In a cover story, today's Wall Street Journal looks at the ongoing dilemma about whether black writers benefit or not from having their books shelved in an African-American section, an issue given renewed attention because of the increased popularity of black fiction and the growth in spending on books by black readers. (Last year, blacks spent $300 million on books, twice as much as the early 1990s, according to Black Issues Book Review.)

Some authors quoted in the story said that being in the black fiction section helped them connect with their most important audience. Others said they felt the practice limited their potential.

One argument against black fiction sections: The story noted that "as a practical matter, segregating books by race and culture makes it less likely that black writers will hit the national bestseller lists."

Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com are the major retailers that, with several exceptions, don't have African-American literature sections. B&N spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating told the paper that the company wants to expose "all titles to all customers."

To give some perspective to the debate, consider the policy of one African-American bookstore. It shelves black fiction in its fiction section. "Caucasian" writers go in the ethnic fiction section. 

--- 

Reminder: today is the release date of the Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward--A New Approach ($10.95, 0307386562) from the panel headed by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton. The report is officially presented to President Bush and Congress today. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to the National Military Family Association, a nonprofit organization that represents families of all ranks and services.

---

[Bush fans please skip this story.] 

Post-election, the Bush Out of Office Countdown Calendar: Two Years and Counting (Sourcebooks, $12.99, 1402207905) seems to have found an ever-growing audience. It's also getting a boost in the political blogosphere, according to Dominique Raccah, head of Sourcebooks. Several dozen left-leaning blogs are talking about the calendar, including Americablog (which gets 120,000 hits a day), Political Wire (100,000 hits a day), RawStory (75,000) and TalkLeft (75,000). Moreover, the calendar is highlighted at the top of whitehouse.org, a parody of the official White House Web site.

As a calendar complement and another stocking stuffer in blue states, Sourcebooks has published The George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown Handbook: Hang in There, It's Almost Over! ($9.95, 1402209045), which, like the calendar, contains "the best of Bush bloopers and blunders" as well as accounts of various indictments, scandals and more. The author is Deb Werksman, who was publisher and co-founder of The Quayle Quarterly, the satire magazine that ended in 1993, when Dan Quayle left office as Vice President. Werksman has been an editorial manager at Sourcebooks for the equivalent of two presidential terms.
 

At San Francisco retailer Borderlands Books, which specializes in science fiction, fantasy and horror, sales "seem to be falling pretty clearly into three categories thus far," said owner Alan Beatts.

Recent Releases

Customers looking for gifts for the science fiction, fantasy, and horror aficionados on their lists often ask for the latest releases that a recipient is not likely to have. Although "there is nothing I would really characterize as an incredibly hot title in the field," said Beatts, several recently published books are selling well: The Android's Dream by John Scalzi, The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven and The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross, which Beatts described as a "supernatural pastiche of James Bond."

Classics

"A lot of people like to come in and buy a copy of whatever was one of their favorite books," Beatts said, including works by authors Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. "There's a nice and quite reasonably priced leather-bound edition of all five of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books," noted Beatts. Another perennial holiday seller for the store is The Lord of the Rings three-volume boxed set illustrated by Alan Lee, who worked as a conceptual designer on the film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy.

Sidelines

Borderlands stocks an array of sidelines that sell "surprisingly well" during the holiday season. They include jewelry; cast resin boxes, ashtrays and incense burners decorated with dragons and other fantasy motifs; and carved wooden boxes imported primarily from India. The wooden boxes are "more impulse buys," Beatts said. "It's something we carry that appeals to everyone. People who come in the store who aren't necessarily into our specialty end up buying them."

In addition to science fiction, fantasy and horror titles, Borderlands Books carries periodicals, British imports, small press titles, videos and DVDs.

Although Beatts said that it's "a little early" to gauge the mood of customers, he noted a bit of caution on their part. Recently the store has had a substantial drop in hardcover sales with a corresponding increase in trade paperback and mass market sales. "I'm also seeing a shift from new book sales to used book sales," he said, "and those two things together almost always indicate people feeling a little broke."--Shannon McKenna

The Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., will feature two author interviews on today's show whose theme is children's books.

• Marla Frazee, author and illustrator of Santa Claus the World's Number One Toy Expert (Harcourt), Roller Coaster (Harcourt), Walk On: A Guide for Babies of All Ages (Harcourt) and many other children's books.
• Terri Hoover Dunham, author of The Legend of Papa Noel (Sleeping Bear Press) and P Is for Pelican (Sleeping Bear Press).

The show airs at 8 a.m. Central Time and can be heard live at thebookreport.net; the archived edition will be posted this afternoon.

---

Today on the Martha Stewart Show: Ricky Lauren, wife of fashion designer Ralph and author of Ricky Lauren: Cuisine, Lifestyle, and Legend of the Double RL Ranch (Assouline, $50, 2843238838).

---

Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show: Dr. Barron Lerner, author of When Illness Goes Public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine (Johns Hopkins University Press, $25, 0801884624).


---

Scheduled for tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: Salman Rushdie, whose latest book is Shalimar the Clown (Random House, $14.95, 0679783482).

---

Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Eve Herold, co-author of Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Front Lines (Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95, 1403974993).

---

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno spices things up with Gerry Garvin, author of the cookbook Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin (Meredith Books, $19.95, 0696233940).

For me, there's nothing better than blowing off an afternoon of chasing buckage for the Shelf to cook a dinner for people I enjoy--and still call it work.

So, on an early fall evening in Seattle, we hosted a dinner for eight friends in the book biz at our house. The mission: to cook an entire meal from the newly published Bon Appétit Cookbook (Wiley, $34.95, 0764596861).

The book had arrived at my door a few weeks earlier, containing 792 pages of material from what many consider to be the best cooking magazine, all wrapped in a gorgeous burnt orange metallic cover. My first task was to plan the menu. There are more than 1,200 recipes in The Bon Appétit Cookbook but no sample menus. In the beginning, this was a little daunting. But then I thought back to all the dinner parties we've been to where the menu was uninspired and decided that this is where the creative fun lies. Choosing a great menu is almost harder than cooking it, and the selection of dishes can offer great insight into cook's personality. (Note to my sister: we knew that boy was no good for you when we noticed his menu choices revealed a curious proclivity for "stuffing" almost everything.)

After many evenings pouring over all the recipes, the menu was settled:

• Caramelized onion and roasted shallot cream soup
• Crown Roast of pork with stuffing and cider gravy
• Broccoli with mustard butter
• Carrots with cumin and orange
• Triple Cherry Cheesecake

I've always wanted an excuse to make a Crown Roast of Pork. Just thinking of one makes me want to re-read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and watch the movie Ice Storm. It's so retro, so suburban chic, so fun, and as the cookbook tells us, "a spectacular entrée for a special occasion dinner." But really--the best thing about a crown roast is the little chef's hats or booties on the ends of the bones. Or at least that's what I thought they were called until I was corrected, sort of . . . The debate lingers. First a book industry friend told me that they are called "panties." Really. She even sent me a Google link where chefs refer to them as "panties." But our own savvy book reviewer Marilyn Dahl swears they are called "frills" or, en français, manchettes. Whatever the label for these little treasures, they are practical: they keep the ends of the bones from burning. Still, we all preferred the apocryphal story that these frivolous adornments date to Victorian times, when having a giant roasted bone uncovered, was, well, unseemly.

We started with the soup. It was effortless to make: we roasted some onions and shallots and then prepared the base. It resembled your fondest memories of French onion soup, only more grownup, more civilized--and without the giant rubbery disc of cheese on top.

The crown pork roast came out perfectly. (Grab a thermometer and use it. This is the only way to tell for sure when the roast is done.) There's nothing easier to prepare and to impress a crowd with than a giant roast . . . plus, while it cooks you can get everything else done. The cider gravy was a snap to whip up while the roast rested. But it was the apple and pork stuffing that stole the show. I didn't bake it inside the roast as the recipe suggested since I was afraid of wiping out a microcosm of the book business via trichinosis. I cooked it alongside the roast, and it was nothing short of a revelation: fresh pork sausage with celery, shallots, breadcrumbs, garlic, sage and allspice, with a secret ingredient, dried apples. Whoever figured out that using dried apples, instead of fresh, lends incredible flavor while avoiding the apple juices that would make it watery is an ingenious chef. The crown pork roast was far and away everyone's favorite. And even though we made enough to feed 12, it was gone by the end of the meal.

Marilyn Dahl prepared the vegetables: curried carrots and broccoli with a mustard sauce. They were both good and uncomplicated recipes. But she did have some concerns as to why certain recipes in the cookbook would specify "unsalted" butter while others would just say "butter."

Time for dessert! I am not a big cheesecake fan. I'm always afraid that someone will talk while eating it and I'll see those awful phlegmy strings, which make the person look like a Tolkien monster. But I do believe in the wonders of anything that has almond and cherry in it, so I had to give the Triple Cherry Cheesecake a go. It was easy to make and the almond in it perfumed the whole house while baking. It was light (which is saying a lot for a cheesecake) but the sauce of dried cherries, fresh cherries, and cherry jam really made it. You know this when your guests ask if there are leftovers to take with them at the end of the meal.

The dinner was a grand success. Everyone went home stuffed and happy. The Bon Appétit Cookbook is a wonderful collection. It gives the most basic recipes a sophisticated twist, without being high fallutin, without featuring recipes with (gasp) "infused foams." Stock up on this book. Put it in the window and by the cash wrap. Give it to your friends for the holidays, and if you're really, really lucky, they'll cook for you from it.--Jenn Risko