Notes: Kakuro; Gullah Bible; Reading Lolita Everywhere
Today's New York Times looks at fall titles, gauging hits and misses. Among the surprise winners: The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks, The Silver Spoon, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter and A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut.
Surprise bombs have included the unhappy Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie, Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg and The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as Your Start, Build, or Manage a Business by Martha Stewart.
The good news for Martha: while Rules derailed, at least her latest book, Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, is cooking.
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Azar Nafisi, the English professor best known as the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, is working with Web developers to create an international book club that will feature titles by Nafisi's favorite authors and focus on literature and human rights, the Globe and Mail reported. The site should be ready by early next year.
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Books-A-Million plans to open a store in Indianapolis, Ind., in Traders Point Shopping Center at 86th Street and Zionsville Road, in northwest Indianapolis.
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Another Beat the Bookstore franchise store has opened, this one in Athens, Ga., home of the University of Georgia, according to the Red and Black, a student newspaper.
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Uh oh. Is kakuro the next sudoku? Do you know?
Newmarket Press is betting so and will come out The Big Book of Kakuro, compiled by Mark Huckvale ($8.95, 1557047227), on January 4. Kakuro resembles sudoku in some ways but is more complex and may solve the problem of what a sudoku fan who wants more of a challenge should tackle.
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A hot title at bookstores on the South Carolina coast is a new translation of the New Testament into Gullah, the mixed older English-West African language spoken by some of the 250,000 Gullah people on the Sea Islands. The Beaufort Gazette reported that some stores have sold out of their initial orders of De Nyew Testament, which includes a King James version in the margins for easy comparison. The publisher is the American Bible Society, which reportedly has printed 20,000 copies.
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Lowering the entry bar. Audible.com has launched a new Web site and created a membership program called AudibleListener that has three levels. The lowest costs $9.95 a year and gives 30% off every program purchased; some members-only sales; and free access to certain program picked by the staff. The higher level memberships cost $14.95 and $22.95 a month, respectively, and provide credits to be used toward programming as well as complimentary subscriptions to the audio versions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and other benefits.
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The U.K.'s Office of Fair Trading has referred HMV's offer to buy Ottakar's to the Competition Commission, which adds further delays to the company's bid to combine its Waterstone's subsidiary with Ottakar's, which would control some 23% of the U.K. market, the BBC reported. The Office said it had received an "unusually high level of consumer complaints"; HMV said it will defend the deal.
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Borders has sued the developer of the Perkins Rowe shopping center in Baton Rouge, La., alleging that the company had negotiated in good faith to open a store in Perkins Rowe, which is still under construction, but found out in October that Barnes & Noble would be opening in the center instead, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. The company is charging misrepresentation, breach of contract and unfair trade practices and said it had signed three letters of intent.
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Besides Powells.com (see yesterday's issue), Internet Retailer magazine honored Biblio.com as one of the 50 top Internet retailers of the year. Called "the booksellers' bookseller," Biblio.com was cited for being "more than a network of [3,500] booksellers. It also is a treasure trove of information on more than 25 million titles" and provides bibliographic information from Muze, allows students to search for textbooks using an ISBN and offers an online community with forums on book collecting and buying.
---
Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco's book buyer, goes out on a limb, making The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini her book pick of the month. In the December Costco Connection, which goes out to many of the warehouse club's members, she focuses on the audio version of the longtime bestseller, which the author narrates, saying that Hosseini has "a mature and masterful grasp of the English language, even though English isn't his first language and this is his first novel. . . . Hosseini also has a natural sense of drama and timing."
---
Joan Didion will write a play based on The Year of Magical Thinking, most likely a one-woman show, that will be produced by Scott Rubin and directed by David Hare, according to the New York Times. Rubin approached Didion, who said for sure that she would not appear in the drama. It will be Didion's first play, although she and her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, wrote screenplays together.
Surprise bombs have included the unhappy Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie, Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg and The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as Your Start, Build, or Manage a Business by Martha Stewart.
The good news for Martha: while Rules derailed, at least her latest book, Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, is cooking.
---
Azar Nafisi, the English professor best known as the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, is working with Web developers to create an international book club that will feature titles by Nafisi's favorite authors and focus on literature and human rights, the Globe and Mail reported. The site should be ready by early next year.
---
Books-A-Million plans to open a store in Indianapolis, Ind., in Traders Point Shopping Center at 86th Street and Zionsville Road, in northwest Indianapolis.
---
Another Beat the Bookstore franchise store has opened, this one in Athens, Ga., home of the University of Georgia, according to the Red and Black, a student newspaper.
---
Uh oh. Is kakuro the next sudoku? Do you know?
Newmarket Press is betting so and will come out The Big Book of Kakuro, compiled by Mark Huckvale ($8.95, 1557047227), on January 4. Kakuro resembles sudoku in some ways but is more complex and may solve the problem of what a sudoku fan who wants more of a challenge should tackle.
---
A hot title at bookstores on the South Carolina coast is a new translation of the New Testament into Gullah, the mixed older English-West African language spoken by some of the 250,000 Gullah people on the Sea Islands. The Beaufort Gazette reported that some stores have sold out of their initial orders of De Nyew Testament, which includes a King James version in the margins for easy comparison. The publisher is the American Bible Society, which reportedly has printed 20,000 copies.
---
Lowering the entry bar. Audible.com has launched a new Web site and created a membership program called AudibleListener that has three levels. The lowest costs $9.95 a year and gives 30% off every program purchased; some members-only sales; and free access to certain program picked by the staff. The higher level memberships cost $14.95 and $22.95 a month, respectively, and provide credits to be used toward programming as well as complimentary subscriptions to the audio versions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and other benefits.
---
The U.K.'s Office of Fair Trading has referred HMV's offer to buy Ottakar's to the Competition Commission, which adds further delays to the company's bid to combine its Waterstone's subsidiary with Ottakar's, which would control some 23% of the U.K. market, the BBC reported. The Office said it had received an "unusually high level of consumer complaints"; HMV said it will defend the deal.
---
Borders has sued the developer of the Perkins Rowe shopping center in Baton Rouge, La., alleging that the company had negotiated in good faith to open a store in Perkins Rowe, which is still under construction, but found out in October that Barnes & Noble would be opening in the center instead, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. The company is charging misrepresentation, breach of contract and unfair trade practices and said it had signed three letters of intent.
---
Besides Powells.com (see yesterday's issue), Internet Retailer magazine honored Biblio.com as one of the 50 top Internet retailers of the year. Called "the booksellers' bookseller," Biblio.com was cited for being "more than a network of [3,500] booksellers. It also is a treasure trove of information on more than 25 million titles" and provides bibliographic information from Muze, allows students to search for textbooks using an ISBN and offers an online community with forums on book collecting and buying.
---
Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco's book buyer, goes out on a limb, making The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini her book pick of the month. In the December Costco Connection, which goes out to many of the warehouse club's members, she focuses on the audio version of the longtime bestseller, which the author narrates, saying that Hosseini has "a mature and masterful grasp of the English language, even though English isn't his first language and this is his first novel. . . . Hosseini also has a natural sense of drama and timing."
---
Joan Didion will write a play based on The Year of Magical Thinking, most likely a one-woman show, that will be produced by Scott Rubin and directed by David Hare, according to the New York Times. Rubin approached Didion, who said for sure that she would not appear in the drama. It will be Didion's first play, although she and her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, wrote screenplays together.
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