"Harvard Book Store remains one of the great places for browsing, especially in its huge basement of used and discontinued books. Brookline Booksmith is still in Coolidge Corner. Powell's, Prairie Lights, Kramerbooks, Elliott Bay Book Company, Porter Square Books, Tattered Cover--they're all still in business, and doing well, as far as I know. And then there are little gems, such as the Freeport Book Shoppe near where I now live--small, unknown stores in which you never see more than ten customers at a time but that are filled with great old volumes and are run by stubborn book lovers who refuse to believe that the world no longer has room for used bookshops. There's something to be said for aspects of the digital revolution, but thank goodness there are still people left who cherish the old-fashioned confines of an actual bookstore, in which you can talk with the owner, and turn real pages, and browse, and read."

 

Perseus Books Group is sponsoring 10x10, an app for iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads that will enable BEA attendees to pick the 10 books from the fall lists that they are most excited about. The results of the iVoting will be announced on Thursday at 4 p.m. and will include the 10 most anticipated fall titles in general, as well as the 10 hottest titles in 10 categories: fiction, current events, history, science, business and economics, art and design, cookbooks, children's books, inspirational and self-help and "all other."

Throuh its Constellation Digital platform, Perseus is offering to convert for free any of the top titles for the iBookstore and other e-retailers for publishers that can't yet do digital distribution. The Daily Beast is covering 10x10, with blogging and will feature the results on its website.

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HarperCollins is inviting authors at BEA to a special booth devoted solely to the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, complete with a small video camera for recording authors' 30- to 45-second memory of first reading the book or what is has meant to them. A tribute book will be sent to Harper Lee after the show. Go to booth #3359, near HarperCollins.

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Incidentally today's New York Times has a roundup of some of at least 50 celebrations planned this summer for To Kill a Mockingbird's anniversary. They include readings, parties, movie screenings and scholarly discussions--some of which take place in Monroeville, Ala., Harper Lee's hometown.

 

Net sales reported by 86 publishers to the Association of American Publishers during March rose 16.6%, to $458.2 million. E-books again showed wild gains, rising 184.8%, to $28.5 million, during the month. Results by category:

 

Category	Sales in millions	% Change
E-Books	$28.5	184.8
Adult Paperback	$123.2	38.2
Professional/Scholarly	$48	27.3
Adult Hardcover	$92	15.1
Univ. Press Paperback	$2.7	13.3
Univ. Press Hardcover	$4.8	8.9
Audio	$9.8	8.6
Religion	$49.5	7.0
Children's/YA Paperback	$47	6.1
Higher Education	-$54.2	-2.1
Children's/YA Hardcover	$45.4	-12.3
Adult Mass Market	$53.6	-18.1

Waterstone's has sold more than 700,000 e-books and 60,000 e-readers since it began selling them in September 2008, the Bookseller reported. The company plans to double space devoted to e-book hardware. The company believes e-books will account for 8% of the book market by 2013.

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Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada "has sold more than 100,000 copies [in the U.K.] in just three months and is expecting to exceed 250,000 sales within the year," the Guardian reported, noting that the 1947 novel--published in the U.S. as Every Man Dies Alone by Melville House Publishing, which sold the U.K. rights to Penguin Classics--has succeeded thanks in part to word-of-mouth recommendations and book clubs.

The Guardian also reported that film rights to the novel have been acquired by actor-director Vincent Perez and Stefan Arndt, producer of Good Bye, Lenin!

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Obituary note: Martin Gardner, a mathematician who wrote more than 70 books and "teased brains with math puzzles in Scientific American for a quarter-century," died last Saturday, the New York Times reported. He was 95.

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"Now I'm signing in the Waldenbooks and nobody's there." Author Parnell Hall sings "a mystery writer's lament."

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Unable to resist a literary temptation, the Independent wrote, "Exactly a century after rumors of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain's dying wishes is at last coming true."

The first volume of Twain's autobiography will be published in November by the University of California, Berkeley. The author had forbidden publication until 100 years after his death. The "eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist."

Robert Hirst, leader of the Berkeley team editing the complete text, said, "When people ask me 'did Mark Twain really mean it to take 100 years for this to come out,' I say, 'he was certainly a man who knew how to make people want to buy a book.' "

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Bloomberg selected "50 of our favorite titles published since Jan. 1, 2009."

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"Just what makes a great literary smackdown?" asked the Daily Beast in featuring "the best feuds that sent the ink flying."

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Justin Halpern's blog (Shit My Day Says) turned book (Sh*t My Dad Says) turned upcoming TV show ($#*! My Dad Says) has run into problems with the Parents Television Council, which "ramped up its ongoing crusade against how human beings actually speak by condemning the title of a new CBS TV series," ars technica reported.

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On the censorship in history front, the Independent showcased 10 "books you could have been jailed for reading."

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Book trailer of the day, sort of: Under the Poppy, "a theatrical experience" based on the novel by Kathe Koja (Small Beer Press), which will be published in October.

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Jim DiMiero has joined Bookazine as v-p and will be responsible for new business development and manage both inside and field sales staff. He was most recently national accounts manager at Levy Home Entertainment and earlier was marketing director at Koen Books until it merged with Levy. He then served as sales and marketing manager at Koen-Levy. He may be reached at jdimiero@bookazine.com.

Heather Doss is leaving her position as children's merchandise manager at Bookazine and will join HarperCollins's children's division. Before joining Bookazine four years ago, she spent nine years managing a Barnes & Noble and then a Waldenbooks store.

 

 

Booksellers have not historically been the most enthusiastic about self-published books, but yesterday at a session during BEA's first Do It Yourself Publishing program a panel addressed how indie booksellers and DIY authors can work together to their mutual benefit.

Leisl Freudenstein, who has handled consignment books at the Boulder Bookstore, Boulder, Colo., for almost 16 years, said the quality of self-published books has "come so far" from the days when she just hoped they looked like real books to now, when often it is "hard to tell the difference." Boulder schedules group events with four self-published authors at a time who are asked to bring in 10 people each.

The author's commitment to work with the bookseller to get the word out about their books is key to the relationship, explained Margot Sage-EL of Watchung Books in Montclair, N.J. "You cannot just drop off a few copies at a bookstore and expect us to put them on the shelf face out and leave it at that," she said. Independent booksellers are just one of the methods for self-publishers to distribute their books, and Sage-EL advised authors to educate themselves about the terms specific to all their vendors.

Maryann McFadden remembered that Sage-EL was gracious enough to take her self-published novel, The Richest Season, on consignment in 2006. Building on the handselling efforts of indie booksellers and readers groups, McFadden parlayed her success into a book deal with Hyperion for that first novel and her second, So Happy Together.

Why would booksellers want to get involved with self-published books? "Independent bookselling is struggling itself," said Freudenstein, "so if we can work together to create a new and exciting bookstore, we're all for it."

Panel moderator Claire McKinney, who worked in New York publishing before becoming the publicity and marketing director at Indiereader.com, said that sometimes the industry can get "stuck in a tunnel" when it comes to self-publishing. Indiereader.com vets all the self-published books it features and while it sells books, McKinney said it is looking into how to work with independent booksellers.--Bridget Kinsella

 

When Clinton Book Shop, Clinton, N.J., owner Harvey Finkel recently moved his store a block away from its 35-year home into a landmark building, some 58 loyal patrons and neighbors came on Mother's Day morning to help with the move. They made a human chain, passing the books by hand and pulling them in children's wagons. It took an hour and a half.

"A mom and her two kids were here that morning, because that's what she told them she wanted for Mother's Day," store manager Rob Dougherty said with obvious delight.

The shop reduced its footage from 2,220 to 1,400 square feet, but the building's distinct decorative exterior, deep interior colors painted by Finkel, high ceiling and natural lighting, make the store feel more welcoming and spacious. Inviting nooks and crannies, area rugs and select pieces of handmade furniture create an environment conducive to face-out display and leisurely browsing.

"Everybody comes in and says it feels homey," Finkel said. "It feels like the books belong here."

Clinton Book Shop's home is in the historic Grandin Library Building, built after the 1896 Great Fire that roared through Main Street in Clinton. The structure housed the town's first library and fire company. Back then, there was no fire company and residents had to put out the fire by bucket brigade--there's that concept again!--with water drawn from the river. After that two wealthy families built the fire company/library to house the horse-drawn fire wagons on the first floor and the library on the second floor. The second floor is empty now; Finkel would like to make that part of the bookstore in the future--it would make a great event space.

The store has new adult titles in the front, a bright children's room in the rear, and a middle space devoted to used books, which were added to the stock mix last year.

As noted here earlier this month, moving day was covered by local media and the grand opening was attended by town historian Allie McGaheran, who told celebrants this surprising piece of trivia: in 1966, when the Clinton Public Library finally moved from the second floor of 12 East Main Street into its own freestanding space, a local Boy Scout troop voluntarily came out and moved the books by hand, around the block: a human bucket brigade of books. (For photos of the Mother's Day book brigade, visit the Courier News.)

"We repeated history without even knowing it," Dougherty said. "That's the kind of town Clinton is."--Laurie Lico Albanese

Just what we need today: recommendations for good coffee from Toby Cox, owner of Three Lives & Co. bookstore at 154 W. 10th St. in the West Village.

Stumptown Coffee at the Ace Hotel, 18 W. 29th St., between Fifth Ave. and Broadway. Flatiron District. The first New York City cafe for the Portland roasters and ubiquitous bean providers to many cafes around town. Check out the nattily dressed baristas; go figure the early-20th century newspaper boy look.

Cafe Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh & Eighth Aves. Chelsea. An excellent Gibraltar (cortado) espresso and just down the street from New York's finest at the 10th Precinct.

Joe: The Art of Coffee, several locations, including the Upper West Side (514 Columbus Ave. at 85th St.) and a convenient location to the subway hub of Union Square (9 E. 13th St., between University Place and Fifth Ave.). If you're traveling to BEA through Grand Central, stop by the stand inside the terminal.

Abraço, 86 E. 7th St., just west of First Ave. East Village. With standing room for about three people inside, this East Village favorite makes one hell of a macchiato and some nice treats to eat.

Gimme! Coffee, 228 Mott St., between Prince and Spring Sts. Nolita. Another tiny spot--room for maybe six people to stand--this is a great stop while trolling the boutiques of NoLita (North of Little Italy).

Ground Support, 399 West Broadway, between Spring and Broome sts. SoHo. The area isn't what it once was but the espresso pulled here will help you keep up with the marauding hoards shopping SoHo.

Third Rail, 240 Sullivan St., between Bleecker and W. 3rd Sts. Greenwich Village. One of the newest cafes, yet already a regular stop for espresso aficionados looking for that singular cup.

Jack's Stir Brew, 138 W. 10th St., between Sixth and Seventh Aves. West Village. The Three Lives & Company local; mind the groove in the sidewalk from our repeated trips down the block for our mid-afternoon pick-me-up.

And if you should find yourself in Brooklyn, a couple stops to consider:

Cafe Regular, 318 11th St., just west of Fifth Ave., Park Slope. A beautiful small space serving delicious macchiato.

Blue Bottle Coffee, 160 Berry St., between N. 4th and N. 5th Sts. Williamsburg. The premier roasters out of San Francisco bring their outstanding espresso and drip coffees to New York City.

 

Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Dominique Browning, author of Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas & Found Happiness (Atlas, $23, 9781934633311/1934633313).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show for an interview with Al Roker: John Grisham, whose new children's novel is Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer (Dutton Children's Books, $16.99, 9780525423843/0525423842).

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Tomorrow morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe: Ben Bradlee and Quinn Bradlee, authors of A Life's Work: Fathers and Sons (Simon & Schuster, $19.99, 9780684808956/0684808951).

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Tomorrow on Hannity: Danielle Staub, author of The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words (Gallery, $25, 9781439182895/1439182892).

 

Orlando Bloom and James Corden have been added to the cast of The Three Musketeers, a 3D version of the 2D classic novel by Alexandre Dumas. Variety reported that "Bloom will play the Duke of Buckingham while British comedian Corden will portray the servant Planchet." Actors previously signed for the film--directed by Paul W.S. Anderson--include Christoph Waltz as Cardinal Richelieu; Logan Lerman as D'Artagnan; Matthew MacFadyen, Ray Stevenson and Luke Evans as Athos, Porthos and Aramis, respectively; Milla Jovovich as M'lady De Winter; and Mads Mikkelsen as Rochefort.

The film is scheduled for a summer 2011 release. Variety also reported that "Warner Bros. signed up Bourne Identity helmer Doug Liman last month to direct its version of The Three Musketeers, which is skedded to start production in the fall."

 

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, June 1:

The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns by Alan C. Greenberg and Mark Singer (Simon & Schuster, $26, 9781416562887/1416562885) chronicles the fortunes of a financial leviathan.

I Know I Am, but What Are You? by Samantha Bee (Gallery, $25, 9781439142738/1439142734) is a collection of humorous essays from a Daily Show correspondent.

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century by Michael A. Hiltzik (Free Press, $30, 9781416532163/1416532161) examines the saga of the Hoover Dam, its role during the Great Depression and beyond.

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Objective by Eric Van Lustbader (Grand Central, $27.99, 9780446539814/0446539813) follows the global pursuit between Bourne and a covert agent with similar skills.

The Spy by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott (Putnam, $27.95, 9780399156434/0399156437) is the third thriller with chief detective Isaac Bell.

The Burning Wire by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster, $26.99, 9781439156339/1439156336) is the ninth mystery with forensic expert Lincoln Rhyme.

Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton (Berkley, $26.95, 9780425234334/0425234339) is the latest novel starring Anita Blake, vampire hunter.

The One That I Want: A Novel by Allison Winn Scotch (Shaye Areheart Books, $24, 9780307464507/0307464504) follows a simple guidance counselor who is accidentally given the ability to see the future.

 

Winners and "winners" of the first annual Moby Awards for Book Trailers (Shelf Awareness, May 17, 2010) are:

Trailer Least Likely to Sell the Book: Sounds of Murder by Patricia Rockwell
Best Performance by an Author: Head Case by Dennis Cass
Most Annoying Performance by an Author: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Best Cameo: Zach Galifianakis, in Lowboy by John Wray
Best Low Budget/Indie: I Am in the Air Right Now by Kathryn Regina
Best Big Budget/Big House: Going West by Maurice Gee
Biggest Waste of Conglomerate Money: Level 26 by Anthony Zuiker
Best Foreign Film Book Trailer: Etcetera and Otherwise: a Lurid Odyssey by Sean Stanley, illustrated by Kristi-ly Green
Bloodiest Book Trailer of the Year: Killer by Dave Zeltserman
Most Annoying Music: New Year’s at the Pier by April Halprin Wayland

 

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain (Ecco, $26.99, 9780061718946/0061718947, June 8, 2010)

Opening lines of a book we want to read:

Selling Out

I was so supremely naive about so many things when I wrote Kitchen Confidential--my hatred for all things Food Network being just one of them. From my vantage point in a busy working kitchen, when I'd see Emeril and Bobby on the tube, they looked like creatures from another planet--bizarrely, artificially cheerful creatures in a candycolored galaxy in no way resembling my own. They were as far from my experience or understanding as Barney the purple dinosaur--or the saxophone stylings of Kenny G. The fact that people--strangers--seemed to love them, Emeril's studio audience, for instance, clapping and hooting with every mention of gah-lic, only made me more hostile.

In my life, in my world, I took it as an article of faith that chefs were unlovable. That's why we were chefs. We were basically... bad people--which is why we lived the way we did, this half-life of work followed by hanging out with others who lived the same life, followed by whatever slivers of emulated normal life we had left to us. Nobody loved us. Not really. How could they, after all? As chefs, we were proudly dysfunctional. We were misfits. We knew we were misfits, we sensed the empty parts of our souls, the missing parts of our personalities, and this was what had brought us to our profession, had made us what we were.

I despised their very likability, as it was a denial of the quality I'd always seen as our best and most distinguishing: our otherness.

Rachael Ray, predictably, symbolized everything I thought wrong--which is to say, incomprehensible to me--about the Brave New World of celebrity chefs, as she wasn't even one of "us." Back then, hearing that title applied to just anyone in an apron was particularly angering. It burned. (Still does a little.)

What a pitiable fool I was.--Selected by Marilyn Dahl

Poet Elizabeth Bishop was a life-long believer in change for change's sake and in restorative travel. In 1951, after one of her periodic hospital stays to recover from a particularly destructive alcoholic binge, she shipped off on an excursion to South America, with Brazil as her first stop. She had planned to visit a few old friends for a week or so and then travel farther afield; unexpectedly, her Brazilian visit lasted for years.

In his lovingly imagined novel of Bishop's Brazilian sojourn, Michael Sledge focuses on her life-changing encounters in a country very different from the New England and Nova Scotia she knew so well. In Rio, she reunites with Lota de Macedo Soares, whom she had met five years before in New York. Lota is building a modernist house in the jungle outside Rio and wants to show Elizabeth her vision. Elizabeth accompanies Lota and her companion, Mary, to the half-completed house, spectacularly sited on a mountain, and is soon in awe of Lota's energy and drive. Lota, for her part, thinks Elizabeth is a genius. Mary's tart dismissal of Elizabeth with, "She's a drunk and a hypochondriac. Everyone knows that!" signals another change on the horizon, one that will find Elizabeth replacing Mary in Lota's affections.

Elizabeth Bishop was not a confessional poet, and Sledge is careful to preserve her dignity at the same time he explores the intense connection she forms with Lota. In the beginning, their differences attract and thrill them: Elizabeth is shy, passive and lacks self-confidence; Lota is dynamic, ambitious and loves a good fight. As the depth of their passion begins to overwhelm them, Elizabeth confesses, "It is hard for me to believe in happiness. I resist it. I've spent so much time just trying to survive." To which Lota replies, "And now you thrive."

Brazil, Sledge shows, is transformative for Bishop both emotionally and artistically. He captures her enchantment with the Amazon (the river and the jungle) as well as the growing self-confidence that will one day allow her to teach in American universities. He is equally adept at portraying Lota's love of architectural modernism and her disastrous entanglements with Brazilian politics when she leads the campaign to construct a public park in Rio. Day by day, though, as Elizabeth and Lota become absorbed by the demands of their separate careers, they cut themselves off from the emotional core that sustained them for a decade. The collapse of their once-engulfing passion, even if seen as inevitable in Sledge's sympathetic telling, is unbearably sad--they gave each other so much that neither ever dreamed of having, and yet, in the end, they couldn't save each other.--John McFarland

Shelf Talker: An evocative novel of all that Elizabeth Bishop found to love during a 17-year sojourn in Brazil and of the love that found her there.