Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, January 15, 2008


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

News

Notes: Peppertree and Kudzu Close; Comic Store Honored

Four-year-old Peppertree Bookstore, Palm Springs, Calif., has closed, the Desert Sun reported. Last month owner Chris Johnson told the paper that "he was considering expanding but was also evaluating how a proposed big-box bookstore downtown would affect his business."

Peppertree had opened a much larger second store in nearby Old Town La Quinta last year, but closed it in the fall after just six months in business. That store's opening had been delayed by construction and permit problems.

Peppertree was the main sponsor of the Palm Springs and Coachella Valley Book Festival, but cancelled last November's festival because of a lack of support from other companies and organizations. At the time, Peppertree said it was not in a financial position to support the festival singlehandedly.

Peppertree is hosting on one final event: Robert Novak, author of The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, will appear on Thursday, January 24, at the Rancho Mirage Public Library.

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Kudzu Book Traders, the Cartersville, Ga., remainder and bargain book dealer that was created to be the sister company of Academic Book Services, is closing at the end March.

In a statement, Kudzu president Britt Hinton said that the death of founder Steve Wilson last August as well as "the lack of required resources for future growth and the uncertain business environment" led to the decision to go out of business. Hinton emphasized that the company intends" to fulfill our current obligations and work closely with our lending institution, vendors and customers during this process."

Kudzu and Academic shared two warehouses with more than 270,000 square feet of space until Academic was sold to Follett in late 2006. Kudzu's biggest customers have included Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings and Books-A-Million.

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Betsy Amster, a literary agent in Los Angeles, Calif., who used to be an editor at Pantheon, pointed out that the top 10 bookshops in the world listed by Sean Dodson in the Guardian (and mentioned here yesterday) includes one store in the U.S.: Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles. Dodson wrote:

"A mere profiterole to the fabulous layer cakes of Porto and Buenos Aires [you have to read the whole article to get this lead-in!], but the Secret Headquarters more than holds its own. Nestled in the creative cluster of Silver Lake, just east of Hollywood, this boutique store offers a sophisticated alternative to most of its rivals and has a reputation for being one of the neatest, friendliest comic stores anywhere. Canadian science fiction author Cory Doctorow rates it as the finest in the world."

Amster added that Secret Headquarters is "a small comics bookstore on a trendy (but still attractively gritty) stretch of Sunset Blvd. in Silver Lake. When you enter, you feel as if you've stepped back in time--it's very old-fashioned. My only connection to it is that it's in my neighborhood, and I'm a big fan."

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Book Culture, the New York City bookstore formerly known as Labyrinth Books, has begun a blog that includes Q&As with authors who appeared at the store last fall, news, author posts, book recommendations and more.

Incidentally the store's new marketing and events manager--since November--is Kelly Amabile, a writer, researcher and editor specializing in travel and books who has a blog, Lost in Place, that we've mentioned several times for its references to bookstores around the world.

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International Publishers Marketing has added two clients:

Double Storey, a trade division of Juta Press, is a South African house that publishes titles in travel, food and wine, art and music, natural history and geology, memoirs and biography, history, business, spirituality and health.
Garnet Publishing is a U.K. publisher specializing in books about the Arab world and Islam in the fields of architecture, art, cookery, travel, culture, heritage and history.

IPM recently added Beautiful Books (U.K.) and Ransom Books (U.K.) to its stable, which includes Allison & Busby (U.K.), Duckworth (U.K.), the American University in Cairo Press (Egypt), Chaucer/ Mercury (U.K.), ATF Press (Australia), Beautiful Books (U.K.), Struik Publishers (South Africa), the National Archives (U.K.) and its in-house publishing arm, Capital Books.

 


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


Atlas Flexes Muscles, Buys NBN's Biblio Distribution

Effective yesterday, National Book Network sold its small press distribution division, Biblio Distribution, to AtlasBooks, the distribution arm of BookMasters. Biblio's approximately 500 client publishers will become clients of Atlas under the terms of their Biblio contracts. Publishers' inventory will be transported from NBN's distribution center in Blue Ridge Summit, Pa., to Atlas's distribution center in Ashland, Ohio. Electronic title files have been transferred to Atlas.

Last fall, Atlas took on a majority of the 105 publishers distributed by BookWorld Companies, which abruptly went out of business (Shelf Awareness, October 3, 2007). With the Biblio purchase, Atlas represents more than 1,300 publishers to the trade and provides full distributor services for them; it offers limited fulfillment services to another 700 publishers. BookMasters also has divisions that handle a range of book services, including composition and design, offset and digital printing, binding and storage.

In a statement, Dave Wurster, COO of AtlasBooks and BookMasters, said, "We have the resources to focus our efforts on exceeding [Biblio publishers'] sales goals, while offering additional services such as direct-to-consumer sales support and marketing opportunities. My company's niche is, and has been, the small to mid-size press market."

Marianne Bohr, senior v-p of NBN, commented, "We launched Biblio in 2001 at the request of Ingram which was looking for efficient ways to purchase books from small presses. Since then, the distribution environment has changed in many ways, including the reentry of Ingram itself into the distribution end of the business. AtlasBooks has a strategic focus on small presses so they seemed to be the perfect new home for our Biblio clients."

 


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


Cool Idea of the Day: Changing Hands Hosts Go Green Day

This Saturday, January 19, is "Go Green Day" at Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, Ariz., featuring a Go Fashionably Green Fashion Show as well as Go Green events for kids.

According to the bookshop's e-mail newsletter, Changing Hands "celebrates sustainable, recycled and organic fashion with our first ever fashion show featuring Bunky Boutique. Local television personality Carey Peña hosts the show as we highlight local designer extraordinaire Angela Johnson's recycled T-shirt ball gowns. Trendy, eco-friendly co-ed fashions from Armour Sans Anguish, Preloved, and Hippy Tree will also be part of the show, and the Changing Hands staff will discuss our must-have Go Green booklist."

Kids get into the act with "Animal Tails: It's Not Easy Being Green," an event at which they can "meet some amphibian friends from the Phoenix Zoo and learn simple green actions that can help ensure the survival of many different species." Also on tap are afternoon Go Green activities, with "fun ways to teach kids the importance of taking care of the Earth."

 


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


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Newbery and Caldecott Winners on Today

This morning on Good Morning America: Ashley Rhodes-Courte, author of Three Little Words: A Memoir (Atheneum, $17.99, 9781416948063/1416948066).

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This morning on the Early Show: Ken Jennings, whose new trivia book is Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac: 8,888 Questions in 365 Days (Villard, $20, 9780345499974/0345499972).

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This morning on the Today Show:

Laura Amy Schlitz, winner of the 2008 Newbery Medal for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! (Candlewick, $19.99, 9780763615789/0763615781)
Brian Selznick, winner of the 2008 Caldecott Medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic, $22.99, 9780439813785/0439813786)
Kimberly Yorio, author of The Girl's Guide to Kicking Your Career into Gear: Valuable Lessons, True Stories, and Tips for Using What You've Got (a Brain!) to Make Your Worklife Work for You (Broadway, $23.95, 9780767927666/0767927664)
Kelly Corrigan, author of The Middle Place (Hyperion, $23.95, 9781401303365/1401303366).

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Today on Rachael Ray: Bob Greene, author of The Best Life Diet (S&S, $15, 9781416540694/1416540695).

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Today on Oprah: Beth Holloway, author of Loving Natalee: A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith (HarperOne, $24.95, 9780061452277/0061452270).

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Today on Inside Edition: Andrew Morton, author of Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography (St. Martin's, $25.95, 9780312359867/0312359861). He also appears tonight on Entertainment Tonight and the Today Show.

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: Alex Ross, author of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (FSG, $30, 9780374249397/0374249393).

 


Books & Authors

School Librarian Wins Newbery; Selznick Wins Caldecott

For the second year in a row, a librarian has won the 2008 Newbery Medal.

Laura Amy Schlitz received the Newbery Medal for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village (Candlewick), 21 dramatic pieces describing life on an English manor in 1255, which she wrote for the students at the Park School near Baltimore, where she serves as librarian. Susan Patron, a senior librarian in charge of juvenile collection development at the Los Angeles Public Library, won the 2007 Newbery Medal for The Higher Power of Lucky (S&S/Jackson).  
 
Brian Selznick won the 2008 Caldecott Medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic), a 500-plus-page book in which, as the Caldecott Committee put it, "Neither words nor pictures alone tell [the] story," as the narrative alternates with many series of wordless spreads to simulate the cinematic world that the author-artist celebrates.  Selznick received a 2002 Caldecott Honor for The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley (Scholastic).
 
The three Newbery Honors were awarded to returning author favorites. Christopher Paul Curtis garnered a Newbery Honor for his Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic), which also won the 2008 Coretta Scott King Author Award; Curtis received the 2000 Newbery Medal for his Bud, Not Buddy, and a 1996 Newbery Honor for his first novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 (both Delacorte). Just last week Elijah received the 2008 Scott O'Dell Award (Shelf Awareness, January 11). Another Newbery Honor went to The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, who received a 2005 Newbery Honor for Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (both Clarion). And the third 2008 Newbery Honor was awarded to Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam), whose Show Way illustrated by Hudson Talbott (Putnam), garnered a 2006 Newbery Honor. Woodson also won the 2006 Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.
 
Three of the four 2008 Caldecott Honors were also awarded to returning favorites. Kadir Nelson, who was honored this year for Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, text by Ellen Levine (Scholastic), received a 2007 Caldecott Honor last year for Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, with text by Carole Boston Weatherford (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun). Peter Sís received a Caldecott Honor for The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (FSG/Foster), which also won the 2008 Robert F. Sibert Medal for nonfiction; Sís's Tibet: Through the Red Box (FSG/Foster) was a 1999 Caldecott Honor book. Counting a 2005 Caldecott Honor for his Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale as well as a 2004 Honor for his first picture book, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (both Hyperion), Mo Willems takes home his third Caldecott Honor for Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity (all three published by Hyperion). But he also took a top prize: Willems's There Is a Bird on Your Head! (also Hyperion) won the 2008 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award (named for the man also known as Dr. Seuss) as "the most distinguished book for beginning readers." The fourth honoree, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, makes a splash debut on the 2008 ALA Awards list: her First the Egg (Roaring Brook/Porter) was named a Caldecott Honor and a Geisel Honor Book.
 
Ashley Bryan won the 2008 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Let It Shine (Atheneum), and, as mentioned above, Christopher Paul Curtis's Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic) won the 2008 Coretta Scott King Author Award. On Saturday during the ALA Midwinter Conference, the Coretta Scott King Awards Committee announced the establishment of the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award (see yesterday's Shelf Awareness), as part of a public awareness campaign to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards, first given in 1970.--Jennifer M. Brown

 


Awards: Dilys Nominees Unveiled

Nominees for the Dilys Award, sponsored by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association and recognizing the book that member bookstores most enjoyed handselling, are:
  • Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen (Berkley)
  • Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
  • The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (S&S)
  • Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (Mira)
  • The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey (St. Martin's Minotaur)
The winner will be announced at Left Coast Crime in Denver, March 6-9. For more information, visit IMBA's website.


Attainment: New Books Out This Week

Selected new titles appearing on Tuesday, January 22:

Duma Key: A Novel by Stephen King (Scribner, $28, 9781416552512/1416552510) chronicles Edgar Freemantle's recovery from a construction site accident on a beautiful but mysterious section of the Florida coast.

Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell (HarperCollins, $25.95, 9780060888640/0060888644) is the fourth book in the Saxon Chronicles.

Sin No More by Kimberla Lawson Roby (Morrow, $23.95, 9780060892500/0060892501) examines the drama surrounding a redeemed pastor's return to his congregation.

The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky (Doubleday, $25.95, 9780385518680/0385518684) follows the aftermath of a mother's decision to take the blame in a fatal car accident after her daughter flees the scene.

The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America by Jim Wallis (HarperOne, $25.95, 9780060558291/0060558296) explores new solutions to moral and political conflicts in America.

Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improving Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress by John Gray (Harper, $24.95, 9780061242960/0061242969) whose subtitle says it all.

Dissent: Voices of Conscience by Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg (Koa Books, $17.95 9780977333844/0977333841) profiles government insiders and active-duty military who spoke out, resigned in protest, leaked documents or refused deployment during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Career diplomat Wright resigned as a deputy ambassador in Central Asia during the run-up to war with Iraq.

New in paperback:

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone, $16, 9781416560609/1416560602), the movie tie-in edition.

Blaze: A Novel by Richard Bachman (Pocket, $9.99, 9781416555049/1416555048).

 



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