Shelf Awareness for Thursday, January 28, 2010


Other Press: Allegro by Ariel Dorfman

St. Martin's Press: Austen at Sea by Natalie Jenner

Berkley Books: SOLVE THE CRIME with your new & old favorite sleuths! Enter the Giveaway!

Mira Books: Their Monstrous Hearts by Yigit Turhan

News

Notes: McNally Robinson Emerges; Google Settlement Objections

Canada's McNally Robinson Booksellers emerged from bankruptcy protection this week, and owner Paul McNally "believes there is still a strong future for the industry," CBC News reported.

"It's a conclusion of a process that was punishing [and] very emotional," he said. "It involved terminating a lot of employees and as you surely know, is deeply emotional and painful. A lot of money was lost."

The company had filed for bankruptcy protection and closed two of its stores in December (Shelf Awareness, January 4, 2010). "Insolvency documents filed with Industry Canada show the company posted losses of more than $2 million in the 2009 financial year," according to CBC News. McNally said the two remaining shops--in Winnepeg and Saskatoon--have always been profitable.

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Objections to the revised Google book settlement were still being filed as today's deadline approached. Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court had set a fairness hearing for February 18 to decide whether to approve it.

While the Steinbeck and Guthrie families have made their peace with the settlement (Shelf Awareness, January 22, 2010), the estate of Richard Wright described the deal as "grievously flawed" in a last-minute statement, the New York Times reported.

"The Google Book Settlement is attempting to clinch a deal behind closed doors on a matter so far-reaching and so packed with heavy ramifications for the future of human society, that only multinational public arbitration would be appropriate," wrote Julia and Malcolm Wright, daughter and grandson of the author.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon raised "many of the same objections it made to the first. In particular, the books giant argued that the agreement overreaches and violates the U.S. Copyright Act. 'The (settlement) continues to give Google exclusive rights likely to lead to a monopoly,' it read."

Professor Pam Samuelson of U.C. Berkeley submitted an objection on behalf of a group of academic authors, observing: "We do not believe that the settlement of a class action lawsuit is a proper way to make such a profound set of changes in rights of authors and publishers, in markets for books, and procedures for resolving disputes as the (settlement) would bring about."

The Open Book Alliance also filed comments objecting to the settlement, according to the Washington Post. OBA co-founder Peter Brantley said, "There were some cosmetic changes but the substance is the same in that it imposes a Google monopoly and violates laws."

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Barnes & Noble has received a subpoena from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for information regarding an investigation into online retailers who link customers to discount clubs that charge hidden fees. In a statement, B&N confirmed it has had a relationship with Webloyalty since 2005, but has never provided the firm with any customer credit or debit card information.

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Seattle University's bookstore advisory committee has recommended that the school's campus bookstore remain independent rather than be outsourced. The SU Spectator reported that the university's announcement it had considered outsourcing for the spring quarter 2009 "sparked outrage from faculty and students, some of whom created a Facebook group against outsourcing."

"We're very excited about the decision," said Bob Spencer, bookstore manager. "The staff is energized."

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Tomorrow on Twitter, the late Molly Ivins's life, work, wit and wisdom will be celebrated as the third anniversary of her death approaches. PublicAffairs (@Public_affairs), publisher of the new biography Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life; the Texas Observer (@TexasObserver), her former paper; and Vintage/Anchor (@VintageAnchor), publisher of her books, are remembering Ivins and celebrating her courageous, irreverent personality by organizing this Twitter remembrance. Fans can to tweet their favorite Mollyisms, stories and memories using the hashtag #MollyIvins.

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Arrrr! Ever wonder what a book pirate is thinking? The Millions interviewed "The Real Caterpillar," who might be "the publishing industry’s ideal customer, an avid reader who buys dozens of books a year and enthusiastically recommends his favorites to friends. But he’s also uploaded hundreds of books to file-sharing sites and he’s downloaded thousands."

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Book trailer of the day: Just Don't Fall: How I Grew Up, Conquered Illness, and Made It Down the Mountain by Josh Sundquist (Viking), who lost his leg to cancer as a child and ended up ski racing in the 2006 Paralympics. The trailer is called "The Amputee Rap."

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Novelist Tiffany Murray, who chose her top 10 rock 'n' roll novels for the Guardian, said, "I love these novels because they attempt to capture threshold, anarchic times where anything might happen; that, to me is rock 'n' roll."

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Whitney Peeling, whose last day as director of publicity at PublicAffairs is today, is leaving soon for India and Bangladesh, where she will do volunteer work.

Effective February 8, Jaime Leifer is returning to PublicAffairs as director of publicity after a stint in the PR department of the New Yorker.

Congratulations to both!

 


Harpervia: Counterattacks at Thirty by Won-Pyung Sohn, translated by Sean Lin Halbert


Congratulations! It's an iPad!

Everyone can exhale now. Yesterday, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPad tablet with requisite fanfare. CNET was among the media outlets that liveblogged from the event with details and features as they were unveiled. Here are some of the book basics, courtesy of CNET live:
  • Steve's back. He puts a picture of the Kindle on screen. "Amazon's done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle. We're going to stand on their shoulders and go a bit further."
  • The new app is called iBooks.
  • You can choose books from what looks like an actual bookshelf. On the upper left is a button that leads to the iBook Store. Can download books right to the iPad. All major publishers except for Random House (Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette) are on the bookstore starting this afternoon.
  • To read a book you tap on it and it opens to be read via portrait or landscape. Tap anywhere on the right to flip forward in pages, tap on the left to go back. You can also pick up a page and lift it by dragging your finger right to left.
  • A scroll bar on the bottom shows your progress through the book and what page you're on.
  • You can change font and size also if you want.
  • It uses the ePub format. Not just popular books, but textbooks are coming as well.
  • But he moves on quickly without giving any detail about textbooks.

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The New York Times observed that "one of the most significant applications for the iPad may be Apple’s own creation, called iBooks, an e-reading program that will connect to Apple’s new online e-bookstore. . . . Apple’s announcement that it was diving into the growing e-book business put the company on a collision course with Amazon."

In another Times piece, John Makinson, Penguin Group's CEO, said, "We have learned that it is never wise to stand between a consumer and a preference" for how they acquire content.

While Random House is not among the publishers that have initially signed on to the iPad, Stuart Applebaum told the Times that the company would “look forward to our continuing conversations” with Apple.

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"We love it, it's a state of the art device that Apple always does well and now they have added books to their repertoire," Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Simon & Schuster, told Reuters. "From a publishing perspective, this is a great thing."

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"Apple took a direct shot at Amazon with the iBooks," the Los Angeles Times noted. "The application looks like a bookshelf, showing the digital books owned by the user. And of course, a store (naturally, the iBookstore) along the lines of the iTunes Store, where book publishers (like, hey, McGraw-Hill!) can sell their virtual wares... Prices shown in the demo appear comparable to Amazon's Kindle store. Amazon already has an app for its bookstore made for the iPhone, so the company can't be happy that Apple is stepping into its home court."

"We're going to open up the floodgates for the rest of the publishing world starting this afternoon," Jobs said.

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Flavorwire suggested "5 Ways the Apple iPad Could Change e-Books":
  • iBookstore pricing "may allow publishers more say in setting the prices of ebooks. Which puts Amazon’s marketshare squarely in Apple’s sights."
  • iPad's open-source format "could put a lot of pressure on Amazon and everyone else to adopt the standard. That might bring the publishing world a whole lot closer to its own mp3 era."
  • It's got a real screen, which "does open the possibility of full-color e-books."
  • A buy-in from publishers--the big ones, at least. "What else would we like to see? More involvement from indie publishers, too."
  • It’s 500 bucks. "Could a more expensive but more full-featured device kickstart e-books?"

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"While we were waiting to go inside, it was clear that books were on nobody's mind--I spoke with a few tech reporters and they didn't seem to understand the impact that the iPad would have on the publishing industry," wrote Cynthia Shannon for Mediabistro's eBookNewser blog. She also observed that the "presentation of iBooks store was like iTunes for books: you can look at the reviews, you can read sample chapters, summary, etc. This is the new storefront that publishers will have to consider now. Placement in the iBooks store. What info you want to make available. Apple could not comment on whether self-publishers will be able to upload their books."

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Slate's Farhad Manjoo voted enthusiastically in favor of the iPad: "Everything about it--its size, shape, weight, and fantastically intuitive user interface--feels just right."

Regarding e-books, Manjoo reported "the iPad's screen is a traditional backlit LCD display, not E-Ink. LCD isn't as easy on the eyes, but it's got a few upsides--it can display colors, it can do animation, and you can use it in the dark. Pages turn instantly in iBooks, unlike the half-second it takes on the Kindle. You can also see full-color photos--you can get iPad travel books, photo books, cookbooks, and textbooks, all of which look crummy on the Kindle--and authors can even include video."

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And, of course, no iPad news roundup would be complete without hearing from the Onion: Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet.



GLOW: Bloomsbury YA: They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran


Obituary Notes: Louis Auchincloss, Howard Zinn

Louis Auchincloss, "a Wall Street lawyer from a prominent New York family who became a widely read author of dozens of books that plumbed the world of Manhattan's old-money elite," died Tuesday, the New York Times reported. He was 92.

"Of all our novelists, Auchincloss is the only one who tells us how our rulers behave in their banks and their boardrooms, their law offices and their clubs," Gore Vidal once wrote. "Yet such is the vastness of our society and the remoteness of academics and book chatters from actual power that those who should be most in this writer's debt have no idea what a useful service he renders us by revealing and, in some ways, by betraying his class."

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Historian Howard Zinn, for whom "activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught," died yesterday, the Boston Globe reported. He was 87.

"His writings have changed the consciousness of a generation, and helped open new paths to understanding and its crucial meaning for our lives," Noam Chomsky had written of Zinn. "When action has been called for, one could always be confident that he would be on the front lines, an example and trustworthy guide."

Incidentally in one Shelf Awareness household, Zinn has been held in awe since visiting several high school honors classes five or six years ago and speaking at length with students who had never met a "real" historian.

 


Image of the Day: Digital Book World

This week's first Digital Book World gathered digerati from publishing and beyond in New York City. For two days, attendees (and those who followed along on Twitter) participated in a host of panels, presentations and seminars focused on the radically changing publishing environment and featuring the likes of Shiv Singh, Dominique Raccah, Michael Cairns, Donn Linn, Richard Nash, Chris Morrow and many others. The event was chaired by Mike Shatzkin and hosted by F+W Media

 

 


Media and Movies

Media Heat: The Politician

Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Lauren Luke, author of Lauren Luke Looks (Fireside, $22, 9781439187302/1439187304).

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Tomorrow night on 20/20 and Nightline: Andrew Young, author of The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down (Thomas Dunne, $24.99, 9780312640651/031264065X).

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Tomorrow on Fox News' Glenn Beck: Burton W. Folsom, author of New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America (Threshold Editions, $27, 9781416592228/1416592229).


Television: Wallander

The BBC intends to commission six more episodes of the critically acclaimed Wallander series, based on Henning Mankell's bestselling works. The Guardian reported that three of the episodes may be original scripts developed from existing short stories, and the "three remaining books the BBC has not yet adapted--The Dogs of Riga, The White Lioness and The Pyramid--are likely to be filmed after the three original stories are filmed and they are likely to complete the series for good, taking the tally to 12." The availability of actor Kenneth Branagh will play a role in the timing of the additional episodes as well. 

 


This Weekend on Book TV: Game Change

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, January 30

8 a.m. Jonathan Metzl, author of The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease (Beacon, $24.95, 9780807085929/0807085928), contends that the finding of an alleged increased incidence of schizophrenia in black men during the '60s and '70s was fabricated to undermine the Civil Rights movement. (Re-airs Sunday at 5 p.m.)

9:45 a.m. At an event hosted by Politics & Prose Bookstore, Washington, D.C., Haynes Johnson discusses his book Herblock: The Life and Work of the Great Political Cartoonist (Norton, $35, 9780393067729/0393067726).

11:30 a.m. 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), foresees a freer, more prosperous Middle East in which religious extremists do not thrive. (Re-airs Sunday at 1:30 p.m. and Monday at 1:15 a.m.)

2 p.m. Stefan Bradley talks about his book, Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s (University of Illinois Press, $40, 9780252034527/025203452X). (Re-airs Sunday at 4 a.m.)

7 p.m. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, co-authors of Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (Harper, $27.99, 9780061733635/0061733636), discuss the 2008 presidential campaign. (Re-airs Monday at 6 a.m.)

8 p.m. At an event hosted by Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., Don Lattin talks about his book The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America (HarperOne, $24.99, 9780061655937/0061655937). (Re-airs Sunday at 2 a.m.)

9 p.m. At an event hosted by Booksmith, San Francisco, Calif., Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche (Free Press, $26, 9781416587088/141658708X), looks at the impact of our mental health system on the rest of the world. 

10 p.m. After Words. Victoria Toensing interviews John Yoo, author of Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (Kaplan, $29.95, 9781607145554/1607145553). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

Sunday, January 31

12:30 A.M. Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman, co-authors of The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons from Nixon to Obama (Harper, $27.99, 9780061253898/0061253898), contend that neocons have successfully influenced U.S. presidents from both parties. (Re-airs Sunday at 2:45 p.m. and 10:15 p.m.)

 


Books & Authors

Shelf Starter: Rodeo in Joliet

Rodeo in Joliet by Glenn Rockowitz (Bennett & Hastings, $23.95, 9780578026435/0578026430, January 18, 2010)

Opening lines of books we want to read:

Voices are underwater, faces are Vaseline, smells are electric, words are paint spills and I can't feel a goddamn thing.

An hour ago he called me in and he asked me to wait and he told me to sit and he told me the News. Now I'm just staring at the wall behind him.

His head is on the table and I can't bring myself to look at him.

He is crying.

He shouldn't be crying but he is and I can't stop him and I want to stop him and put my arm around him and let him know that everything is going to be okay.

But it's not.

And it's me, not him, who needs my arms.

There have been no pains no lumps no rashes no bumps no marks no scratches no sores no f***ing anything. And now I'm staring at the x-rays hanging on a light box behind my doctor's head, a glowing abstract black and white light littered with shadows.

Cancer. Everywhere.

"You should be dead. You should be grateful."

His voice is underwater. I'm twenty-eight years old. My wife is eight and a half months pregnant with our first child. And maybemaybemaybe if I'm lucky I'll see three more months.

My doctor is crying.

I am not dead.

And I am not grateful.

--Selected by Marilyn Dahl

 



The Bestsellers

Top-Selling Titles in Chicagoland Last Week

The following were the bestselling titles at independent bookstores in and near Chicago during the week ending Sunday, January 24:

Hardcover Fiction

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
3. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
4. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
5. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. Drive by Daniel Pink
2. Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
3. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. Open by Andre Agassi
5. Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson

Paperback Fiction

1. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
2. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4. Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
5. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Paperback Nonfiction

1. Food Rules by Michael Pollan
2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
3. Twitterature by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin
4. For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs by Kathleen Rooney
5. The Art of Conversation by Catherine Blyth

Children's

1. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
2. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
3. The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
4. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
5. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

Reporting bookstores: Anderson's, Naperville and Downers Grove; Read Between the Lynes, Woodstock; the Book Table, Oak Park; the Book Cellar, Lincoln Square; Lake Forest Books, Lake Forest; the Bookstall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka; and 57th St. Books; Seminary Co-op; Women and Children First, Chicago.

[Many thanks to the reporting bookstores and Carl Lennertz!]


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