"I noticed during takeoff and landing that I didn't have to turn off my book."
A week ago, Nicholas Sparks appeared at Books and Greetings, Northvale,
N.J., where for a time he stood on a table to do a q&a with the SRO
crowd. Here he is with Halle Sarfin, daughter of store owner Kenny Sarfin.
On the Millions, staff writer Patrick Brown, who is also community manager for Goodreads.com and formerly of Vroman's, Pasadena, Calif., took issue with Flavorwire's list of the Top Ten Bookstores in the U.S., which began, "Bookstores are dying."
"Okay, maybe there are fewer bookstores in existence now than there were ten or twenty years ago, but to say that bookstores are dying is an oversimplification. It's not so much that they're all dying, but that a certain kind of bookstore is on its way out....
"We're seeing a resurgence of the neighborhood bookstore, something many had considered dead in the heyday of the super stores. Technology has actually leveled the playing field between big stores and small stores; anyone with enough capital and the space for a large copy machine can have a Book Espresso Machine, giving them access to hundreds of thousands of titles, as well as custom-printed books....
"There are so many tremendous smaller stores that are equally deserving of recognition.... And what makes so many of these stores incredible, what many of the chain stores could never mimic, is the staff. A better list might be one that names the top 10 booksellers in America (I could take a crack at that: Stephanie Anderson from WORD, Emily Pullen from Skylight, Michele Filgate from Riverrun, Rachel Fershleiser from Housing Works.... Well, I could go on)."
---
Library Systems & Services, a private equity-owned company that is in essence "the country's fifth-largest library system," is preparing to take over the Santa Clarita public library system, the first time it has been hired "to run a system in a relatively healthy city," according to the New York Times.
The three branches have been run by the Los Angeles system, and some patrons would like that to continue. Jane Hanson, a longtime patron who organized a petition campaign, said, "A library is the heart of the community. I'm in favor of private enterprise, but I can't feel comfortable with what the city is doing here."
For his part, Frank A Pezzanie, CEO of LSS, "has pledged to save $1 million a year in Santa Clarita, mainly by cutting overhead and replacing unionized employees," the Times wrote.
Pezzanie told the paper: "A lot of libraries are atrocious. Their policies are all about job security. That's why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. We're not running our company that way. You come to us, you're going to have to work."
--- 
Bookworks
bookstore, Albuquerque, N.M., will be under new ownership by the end of
the week. Nancy Rutland, who opened the bookshop in 1984, is selling
the business to two staff members, Wyatt Wegrzyn and Danielle Foster.
"The
plan is to complete the sale on October 1st and the store will be
theirs," said Rutland, who wants to pursue other interests after
"passing the baton."
In a recent e-mail to customers thanking
them for years of support, Rutland wrote, "I loved growing the bookstore
from its initial 600 square foot space into a community partner,
hosting 150 author events a year and working with people, schools,
libraries, museums, theaters, restaurants and non-profits of all kinds
to fulfill our mission: Bringing Books and People Together."
She
noted that Wegrzyn and Foster "have formed a partnership to buy
Bookworks and guide it into its next generation. They embrace the
traditions of Bookworks and also provide new ideas to continue bringing
quality service, books, authors and events into our community."
--- 
Author Anita Diamant wrote on her Red Tent--and more blog that her recent paperback mini-tour for Day After Night took her to independent bookstores only, and "I couldn't be happier about this."
Included on her itinerary were Gibson's Bookstore, Concord, N.H.; Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt., R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, Conn.; Newtonville Books, Newtonville, Mass. and Tatnucks, Westborough, Mass.
"Every
independent bookstore is unique and in New England that often means
ramshackle, which is the opposite of corporate," Diamant wrote. "I love
the wood plank floors and the kind lighting. You can actually smell the
books in these stores. Best of all, the staffs are almost always
helpful, smiling, and happy to be working there.... Whenever I visit an
independent bookstore, I ask my hosts how the store is doing. I ask with
trepidation, the way you inquire after someone whose health is known to
be frail. Bookselling is not a growth industry. What I'm hearing is
that business is okay, and better than last year for sure. The regulars
are loyal. New people turn out for readings and buy books. I breathe a
sigh of relief, say a little prayer, and say yes, I'd be glad to come
back for my next book. My pleasure."
--- 
On the Boswell and Books blog, Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis., showcased "Bookseller Moment #279--The Author Stop-by on His or Her Way to Another Event."
His "case study" featured Room
author Emma Donoghue, who "stopped by in the afternoon with her author
escort Bill, before her event at Next Chapter.... This was what a dreamy
stop-by is all about:
c. I also got to say I read her first novel when it came out, Stir Fry. Only I called it Scrambled Eggs at first. And Donoghue, as gracious as could be, said, "Sometimes they call it Sweet and Sour."---
On its blog, the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Seattle, Wash., pointed out a problem with older, slow-selling titles that once would have gone out of print but now are revived in POD editions that sometimes use the same ISBN as older, cheaper editions:
"David Rosenfelt's Sudden Death. This was a regular ol' mass market paperback, $7.99 from Warner. (Warner no longer exists as a publisher--it is now Hachette.) But at some point, the book was switched to this POD system. What arrived was a trade paperback edition priced at $20.99 AND with a much lower discount. So now the book is far more expensive to put on the shelf and nearly impossible to sell at that price."
The store asked: "Books that would normally be out of print will be available for people to buy, but will they be affordable and will they sell at the prices being asked?"
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Here's a story that's difficult for us to report on fully--illustrating the problem!
Dave Smith, owner of Mulligan Books, Ukiah, Calif., and a founder of the late Smith & Hawken, posted an item on his blog by Gene Logsdon, who lamented that Prairie Public Radio interviewed him and the Chronicle of Higher Education praised his latest book, in both cases carefully avoiding mentioning the title. The problem is that the title includes one of George Carlin's seven dirty words and would more politely be rendered Holy S#!t.
Now Shelf Awareness joins the crowd. If we state the full name, this e-mail will be blocked by many e-mail systems. Crap.
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HarperCollins has joined several other major houses in setting up a conservative imprint. In January, the company is launching Broadside Books, which will be headed by Adam Bellow, son of Saul Bellow, and will publish books on "the culture wars, books of ideas, books of revisionist history, biographies, anthologies, polemical paperbacks and pop-culture books from a conservative point of view," the New York Times reported.
In many ways, the Australian e-market is several years behind the U.S.--e-book sales are still below 1% of total book sales. Publishers and retailers express familiar sentiments as consumer awareness about e-readers and lower prices for e-books has risen. Booksellers await the launch of Google Editions so that they can fully join the e-game.
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Nebraska Book Company has won the Nebraska Retail Federation's Retailer of the Year Award. According to the Lincoln Journal Star, the award cited the company as "a shining example of what a business can accomplish from Nebraska. Starting in 1915 with a single bookstore near the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, they now operate over 280 college bookstores and sell textbooks through some 2,500 other college bookstores nationwide."
Besides the college store and textbook divisions, the company offers e-commerce, retail software, design and marketing services for independent bookstores and has a textbook rental program.
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Check out this interactive literary map of Manhattan in the New York Times highlighting "where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked and looked at ducks."
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The Independent Book Publishers Association is participating in Above the Treeline's electronic catalogues that are being made available in connection with eight of the nine regional booksellers association this fall. More than 100 IBPA publisher-members who are exhibiting in IBPA's cooperative booths at the shows will have their titles listed in the catalogues.
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Book trailer of the day: Dewey's Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small Town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter (Dutton), which will be published October 12.
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The American Book Review offers "100 best first lines from novels." We're happy to report all our favorites are here.
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Effective January 1, Black Dog & Leventhal's export sales and marketing in Europe, Japan, Korea and several other international markets will be handled by Abrams and Chronicle Books, the new distribution joint venture that has headquarters in London. Also effective January 1, Murdoch Books, Sydney, will handle Black Dog & Leventhal in Australia.
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The Social Network, based on the book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich (Anchor, $15.95, 9780767931557/0767931556), opens this Friday, October 1. Jesse Eisenberg stars as Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard student who achieved fame, wealth and controversy after creating Facebook.This morning on the Today Show: Geoffrey C. Ward, co-author of Baseball: An Illustrated History (Knopf, $75, 9780307273499/0307273490). Tomorrow night is the premiere on PBS of Baseball: The Tenth Inning, a two-part, four-hour addition to the film Baseball that offers an update on the national pastime since the 1990s. Part two of The Tenth Inning airs on Wednesday night.
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Today on NPR's All Things Considered: Emma Donoghue, author of Room: A Novel (Little, Brown, $24.99, 9780316098335/0316098337).
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Tonight on ABC's World News Tonight: Bob Woodward, author of Obama's Wars (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781439172490/1439172498). He will also appear tonight on Nightline and tomorrow on Good Morning America, All Things Considered and the O'Reilly Factor.
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Tonight on the Daily Show: Bill O'Reilly, author of Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama (Morrow, $27.99, 9780061950711/0061950718).
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Tomorrow morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe: Ken Follett, author of Fall of Giants (Dutton, $36, 9780525951650/0525951652).
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Tomorrow morning on NPR's Morning Edition: David Sedaris, author of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (Little, Brown, $21.99, 9780316038393/0316038393).
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Tomorrow on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Adrian Keith Goldsworthy, author of Antony and Cleopatra (Yale University Press, $35, 9780300165340/030016534X).
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Tomorrow day on Oprah: Jenny McCarthy, author of Love, Lust & Faking It: The Naked Truth About Sex, Lies, and True Romance (Harper, $24.99, 9780062012982/0062012983).
Also on Oprah tomorrow: Terry McMillan, author of Getting to Happy (Viking, $27.95, 9780670022045/0670022047).
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Tomorrow on NPR's Fresh Air: Mark Feldstein, author of Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30, 9780374235307/0374235309).
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Tomorrow night on the Late Show with David Letterman: Jon Stewart, author of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race (Grand Central, $27.99, 9780446579223/044657922X).
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Tomorrow night on the Daily Show: Arianna Huffington, author of Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream (Crown, $23.99, 9780307719829/0307719820).
From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:
Hardcover
Vermilion Drift by William Kent Krueger (Atria, $25, 9781439153840/1439153841). "William Kent Krueger's mystery series featuring Cork O'Connor just keeps getting better with each installment. The latest Cork is asked to investigate a disappearance and what he uncovers leads to cold cases on the Ojibwe reservation as well as forgotten things from Cork's own past. Wonderful characters, twists and turns, and enough action to keep you going."--Sue Richardson, Maine Coast Book Shop, Damariscotta, Me.
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog (Harper, $25.99, 9780061730863/0061730866). "Herzog delivers provocative popular science at its witty, 'gee-whiz' best. With headings such as 'Feeding Kittens to Boa Constrictors,' this book challenges the reader to think through the knotty ethics of human interactions with other animal species. While it might make you squirm, you'll have fun reading this informal, often-humorous survey of the emerging, interdisciplinary field of anthrozoology. Like Malcolm Gladwell, Herzog blends scientific abstracts with anecdotes to form a compelling narrative."--Chris Wilcox, City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, N.C.
Paperback
The Wishing Trees by John Shors (NAL, $15, 9780451231130/0451231139). "Ian and his 10-year-old daughter Mattie set out on a memory tour of the Asian countries in which Ian and Kate, Ian's late wife and Mattie's mother, had met. Ian and Kate had planned to take this trip on their 15th anniversary. In her final days, Kate wrote a note to each of them for every country on their trip, and as Ian and Mattie open them, they discover her love and wishes for them. Mattie draws a picture in each country and ties it to a 'wishing tree' for Kate to 'see.' This is a sensitive and poignant family story."--Sally Van Vert, MacDonald Book Shop, Estes Park, Colo.
For Ages 4 to 8
Bun, Onion, Burger by Peter Mandel, illustrated by Chris Eliopoulos (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, $12.99, 9781416924661/1416924663). "This simple story about the hamburger-making process is accompanied by incredibly bright, cartoon-like illustrations that leap off the page! Kids of all ages (even the adult ones) will adore Bun, Onion, Burger."--Lauren Peugh, Mrs. Nelson's Toy & Book Shop, La Verne, Calif.
[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]
River House: A Memoir by Sarahlee Lawrence (Tin House Books, $16.95 trade paper, 9780982569139/0982569130, October 2010)
Opening lines from a book we want to read, a memoir about an accomplished river guide whose dreams to travel the world led her unexpectedly home:
Marco and I crouched in a tent, sweating, while the rain beat
through the fabric. I held the napkin with the map on it. It was a cocktail
napkin from a discotheque in downtown Cusco, Peru, meant to go under a rum and
Coke. The sketch on the napkin depicted a two-hundred mile section of the
Tambopata River, which runs along the border between Peru and Bolivia. A single
line squiggled out of some stick mountains. The single line became a ball of
black scribble and had two words next to it: los monstrous, or "the monsters," the rapids in the inner
gorge. The map did not explain how to run these. There were only two landmarks.
At the top of the squiggle, two streams came in on either side of the in river,
indicating the beginning of the gorge. At the bottom of the squiggle a stream
came in on the left and there was a giant boulder drawn with a tiny tree on top
of it, at which point we could trust the rapids would be done. From there, the
single line ran off the bottom of the napkin. I looked at Marco, then out the
door of the tent at a raging jungle river and wondered how in hell we'd come to
be here. --Selected
by Marilyn Dahl
Exley by Brock Clarke (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $24.95 Hardcover, 9781565126084, October 2010)
In 1968, Frederick Exley, a native of Watertown, N.Y., published his "fictional memoir," A Fan's Notes. That semiautobiographical work chronicled the author's self-destructive behavior and his obsession with New York Giants football legend Frank Gifford. Brock Clarke, a self-confessed fan of Exley's novel, pays homage to it in the story of nine-year-old Watertown resident Miller Le Ray, for whose father Exley's book serves as a disastrously misguided guide to living.
Miller, a precocious child whose advanced reading skills have catapulted him improbably into the seventh grade and whose appetite for the written word is matched only by his imagination ("Making things up was a problem of mine, according to Mother."), has convinced himself that a fortyish man lying comatose in a Veteran's Administration hospital is his father, who he is certain has left the family to enlist in the Army for service in Iraq. He believes with equal fervor that if he finds Frederick Exley he'll be able to awaken the unconscious man. In seeking out Tom Le Ray's literary idol, Miller revisits the scene of incidents in Exley's picaresque book (a seedy motel and neighborhood bar most prominent among them), slowly discovering painful truths about his parents' lives as he struggles to reconcile self-protective myth and reality.
Told in chapters that alternate between Miller's appealing voice ("sometimes you have to pretend to be an innocent child to learn something about the complicated world of adults") and the office notes of a therapist Miller nicknames Dr. Horatio Pahnee, whose treatment can be described charitably as unconventional (he breaks into the Le Ray home and has a not-so-secret crush on Miller's mother, a lawyer who represents woman battered by military men), the novel features two wildly unreliable narrators. In channeling their voices, Clarke's writing displays the distinctive style of Arsonist's Guide, but Exley lacks that novel's antic energy. For it, Clarke has substituted a collection of puzzles that insinuate their way through the story: Is the unconscious man really Miller's father? Why did he leave his family? Did he see combat in Iraq? Who is the mysterious "K" and what is that character's relationship to the Le Ray family? The answers to most of these questions prove elusive, even up to the novel's final page, and it's hard to escape a feeling of frustration at the story's sometimes languid pace.
In a 2007 interview, Brock Clarke observed, "The relationship between truth and fiction is a complicated problem." In this sometimes perplexing story of a troubled contemporary family, Clarke traverses that uncertain territory. Give him credit for his brave willingness to raise provocative issues about what is real and what is not, both in literature and in life, and if only for that reason, Exley's worth reading. One can only hope in his next work he's able to find a more compelling vehicle for his explorations.--Harvey Freedenberg
Shelf Talker: In the story of young Miller Le Ray's encounter with Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes, adventuresome novelist Brock Clarke explores the often blurry line between truth and fiction.
As 2009's number one most
frequently challenged author in the country (Mom, cover your ears), I often
catch flack for writing about topics that certain parents, teachers and librarians
would prefer I didn't. Like what? Like a teenager kissing her female best
friend, or high school kids drinking too much and doing really stupid things,
or a discussion of the pros and cons of thongs.
I've also come under fire for writing (lovingly) about a fifth-grader who has two moms, as well as a boy who won't join the Boy Scouts because of the Boy Scouts' discriminatory policies. Biology gets me in trouble, too. For example, parents get all kinds of upset about a scene in one of my novels in which a 12-year-old girl sits down with a box of tampons and attempts to make heads and tails of the dense instruction pamphlet.
Yet these upset parents... their anger springs from fear. I know it does. They love their kids, just as I love my kids, just as those of you who have kids in your life love your kids. Grown-ups who care about what kids read aren't the enemy.
In grappling with issues surrounding censorship, I've come to the conclusion that the enemy--at least in part--is the inevitable us/them dichotomy that arises in discussions of intellectual freedom. I say this because of a recent and unnerving realization: I'm a censor, too. The object of my censorship? Myself.
The dichotomy as I see it:
"Us": liberal thinkers who bike to work, buy local goods to minimize our ecological footprint, giggle while reading essays by David Sedaris and shake our heads at "Jesus talk," deeming it simple-minded at best and dangerously stupid at worst.
"Them": conservative thinkers who go to church every Sunday, buy into conspiracy theories regarding Obama and forward them to everyone in their e-mail address book, whoop and say "hell yeah" when Rush Limbaugh mocks universal health care and shake their heads at the sinful ways of the unsaved.
I'm not one of "them." On Facebook, I've blocked my hate-spewing second cousin, the one who sends anti-Obama propaganda. I think Rush Limbaugh is a jerk. I adore David Sedaris, and I will fight censorship till the day I die. But I'm not sure I'm one of "us," either, because the reason I fight against censorship--work with me here--is because I believe it's my mission as a child of God. (Or the universe, or the connective tissue that binds us all together, or the mysterious pulse of life itself. Take your pick.)
I'm blushing now, because in the
liberal group I hang with, being openly spiritual is about as chic as wearing
dark blue Levis, a belt buckle the size of Texas and a cowboy hat. That's how
it feels, at any rate, though it's quite likely I'm making unfair assumptions.
If I don't talk about God around my hip friends, how can I know what their
response would be? If I choose not to wear my cross necklace at ALA, NCTE or
within 100 miles of New York city for fear of being looked at askance, who's
doing the judging?
Sometimes it's just plain scary to say out loud what I believe in--or to wear a charming and tiny silver cross to signify what I believe in--even though that's what intellectual freedom is all about.
And yet, my book-loving peeps, what better time to take the plunge than during Banned Books Week, a time to celebrate intellectual freedom in all its glorious forms? So here goes. Yes, I am... um... a faith-based person. In fact--gulp--I'm a Christian. As a Christian, I believe that intellectual freedom is essential if we're to lead meaningful, purpose-driven lives.
Now for an added layer of texture that I suspect won't come as a surprise: like me, most of the would-be book banners are also Christians. I say that based on experience, because so many of the angry adults who contact me make it a point to identify themselves as such. They are Christians; therefore, they are good. I am surely a heathen to be writing about gay marriage and tampons; therefore, I am bad. That seems to be their message, whether implied or overtly stated.
But as theologian Krista Tippett so beautifully puts it, "Faith is as much about questions as it is about answers." That's true of books as well, don't you think? Books provide access to multiple points of view, encouraging readers to ask themselves, "Do I agree? Do I disagree? Does this make my heart soar, or does it make me cringe? If I cringe... why? If my heart soars... why?"
I sing in my church choir, and our new choir director--a recovering Baptist, as he puts it--has been encouraging us to smile more, sway more, emote more.
"You don't have to be corny about it,"
he told our group of mainly non-swaying Congregationalists. "But we can't
let the Evangelicals corner the market on singing with passion, now can we?"
Imploring us with his eyes, he said, "A song is more than words on the page. A song should touch your soul. That's its gift to the world."
As I see it, that's a book's gift to the world as well, and just as every song won't do it for every listener, every book won't do it for every reader. Sure. Fine. But as long as we don't limit our options, every reader can find a book that sings to her.
Faith is as much about questions as it is about answers, and though there are indeed truths I feel certain about--love a lot, laugh a lot, don't ban books--I need to probe deeper regarding the issues that make me uncomfortable. Specifically, I need to keep asking myself--regardless of the situation, regardless of whom I'm with--whether I'm living authentically or if in fact I'm censoring myself, padding faint-heartedly along the easy path of "us" versus "them."
I'll work on that. As I do, I'll continue to lift books up, knowing their power to touch our souls. I'll write and read and love and laugh, forever and ever, amen.
--Lauren Myracle, author of ttyl and Luv Ya Bunches, two of the aforementioned, frequently challenged books.
