Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, May 12, 2015


William Morrow & Company: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Del Rey Books: Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Peachtree Teen: Romantic YA Novels Coming Soon From Peachtree Teen!

Watkins Publishing: She Fights Back: Using Self-Defence Psychology to Reclaim Your Power by Joanna Ziobronowicz

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

News

Indigo Renovating Six Key Stores

Indigo is renovating and "reinvigorating" six "key store locations" in three provinces, making changes that include the addition of "thousands" of book titles; more retail space devoted to home décor, gift, paper, fashion and gourmet; expanded and redesigned IndigoKids departments; and four more American Girl specialty boutiques, which are 1,400-1,800 square feet in size. The transformed stores that are currently Chapters stores will be rebranded Indigo.

The affected stores are:

  • Indigo Yorkdale, Toronto, Ont., whose book selection will be significantly increased. The store should open June 5.
  • Chapters Granville, Vancouver, B.C., which will be rebranded Indigo and open June 13. Its book and general merchandise sections will be renovated, with an increase in book titles, and an American Girl boutique will be added.
  • Indigo Toronto Eaton Centre, Toronto, Ont., whose book and general merchandise sections will be renovated. An American Girl boutique will be added, the book selection will be increased and the store should open July 4.
  • Chapters West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alberta, which will have an additional 5,500 square feet of space devoted to books and general merchandise. An American Girl boutique will be added. Rebranded Indigo, the store should open in the fall of 2015.
  • Chapters Chinook, Calgary, Alberta, which will have an additional 5,500 square feet of revitalized and renovated space for books, Indigo Kids and general merchandise. The store will have a new American Girl boutique, be rebranded Indigo and should open in the fall of 2015.
  • Chapters Dalhousie, Calgary, Alberta, which will have revitalized and renovated books and general merchandise areas. The store will be rebranded Indigo and should open in the fall of 2015.

Last week Indigo CEO Heather Reisman told BloombergBusiness that the company has been working on a "cultural department store model" for Indigo and she hopes to expand to the U.S.


Now Streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME: A Gentleman in Moscow


Waterstones, Foyles Among U.K. Award Winners

Among the winners in the 21 categories of the Bookseller Industry Awards, celebrated last night in London:

Interior of Booka Bookshop, Independent Bookshop of the Year winner.

Book Retailer of the Year: Waterstones, which was cited for having "a watershed year" and having "recovered its verve," in part by granting branches more autonomy, which "in turn is making them much more relevant to their local communities."
Children's Bookseller of the Year: The Book Nook, Hove, cited for its "staggering range of outreach activity" and "constantly reimagining what children's bookselling can be."
Independent Bookshop of the Year: Booka Bookshop, Oswestry, "a fabulous-looking shop with a strong sense of identity and purpose."
Young Retailer of the Year: Joe Tagg, Blackwell's
Manager of the Year: Jen Shenton, manager of Waterstones Covent Garden, cited for having "instilled a great culture of handselling and motivated her team to go the extra mile on customer service."
Outstanding Contribution to the Book Trade: Sam Husain, recently retired CEO of Foyles, cited for transforming "Foyles from its idiosyncratic former self into a beacon of bookselling brilliance in the U.K. and beyond," said Booksellers Association CEO Tim Godfray.
Special Award: Foyles, for the move of its flagship store on Charing Cross Road
Book of the Year: The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth
Publisher of the Year: Pan Macmillan
Children's Publisher of the Year: HarperCollins Children's Books
Independent Publisher of the Year: Profile Books


GLOW: Greystone Books: brother. do. you. love. me. by Manni Coe, illustrated by Reuben Coe


Tsunami Books, Eugene, Ore., Seeks to Raise $40K

Tsunami Books, Eugene, Ore., which sells books, movies and music, has begun an Indiegogo campaign to raise $40,000 in part to make up for a "significant" jump in rent, KVAL reported. The store also wants to re-invigorate its activities and events venue and to aid in general upkeep. As of yesterday, the campaign has raised more than $6,600.

The store itemized how the $40,000 will be spent:

  • Rent increase, July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2017 ($1,000 per month): $24,000
  • Improved sound equipment (new mics, cable, EQ, misc): $2,200
  • Replace broken events seating: $1,800
  • Hire events coordinator, June 30, 2015 through June 30, 2017 ($500 per month): $12,000

Founded in 1995, Tsunami Books has hosted more than 3,000 community activities and events and has, it says, "deep working-class roots melded to both a local and world cultural sensitivity."


BINC: Apply Now to The Susan Kamil Scholarship for Emerging Writers!


Maryland's Annapolis Bookstore Launches Sponsorship Program

The Annapolis Bookstore, Annapolis, Md., has launched a sponsorship program that aims to sign up 300 patrons and raise $50,000 to be able to "make the business sustainable by offering online shopping, develop larger events and make the store more of a venue space," according to the Capital Gazette. As outlined on its website, the store is also planning to expand its social media presence and host workshops and literary programs for all ages.

The new, used, rare and collectible store's lease run until August 2016, but owners Mary Adams and Janice Holmes want to firm up support for the store much sooner--they started the sponsorship program at the beginning of the month and want to reach their target by June 21. Otherwise, they will consider selling the store or closing.

The sponsorships start at the "Alice" (student) $75 level and range up to "Lewis Carroll" at $1,000--and King of Hearts for anything above that level.

The store has been in business 11 years. "While it hosts readings and other events, the owners said customers often don't buy enough books to make the store financially viable," the paper wrote. "Adams and Holmes discussed these issues with their advisory committee, which came up with the $50,000 worth of suggestions geared toward improving the store."

The inspiration for the sponsorships came from Borderlands Books, San Francisco, Calif., which had considered closing earlier this year because of the city's plan to raise the minimum wage in increments over the next several years to $15 an hour by July 1, 2018. After a community meeting, the store started a sponsorship program and quickly went beyond the minimum goal of 300 sponsors each donating $100.


Phantastic Books in Lynchburg, Va., Closing

Rocky and Kimberlee Joines, co-owners of Phantastic Books in downtown Lynchburg, Va., plan to close their store at the end of the month after a year in business, the News & Advance reported.

"We were trying to tap into the counterculture that existed within Lynchburg," said Rocky Joines. "It seemed that the counterculture that we needed didn't exist.... We've just tried to delay the inevitable."


Notes

Image of the Day: Karl Ove Knausgaard Signs His Struggle

 

On Saturday morning, Karl Ove Knausgaard signed copies of My Struggle: Book Four (Steerforth) at Strand Books in New York City.


Buenos Aires: Bookstore-Per-Capita Capital

El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookshop in Buenos Aires.

The AP (via Columbia Daily Tribune) notes that Buenos Aires, Argentina, has 25 bookstores for every 100,000 people, more bookstores per capita than any other major city in the world, according to the World Cities Cultural Forum.

"Books represent us like the tango," Juan Pablo Marciani, manager of El Ateneo Gran Splendid, told the AP. "We have a culture very rooted in print."

Besides the city's cultural tradition, the book world is helped by tax policies: "There are no sales taxes on books, notable in a country where most products get 21% slapped on top of the sticker price," the AP wrote. "And heavy import taxes on books, and electronics such as e-readers, help keep the local printing industry strong. While Argentines are increasingly glued to their mobile devices, customers who want to use foreign retailers such as Amazon have to pay a 35% surcharge on their peso-denominated credit cards."


GBO Picks Gut

The German Book Office in New York City has chosen Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders, translated by David Shaw (Greystone Books, $17.95, 9781771641494), as its May Book of the Month.

Giulia Enders, medical doctorate candidate at the Institute for Microbiology in Frankfurt, says the gut is our least appreciated organ. Its connection with the brain is ill-understood, and new research could become as important as advances in stem cell therapy.

The GBO says Gut answers such enigmatic questions as: "Can microorganisms in our gut contribute to obesity? Can gut flora cause depression? Happiness? Can some bacteria provoke cancer and Alzheimer's, while others prevent it? Why does acid reflux happen? What's really up with gluten and lactose intolerance? Are our facial expressions really connected to our intestines?"

Giulia Enders won first prize at a 2012 science slam with her presentation on the gut, which became a viral YouTube video. David Shaw works for Deutsche Welle in Berlin and as a freelance translator.


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Sally Mann on Fresh Air

Today on Fresh Air: Sally Mann, author of Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs (Little, Brown, $32, 9780316247764).

---

Tomorrow on CNN's Christiane Amanpour: Michael Morell, author of The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism--From al Qa'ida to ISIS (Twelve, $28, 9781455585663). He will also appear on Fox News's America's Newsroom.

---

Tomorrow on Dr. Phil: Levi Stoltzfus and Ellis Henican, authors of Amish Confidential (Gallery, $24.99, 9781501110306).

---

Tomorrow on the Meredith Vieira Show: Melissa Rivers, author of The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief, and Manipulation (Crown Archetype, $26, 9781101903827).

Also on the Meredith Vieira Show: Alan C. Fox, author of People Tools for Business: 50 Strategies for Building Success, Creating Wealth, and Finding Happiness (SelectBooks/Midpoint, $16.95, 9781590792872).

---

Tomorrow on the Talk: Marc Murphy, co-author of Season with Authority: Confident Home Cooking (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30, 9780544315556).

---

Tomorrow on the View: Mika Brzezinski, author of Grow Your Value: Living and Working to Your Full Potential (Weinstein Books, $26, 9781602862685).

---

Tomorrow night on the Daily Show: Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House, $27, 9781400069224).


TV: Orange Is the New Black Trailer; I'm Special

A new trailer has been released for season three of Orange Is the New Black, based on Piper Kerman's memoir. Variety noted that the new season "will no doubt further explore the backstories of our favorite inmates, but those nostalgia trips won't include Jason Biggs, whose character, Larry, isn't slated to appear in the new season. That doesn't mean the cast will be down a member, though, with Mary Steenburgen joining the Netflix comedy this year." Orange Is the New Black returns June 12.

---

Warner Bros. TV has acquired Ryan O'Connell's book I'm Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves for development as a half-hour comedy series. Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory) and Todd Spiewak will executive produce through their That's Wonderful Productions, with O'Connell writing the script and also executive producing, Deadline.com reported. They plan to begin shopping the project next month.



Books & Authors

Awards: Encore; American Academy of Arts & Letters

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (Norton) has won the £10,000 (about $15,600) Encore Award for a second novel are, the Bookseller reported:

Chair of the judges Alex Clark said in part: "We were immensely impressed by the ambition and depth of Neel Mukherjee's second novel, in which a suburban house in 1960s Calcutta comes to reflect the political and social convulsions of an entire society. Ranging from the mass hunger of the Second World War to independence and the emergence of the Maoist Naxalbari movement, Mukherjee chronicles these extraordinary years in Indian history through the piercingly observed story of one family."

---

During its annual awards ceremony later this month, the American Academy of Arts and Letters will induct five new foreign honorary members, including authors Margaret Atwood (Canada) and Roberto Calasso (Italy).

The organization will also present the Williams Dean Howells Medal for the best novel published in the last five years to William H. Gass for Middle C; the Gold Medal for Poetry to Louise Glück and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts to Robert Gottlieb. The recipients of these special honors were chosen by the 250 members of the Academy.


Book Review

Review: Mislaid

Mislaid by Nell Zink (Ecco, $26.99 hardcover, 9780062364777, May 19, 2015)

At the start of Nell Zink's delightfully odd first novel, Mislaid, Peggy is a white, lesbian teenager in 1960s Virginia heading off to Stillwater College, a remote women's school, where she plans to sow her oats with all those other young ladies and become a famous playwright. Instead, she begins a strangely lusty affair with one of the few male faculty members, Lee Fleming, a famous poet hidden away at Stillwater by his wealthy and proper Virginia family because he is gay. Their misguided, mismatched affair quickly results in a pregnancy and marriage. After 10 years, Peggy finds herself miserable, acting as servant to Lee's obnoxiously pretentious literary house guests while he engages in infidelities and general disrespect. She runs away, taking their three-year-old daughter and leaving their nine-year-old son, Byrdie.

Because Lee has also threatened to have her committed, Peggy goes into hiding. She conveniently acquires a birth certificate from a recently deceased child to rechristen her white-blonde daughter as Karen Brown, herself as Meg. They squat in a condemned house in abject poverty, making a new life, but the oddest part is that "Karen and Meg Brown" on their paperwork are black--the birth certificate was for an African-American girl. "Maybe you have to be from the South to get your head around blond black people," writes Zink, but Meg and Karen, white as they are, do pass.

A decade later, when Karen enters the University of Virginia on a minority scholarship as a freshman, Byrdie is a senior there and the two finally meet. The ensuing drama of confused identities drips of both tragedy and hilarity, as family dynamics and literary ambitions propel a broad cast of quirky, complex, lovable characters into odd scenarios. Meg has mixed herself up in some illegal dealings in her years as a single mom and met some interesting folks. Karen's boyfriend and his family are equally zany and winning. Zink pulls no punches in portraying Virginia's mores and peculiarities. Mislaid's pathos is charmingly funny, and a sentimental streak softens the sarcasm.

With its distinctively Southern setting and bizarre range of sincere men and women making their way in a weird world, Zink's novel captivates from the very first page. Readers may be tempted to blaze through this slim book in a single sitting. Comic, sympathetic, heartbreaking and outrageous, Mislaid is a wonderful, raucous book with everything of life in it. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: A Southern comedy of errors starring a broken family stretched across social classes.


The Bestsellers

Top-Selling Self-Published Titles

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. The Mistake (Off-Campus Book 2) by Elle Kennedy
2. Thirty-Four and a Half Predicaments by Denise Grover Swank
3. Double Dare (A Neighbor from Hell Book 6) by R.L. Mathewson
4. Promise of Forever by Jessica Wood
5. Victorious (Quantum Trilogy Book 3) by M.S. Force
6. Carter Reed 2 by Tijan
7. The Kelly Brothers Books 1-3 by Crista McHugh
8. Chance by Deborah Bladon
9. Tower of the Sun by Michael J. Totten
10. Dragonlands, Books 1-3 by Megg Jensen

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]


Powered by: Xtenit