Effective January 1, Fulcrum Publishing, which is celebrating its 25th year, is splitting into two divisions, both of which will continue to be distributed to the trade by Consortium:

Fulcrum Books, whose headquarters will remain in Golden, Colo., will focus on travel, gardening, history, nature and popular culture and include Speck Press titles. Derek Lawrence, currently associate publisher, will be publisher of the division.

Speaker's Corner will focus on Native American culture and society, public policy and politics, the environment and regional titles from the upper Midwest. Current Fulcrum publisher Sam Scinta will head this division, which will be based in Onalaska, Wis. The division's first list will be for next spring.

Scinta said that in the difficult economy, Fulcrum has been "buffered" somewhat by its relationship with Consortium and "our ability to take advantage of nontrade and direct sales." The company is splitting in part to focus editorial and marketing efforts and to continue building an electronic and online presence.

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Nearly 25 years old,
Poets House finds permanence,
Opening today in Battery Park City.

Glass house.
No stones.
Sixty-year lease.
No rent.

Read all about it.

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Book trailer of the day: Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle by Major Brian Dennis, Mary Netherny and Kirby Larson (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers). Get out your hankies again.

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Beginning on Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle's books section will run the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association/IndieBound bestsellers list, replacing a weekly list of local bestsellers that the newspaper compiled, Bookselling This Week reported.

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In town for the U.N. General Assembly meeting, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd paid an after-hours visit Monday evening to Argosy Book Shop, a visit arranged by Rudd's wife, Thérèse Rein, the New York Times reported.

Co-owner Naomi Hample told the Times that the visitors were at first rather nervous. "The security guys were looking around to see who was lurking," she said. "We were the only ones in the building. So Adina [Cohen, another co-owner] and I, we said, 'Bill Clinton is a very good customer, he comes in at least twice a year, he's never had a security problem.' They relaxed a little."

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Best bookstores: The Phoenix New Times named Changing Hands the best bookstore in its Best of Phoenix issue, noting that "we work on the Best of Phoenix issue all year long. This time around, when we dug up our file of potential BOPs, as we call them, we noticed that most of the ideas had one thing in common: Changing Hands Bookstore. . . . Changing Hands is the best friend a reader could have and a stellar example of what an independent bookstore can do for its community."

Named the best collectible bookstore was Book Gallery, "where the service is unusually helpful and where the rarest books in town can be found. (And if they can't be found, someone who works there will get 'em!)"

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More best bookstores: Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta list featured A Cappella Books as the readers' pick for best independent bookstore; Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse was runner-up. Book Nook was named best used bookstore, and Eagle Eye Books the runner-up.

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The Onion covered the cancellation of Reading Rainbow, the classic PBS children's show, as only the Onion could--with a fake Levar Burton article headlined: "My Living Nightmare Of Encouraging Kids To Read Is Over."

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PubWest's national conference and book industry trade show will take place November 12-14 in Tucson, Ariz., at the Doubletree Reid Park. The program includes keynote addresses by Dominique Raccah, publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks, Sara Nelson, book director for O, the Oprah Magazine, and Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst at Outsell.

Sessions will focus on "helping publishers flourish despite current economic challenges" and making "digital publishing part of a plan for success." Attendees will also visit the University of Arizona Bookstore to see the Espresso Book Machine.

For more information about events and to register, go to pubwest.org.

Tuesday night Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif., celebrated several milestones: the signing of 10-year leases on its space in two buildings and completion of the buyout of former owner Richard Savoy, a process that took 10 years. The three full co-owners: (l. to r. in front) Kevin Ryan, Pete Mulvihill and Kevin Hunsanger. (Yes, that's City Lights's Paul Yamazaki in the middle of things as usual.)--Bridget Kinsella

Tomorrow on Weekend Today: Mackenzie Phillips, author of High on Arrival (Simon Spotlight, $25.99, 9781439153857/143915385X).

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Tomorrow on CBS's 48 Hours: Victoria Gotti, author of This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti (Pocket, $27, 9781439154502/1439154503).

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Sunday on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS: Vali Nasr, author of Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World (Free Press, $26, 9781416589686/1416589686).

The U.S. rights to Creation, adapted from Annie's Box by Randal Keynes (Charles Darwin's great-great grandson), have been acquired by Newmarket Films. Jon Amiel directed the film, which stars Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany. A December release is planned.

Variety reported that the movie "played two weeks ago at the Toronto Film Festival. After the Toronto screening, some predicted that U.S. distributors would be scared off by the theme of evolution." Newmarket also released The Passion of the Christ.

Box 21: A Novel by Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $26, 9780374282950/0374282951, October 13, 2009)
 
Although the many fans of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell's Wallander series have become familiar with the bleak tone that suffuses Swedish crime writing, Box 21, a taut and twisty thriller from the bestselling Swedish crime-writing team of Roslund and Hellström, takes psychological darkness to a new level. Full of abrupt turns and ratcheting suspense, Box 21 grabs the reader from the first page and refuses to let go.
 
Many characters and plotlines are woven into this complex and superbly crafted novel, yet the connections are made seamlessly and credibly. Among the major players: Lydia Grajauskas, a Lithuanian girl lured into sex slavery by a vicious pimp; Ewert Grens, a hard-bitten detective bent on punishing mobster Jochum Lang for a crime that left Grens's wife brain-damaged 25 years earlier; Bengt Nordwall, who serves as Grens's mentor and de facto Jiminy Cricket; and Hilding Oldeus, a desperate junkie who makes the grave mistake of selling tainted speed to a relative of Lang's mob boss. All of these characters converge at Söder Hospital, where Grens has been called to investigate the near-death beating of Lydia at the hands of her pimp, and Oldeus (chased by a murderous Lang) is recovering from his latest overdose. In one of the novel's many twists, the still-bleeding Lydia takes several hostages in the hospital's morgue and threatens to kill them all unless she is granted a private audience with Bengt Nordwall.
 
Part of the brilliance of this novel is that by this point, only halfway through, it seems impossible that the story has anywhere left to go; yet within a few pages it becomes obvious that there are many more layers to each character and each subplot. The ensuing chapters zigzag through past and present, expertly building suspense while never sacrificing nuance or detail. And while the plot settles into something resembling a straight line in the novel's last third, the ending is a bona fide shocker.
 
While dwelling almost exclusively on the grimmer aspects of human nature (those seeking puppies and love stories will be sorely disappointed), Box 21 nevertheless offers a remarkable view of addiction, victimization and the corrosive desire for revenge. Its characters are flawed and often in extremis, but they are always compelling and completely authentic. Taken together, these characters, the expertly crafted plot and that brooding Scandinavian mood add up to one of the best thrillers of this--or any--season.--Debra Ginsberg
 
Shelf Talker: A dark, complex and brilliant crime thriller from the bestselling Swedish writing team of Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström.
 

Tasha Alexander attended the University of Notre Dame, where she signed on as an English major in order to have a legitimate excuse for spending all her time reading. She lived in Amsterdam, London, Wyoming, Vermont, Connecticut and Tennessee before settling in Chicago. Her work has been translated into 11 languages, and her latest novel, Tears of Pearl, published by Minotaur September 4, continues the adventures of her heroine, Lady Emily Ashton.

On your nightstand now:

I've got two dueling for next to be read: Jess Winfield's My Name Is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare and David Nicholls's One Day.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I was completely enchanted by Laura Ingalls Wilder from age three to about ten and spent uncountable hours under the dining room table pretending it was a covered wagon.

Your top five authors:

Jane Austen, David Mitchell, Jeanette Winterson, Elizabeth Peters, Haruki Murakami.

Book you've faked reading:

Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon. It's not so much that I faked it, but I kept trying and trying and trying but in the end had to admit defeat.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. You. Must. Read. Now.

Book you've bought for the cover:

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig. I can still remember picking it up because of the gorgeous cover. Then I read it and couldn't get my hands on the subsequent volumes in the series fast enough!

Book that changed your life:

Every book leaves a mark on you. But the ones (yes, I'm incapable of picking just one) that brought about the most obvious change in my life are the Amelia Peabody novels by Elizabeth Peters. I'd fallen madly in love with them and was tearing through them one after another. When I ran out and realized I'd have to wait an entire year for the next installment to be published, I was dismayed and wondered if I should try writing something of my own to help the time pass more quickly. Soon thereafter (with another push from Dorothy L. Sayers's Gaudy Night), I started to work on And Only to Deceive.

Favorite line from a book:

"If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, 'When you're ready.'"--David Mitchell in Black Swan Green.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Pride and Prejudice.

The world in present tense: Shortly after my column hits the virtual presses today (perhaps even as you read this), I'll be on a panel at the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance trade show in Greenville, S.C.

I'm joining Rich Rennicks--of Malaprop's Bookstore and Unbridled Books-- and the ABA's Meg Smith to explore the topic: "Social Media and the Independent Bookseller." Assuming all goes well, this will be a conversation about how "social networking sites have fundamentally changed the way people approach not only their private lives but, also, their business transactions."

If you are reading my column on your laptop or BlackBerry in Room 104 B of the Carolina First Center this morning, please raise your hand because you are truly an example of living in the social media moment. Better yet, fire off a tweet to @IndieBoundMeg, @RichRennicks or @Fresheyesnow. Maybe we'll respond. Or maybe not, since we're presumably too busy listening, talking and trying not to sneak furtive glances at our own handheld devices.

There is, of course, much to discuss when it comes to social media and bookselling. All we'll be able to do is nibble at the edges, but every conversation helps. In a recent post on his blog, The Word Hoarder, Rich offered a handy, condensed version of his thoughts on "Engaging Your Customers Through Social Media." The ABA has terrific materials available as well.

As Rich suggests, "you need to go where your customers are and engage them, and that means online. The fact is customers are coming into our stores less often than before. They're getting their book fix online: reading about books, talking about books and buying books. This is where social media can help booksellers. . . . I have two book industry jobs and do a bit of freelance graphic design on the side; for people like me (and you) social media is a set of tools to help me get my work done."

I agree. He also wisely observes that booksellers must become "part of the conversation" that is already happening online and will continue to expand, with or without them.

So, here we are, in South Carolina, in Room 104 B, and I'm sure there is someone in our audience (which by now is no longer an audience but, we hope, a gang of active participants in the discussion) still resisting social media's siren song. Objections may already have been raised about what has been called "the great time suck" of social networking sites, about monitoring staff usage or any number of other valid concerns.

From past experience, I suspect no one will just say that they're really not all that social to begin with. So I'll say it here, because there was a time not so long ago when this seemed like a great excuse to me. Despite the fact that I work for an online book trade newsletter, started a bookseller blog five years ago and now have active accounts with the usual social media suspects, I'm not a particularly adept social animal myself.

And you want to know a secret? It doesn't seem to matter. As madcap as the pace can be (type "book" into Twitterfall for a daunting peek), you really do have some control "out there." Want to know something else? I think social networking has improved my social skills in the non-virtual world. Some of you who know me may disagree, but I have a hunch it's true.

Booksellers, like readers and writers everywhere, value privacy and quiet. The prospect of living in a 24/7 social media world, even in a business context, may seem unappealing. But I've learned to use these tools because, in my chosen profession, that's where the people are--just as Willie Sutton once said he robbed banks because that's where the money was.

I post regularly, but not incessantly, on Twitter and Facebook. These contributions reflect my personality, and maybe that's the best advice I can share with the not-so-social among us who are eyeing social media with suspicion. You can be yourself online, personally as well as professionally. 

My approach is a hybrid of what I've learned and what I continue to discover every day. The fact that I still use the phrase "hit the presses" to describe the daily release of this online publication already carbon dates me. When I search for possible additions to the Shelf Awareness news notes section, I persist in using the phrase "checking the wires." Maybe I'm just old school new media, but it works.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)