Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, August 9, 2016


Dey Steet: Celebrating 10 years of Dey St., the industry leader in culture-defining nonfiction.

Henry Holt & Company: The Beasts We Bury by DL Taylor

Peachtree Teen: Among Serpents (Above the Black) by Marc J Gregson

Berkley Books: These new Berkley romances leave quite an impression. Enter the giveaway!

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: How Sweet the Sound by Kwame Alexander and Charly Palmer

Palgrave Macmillan:  Scotus 2023: Major Decisions and Developments of the Us Supreme Court (2024) (1ST ed.) edited by Morgan Marietta and Howard Schweber

News

In NYC, Penguin to Move to Random House Offices in 2019

Big news at Penguin Random House in the U.S.: in early 2019, Penguin will move from its longtime offices on Hudson Street in lower Manhattan to the Random House building at 1745 Broadway in Midtown.

In a memo to staff, Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle said that the company's Broadway landlord recently "presented us with an unanticipated, one-time opportunity to accommodate us all in our midtown location at a greatly reduced long-term rent. The resulting fiscal savings would be significant: approximately $20 million annually. In an ever-changing publishing marketplace, leveraging the opportunities we have together as Penguin Random House for meaningful reductions in costs will make us more robust for the future and better able to invest in our authors and their books."

Penguin will move into the upper floors at the building in space "designed in a traditional combination of offices and workstations grouped by publishing division." After the move, PRH will "essentially will be the sole occupant" of the building.

Dohle recognized that the move may be difficult for some at Penguin, saying, "It's easy to see why so many of you enjoy being downtown, and I will do everything I reasonably can to help us create a workplace we will all be proud of and excited to come to every day. The building will now truly become Penguin Random House's home--from its lobby to every one of the new Penguin floors--in which we will honor the traditions of each of our publishing imprints and build on the culture we have created as one company and community."


Highlights Press:  The Highlights Big Book of Activities for Little Kids: The Ultimate Book of Activities to Do with Kids


Baker & Taylor Launches B&T Global Publishers Services

Baker & Taylor has launched Baker & Taylor Global Publishers Services, which will specialize in providing client publishers with international sales and marketing services, allowing customers to reach multiple sales channels, including traditional retail, online retailers, schools, libraries and consumers through e‐commerce platforms.

B&T Global Publishers Services is headed by v-p and general manager Chitra Bopardikar, who has more than 20 years of global sales experience. She was most recently v-p of international sales and business development at Perseus. In addition, the team includes Michael Abbott, formerly of Random House UK, who will serve as director of sales & marketing, Europe, Middle East & Africa, and director of new business development.

B&T executive v-p and president, retail markets, David Cully commented: "This new business unit under the leadership of an industry veteran like Chitra leverages the company's superb global logistical and IT infrastructure to help publishers effectively offer their content in both developed and emerging countries around the world as the use of the English language continues to increase exponentially. In so doing Baker & Taylor's partnership role with publishers in serving content demand continues to grow and evolve."

Bopardikar added: "Baker & Taylor has spent decades building strong retail relationships around the world for its wholesale business. GPS is a natural extension, and allows client publishers access to a very broad customer base, while reaping all the service benefits available through Baker & Taylor."


New World Library: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle


Trail's End Bookstore in Winthrop, Wash., to Relocate

In October, Trail's End Bookstore, Winthrop, Wash., plans to relocate to a nearby space in the former White Buck Trading Company building, Methow Valley News reported. Co-owner Christine Janikowski said the move will more than double the store's space, allowing for expansion of the book inventory and seating space. Plans for the move are  underway, including some renovations.

In the new space, the owners hope to "create an environment where people might want to linger a little longer," Janikowski said, adding that the bookstore is doing well now after some struggles. The relocation will allow it to host book clubs and other community groups looking for a gathering spot. "Hopefully, we'll become a destination," she said, noting that expansion of the children's book section is also a priority. "We want to have space for kids to sprawl and hang out."


GLOW: HarperOne: Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put by Annie B. Jones


This House of Books, Billings, Mont., Finds New Location

This House of Books will make its home in the Masonic Temple in Billings.

This House of Books, the bookstore that is being opened by the Billings Bookstore Cooperative, Billings, Mont., has found a new location: the Masonic Building. The bookstore had planned originally to open in a former Wendy's location.

This House of Books is renovating the 2,800-square-foot space, ripping out wall-to-wall carpeting and replacing it with hardwood floors and installing rustic shelving and fixtures. The store plans to open in mid to late September.

On the store's website, general manager and CEO Gary Robson said, "This location will be perfect for us. Our proximity to the Parmly Billings Library makes it easy to collaborate on book events, the Farmer's Market will be a perfect showcase for our tea bar, and it's a gorgeous building."

Until earlier this year, Robson owned Red Lodge Books & Tea, whose assets were bought by the Cooperative, which also hired him to head the new bookstore.


Inner Traditions: Deck the Stacks with the Best Holiday & Gift Books for Self-Transformation! Claim your samples now!


Longtime HarperCollins Editor Hugh Van Dusen to Retire

Hugh Van Dusen

Hugh Van Dusen, who has been an editor at HarperCollins for 60 years, is retiring, effective August 30. In a memo to staff, publisher Jonathan Burnham wrote, "Many generations of colleagues at Harper have enjoyed his congenial company, his warmth and kindness and wisdom, and I am sure they will all join us in wishing Hugh the very best in the future."

Van Dusen joined the company on June 21, 1956, and worked first in the religious publishing division, then helped launched Torch Books, Harper's first trade paperback line. In 1968, he was made editor/manager of Torch Books. He also helped with the addition of the Colophon and Perennial imprints and has remained closely involved with Harper Perennial since then. In 1985, he was named an executive editor at Harper & Row and in 1990 was made v-p.

His many authors include Jacques Barzun, Fernand Braudel, Robert Bly, James Hillman, Robert Remini and Trevor Corson, and for many years he worked closely with Harper Lee. He has also worked with several estates, including that of Thornton Wilder.

Burnham added: "Hugh is literally irreplaceable: his knowledge of our company's history, his stewardship of a large and varied backlist, and his connection to previous generations of editors and publishing professionals have all contributed significantly to the quality of life at Harper in recent years, and his colleagues have benefited from his depth of experience and the length of his memory."

In retirement, Van Dusen plans to continue to enjoy cooking, painting landscapes, and indulging his latest hobby--quilting.


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Caitlin McKenna Wins the Ashmead Award

Caitlin McKenna (photo: Danielle Siess)

Caitlin McKenna, an editor at Random House, has won the Ashmead Award, named in honor of the late Larry Ashmead and designed to nurture the career of a promising young editor in book publishing. As the winner, McKenna will attend the Yale Publishing Course: Leadership Strategies in Book Publishing next summer and will have access to a group of preeminent editors in the publishing community, many of whom worked with Ashmead during their careers.

Speaking on behalf of the selection committee, Emma Sweeney, president of Emma Sweeney Agency, said, "Every year since we started the award, we've received more and more superbly qualified candidates, and choosing the winner from such an impressive field this year was particularly tough. But in the end we chose Caitlin, whose wide breadth of interests, passion and editorial skills, we think Larry would have appreciated."

McKenna began her publishing career in 2009 as an assistant at Melanie Jackson Agency. In 2012, she joined Random House.


Notes

NPR Shares Indie Booksellers' Summer Reading Picks

NPR's All Things Considered "asked booksellers across the country to share recommendations for books that you can take with you on vacation--or just to the nearest shade tree." Participating booksellers were Nina Barrett, Bookends and Beginnings, Evanston, Ill.; Julia Green, Front Street Books, Alpine, Texas; John Evans, Diesel, Oakland, Larkspur and Brentwood, Calif.; Janet Webster Jones, Source Booksellers, Detroit; Harriett Logan, Loganberry Books, Shaker Heights, Ohio; Jake Reiss, Alabama Booksmith, Homewood, Ala.; and Sue Zumberge, Subtext Books, St. Paul, Minn.


Road Trip: 'Buenos Aires Bookstores Selling Books in English'

The Bubble highlighted its picks for the "top 5 Buenos Aires bookstores selling books in English," noting that Argentina "has always been influenced by the Anglo Saxon culture. Maybe it's because of the wave of English immigration in the 19th century, or maybe it has something to do the neoliberal policy decisions of the late '90s opening the floodgates for North American media and music to infiltrate the Argentine Republic."


Personnel Changes at Oni Press

David Dissanayakeas has joined Oni Press as sales manager. He was formerly director of sales & marketing at Magnetic Press. He was earlier manager of Mission: Comics & Art, a bookstore and art gallery in San Francisco.


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Jacqueline Woodson on Fresh Air

Today:
Fresh Air: Jacqueline Woodson, author of Another Brooklyn: A Novel (Amistad, $22.99, 9780062359988).

Tomorrow:
Diane Rehm: Charles B. Dew, author of The Making of a Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History, and the Slave Trade (University of Virginia Press, $23.95, 9780813938875).

Wendy Williams repeat: Pat Cleveland, author of Walking with the Muses: A Memoir (Atria/37 INK, $26.99, 9781501108228).

Tavis Smiley repeat: Terry McMillan, author of I Almost Forgot About You: A Novel (Crown, $27, 9781101902578).



Books & Authors

Awards: National Translation Poetry & Prose

The American Literary Translators Association announced its longlists for the 2016 National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose, which "includes a rigorous examination of both the source text and its relation to the finished English work." The winning translators, who receive $2,500 each, will be announced in October at ALTA's annual conference in Oakland. The shortlists will be announced in September. You can see the complete longlists here.


B&N's Discover Great New Writers: The Fall 2016 List

Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program has announced the nine titles on its fall 2016 list. The selection committee is comprised of B&N booksellers whom the company described as "voracious readers who meet weekly throughout the year to look for compelling voices, extraordinary writing, and indelible stories from literary talents at the start of their careers."

Some 60 books are picked for the program each year from the thousand-plus submissions from publishers of all sizes, and from those, an independent panel of distinguished writers chooses the winner of B&N's annual Discover Awards, presenting a total of $105,000 to six young writers.

The fall list consists of:

The Nix by Nathan Hill (Knopf, August). "A smart, laugh-out-loud-funny, and bighearted novel about love, loss, longing, and family secrets that pings across decades, countries, and generations and features an unforgettable mother and son at the center of a raucous cast of characters."
 
Art of Waiting by Belle Boggs (Graywolf, September). "Belle Boggs draws on science, memoir, history, reporting, and cultural commentary to deliver a beautifully written, empathetic meditation about fertility and the choices we make to build our families."
 
Blood at the Root by Patrick Phillips (Norton, September). "Patrick Phillips brings to life an ugly and harrowing episode of American history in this meticulously researched and powerfully written history of his hometown, and the violence that kept the community all white, well into the 1990s."
 
Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein (Picador, September). "We're crazy for these inventive, cautionary tales set in a near-future world of social media implants, manufactured memories, robots and virtual reality games--and tore through these incredibly fresh stories a single sitting."
 
Mischling by Affinity Konar (Little, Brown, September)."The subject's undeniably difficult, but Affinity Konar's exquisite prose carried us through this kaleidoscopic story, and the waves of emotion (fear and longing and love are just the start) that accompany the unforgettable Zagorski sisters in this haunting, often dreamlike debut."
 
The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October). "A family falls apart and comes back together in this sparkling--and sharp--debut novel that reminds us of The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. An impulsive decision by a self-made cosmetics mogul rocks his family, but what happens next surprises all of them in this witty story of money and manners, identity and the American Dream."
 
The Clancys of Queens by Tara Clancy (Crown, October). "I'm the whirling dervish of Queens, spinning around and around, arms flapping, my father's boxing gloves like cinder blocks strapped to my seven-year-old hands. We quickly fell in love with Tara Clancy's inimitable and often wickedly funny voice--and couldn't get enough of the ups-and-downs of her loving and offbeat family."
 
The Lion in the Living Room by Abigail Tucker (Simon & Schuster, October). "Celebrity house cats ink movie deals, make charitable donations, and count Hollywood starlets among their Twitter followers. All that, and cats still have no use for humans. Dig deep into the history, biology, and science of house cats in this charming--and highly informative--read that explains how cats came to rule."
 
Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch (Doubleday, November). "A thoughtful, immersive novel like Erika Swyler's The Book of Speculation or Leslie Parry's Church of Marvels. Two concurrent storylines--each featuring a young woman making her way in the world--pull the past and present together in this atmospheric tale of fame and self-definition."


Book Review

Review: Shelter in Place

Shelter in Place by Alexander Maksik (Europa Editions, $18 paperback, 400p., 9781609453640, September 13, 2016)

Sometimes a novel's first sentence is so memorable that it comes to stand for the story itself--whether Melville's "Call me Ishmael" or Joyce's "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed." Such is the startling opening line of Alexander Maksik's third novel, Shelter in Place (after A Marker to Measure Drift): "In the summer of 1991 my mother beat a man to death with a twenty-two ounce Estwing framing hammer and I fell in love with Tess Wolff." Maksik's narrator, Joe March, is a brooding, bar-hopping, lackluster student at Santa Monica Community College. His self-disciplined, blue-collar father calls him home to Seattle after his mother's fatal bludgeoning of a stranger, whom she saw beating his wife in a strip mall parking lot, for which she receives a life sentence.

On the drive north, he stops for a few days at a cheap motel in Cannon Beach, Ore., where he meets the wild, fearless bartender Tess and falls ass over teakettle in love. But Joe is in the early grip of a bipolar disorder, which in its down mode he characterizes as a bird trapped in his chest with "talons digging in" before it changes to "tar that moves through me and pins me down and holds me there." When he is manically up, he notes that "your skin is humming and your heart is deadly... there is nothing but the present world." In this phase he sees Tess as an antidote, "no tar in her, no bird, and nothing would stop her."

The lovers continue north to White Pine, the small prison town outside Seattle, where they visit Joe's mom, who instills in Tess a feminist righteousness. Joe and Tess happily work together tending bar at a local joint, between trips to the city to hear the Seattle sound--especially Nirvana, because "Cobain was our crown prince, our John Lennon, and he was everywhere." Shelter in Place is both a love story and the sensitive portrayal of Joe's reconciliation with his calm and steady father, who sells their Seattle house, rents a little place in White Pine where he makes furniture, joins a Quaker meeting house, and lives out his days visiting his wife. Underneath it all, however, is Maksik's portrait of Joe, his constant fear of his disorder's disabling side and his mistrust of its euphoric side: "I go along and then there is horror. I go along and then there is wonder." He hopes for "quiet and peace above all" and "enough goodness to smooth over the holes in my chest. Drywall over a bad frame." Maksik's Joe March is a man for today as much as Ishmael and Stephen were for Melville's and Joyce's days. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Shelf Talker: Alexander Maksik's third novel is a striking narrative told by a man haunted by love, family and the insistent presence of a bipolar disorder.


The Bestsellers

Top-Selling Self-Published Titles

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

1. Bossman by Vi Keeland
2. Tapping the Billionaire by Max Monroe
3. Scorch (The MacKenzie Family Volume 17) by Liliana Hart
4. Broken Prince by Erin Watt
5. Perfectly Toxic (The Sterling Shore Series Book 9) by C.M. Owens
6. Mr. Right by J.S. Cooper
7. Red Hot Sizzle by Various
8. Day Zero (The Arcana Chronicles Volume 4) by Kresley Cole
9. Pennies by Pepper Winters
10. Tempting the Law by Alexa Riley

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]

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