Shelf Awareness for Thursday, August 6, 2009


Del Rey Books: The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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

Overlook Press: How It Works Out by Myriam LaCroix

Charlesbridge Publishing: If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars by Richard Ho, illustrated by Huynh Kim Liên and Phùng Nguyên Quang

Shadow Mountain: The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall (Proper Romance Victorian) by Rebecca Anderson

News

Notes: New Books Inc. in Berkeley; Oak Park 'is Cool'

Books Inc., which operates 11 bookstores in California, most in the Bay Area, plans to open a store in Berkeley this fall. Construction is scheduled to start September 1 for the store, which will be on Fourth Street, joining the Fourth Street Shops, which includes Builder's Booksource.

Books Inc. co-owner and CEO Michael Tucker, who is also president of the ABA, said, "We are committed to have this location bring Fourth Street's book buying community experienced, knowledgeable booksellers; diverse, interesting events and a book selection that will reflect the neighborhood’s character." He credited the "right location, the right lease and the right landlord for allowing expansion in this challenging economic climate."

For 10 years, until early last year, Cody's Books had a branch on Fourth Street.

Books Inc. operates eight bookstores under the Books Inc. name in the Bay Area. It also has a Compass Books & bzinc outlet in San Francisco International Airport and Compass Books & Café at Downtown Disney in Anaheim.

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"How cool is Oak Park?" asked Dan Haley rhetorically in the Wednesday Journal. He was responding to a quote sent to him suggesting that you can judge a city's "level of coolness'" by its bookshops (Shelf Awareness, July 31, 2009).

While admitting that, as a former bookseller, he is "predisposed toward bookstores," Haley noted that the Illinois city "currently has four bookstores and, regrettably for the past several years, no used bookstores. That we are supporting four stores, all of them fine stores in their own ways, is pretty wonderful. In a town where you can't buy underwear, you can choose from many editions of Dickens.

"Magic Tree is marking its 25th year. Think of that. In a world of Amazon and Wii and teens endless texting, this independent store focusing on selling books for kids from Goodnight Moon to Harry Potter is still there, still thriving, still recommending, still bringing in authors, still stocking book fairs in local schools. Still being what an independent bookstore is meant to be."

Daley also praised the Book Table, and concluded that "if you want to judge this town by its bookstores, you are in a rich and wonderful place."

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Maple Street Children's Book Shop, New Orleans, La., is closing and will "become part of an expanded Maple Street Book Shop," according to the Times-Picayune, which reported that manager Cindy Dike is "staying on to manage a one-room children's book department there. The building next door at 7923 Maple St. will become a used bookstore and space for periodicals and gifts."

Cited as the villain in this case was "a perfect business storm--the sagging economy, the post-Katrina landscape, the rise of online bookselling, the advent of superstores Uptown," the Times-Picayune observed.

Donna Allen, owner of Maple Street Book Shop, sees new possibilities for a used book outlet. "I've been dabbling in used books since January," she said. "And this gives us a lot more room to expand. We'll have more room for readings and signings. We're working to get all our titles online. And both stores will be open seven days a week."

For Dike, however, it marks the end of an era. "I love handselling books and getting feedback from customers," she said. "I love Christmas more than anything. I actually like wrapping gifts for people and making them smile."

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WORD bookstore, Brooklyn, N.Y., is offering an enticement to inspire customers' interest in the future of books as well as WORD. According to the bookshop's blog, "Our biggest announcement this month is that we’re starting a new program here at WORD. From now on, whenever you pre-order and pre-pay for a book before its release date, we'll give you 10% off the cover price. . . . There are a ton of new books from beloved authors coming out this fall."

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The New York Times reported that Stephenie Meyer has been accused of plagiarism by Jordan Scott, who claims she published a novel, The Nocturne, in 2006, that "contains situations that are similar to those in Breaking Dawn."

The Times also noted that "representatives from Hachette called the accusation 'meritless,' according to Reuters, adding that Ms. Meyers didn't know about The Nocturne and that the Twilight Saga was her work entirely. Ms. Scott plans to file a copyright infringement lawsuit in U.S. Federal Court in the coming weeks, Mr. Williams said, though she does not plan to seek monetary damages."

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Think "Woodstock, the Manson Family and the Brady Bunch premiere on TV." Think 1969. NPR's "three books" featured Racy Reads from a Landmark Year.

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Book trailer of the day: Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon.

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HarperStudio's the 26th Story blog showcased the endpapers Mary Schuck designed for Double Take: A Memoir by Kevin Connolly, who "was born without legs and traveled around the world snapping over 30,000 photographs of people staring at him." The book has an October release date.

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There is an amazing story behind The Secret Ingredient, a self-published cookbook that has sold thousands of copies (including a dozen to the Obama White House) and attracted the attention of Collins, "which will repackage and republish it next March, following it up with a second title by Bee in spring 2011," according to the Guardian.

The story? "Four years ago, when Sally Bee was 36, she suffered three major heart attacks in just one week, and discovered she had been born with a major heart defect--spontaneous coronary artery dissection. Initially given hours to live, she survived the ordeal, and went on to devise her own healthy eating and exercise regime, publishing a cookbook of her recipes."

And a happy ending to boot.

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Linda Buckley-Archer, author of Gideon the Cutpurse, chose her top 10 time-traveling stories for the Guardian.

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Obituary Note: Legendary novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg died Wednesday. He was 95. Schulberg's novels include What Makes Sammy Run and The Harder They Fall. He also wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, which earned eight Academy Awards in 1954.

In its obituary, the New York Times observed that Schulberg "wrote about the power of Hollywood moguls, mob bosses and political ideologues to run roughshod over ordinary people--longshoremen, boxers, even writers."

"I’d like to be remembered as someone who used their ability as a novelist or as a dramatist to say the things he felt needed to be said about the society" while being "as entertaining as possible," he said in the 2006 interview, according to the Times.

 


HarperOne: Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World by Craig Foster


Cool Ideas of the Day: Spicing Up Authorless Events

Jay D. Peterson of Magers and Quinn Booksellers, Minneapolis, Minn., shared his thoughts on authorless events at the ABA Emerging Leaders blog.

"This month we're doing two big off site events in conjunction with an exhibit at the Soap Factory gallery (yes, it's in an old Soap Factory!) called Common Room," he wrote. "Common Room will be a temporary curated gathering space within the Soap Factory designed to facilitate interactivity and the blurring of the boundaries between curators, performers and audience, all within in a casual, living room-esque environment. We were invited to curate some community gatherings around the subject of books."

Regarding upcoming events, Peterson noted: "During our book club discussion of Time Traveler's Wife, we're having our attendees (circa 100 people) each create a paper sculpture (Clare's profession/hobby in the book). And, in honor of Henry the time-traveling librarian, we're building a card catalog of information on the reading habits of our book club regulars.

"Afterwards, once the beer and wine have been flowing for a while, we'll do: Competitive one-on-one writing contests (sort of like Balderdash, but trying to write a cover blurb for a book you've never read) and Giant Mad Libs on a 1970s projection screen that looks a little like Wall-E."

Magers and Quinn is also hosting a release party for the new issue of Granta magazine, which will feature:

  • five-minute book reports (think Reading Rainbow for adults)
  • A presentation on literary hoaxes, which may or may not include slides.
  • An interactive book report (requiring audience participating to act out various scenes).
  • A presentation by author Eric Hanson titled "When Ted met Sylvia." The working subtitle is "excerpts from Eric Hanson's birthday miscellany on crossed paths and bypaths of literary and historical figures."
  • A literary trivia challenge with author Brad Zellar taking on the crowd.
  • An Exquisite Corpse writing game using a vintage typewriter

 


Park Street Press: An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey by Peter A Levine


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Crush It!

Tomorrow morning on the Early Show: Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Crush It!: Why Now Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion (HarperStudio, $19.99, 9780061914171/0061914177).

 


G.P. Putnam's Sons: Take Me Home by Melanie Sweeney


This Weekend on Book TV: The Accidental Billionaires

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, August 8

8 a.m. Lawrence Lessig, author of Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, $25.95, 9781594201721/1594201722), argues against the current state of American copyright laws. 

6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment that first aired in 1990, Jannette Dates, co-editor of Split Image: African-Americans in the Media (Howard University Press, $32.95, 9780882581798/0882581791), discussed race relations in America and the media coverage of racial issues.

7 p.m. Gerald Martin, author of Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life (Knopf, $37.50, 9780307271778/0307271773), talks about the life of the Nobel laureate and social and political activist.       

10 p.m. After Words. A.J. Jacobs interviews Ben Mezrich about his book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook--A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal (Doubleday, $25, 9780385529372/0385529376). Mezrich recounts the creation of the social networking site and profiles several of the principal players, including current CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m., and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)
       
Sunday, August 9

6 p.m. For an event hosted by Powell's Books, Portland, Ore., Daniel James Brown, author of The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride (Morrow, $25.99, 9780061348105/0061348104), discusses the infamous Donner Party disaster of 1846 that included bouts of cannibalism.

7 p.m. Warren St. John, author of Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, an American Town (Spiegel & Grau, $24.95, 9780385522038/0385522037), tells the story of a Jordanian immigrant's struggles to form a soccer team from child refugees relocated to a reluctant Georgia community.

 


Movies: The Adventurer's Handbook

In a slightly different twist on the book-to-movie saga, Jason Segel, Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman will star in The Adventurer's Handbook, a comedy directed by Akiva Schaffer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, "Hill, Matt Spicer and Max Winkler wrote the script, about four childhood friends who are bored with the monotony of their lives and embark on a global adventure inspired by the stories of explorers detailed in Mick Conefrey's book The Adventurer's Handbook: Life Lessons From History's Great Explorers [Smithsonian, $14.95, 9780060849986/0060849983]." Universal acquired the book rights as well as the script last February.

 


Books & Authors

Children's Book Review: Everything for a Dog

Everything for a Dog by Ann M. Martin (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends, $16.99, 9780312386511/0312386516, 224pp., ages 9-12, September 2009)

This story of Bone, sibling to the canine hero of A Dog's Life, Squirrel, is even better than its companion. Not only because Martin completely immerses readers in Bone's world--which the dog perceives solely through scents and sounds in pursuit of survival--but also because of a more complex narrative structure that never calls attention to itself. The chapters alternate between three characters: Bone's first-person narration, and the third-person accounts of both a nine-year-old boy named Charlie and an 11-year-old boy named Henry. Those who've read Squirrel's story will recognize Bone's beginnings as an orphaned pup after the canine siblings' mother disappears suddenly. But the author soon follows Bone's path into his own adventure. Charlie's chapters flash back to his family's devastating loss of Charlie's older eighth-grader brother, RJ ("Charlie notes that nobody can admit that RJ died. He has simply become lost"). The only comfort Charlie finds is in the way RJ's dog, Sunny, gradually becomes the kind of companion to Charlie that he once was to RJ. Henry has wanted a dog for more than two years and more so now that his best friend, Matthew, has moved away. Bone's narrative lets us know that he is the stray who mysteriously appears in Henry's neighborhood and whom Henry tries to train as his "secret outdoor dog." Each subplot will keep readers quickly turning the pages for the sense of adventure and the hint of mystery, but the payoff comes at the end when Martin brings the three threads together in a thoroughly satisfying ending. At the same time, the author offers caution against the dangers of hunting and a gentle plug for animal rescue. Give this one to fans of DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie and Creech's Love that Dog. Martin's book honors the unique companionship and healing powers that have earned dogs the title of man's best friend, and it will resonate with both the reader who is already a dog owner or who, like Henry, pines to be one.--Jennifer M. Brown




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