The American Booksellers Association happily welcomed 11 new bookstore members and one new branch of an existing store--all of which opened in July. For more information about the stores, see Bookselling This Week.

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Carla Cohen, co-owner of Politics and Prose, Washington, D.C., wrote to say that on September 5, the day after the book's pub date, the store will host an event featuring John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Yesterday's New York Times reported that the authors had had several events cancelled because the topic of their book was deemed too controversial.

Carla wrote: "Although I feel that the authors have used words carelessly and inflamed passions unnecessarily (much as Jimmy Carter did in using the expression Apartheid in the title of his book, Peace Not Apartheid), they certainly deserve a venue in which to put their views forward. . . . I do expect intense negative reaction, but what is a more important function for an independent bookstore than to present a safe place to debate unpopular views?"

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Sheila Grange of the Vero Beach Book Center, Vero Beach, Fla., wrote us, too, asking if Shelf Awareness knew of stores "reporting incidents of customer concern regarding the recall of many Chinese products, especially toys. We carry a wide mixture of both toys and books in our children's store and we are beginning to get some concerned inquiries and comments about Chinese produced products. Even we were surprised at the number of books printed in China, though I doubt there is any reason for concern. In the initial stages of media-induced paranoia we will surely have some people that will demand U.S. made toys and books only, but I just wondered how other bookstores are handling a somewhat touchy subject."

We haven't heard anything so we're asking booksellers now. If you've heard of any concerns or had discussions about this with customers, please respond here.

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Bookselling This Week profiles Where the Sidewalk Ends bookstore in Chatham, Mass., on Cape Cod, which opened on Memorial Day 2005. The 1,200-sq.-ft. store was founded by Joanne and Caitlin Doggart, a mother-and-daughter team.

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BTW also talks about booksellers who are holding events during Banned Books Week, September 29-October 6, on behalf of Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak edited by Marc Falkoff (University of Iowa Press), a collection of 21 poems written by prisoners held by the U.S. in Cuba. As Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books, Bellingham, Wash., explained: "We thought it was appropriate to do during Banned Books Week. Although it's not necessarily a banned book, these are banned people, banned voices, and we thought it was altogether appropriate."

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And in time for Banned Books Week, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is offering two new products--a small circular button and a T-shirt--incorporating a redesigned version of the FREADOM logo. The new logo uses lower-case letters as though from an old typewriter in an effort to emphasize the printed word.

The shirts come in four colors; the buttons in three. To see samples (worn by a snazzy model) and get more information, click here.

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The Philadelphia Weekly Press profiled Greg Gillespie, owner of Port Richmond Books, a used bookstore that recently opened at the "former site of the Richmond Theater, a mammoth structure built in 1913 that used to showcase weekly Edison Studio films."

"We have pretty much everything here," Gillespie said of his 100,000-book inventory, "A lot of it is from my personal collection, books that I've liked.”

Apparently that key word "everything" may even include some spectral patrons: "When we bought the place we put on a new roof and a new facade out front, but the big contractors who were working here came to me one day and said they didn't want to work here at night because when they did they heard voices and saw shadows. They saw shadows at night when there shouldn't have been shadows because there are no windows back here. I've been here late at night and even slept here on occasion and heard things but nothing like that."

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Craig Herman, who joined Running Press a little more than a year and a half ago, has been named associate publisher. He continues as v-p and director of marketing and publicity.

Jennifer Kasius has been promoted to executive editor. She acquired Skinny Bitch, The Sneaky Chef, Change the Way You See Everything and the upcoming Stephen Hawking title on Albert Einstein, A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion.

Kim Gombar of HarperCollins has won the Helmuth Sales Rep of the Year Award, given annually to the top rep in the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association region. Gombar is the first telephone sales rep to win the award.

NAIBA commented: "Gombar started at HarperCollins in 1993 in the cost accounting department before moving into customer service. She credits that time with giving her an understanding of the 'back room' issues that booksellers have to deal with such as returns, discounts and shipping errors. 'I found it gratifying to help make these issues a little less frustrating for the booksellers,' she says. In April 1997, she made the move to telephone sales. 'I now had the opportunity to learn another side of publishing--author signings, co-op advertising, promotions, and many other aspects of the publishing world. I love discussing books with booksellers, meeting authors and building the momentum and excitement for a new book. My territory covers N.Y. and N.J., which is a very active event area. I'm happy to also cover mystery and sci-fi specialty stores because mystery is my favorite genre. I enjoy sending advanced readers copies that I feel my booksellers will appreciate and getting their feedback.' She loves the fact that a telephone sales rep receives unlimited reading material, 'has terrific discussions with knowledgeable, creative booksellers and the opportunity to meet wonderfully talented authors.' Booksellers often get to know the personal lives of the field reps, so you may be interested to know that Gombar has spent her entire life in a quiet little town outside of Scranton, Pa. She is married to her high school sweetheart, Andy, and they have a 23-year-old son, Christopher, and a cute little Shih Tzu named Gizmo."

Gombar will receive the award at the NAIBA fall conference's opening reception on Sunday, October 14, at 6 p.m.

 

Viking Press and Penguin Books have launched an online resource for reading groups at vpbookclub.com, which includes the ability to personalize the site's homepage; regular posts from authors, editors and sales and marketing people at Viking and Penguin; a forthcoming blog where readers can post comments and reviews; a monthly newsletter; weekly news, awards, author tour updates and contests/giveaways. In addition, the site allows users to buy from the retailer of their choice, several of which link to each title's page.

Viking and Penguin plan regularly to feature one new Viking hardcover, one new Penguin paperback and one Penguin Classic. The first such titles are Deirdre McNamer's Red Rover (Viking), Meg Mullins's The Rug Merchant (Penguin), and Barbara Pym's Excellent Women (Penguin Classics).

The site's archive, which currently consists of more than 100 titles, is being expanded and includes titles by a range of authors picked to appeal to reading groups. It's designed to allow users to flip through titles as though browsing the shelves of a bookstore or library.

Clare Ferraro, president of Viking, said in a statement that the book club "is designed to give [readers] a home online where they know they will find beautifully written, high quality fiction and nonfiction."

Today on NPR's Tell Me More: Kate Braestrup, author of Here If You Need Me: A True Story (Little, Brown, $23.99, 9780316066303/0316066303).

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Tonight on PBS's Bill Moyers' Journal, Martin Marty discusses his latest book, The Mystery of the Child (Eerdmans, $24, 9780802817662/0802817661).

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Tonight on Anderson Cooper 360: Senator John McCain, author of Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them (Twelve, $25.99, 9780446580403/0446580406).

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Tomorrow on NPR's Weekend Edition: Peter Sis, author of The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (FSG, $18, 9780374347017/0374347018).

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Sunday on NBC's Weekend Today: C. Perry Yeatman, author of Get Ahead by Going Abroad: A Woman's Guide to Fast-track Career Success (Collins, $24.95, 9780061340536/0061340537).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, August 18

12 p.m. Public Lives. Nick Salvatore, author of Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (University of Illinois Press, $24.95, 9780252074523/0252074521), documents the life of the leader of the U.S. Socialist party and five-time presidential candidate.

1:30 p.m. Rowan Scarborough, author of Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA (Regnery, $27.95, 9781596985100/1596985100), argues that some members of the CIA have been undermining Bush's War on Terror and American national security through bad analysis, incompetence and leaks to the media. (Re-airs Sunday at 11:30 p.m. and Monday at 6:30 a.m.)
 
6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment first aired in 2000, Allen Guelzo, author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans, $25, 9780802842930/0802842933), talked about his "intellectual" biography, which delves into the president's inner life, religious beliefs, philosophical convictions, interest in political economy and how these influences affected the outcome of the Civil War.

8 p.m. Jessica Valenti, author of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters (Seal Press, $15.95, 9781580052016/1580052010), argues that most young women are feminists but don't like the word because it has negative connotations for them. She suggests that feminism serves women in the workplace, society, politics and family life.

9 p.m. After Words. Max Boot, senior fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, interviews military historian Stanley Weintraub, author of 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall--Three Generals Who Saved the American Century (Free Press, $30, 9780743275279/0743275276). Weintraub recounts the relationships between the three military leaders and dissects their tactical decisions in their respective theaters of battle during World War II. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.)

10 p.m. In an event held at Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass., Reverend Billy, head of the Church of Stop Shopping and author of What Would Jesus Buy?: Fabulous Prayers in the Face of the Shopocalypse (PublicAffairs, $13.95, 9781586484477/1586484478), contends that consumerism is bad for America.

11:30 p.m. History on Book TV. In an event held at Fact & Fiction bookstore, Missoula, Mont., Michael Punke, author of Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West (Collins, $25.95, 9780060897826/0060897821), chronicles the life of the scientist, journalist and sportsman who launched a campaign to save the American Buffalo in the late nineteenth century. (Re-airs Sunday at 12:45 p.m.)

Sunday, August 19

11 a.m. History on Book TV. In an event held at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Nashville, Tenn., Stephen Mansfield, author of Ten Tortured Words: How the Founding Fathers Tried to Protect Religion in America . . . and What's Happened Since (Thomas Nelson, $25.99, 9781595550842/1595550844), argues that prior to the Supreme Court's 1947 Everson v. Board of Education decision regarding the separation of church and state, American politics relied on a religious foundation. (Re-airs Sunday at 7 p.m.)

7:50 p.m. At an event held at D.G. Wills Books, La Jolla, Calif., Dave Zirin, author of Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports (Haymarket Books, $16, 9781931859417/1931859418), examines the line between contemporary politics and sports, covering topics that range from the controversial death of football player turned special ops soldier Pat Tillman to what he perceives to be the racist underpinnings of sports commentary. (Re-airs Saturday, August 25, at 11 p.m.) 

 

After being mentally scarred forever by Dave Eggers' monumental What Is the What, I swore I'd had enough. No more hair-raising child soldier carnage tales for me. No more mothers eating their babies, children as mine detectors, 12-year-old rapists, rivers of corpses, you know, that kind of thing.

Still, his book is an artistic mountain to measure by, a stunning achievement--and all the others have created a somewhat familiar genre (They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, Beasts of No Nation, A Long Way Gone) and now the newest entry, Chris Ajani's mercifully short descent into Nigerian hell, Song for Night.

The novella is the first-person account of a 15-year-old named My Luck who has developed an unsavory fondness for shooting people. He hasn't spoken in three years since his vocal cords were snipped by the military. He's separated from his unit of children mine detectors, and spends the entire novella searching for them, tramping through a landscape only Hieronymus Bosch could love, trying to find them. His girlfriend dies in pieces in his arms. His sadistic military commander, 16-year-old John Wayne, entertains himself with brutalities that leave the reader gasping, until My Luck shoots him, unfortunately taking out a seven-year-old girl at the same time.

As a narrative structure, Song for Night is structured like a video game. Encounters mean killing. Ajani employs some fascinating original spins, most prominently My Luck's fondness for hiding in crawlspaces and crocheting. But otherwise, this is a road trip with the grimmest companions imaginable--a teenager holding his intestines in his arms, a woman toting her own coffin.

Unfortunately, Abani not only has a gift for swift, electrifying nightmare images, he also has a propensity for corny poetic overwriting about morning dew and angels. Still, if he has first-hand knowledge of any of this human butcher shop, poor guy, I'll tip my hat to him for just getting the horrors down on paper.--Nick DiMartino

Meeting authors is one of the highlights for the young bibliophiles who attend week-long summer book and writing camps at A Book for All Seasons in Leavenworth, Wash. The camps were started by store owner Pat Rutledge, who sought a way to encourage children to "have fun with concepts, words and books" and to embrace writing and poetry. It's also a way, she noted, of making the bookstore "someplace they want to be."

Six years ago A Book for All Seasons hosted two inaugural camps for girls, and the program has since expanded to five book camps geared toward three age groups: 8-10 and 10 to 12-year-old girls and boys, as well as a co-ed camp for 7-8 year olds. Camp sessions for boys were added the second year, an idea that Rutledge---the mother of five sons who are all avid readers---said initially met with skepticism but has proven enormously popular. "The first year it was hard to fill the boys' camp," she commented, "and after that it just started ballooning." All camps typically have members signed up by April 1, and some reach the maximum of 12 students. Those who register prior to the early enrollment date receive $15 off the fee of $150 per camper.

Each year Rutledge and A Book for All Seasons staffers create an overall camp theme and adjust it according to each group's age and gender. Some well-received past themes were "Mad Scientist" and "Unfortunate Book Camp," and this year the topic centered on Roald Dahl's The BFG. Every child received a copy of Dahl's story about a Big Friendly Giant who spirits a lonely London girl away to his homeland. "We want them to take away something they'll remember," said Rutledge, and campers are also given journals, arts and crafts supplies and items such as T-shirts or hats.

A store employee and teacher acts as camp director and devises an activity-packed curriculum that includes working with an author or illustrator, journal writing, reading aloud, individual reading sessions, arts and crafts and group projects. One favored pastime is creating a "found poem," an exercise that prompted one aspiring poet to refer to himself as a "word wizard." Kids head out into the community in teams to uncover words or sentence fragments and then compile their findings into collective verse. "The kids write poetry every day during camp, and they love it," Rutledge said.

Campers convene on the store's balcony, dubbed the "Tree House" for the large oak looming over it, as well as in a nearby park. Above the store is the Innsbrucker Inn, a lodging with six rooms, each decorated in homage to a different author, character or tome. During summer months, the Chocolate Room--adorned with a mural of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Willy Wonka---becomes the kids' private domain.

Each five-day book camp kicks off on a Monday with an author in attendance and concludes the following Friday with a play or other production staged by students. This year it was a puppet show based on The BFG, and friends and family are invited to attend the closing festivities.

An important criteria for Rutledge is that at least one scribe appear at every camp, and among those featured this year were Linda Johns, author of the Hannah West mystery series, and Patrick Carman, author of the fantasy tale Atherton: The House of Power. To maximize each author's time in Leavenworth, a signing open to the public is held at A Book for All Seasons the Sunday before camp begins. A community of less than 3,000 residents, the Bavarian-themed town draws a robust tourist population on weekends.

Appearing this week in conjunction with a co-ed writing camp for 13 to 15-year-olds--the official end of the store's 2007 summer camp season--is Susan G. Wooldridge, the author of Poem Crazy: Freeing Your Life with Words and, most recently, Foolsgold: Making Something from Nothing and Freeing Your Creative Process. Unlike at the book camps, there is no central theme for the writing camp and students work with an author every day. Along with Wooldridge, who spent two days with campers and in addition conducted a writing workshop for adults, Alma Alexander, Katherine Grace Bond and Kathleen Alcala were on hand to provide advice, encouragement and tutelage to the young writers.

Now in its third year, the writing camp was created after a devoted attendee had gone through all the store's book camps. She was moved to tears at not being able to spend part of her summer vacation at A Book for All Seasons. "We said we would come up with something," Rutledge recalled, "but we decided it had to be different from book camp. And of course writing is one of the things we like best."--Shannon McKenna