The New York Times
took the bull by the horns, so to speak, in a front-page story on
Sunday about the controversy among children's librarians and others
over the use of the word scrotum in The Higher Power of Lucky
by Susan Patron, this year's Newbery winner. (On the first page,
protagonist Lucky's dog, Roy, is unluckily bit on the scrotum by a
rattlesnake, an event that the author, who works as a public librarian
in Los Angeles, said she based on a real incident.) Some librarians are
not lending the book, while others call such an approach
censorship.
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Sunday's New York Times
also outlined the problems of Mayday Books, a six-year-old anarchist
bookstore in the East Village that is being evicted from the theater
that houses it--the cause apparently being a violent fight between an
actor and a bookseller. The actor "won."
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Book Club of America has apparently closed for business, according to Bargain Book News,
which noted, "Many former employees have either formed or joined other
bargain book companies and several calls to BCA's corporate offices
were not returned to BBN's staff."
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National Book Warehouse, which once had 130 bargain bookstores, is in the final stages of bankruptcy, Bargain Book News reported. Claims total more than $20 million; liquidation of inventory is expected to amount to as much as $6 million.
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Joseph Low, a children's book illustrator and New Yorker cover artist, died a week ago yesterday, February 12, at 95.
Today's New York Times wrote that "in the 1950s Mr. Low was
known for his expressively witty linear style, which challenged the
prevailing trends of Rockwellian realism, yet was consistent with
European comic surrealism. Using wild pen gestures he created glyphlike
characters meant for both adult and child that were both sophisticated
and accessible."
In 1981, Low's Mice Twice was a Caldecott honors book.
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Borders
has launched the Borders Book Group, which will offer four titles that
rotate monthly. The recommended titles will consist of fiction,
nonfiction and YA titles and be available at a 20% discount.
Borders is providing reading group guides, discussion questions and author biographies both in-store and online. In addition, customers may visit www.bordersbookclub.gather.com
to discuss recommended book club books with other members as well as
the featured authors. Borders has posted instructions on how to start
an online book club.
The first four picks, for February, are Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, Looking for Alaska by John Green and The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan, the last of which won the National Book Award and the nonfiction Borders 2006 Original Voices Award.
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Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Board chairman whose memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World
(Penguin Press), appears in September, will be BEA's Conference Keynote
Speaker on Friday, June 1, at 11 a.m. Greenspan will be interviewed by
his wife, Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC
News.
BEA, which prognosticates across-the-board positive reaction to the
economist whose likability quotient has continued an upwards trend,
will suspend other programming during the
event.
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Congratulations to Unshelved.com,
the library comic strip site and e-mail that has turned five.
Appropriately founders Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum "started writing the
comic strip that would become Unshelved on a flight back from
Comic-Con."
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The four Capitola Book Café booksellers who are seeking to buy the Capitola, Calif., store from its four owners (Shelf Awareness, January 6, 2007), have reached almost 70% of their goal for raising money for the purchase, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The amounts are coming from "large and small loans from community members."
Click here for a lot of information on the quartet and their plans for the store.
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Peppertree Bookstore has officially opened its second bookstore, in La
Quinta, Calif., three times larger than its original store, in Palm
Springs, according to the Desert Sun.
Owner Christopher
Johnson said that the store, which has indoor access to a neighboring,
separately-run coffee shop, will focus on celebrity book signings, book
clubs, workshops, children's storytimes and various community events.
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Effective
yesterday, Ingram Publisher Services has begun distributing Graphic
Arts Center Publishing, Portland, Ore., which emerged from bankruptcy
on February 1. Ingram has an interest in the company, which besides its
publishing operations is a distributor.
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Congratulations
to Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, Va., managed by Kelly Justice, which
has won Unbridled Books's display contest for two books by Lamar
Herrin: House of the Deaf, a novel, and Romancing Spain, a memoir. Fountain wins a dinner for two at a Spanish or tapas restaurant.
House of the Deaf is about an American father searching for
answers after his daughter is accidentally killed by Basque separatists while studying abroad. Romancing Spain describes how the author
met his Spanish wife more than 30 years ago and struggled against
custom, church objections and bureaucracy to marry her. It's also the
story of his love affair with Spain itself and his recent journey back
with his wife to search for the perfect pueblo in which to retire.
Helping celebrate John Wiley & Sons's bicentennial at a recent
party in San Francisco, Calif.: (from l. to r.) Stephen Kippur, executive v-p
and president, professional/trade; Ken Fisher, author of The Only Three
Questions That Count (a Wiley title); Will Pesce, president and CEO;
and Jeff Brown, v-p and general manager, business & psychology,
professional/trade.