This morning's New York Times had so many stories that Shelf Awareness perhaps has set a new record for leaving behind gaping holes or underlined articles for the wife and kids.

In the latest chapter of the case involving Laura Albert, who wrote under the name JT Leroy, the judge has ordered Albert to pay the company that bought film rights to Sarah, her first novel, legal fees of $350,000.

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In an even uglier court case, the family of Ronald Goldman, who died with Nicole Simpson in 1994, won most of the rights to O.J. Simpson's book If I Did It. (The Brown family receives 10%.) A Goldman family lawyer indicated that, the Times said, "discussions with literary agents, publishing houses and movie studios [are] in progress."

In an online appearance yesterday, Simpson commented, "I find it sort of hypocritical that they talked everybody in America to boycott the book: it was 'immoral,' it was 'blood money.' But we now see it wasn't 'blood money' if they got the money.''

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Motoko Rich eats up the Skinny Bitch phenomenon, which Shelf Awareness chewed over recently (June 30).

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The Times tells the story of Bookends, a new musical by actress, playwright Katharine Houghton about the rare book dealers Madeleine B. Stern and the late Leona Rostenberg, who wrote the memoirs Old Books, Rare Friends and Bookends. Bookends the musical is making its world premiere at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. 

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In news from other sources, C-Span2's BookTV has posted online a four-minute clip of Nan Talese's criticism of Oprah Winfrey made last Saturday during a writers conference in Texas. The full event, a speech by Joyce Carol Oates (Talese spoke about her appearance last year on Oprah with A Million Little Pieces author James Frey from the audience after the speech), will be broadcast on BookTV on Sunday, August 5, at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.

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Congratulations to Shelf Awareness contributor Robert Gray, who is a finalist this week in the New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest for a cartoon done by Gahan Wilson. Although we're obviously biased, his is the best suggestion. As they say in our New Jersey precinct, vote early and vote often--here.

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"If all the trucks that delivered Deathly Hallows were lined up bumper-to-bumper, Scholastic says, the caravan would stretch 15 miles," according to Business Week in an article headlined, "Harry Potter and the Logistical Nightmare."

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Lianna Ita, co-owner of Inner Wisdom, a new bookstore and gift shop in Galesburg, Ill., told the Galesburg Register-Mail that she and her husband, Chris, "want the world to be a kinder, gentler place." Inner Wisdom, which Lianna envisioned to be "a store with yoga classes, massage therapy, crystals, books, candles, games and children's items," is part of their contribution to this goal.

"It's a blend that just naturally goes together," Chris said.

Lianna added, "When somebody walks out of here and I've given them a tool or book or just listened to them and they feel better, I say, 'I had a good day at work today.'"

 

This morning on the Early Show: Senator Joe Biden, author of Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics (Random House, $25.95, 9781400065363/1400065364). He will also appear today on NPR's Morning Edition.

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This morning's Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., features an interview with Polly Horvath, author of The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane (FSG, $17, 9780374315535/0374315531).

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.

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Pat Shipman, author of Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari (Morrow, $25.95, 9780060817282/0060817283).

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Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: PW's West Coast correspondent, Bridget Kinsella, author of Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on the Outside (Harmony, $24, 9780307338365/0307338363).

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Tonight on Larry King Live: Paula Deen of the Food Network, the Savannah, Ga., chef whose latest book offering is It Ain't All About the Cookin' (S&S, $25, 9780743292856/0743292855).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Jed Babbin, author of In the Words of Our Enemies (Regnery, $24.95, 9781596985230/1596985232).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 (S&S, $28, 9780684857053/0684857057).

 

Concerning Becoming Jane, which opens on Friday, Continuum has a backlist title called Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence ($14.95, 9781847250469/1847250467), on which the movie is loosely based. Spence was a historical consultant to the film. Published in hardcover in 2003, the title looks like it will be one of the publisher's bestsellers this year, Continuum said. (As mentioned here Monday, there is also the movie tie-in edition of Becoming Jane: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen by Anne Newgarden.)

At least one bookstore is making the most of the movie. The Copperfield's Books store in Santa Rosa, Calif., is sponsoring a viewing of Becoming Jane on Friday evening, opening night, as part of the store's "Read the Book, See the Movie" series.

 

Two novels appearing in the U.S. this week and in two months won major Montana New Zealand Book Awards prizes, announced on Monday. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, whose U.S. publication date was yesterday (Dial Press, $20, 978038534106/0385341067), won the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry, the fiction category award and the readers' choice award. (See the Shelf Awareness review, July 18). In May, Mister Pip won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for overall best book.

The Sound of Butterflies by Rachael King won the New Zealand Society of Authors' Best First Book Award for Fiction. It goes on sale in October (Morrow, $24.95, 9780061357640/0061357642).

It has been a while since I fired up the old bookstore websiteseeing tour bus, so I took it out for a spin recently. As with most weekend drives, there are certain things you notice right away and others that dawn on you only as the miles roll by. I was surprised, for example, to see how many websites still had notices for Harry Potter parties and pre-orders on their home pages. Time for an update, folks.

I noticed something else, something I suppose I knew already about the power of advance readers copies. On site after site, the "Staff Picks" pages were full of recommendations for books from larger publishing houses, reflecting the impact of at least some of the hundreds of ARCs that stack up in staff break rooms nationwide.

Where were the small, university and independent press staff picks? Harder to find for many reasons, including fewer ARCs, smaller (or no) marketing budgets and insufficient personal relationships with sales floor handsellers. And yet some booksellers do find and recommend these titles, which inspired me to conduct a brief search for the unexpected staff pick.

Since most bookstores, for various reasons, showcase their booksellers on a first-name basis only, we'll stick with that form here even in cases where we know their secret (real) identities.

At Malaprop's Bookstore, Asheville, N.C., Rich suggests Dangerous Space (Aqueduct Press, $18, 9781933500133/1933500131), "a collection of seven seductive stories by Kelley Eskridge, whose novel Solitaire was a New York Times Notable Book . . . in the title novella, 'Dangerous Space,' we see the full power of music unleashed to sexually enthralling as well as risky effect." 

Brook is just one of several booksellers at McNally Robinson bookstore, New York, N.Y., who are recommending small press titles. She loves The Girl with the Golden Shoes by Colin Channer (Akashic Books, $13.95, 9781933354262/1933354267), which she describes as a "coming-of-age novella set in the Caribbean during the 1940's . . . Beautifully written, this novella will wrap you up with Channer's use of language as well as the story itself."

In St. Louis, Mo., Kris at Left Bank Books suggests Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America by Linda Furiya (Seal Press, $15.95, 9781580051910/158005191X), noting that the author "beautifully conveys the conflicting feelings she has over her sense of otherness and her parents' strong Japanese identity . . . this book would make an excellent reading group book and could easily be recommended to teens as well."

Looking Glass Bookstore, Portland, Ore., features a wide-ranging "Recommendation Shelf" that currently highlights world literature releases like Zigzag Through the Bitter Orange Trees by Ersi Sotiropoulos, translated by Peter Green (Interlink Books, $24.95, 9781566566612/1566566614), in which "four unforgettable voices mingle in a poignant black comedy of isolation and yearning, illusion and vengeance and the hunger for connection."

Land of Stone: Breaking Silence Through Poetry by Karen Chase (Wayne State University Press, $15.95, 9780814333150/081433315X) is one of Lisa's recommendations at Oblong Books and Music, Millerton, N.Y. She calls the book a "miraculous story of the two years poet Karen Chase spent working with a mute psychiatric patient. Like the best poetry, the story is deceptively simple and deeply resonant."

Aaron at Books and Books, Coral Gables, Fla., endorses The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall (Canongate, $24, 97818419591152007/1841959111): "Moving with the pace and momentum of a superb thriller, exploring ideas about language and information as well as identity, The Raw Shark Texts is a brilliant novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love."

"What an absolute gem! I'll be rereading this one for years to come." That is how Cissie at Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, N.C., describes 1973 National Book Award winner Stoner by John Williams (NYRB, $14.95, 9781590171998/1590171993). This book is one of those quiet giants in the indie bookselling world, acquiring many passionate handsellers nationwide during the past year.   

City Lights bookstore, San Francisco, Calif., is the necessary last stop on this week's brief tour. If independent publishing has ceremonial icons, surely the City Lights logo is somewhere on that altar. At the bookstore, which reflects this irresistible mix of tradition and innovation, Paul recommends A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes by Witold Gombrowicz (Yale, $15, 9780300123685/030012368X), in which "the eminent Polish author Witold Gombrowicz reflects on seven great philosophers. He discusses Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Heidegger in six 'one-hour' essays, then allows Marx a short 'fifteen-minute' piece."

Stalking the wild small press staff pick can be great fun. I highly recommend the exercise.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)