Dillard and John Barth," the News-Observer wrote.
With Shannon Ravenel, he founded Algonquin in 1983 "after talented young writers he knew were having difficulty making any headway among the New York and other big-city publishing houses," the paper wrote. In 1989, Workman Publishing bought Algonquin.
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Barbara Park, author of the Junie B. Jones children's series, died on Friday. She was 66 and had ovarian cancer, Entertainment Weekly reported. The series has sold more than 55 million copies in North America.
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With a focus on African American books and culture, the Black Stone Bookstore & Cultural Center opened November 2 in Ypsilanti, Mich., the Ann Arbor News reported.
Carlos Franklin, who owns the 800-square-foot store with Kip Johnson, said that Black Stone will stock "all types of books related to the African-American culture and African culture, religion, urban fiction, just a whole range." The store will also sell movies, CDs and art. The store plans to have poetry slams, book signings and other events to support local authors.
"We want to create a community," Franklin told the News. "Our whole goal was to come together and be a positive example for our community. You can go in there and meet people with powerful minds."
Franklin added, "We want to create a good spirit where people come because they like the product. The world is round and it'll go back to books."
Black Stone Bookstore & Cultural Center is located at 214 W. Michigan Ave., Ypsilanti, Mich. 48197; 734-961-7376.
Chapter Two, a small boutique bookstore, will open this coming Friday in Dallas, Tex., the Dallas News reported.
Owned by Brian Bolke and Dana Card, Chapter Two is in Highland Park Village and has just 200 square feet of space that will stock, as the News put it, "some big statement books from publishing houses Assouline, Rizzoli and Taschen. About 180 titles will focus on interior design, architecture, fashion and cooking." The store will also carry such magazines as Gentlewoman, Wilder Quarterly, Elle UK, Wallpaper, Gastronomica and Fantastic Man.
Bolke told the News that the area has lacked a bookstore since Rizzoli closed a decade ago and said, "I think that people are ready to get back to shopping in real distinctive environments. There has been so much emphasis on e-commerce and fast fashion that I think people have forgotten what it is like to actually stroll and shop."
Bolke and Card also own Number One/Le Jus, an organic café and apparel store next door, and Bolke also owns the apparel shop Five and Ten and luxury boutique Forty Five Ten.
Executive director Carl Lennertz said: "We are working on all fronts to extend our work year-round, to more audiences, and with the help of so many generous people. We are always so grateful when companies and individuals give time from their own work to help the cause, and the great people at Ingram have come through once again. Lanora's work will provide very useful metrics on our giving activities. Our Facebook activity is cooking. And thanks to everyone's help across the industry, our livestream book announcement on October 23 has resulted in giver applications running ahead of last year. It will naturally slow (and then pick up again on deadline), but this is a great sign. The need for books for at-risk teens is, sadly, growing as well, and we will add titles to cover that need."
He added: "We have more than 1,500 bookstores and libraries already signed up to host WBN locations, and we welcome more. However, they need to sign up ASAP in order to promote giver application to their customers and patrons in time to ensure giver turnout for their locations. We have also posted helpful signage at our Resources tab."
Self-publisher iUniverse, an imprint of Author Solutions, and mind/body/spirit publisher Tarcher--all owned by Penguin Random House--are launching True Directions Books, which will "provide aspiring authors with the opportunity to have their ideas published, reviewed by top editors in the mind/body/spirit space, and marketed to a broad base of key retailers and readers," the companies said.
In addition to a review by Tarcher's editorial department, all True Directions titles will be listed on tarcherbooks.com and authors will receive access to Tarcher webinars and admission to Tarcher LIVE events (a series of events for consumers that Tarcher will launch in early 2014). Other benefits include placement in a Tarcher e-newsletter, premier author seating at Tarcher LIVE events and inclusion in Tarcher's promotional mailings to key booksellers and mind/body/spirit retailers.
Joel Fotinos, v-p and publisher of Tarcher, said True Directions will give "important new voices a way to bring their ideas into the world" and be a way to identify and foster new talent. "We recently acquired Timothy Pychyl's Solving the Procrastination Puzzle from Author Solutions, and are republishing it in a new edition this coming January 2014. We hope to have many more success stories through this partnership, and will examine every True Directions title to determine which ones might best cross over into our Tarcher publishing program."
Author Solutions CEO Andrew Phillips said, "True Directions demonstrates new synergies between Author Solutions and traditional publishing. This relationship increases opportunities for self-published authors to be noticed by a traditional publisher and to access unique opportunities never before made available to self-published authors."
The Strand Bookstore has apparently been using water sprinklers to douse the sidewalks outside the store during the night to keep homeless people from congregating there, DNAinfo New York wrote. One employee commented: "It was to keep people from sleeping out there. People used to sleep over there and in the morning we have to put out the book carts, so it was a little bit difficult and uncomfortable for some people."
Another Strand employee told the New York Observer that "he couldn't think of any other way to jettison vagrants who left behind a nightly mess of food and containers."
Advocates for the homeless denounced the move, which has gotten a lot of ink in the past few days in the New York media.
Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco, whose All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey is being published tomorrow by Beacon Press, was a special guest at last week's 13th Annual Tech Awards, held at the Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif. Blanco wrote and performed a poem written for the occasion honoring innovators who are applying technology to benefit humanity. At "the Oscars of Silicon Valley," even the iPhones were dressed in black tie as they recorded Blanco's reading of his poem.
Where do you ever stop with this listmaking? Answer: You don't. "The overwhelming response to our original collection of the best indie bookstores across the country got us thinking (and reading your comments)," Flavorwire noted in highlighting "25 more great American indie bookstores to support this holiday season."
Midpoint Trade Books, which distributes more than 225 independent publishers from across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, has entered an agreement with Ingram Content Group for Ingram to provide logistics, print on demand (POD) and digital product services to Midpoint.
"Midpoint's expertise has always been in relationship management, and our publishers benefit from our advice on everything from sales and marketing to book development," said Midpoint president and CEO Eric Kampmann. "Our new agreement with Ingram will give our clients the opportunity to take advantage of Ingram's scale, technology and reach while we provide the personal service and relationship management for which we are known."
The Crown Publishing Group has named Chris Brand art director, Crown, Hogarth, Broadway Books and Corporate Identity.
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Effective December 18, Daniel Nayeri is joining Workman Publishing as director of children's publishing. He has been digital editorial director at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and earlier was an editor at Clarion Books. He replaces Raquel Jaramillo, who left the position on November 1 and returns to Workman on February 3 as an editor-at-large. Under the name R.J. Palacio, Jaramillo is the author of the bestselling Wonder.
A graduate of NYU, Nayeri began his career as an intern for the Carol Mann Agency and as a bookseller at the Strand. After graduation, he worked for ReganBooks, then became a pastry chef for four years. During that time, he also worked as a freelance editor, while pursuing a separate career as a screenwriter, with a produced feature film and cable pilot, a board game designer and novelist. His books include the YA collection Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow, one story of which has been optioned by the producers of Shrek as a feature-length animated film.
A Reader's Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year by Tom Nissley, illustrated by Joanna Neborsky (Norton), a charming stop-motion video filmed at Elliott Bay Book Company, Open Books: A Poem Emporium, the Seattle Public Library and the Suzallo & Allen Libraries at the University of Washington.
This morning on NPR's Morning Edition: Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, authors of The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781451654660).
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This morning on Good Morning America: Emily and Melissa Elsen, authors of The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book: Uncommon Recipes from the Celebrated Brooklyn Pie Shop (Grand Central, $30, 9781455520510).
Also on GMA: Erik Prince, author of Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror (Portfolio, $29.95, 9781591847212). He will also appear today on World News Tonight and Nightline and tomorrow on Anderson Cooper 360.
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This morning on the Today Show: Clint Hill, author of Five Days in November (Gallery, $30, 9781476731490). He will also appear on NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams.
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This morning on CBS This Morning: Scott Walker, author of Unintimidated: A Governor's Story and a Nation's Challenge (Sentinel, $28.95, 9781595231079). He will also appear today on Hannity and tomorrow on Fox & Friends.
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Today on Ellen: James Franco, author of Actors Anonymous (Little A, $26, 9780544114531).
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Today on Fresh Air: Ari Shavit, author of My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel (Spiegel & Grau, $28, 9780385521703).
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Today on the View (and guest hosting all week): Demi Lovato, author of Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year (Feiwel & Friends, $19.99, 9781250051448). She also appears tomorrow on Katie.
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Today on NPR's Diane Rehm Show: Jill Lepore, author of Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (Knopf, $27.95, 9780307958341).
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Today on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell: Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (Simon & Schuster, $40, 9781416547860).
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Today on Katie: Mark Kelly, author of Mousetronaut Goes to Mars (Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster, $16.99, 9781442484269).
Also on Katie: Randi Zuckerberg, author of Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives (HarperOne, $27.99, 9780062285140). She is also on Fox Morning News tomorrow morning.
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Tonight on Coast to Coast: Joanne DiMaggio, author of Your Soul Remembers (Square One, $17.95, 9781937907174).
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Tomorrow morning on CBS This Morning: Anjelica Huston, author of A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York (Scribner, $25, 9781451656299). She will also appear on Fresh Air and Live with Kelly and Michael.
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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Aviva Drescher, author of Leggy Blonde: A Memoir (Gallery, $25, 9781476722115).
Also on Today: Glenn Beck, author of Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America (Threshold, $27, 9781476764740).
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Tomorrow on NPR's Diane Rehm Show: Richard Blanco, author of For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey (Beacon, $15, 9780807033807).
Tomorrow on NPR's Moth Storyhour: Dana Goodyear, author of Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture (Riverhead, $27.95, 9781594488375).
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Tomorrow on Huckabee: Mark Halperin, co-author of Double Down: Game Change 2012 (Penguin Press, $29.95, 9781594204401).
Mari Hannah won the £1,000 (about US$1,606) Polari First Book Prize, recognizing a debut work that explores the LGBT experience, for The Murder Wall, the Bookseller reported. Chair of the judging panel Paul Burston called the novel "thrilling, entertaining and a hugely promising debut from an exciting new voice in crime fiction."
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The finalists for the 2013 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year, sponsored by the editors of Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine, are:
Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere by Lucas Mann (Pantheon)
Color Blind: The Forgotten Team that Broke Baseball's Color Line by Tom Dunkel (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Going the Distance by Michael Joyce (State University of New York Press)
Heart of a Tiger: Growing Up with My Grandfather, Ty Cobb by Herschel Cobb (ECW Press)
Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age by Allen Barra (Crown)
Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club: Chicago & the Cubs during the Jazz Age by Roberts Ehrgott (University of Nebraska Press)
The Powers by Valerie Sayers (Northwestern University Press)
Spitballing: The Baseball Days of Long Bob Ewing by Mike Lackey (Orange Frazer Press)
The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Race Made Baseball America's Game by Edward Achorn (PublicAffairs)
The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age by Robert Weintraub (Little, Brown).
Starling by Sage Stossel (Inklit, $17.95 paperback, 9780425266311, December 3, 2013)
Sage Stossel, a contributing cartoonist at the Atlantic and children's book author (On the Loose in Boston), soars onto the graphic novel scene with Starling.
Like many ordinary young women, Amy Sturgess comes from a humble background (although growing up surrounded by her mother's housecats might not place her upbringing in the category of "normal") and works hard to get ahead in her career while wondering if her love life will ever pick up. However much Amy resembles an ordinary person, though, she isn't. Thanks to the effects of some toxic waste her mother encountered while pregnant, Amy has a genetic mutation that gives her amazing strength, incredible speed and the ability to fly. Unbeknownst to her boss and coworkers, Amy moonlights as the masked vigilante Starling--although lately she finds herself acting more like a social worker than a superhero.
Balancing work and a secret identity isn't Amy's idea of living the dream. Her tendency to dash out of meetings frequently has everyone at her ad agency convinced she's afflicted with a gastric disorder. To complicate matters, an ambitious and underhanded coworker is trying to leverage Amy's absences to steal her accounts. Her personal life is in even worse shape: her brilliant but aimless younger brother, Noah, is crashing at her apartment, and while the guy who once slipped through her fingers wants to try again, he just got engaged to a wonderful woman. When Amy thinks the confusion can't get any worse, she finds out Noah's involved in some shady dealings. If she's going to save her brother, land a big account at work and straighten out her love life, Amy's going to need help.
Luckily, former UFC fighter turned gambling den owner Matt McRae is a huge admirer of Starling--and Amy too, for that matter. With his heart of gold and her muscles of steel, they just might find a way to save the day.
Stossel's soft washes of color and zippy dialogue make Starling more than just a superhero comic. Amy's juggling of her family, personal and work lives echoes every modern woman's struggle to have it all without letting anyone down. For anyone who has ever had the feeling of trying to cram three or four lives into one, this sweet and funny slice of butt-kicking will bring laughs and smiles aplenty. --Jaclyn Fulwood
Shelf Talker: In Stossel's debut graphic novel, a modern career girl struggles to balance her personal and professional lives with a side gig as a superhero, with hilarious and uplifting results.
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