Shelf Awareness for Thursday, July 8, 2010


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

Cool Idea of the Day: Books and Bars

Imagine a book club that blends "improvisational comedy, literary analysis and alcohol." Minnesota Daily profiled Jeff Kamin’s Books and Bars, noting: "Co-sponsored by Magers and Quinn Booksellers and The Onion, Books and Bars takes place the second Tuesday of every month at Bryant Lake Bowl theater, making it the largest and loosest book club in the Twin Cities."

"I come with papers. I’m ready with a notebook full of stuff, but oftentimes it goes where the audience wants it to go," Kamin said. "So therein lies the improv of it, because I have no idea what the 90-plus people that show up are going to say, which I love."

Carrying on the Books and Bars tradition originally started by now-closed Bound to Be Read bookstore, Kamin updates blogs and sends out newsletters to keep members up to date. The author selection "boasts a diverse palette," ranging from Kurt Vonnegut and Vladimir Nabokov to Cormac McCarthy and Dave Eggers.

"I assign the book, but I take everyone's suggestions," he added. "Some of the best discussions are the ones where we disagree."

Minnesota Daily's advice: "So for all of you reclusive Twin Cities bookworms, instead polishing off that bottle of Jameson at home, stop by Bryant Lake Bowl on Tuesday July 13 for a chance to express all your whiskey-fueled (or sober) literary ramblings at this month’s Books and Bars."

 


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


Notes: Ingram Truck Accident; Patterson Hits Million E-Books

Three large trucks crashed yesterday morning in Turlock, Calif., in the Central Valley near Modesto, killing one driver, according to CBS-13. One of the trucks was carrying Ingram freight, all of which was destroyed in the crash.

Ingram said that orders have been reshipped and should arrive two days later than originally scheduled.

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James Patterson is the first author to exceed one million sales in electronic book delivery, according to his publisher, Hachette Book Group. The Associated Press reported that Patterson "has moved 1.14 million units of his books for devices like Kindle and the iPad." The top seller is his most recent novel I, Alex Cross. Patterson's physical books have sold more than 205 million copies worldwide.

"If e-books get people who might otherwise not be reading to pick up a book, then that makes me happy, " Patterson said.

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Borders Group launched its e-bookstore yesterday, with titles provided by Kobo, the e-book and e-reader retailer in which Borders has a stake. The Wall Street Journal observed that for consumers, "the entrance of Borders into the e-book marketplace may mean lower prices on some titles. Although five of the six major book publishers have converted to an 'agency' pricing model, setting their own retail prices, Bertelsmann AG's Random House publishing group and many smaller publishers still employ the traditional wholesale model--meaning Borders could choose to discount some titles aggressively from these publishers in a bid to drive traffic to its website."

"Borders is late, but not too late, because this is an emerging market. As a publisher, this is one more outlet for us," said Jane Friedman, CEO of Open Road Integrated Media. "It's going to mean more choice for readers, and an opportunity for Borders to build loyalty with their customers."

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Yesterday's launch of the new Borders eBook Store is "a sure sign of the future," observed Fast Company, which noted that "the writing is on the wall for Amazon and the future of e-publishing. It's difficult for bookstores to compete with Amazon's physical book sales network, as the company's business model and reduced costs mean it's often more convenient for today's book enthusiasts to shop this way. But when books go digital, it's a whole new paradigm, with everybody--including Apple, which is playing along too with its iBook store--having pretty similar chances for success. Since Amazon's Kindle ecosystem is the only one that's limited to consuming only its own content, the e-book consumer of tomorrow looks like they're going to have a lot of choice available to them. Voracious readers, dig in."

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Chris Morrow, general manager of the Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt., posed a few questions on the bookshop's blog regarding e-books and indies in the wake of a recent sales floor incident in which a customer solicited staff recommendations with the apparent intent of ordering e-books online. Morrow's questions:

 

What is the role of a bookstore in the digital age?
Is there a role for a bookstore in the digital age?
Is it obvious that if many fewer people buy books here, that their resource for good book ideas will disappear?
Or should we try to find a skillful way to make this connection in people’s minds?
Until or unless we can sell e-books, do we have a leg to stand on in this conversation?
What is the sound of one hand clapping?


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Michele Filgate, events coordinator at RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, N.H., shared some of her favorite summer reads with New Hampshire Public Radio listeners.

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Amazon.com's books editors selected their Best Books of the Year... So Far, with 10 picks each in fiction, nonfiction, and books for kids and teens.

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"With so many business books spilling from the shelves, we’re often asked for a comprehensive list of recommendations," Bloomberg noted as it presented an updated list of 50 top titles published since January 1, 2009.

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Book trailer of the day: Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart (Random House, July 27 release)

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If there's one thing booklovers can't resist, it's the temptation of a little Bookshelf Porn.

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In Canada, chain retailer Indigo Books & Music "is branching into photography and will sell its own branded gift items to third-party retailers to offset a global slide in book sales at traditional specialty book retail stores," the Financial Post reported. Customers will be able to bring in digital files "to print photographs, create photo books and keepsakes, or have their photographs taken in a studio by an on-staff portrait photographer. Indigo will also sell photographs as art."

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Another chapter in the ongoing saga of Toronto's troubled indie This Ain’t the Rosedale Library (Shelf Awareness, June 24, 2010) occurred this week when Book Madam Julie Wilson and Invisible Publishing’s Nic Boshart "hosted an al fresco reading" outside the shuttered bookshop, Quill & Quire reported. The event had been scheduled as a stop on Jeff Miller’s author tour for Ghost Pine: All Stories True, but "the reading became a celebration of the bookstore instead."

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Ria Bleumer, former manager of Vancouver's now-closed Duthie Books, plans to open Sitka Books & Art in August "as an answer to what she describes as a backlash towards corporate book retailers," Quill & Quire reported.

"Independent bookstores are representative of culture," she said. "If we didn’t have them and only had big box stores that have some books and art, we would water down our culture."

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On Twelve's website, Christopher Hitchens, who was forced to cut short his tour for Hitch-22 last week after being diagnosed with cancer, said, "I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice."

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HarperCollins, which will use NetGalley to deliver galleys, promotional materials and other content digitally, rolled out the new program yesterday at ThrillerFest with Judgment and Wrath by Matt Hilton (Morrow).  

Books and promotional materials featured at launch will include titles from HarperCollins imprints Avon, William Morrow and Eos. Eos will be utilizing NetGalley to distribute The Eos Reader, a sampling of introductory chapters and other exclusive content of forthcoming SFF and urban fantasy titles, at Comic-Con International in San Diego (July 22-25); and romance fans will be able to sample Marjorie M. Liu's Avon debut, In the Dark of Dreams, at the forthcoming Romance Writers of America conference in Orlando (July 30).

"Using NetGalley helps streamline the distribution process, cut costs, and increase the reach of our marketing and publicity campaigns," said Debbie Mercer, HarperCollins director of advertising and promotion.

Other launch titles include Passions of a Wicked Earl by Lorraine Heath (Avon), Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath (Avon), The Reckless Bride by Stephanie Laurens (Avon), Crown of Crystal Flame by C.L. Wilson (Avon), Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean (Avon), His Darkest Embrace by Juliana Stone (Avon) and First Love Cookie Club by Lori Wilde (Avon).

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Charlesbridge Publishing has acquired Imagine Publishing, which publishes books for children and adults and includes the Peter Yarrow Books imprint.

Imagine was founded last year by father and son Charles and Jeremy Nurnberg. Charles Nurnberg, longtime CEO of Sterling Publishing, becomes v-p and publisher of the Imagine imprint at Charlesbridge. Jeremy Nurnberg, former v-p, trade and institutional sales, at Sterling, becomes v-p of sales for Charlesbridge.

Brent Farmer, president of Charlesbridge, which is a children's book publisher, commented: "With the addition of Imagine we significantly increase our list and range. We look forward to enhancing the enduring relationships established over the years with children's booksellers, wholesalers, librarians and teachers, and creating new relationships in the general trade arena."

"Charlesbridge has the full range of promotional and distribution capabilities that Imagine needs," Charles Nurnberg said.



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


Image of the Day: Winning Hand

As the cards are being shuffled at the annual World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, David Sklansky, two-time event winner and a veteran for more than 25 consecutive years, deals his DUCY? Exploits, Advice, and Ideas of the Renowned Strategist (Two Plus Two Publishing). Written with Alan Schoonmaker, the book reveals the secrets and logic to his continued success at the poker table and in life.

Photo: Alan Schoonmaker


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


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Hamlet's Blackberry

Today on the Diane Rehm Show: William Powers, author of Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age (Harper, $24.99, 9780061687167/0061687162).

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Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America: Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, authors of In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving (Holt, $24, 9780805093384/0805093389).

 


Television: Reviving Ophelia

The Lifetime network has greenlighted Reviving Ophelia, a TV movie "inspired by" Mary Pipher's bestselling nonfiction book Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, Variety reported, noting that "Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle) and Kim Dickens (Treme) "will play adult sisters who must lean on each other when confronted with their daughters' problems--particularly when one of the teenagers is being abused by her boyfriend." Bobby Roth is directing the screenplay by Teena Booth. The film will be shot this month and air on Lifetime later this year.

 


This Weekend on Book TV: Freedom Summer

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, July 10

12 p.m. Jeff Goodell discusses his book How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26, 9780618990610/0618990615).

3 p.m. Richard Lowry, author of New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah (Savas Beatie, $29.95, 9781932714777/1932714774), talks about the battles that took place following the killing of four U.S. contractors in 2004. (Re-airs Sunday at 3 a.m.)

5 p.m. Bruce Watson, author of Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy (Viking, $27.95, 9780670021703/0670021709), recalls the summer of 1964, when more than 700 college students arrived in Mississippi to register African-American voters and create Freedom Schools to assist in the education of the populace. (Re-airs Saturday at 11 p.m., Sunday at 5 a.m. and Monday at 4 a.m.)
    
10 p.m. After Words. Ralph Nader interviews Andrew Napolitano, author of Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History (Thomas Nelson, $24.99, 9781595552662/1595552669). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m., Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m., and Sunday, July 18, at 12 p.m.)

Sunday, July 11

8 a.m. H.W. Brands, author of American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (Penguin, $32.95, 9781594202629/1594202621), examines a series of events from the past 65 years that have affected the way Americans live today. (Re-airs Sunday at 8 p.m.)

9 a.m. Alec MacGillis discusses Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law (PublicAffairs, $12.95, 9781586489342/1586489348), a series of essays written by the staff of the Washington Post.

3 p.m. Ed Schultz talks about his book Killer Politics: How Big Money and Bad Politics Are Destroying the Great American Middle Class (Hyperion, $25.99, 9781401323783/1401323782).  

4 p.m. Dr. Connie Mariano, author of The White House Doctor: My Patients Were Presidents--A Memoir (Thomas Dunne Books, $25.99, 9780312534837/0312534833), discusses her tenure as the White House physician from 1992 to 2001. 

 


Books & Authors

Awards: Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize

Danielle Deulen won the $5,000 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize for her collection Lovely Asunder, which will be published by the University of Arkansas Press next spring. Enid Shomer, the press's Poetry Series editor, selected the winner "after the completion of a rigorous pre-screening process by a select group of published poets of the 700 manuscripts that had been submitted in the fall of 2009," according to the award's organizers.  

Stephen Gibson's Paradise was a finalist in this year's competition, and will also be published next spring by the University of Arkansas Press, which has been publishing poetry since Miller Williams became its first director 30 years ago.

 


Shelf Starter: A Hidden Affair

A Hidden Affair by Pam Jenoff (Atria Books, $22.99, 9781416590712/1416590714, July 6, 2010)

Opening lines of a book we want to read--romantic suspense, perfect for the summer:

I gaze across the veranda, beyond the rows of yachts and sailboats bobbing in the Porte de Monaco toward the sparkling Mediterranean waters. To my right, the shoreline curves inward before jutting out to sea again at La Condamine, the cluster of tall gleaming buildings that rise against the steep, rocky hillside. A drop of perspiration runs down the glass carafe of water that sits before me and seeps into the white linen cloth. From the dozen or so other tables around mine comes the quiet murmur of conversation, mingled with spoons clinking against teacups and the gentle rustling of morning newspapers.


Inhaling the mix of salt air and coffee, tinged with a hint of citrus, I tilt my head upward. Above the canvas-and-bamboo umbrella, the sky is an unbroken blue. It is hard to believe that just two days ago I was in England. I took the last flight from Heathrow, rushing to the airport only to be predictably delayed by fog. We didn't land in Milan until well after two in the morning, and I briefly considered getting a hotel room there, catching a few hours of sleep. But eager to reach my destination, I decided against it. Instead, I took a taxi to the train station, loitering over cups of burnt cappuccino in the all-night café until the ticket office opened at four thirty. Half an hour later I boarded the train to Monaco.--Selected by Marilyn Dahl

 



Book Review

Book Review: The Lovers

The Lovers by Vendela Vida (Ecco Press, $23.99 Hardcover, 9780060828394, July 2010)



The Lovers is not about lovers--unless you count the growing relationship over several days in Turkey of a 53-year-old American teacher trying to forget the death of her husband two years ago and a Turkish boy of nine or 10 whom she befriends. "You two laugh and play like lovers," says the hostile café waiter who watches them. Though Yvonne and Ahmet can't understand each other, she buys the seashells he's selling and begins to seek him out on the beach every day.

The title of this short, mysterious novel is not the only thing that doesn't play by the rules. The plot refuses to go where you think it must. Author Vendela Vida has her own ideas of how to tell this story, and it seems to be more about parents and their children and letting go of deceased loved ones than about lovers. Themes of love, loss and parenting are picked up along the way as Yvonne journeys through Turkey to meet her son and his fiancée on a pre-wedding cruise.

Through Yvonne's various encounters--with tanned, well-preserved Deniz on her sailboat; with lovely, young Ozlem, the abandoned wife of Yvonne's landlord; with Aylin, the little boy's hostile sister--she slowly pieces together what went wrong with her married life, when she and Peter began lying to each other, and how their troubled, alcoholic and drug-addicted daughter transformed her relationship with Peter into one of hostility and deception. Vida brings her minor characters to life with quick, telling sketches.

Unexpected turns abound. An owl gets caught in the kitchen of Yvonne's rented Turkish home, and then takes up hiding in her basement--it turns out to be the grieving mate of an owl killed by neighborhood boys. Yvonne discovers a sex swing upstairs and a photo of the landlord's naked wife hidden under the couch--but she turns out not to be his wife at all. When Yvonne spots two gangster-like men swinging a third figure in a blanket at the edge of an ocean cliff, she assumes it's mob violence, only to see a little girl emerge from the blanket, laughing.

Ultimately a tragic accident throws everything that has happened so far into question and propels the plot into the book's final sequence, painful and touching and somehow redemptive. Like a good poem, the story's meaning is ambiguous, and as interesting for what it is as for what it is not. Long after its surprising last line, the reader is left to ponder the real meanings of Yvonne's troubled journey into self-knowledge.--Nick DiMartino

Shelf Talker: A short, mysterious novel, set against a Turkish backdrop, about a woman's troubled journey to self-knowledge.

 


The Bestsellers

Top-Selling Titles in Chicagoland Last Week

The following were the bestselling books at independent booksellers in and near Chicago during the week ended Sunday, July 4:

Hardcover Fiction

1. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
2. Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
3. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
4. Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst
5. Running Dark by Jamie Freveletti

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. War by Sebastian Junger
2. Hitch 22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens
3. Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
4. The Promise: President Obama, Year One by Jonathan Alter
5. Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

Paperback Fiction

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
2. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
3. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
4. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
5. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Paperback Nonfiction

1. Hawkeytown: Chicago Blackhawks by the Chicago Tribune
2. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
3. Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder
4. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Children's Books

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. The Short Second Life of Brea Tanner by Stephenie Meyer
3. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
4. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Do It Yourself Book by Jeff Kinney

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 booksellers and Carl Lennertz!]

 

 


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