Shelf Awareness for Monday, August 6, 2007


Del Rey Books: The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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

Overlook Press: How It Works Out by Myriam LaCroix

Charlesbridge Publishing: If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars by Richard Ho, illustrated by Huynh Kim Liên and Phùng Nguyên Quang

Shadow Mountain: The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall (Proper Romance Victorian) by Rebecca Anderson

News

Notes: PNBA Show Changes; Online Sales Rankings

Like some other regional booksellers associations this year, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association is making some changes in its trade show and annual meeting format, in its case to draw more booksellers to the trade show floor on the meeting's third and last day, Friday, September 21. Among those changes: authors at the Friday Book & Author Breakfast will sign their books on the show floor 10-11 a.m.; many of the other authors doing signings will be well-known and popular regional authors; a free buffet lunch will be offered; and a promotional raffle will be held just before the floor closes at 2 p.m.

Word is that more changes are being contemplated for next year's show, possibly including a full trade show day for all exhibitors and a second only for those who want to stay (these are usually smaller publishers and indie presses, not the big houses). On the second day, the part of the floor vacated by the publishers not wanting to exhibit could be devoted to author events, panels, signings, talks, promotional parties and more.

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Today's New York Times ranks authors compulsively checking their Amazon.com sales rankings as one of the more modern ways authors can avoid continuing to work on the next manuscript. The story notes that Amazon's algorithms for establishing the rankings count sales history but "recent sales are weighted more heavily."

Incidentally salesrankexpress.com, a site created by Aaron Shepard, who has self-published 12 books, helps check rankings even faster and more thoroughly than usual.

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Congratulations to the Children's Book Shop, Brookline Village, Mass., which has won Boston Magazine's 2007 Best of Boston Kid's Books selection. The magazine commented: "Like everything well loved by a child, this Brookline Village institution has become charmingly worn around the edges, the creaky floors a testament to decades of small roaming feet. It eschews the chain bookstores gloss (and their piles of trinketry and TV tie-ins) for shelf after wonderful shelf of kid's titles--more than 21,000 in all. The shop may be considering a spiffing up for its 30th anniversary this year, but here's hoping it'll always be a tad dog-eared: after all, that's how bookworms mark a place they want to go back to."

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Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., is considering adding a Little Professor bookstore franchise as part of its efforts to "take better care of visitors and our own staff and realizing they have needs and want to have convenience," a hospital executive told the Detroit Free Press. In addition, such retails operations have bolstered the hospital's ailing bottom line. 

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The New England Independent Booksellers Association is taking applications for the second round of grants intended to help booksellers strengthen or develop independent business alliances and local buying programs in their communities. The first round of grants were made in June (Shelf Awareness, June 18). For more information, contact NEIBA executive director Steve Fischer.

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Cata's Books, Benton, Ill., founded in 2004 by Candice Lahr, recently moved to Benton Public Square from a mall in West Frankfort, the Southern reported. The store's new location is a "rehabbed building [that] has a white brick façade and, with its handcrafted woodwork interior, is a perfect fit," the paper wrote.

Cata's hosts many book signings and author events and stocks books of regional interest, works by local authors and a range including cookbooks, 'tween reads and war history.

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Ahh, good old-fashioned summer his and hers reading. Spotted yesterday lakeside in Connecticut, an older couple: for hours, he had his nose buried in David Baldacci's Last Man Standing while she was devouring Philippa Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance.

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Yesterday's New York Times had an amusing story about The Blue Book of the Hamptons. The 85th annual edition costs $70, is sold at places like BookHampton, Southampton, N.Y., behind the counter in unmarked white envelopes, and is compiled by a secret group that amasses basic information about "the area's wealthy, social connected residents," including prep schools attended, private memberships and more. No word on whether the mystery publisher is ISBN-13 compliant.

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Pablo Fenjves, the ghost writer for If I Did It, is disputing O.J. Simpson's assertion that he was a passive participant in the writing the chapter that "depicts him holding a bloody knife at the scene of the crime," today's New York Times reported.

"The whole book, the whole idea for a book, originated with O.J. Simpson and a couple of his handlers," Fenjves stated. "O.J. read the book, his book, several times. I made every change he asked for, and he signed off on it."

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Cooper Square Publishing, the new joint venture of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group and a hedge fund, has bought the book publishing program of T&N Children's Publishing, including Two-Can Publishing and NorthWord Books for Young Readers. Effective immediately, order fulfillment  and distribution as well as returns for those imprints is being handled by Rowman & Littlefield's sister company, National Book Network.

Two-Can Publishing focuses on books that seek to entertain and educate children from birth through age 12 about science, history and arts and crafts. Many Two Can titles are available in Spanish.

NorthWord publishes books on animals and nature for children, including picture books and nonfiction nature and wildlife titles in interactive formats.
 


HarperOne: Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World by Craig Foster


Sales: AAP Sales Rise 4.3% in June

Net book sales in June rose 4.3% to $720.6 million and year-to-date sales rose 7.9% to $3.571 billion, according to data compiled from 80 publishers by the Association of American Publishers.

Category winners and losers:

Audiobook rose 25.9% to $12.9 million
Children's/YA hardcover rose 22.2% to $42.3 million
Religious books rose 19.4% to $37.3 million
E-books jumped 13.5% to $2.7 million
Adult hardcover rose 11.1% to $106.9 million
Professional and scholarly rose 7.4% to $66.1 million
Children's/YA paperback was up 7.1% to $38.4 million
Adult paperback rose 0.3% to $107.4 million

University press hardcover slipped 2.1% to $4.4 million
Adult mass market dropped 4.6% to $71 million
University press paperback fell 9.2% to $3.7 million


Park Street Press: An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey by Peter A Levine


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Skinny Bitch and The Prince of Darkness

This morning on the Today Show: Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, the authors of Skinny Bitch (Running Press, $13.95, 9780762424931/0762424931). 

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Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Kristen Laine, author of American Band: Music, Dreams, and Coming of Age in the Heartland (Gotham, $26, 9781592403196/1592403190).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Robert D. Novak, author of The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (Crown Forum, $29.95, 9781400051991/1400051991).

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


G.P. Putnam's Sons: Take Me Home by Melanie Sweeney


Books & Authors

Awards: Midwest Booksellers' Choices

The winners and honor books of the 2007 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Awards, nominated and voted on by members of the Midwest Booksellers Association and honoring authors from or books set in the region, are:

Fiction Winner: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin)
Fiction Honor Book: Copper River by William Kent Krueger (Pocket)

Nonfiction Winner: Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry (HarperCollins)
Nonfiction Honor Book: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
(Broadway Books)

Poetry Winner: The Blizzard Voices: Poems by Ted Kooser (University of Nebraska Press)
Poetry Honor Book: To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present edited by Connie Wanek, Joyce Sutphen and Thom Tammaro (New Rivers Press)

Children's Picture Book Winner: A Good Day by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books)
Children's Picture Book Honor Books: A Woodland Counting Book by Claudia McGehee (University of Iowa Press) and Winter Is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer (Harcourt)
 
Children's Literature Winner: Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Houghton Mifflin)
Children's Literature Honor Book: In Search of Mockingbird by Loretta Ellsworth (Holt)

Awards will be presented during the MBA annual trade show October 5 in Minneapolis, Minn. Michael Perry (via a special video presentation), Kevin Henkes and Catherine Gilbert Murdock will speak at the event. Honor Book recipients William Kent Krueger, Lauren Stringer and Loretta Ellsworth will attend. Other authors may be on hand, too.


Book Sense: May We Recommend

From last week's Book Sense bestseller lists, available at BookSense.com, here are the recommended titles, which are also Book Sense Picks:

Hardcover

On Kingdom Mountain by Howard Frank Mosher (Houghton Mifflin, $24, 9780618197231/0618197230). "[This book] brims with humor, history, intrigue and romance while addressing the issues of love of the land and home (Vermont, in particular), rampant development, environmental degradation and a vanishing way of life."--Mary Gleysteen, Eagle Harbor Book Company, Bainbridge Island, Wash.

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler (Riverhead, $22.95, 9781594489471/1594489475). "Twenty-six different contributors (some well-known food writers, others better known for their fiction) talk about their experiences of cooking and dining alone, each exploring the guilty pleasure of not having to explain one's sometimes bizarre choice of foods. Interlaced with recipes, this is great fun to read."--Jan Sloan, The King's English, Salt Lake City, Utah

Paperback

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler (Penguin, $15, 9780143038979/0143038974). "Fessler writes of the secrets of a time when unmarried women were coerced to give up their babies. She reveals not only what happened to those girls, but also tells of the impact that these decisions made on the lives of the young women, their babies, and their families. This is a story that needs to be told, and Fessler has done an excellent job."--Dorothy Dickerson, Books & More, Albion, Mich.

For ages 9 to 12

The Bee Tree by Diana Cohn and Stephen Buchmann, illustrated by Paul Mirocha (Cinco Puntos, $17.95, 9780938317982/0938317989). "Mirocha's breathtaking illustrations enhance this beautiful account of the traditional honey gatherers of the Malaysian rain forest. This coming-of-age story relates the high honor of being the one to climb the tall Tualang tree in the annual hunt to gather honey. The book also includes photos and information about the rain forests and the importance of honeybees in our ecosystem. A treasure for all ages."--Gayle Wingerter, Inklings Bookshop, Yakima, Wash.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]

 



Ooops

Congratulations, Jessica Stockton Bagnulo!

This is our most unusual "correction" ever. In fact, it's more of a way of offering public congratulations to Jessica Stockton, whose first Shelf Awareness column on graphic lit ran last Friday. Jessica was married a little over a month ago and forgot to mention to us that she would now prefer to be known as Jessica Stockton Bagnulo. Let the record be corrected and very best wishes to her and Michael Bagnulo, the lucky groom!

 


The Bestsellers

AbeBooks: Harry Bats .700 in July

 The following were the bestselling books on AbeBooks.com during July:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K Rowling
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
4. Freedom: A History of US by Joy Hakim
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
6. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
8. The Revolution Will Not be Televised by Joe Trippi
9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
10. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

[Many thanks to AbeBooks.com!] 

 


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