Anderson's Bookshop, Naperville, Ill., hosted a freedom of speech forum Monday that had been sparked by recent cancellations of events featuring controversial author Bill Ayers (Shelf Awareness, April 20, 2009).
The Chicago Daily Herald reported that "almost all who voiced their opinion were in agreement that Ayers should have been allowed to speak." Bookshop co-owner Becky Anderson was hoping for "civil discourse" at the event, which included a panel discussion and opportunity for public input.
"I don't care whether it's the neo-Nazis or Bill Ayers or Obama or whoever," said Raye Isenberg. "Everyone has the right to invite whomever they want. . . . This is a public school education. We're paying for our students to be educated and that's being infringed upon."
V.K. Moktan, a high school student, said, "I do not support Bill Ayers, (or) what he did in the past, and I wanted to go and personally debate with him what he did in the past and I was amazed they canceled this."
Gary Bolt, deputy chief of police, observed that both the school district and Anderson's had tough decisions to make and chose the safer course of action: "Do we expose ourselves to potential danger? If something had happened, what would this crowd now be saying to (Superintendent Alan) Dr. Leis?"
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Random House has moved up publication date for the paperback edition of Pulitzer prize-winner American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham, which took the biography award. The hardcover was published last November, and the paperback will be released at the end of April with a 200,000-copy first printing. Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer for fiction, is already available in paperback with more than 100,000 copies in print.
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Tough times don't last; tough paperbacks do. USA Today reported that trade paperbacks may be a "smarter business model during tough economic times, according to those who sell books or publish them," and cited as an example Something Missing by Matthew Dicks, a debut novel scheduled to be released in July as a paperback original.
"Ultimately, I realized that I really want as many people to read the book as possible," said Dicks.
Publishers continue to debate the paperback original question. "If we want to appeal to a twentysomething audience, we have to do it at an affordable price," said Carrie Kania of HarperPerennial. "And a trade paperback is the price of a new CD."
"There is an openness among authors and among publishers and agents that trade paperback is a viable original format for a book," added Beth de Guzman of Grand Central.
Elaine Petrocelli of Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif., observed that paperbacks "make perfect sense for books that publishers are hoping will grab the attention of book clubs." Book Passage plans to promote several paperback originals this summer, including Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie, Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy and Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti.
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To encourage more booksellers to read e-galleys, Unbridled Books and NetGalley are sponsoring a contest offering Sony Readers to the three booksellers who craft the best handselling pitches for Emily St. John Mandel's debut novel, Last Night in Montreal, which will be published June 2. Unbridled Books will choose the winners of the contest, which ends June 1.
Booksellers in the U.S. interested in entering the contest can download a galley of Last Night in Montreal at NetGalley, then e-mail Unbridled Books sales director Steven Wallace with their handselling pitch, identification and the contest indicated in the subject line.
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"If you build the iPhone applications, will they come?" asked GalleyCat, then answered the question by citing an O'Reilly Radar report that found "Book applications in the Apple App Store have increased nearly 280% over the last twelve weeks.. . . . In early April, nearly 11% of all apps added to the iPhone application store were included in the Books category."
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What book should Venezuelan President Chavez have given President Obama at the Summit of the Americas last weekend? The Washington Post asked five Latin American writers to recommend a title they would prefer the U.S. president read instead of Eduardo Galeano's The Open Veins of Latin America.
Their recommendations:
- 2666: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño--Paula Escobar, magazines editor of the Chilean daily El Mercurio.
- The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States by Carlos Rangel-- Moisés Naím, Venezuelan editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy.
- The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry--Ariel Dorfman, Chilean playwright.
- Man of Glory: Simon Bolivar by Thomas Rourke--Marie Arana, Peruvian novelist and former editor of the Washington Post Book World.
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz--Edmundo Paz Soldán, Bolivian novelist.
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Obituary note: Deborah Digges, "a renowned poet and memoirist whose work often sprang from private adversity," died April 10 in an apparent suicide, according to the New York Times. She was 59.
In her Times obituary, Digges's work was praised "for its penetrating observations and lyrical voice . . . informed by her memories of a Missouri girlhood in a family of 12; her experiences as a young wife and her later struggles with a troubled teenage son; the dissolution of two marriages; and the illness and death of her third husband. But though much of her work was rooted in loss, it was also shot through with sly, trenchant humor and a sustained, fervent passion for the natural world."