The Guardian: "Is there a secret to writing?"

Jonathan Coe: "Yes."

Soho Press published 14 books by the late Janwillem van de Wetering (Shelf Awareness, July 9, 2008) and will reissue all of his Soho Crime novels in paperback, beginning this fall. 

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Our friends at Unshelved are sponsoring their third annual Pimp My Bookcart contest, which this year is being sponsored by Smith System. For more information and to get pimping, click here.

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Bridget Rothenberger, owner of Nomad Bookhouse, Jackson, Mich., told the Citizen Patriot that, despite the long hours involved in running an independent bookstore, her staff allows her to also have time for her "top priority"--her children.

"The balance is that my family comes first, and that I work my tail off when I can for the store," she said. "And sometimes that means until 2 or 3 in the morning I'm working. Without [the staff] and without my being able to trust them, I wouldn't be able to walk away for a day off every week, and to leave by the time my kids get out of school two days a week."

Rothenberger added that she loves the fact that her bookshop has "become a one-word destination in town. People can say the Nomad and a lot of people know what that is."

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Simply answering the phone one day at the Magic Tree children's bookstore, Oak Park, Ill., turned into life-altering moment for co-owners Rose Joseph and Iris Yipp. According to Oak Leaves, "The caller, Francisco Vives, represented a consortium of Spanish book publishers who wanted to crack the American market. They were holding a conference in May, he explained. Was there any chance that Magic Tree's owners might be willing to fly to Barcelona and Madrid?"

"When they called I didn't even look at my schedule," Yipp said. "I just said, 'I'm going to Spain!'"

Selling books in other languages has been a priority at Magic Tree since it opened in 1984. "In Chicagoland there are so many people who speak different languages that I think it's important to carry foreign books," Yipp said. "Children are speaking English in school but when they bring home books from the preschool, the parents are more comfortable in their own language."

The trip itself? A great success, according to Yipp: "Francisco said he liked our presentation because the publishers only think of the U.S. in terms of big cities. They don't think about little places like Oak Park. They liked that we put in pictures of our neighborhood, that we're a small village but we're near a big city. It gives them a different picture of the United States. It's not all big cities and big bookstores."

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The Chronicle of Higher Education reviews book trailers made by university presses, which are growing in popularity and have been created about a range of titles. View the full-length feature here.

This morning on the Today Show: Ingrid Betancourt, who was just rescued after being held as a hostage for six years by a Colombian rebel group and author of Letters to My Mother: A Message of Love, A Plea for Freedom, foreword by Elie Wiesel (Abrams Image, $14.95, 9780810971271/0810971271), which was published on May 1. She appeared last night on Larry King Live.

(Next month Ecco is reportedly issuing a new paperback version of her 2002 memoir, Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia.)

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For the next week on WETA's Author, Author!, Frances Kiernan discusses his book The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story (Norton, $15.95, 9780393331608/0393331601).

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Tomorrow on the Ellen Degeneres Show: Terri Irwin, author of Steve and Me: Life with the Crocodile Hunter (Simon Spotlight, $25.95, 9781416953883/1416953884).

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, July 12

6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. For a segment that first aired in 1997, Pavel Palazchenko, author of My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze (Pennsylvania State University Press, $54.95, 9780271016030/0271016035), talked about his work as principal interpreter for the Soviet premier and his foreign minister from 1985-1991.

7 p.m. Michael Rose, author of Washington's War: The American War of Independence to the Iraqi Insurgency (Pegasus, $24.95, 9781933648774/1933648775), makes comparisons between the American Revolution and Iraqi resistance to U.S. occupation. (Re-airs Sunday at 2:30 p.m.)

9 p.m. Eileen McGann and Dick Morris, co-authors of Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us . . . and What to Do About It (Harper, $26.95, 9780061547751/0061547751), try to explain their subtitle. (Re-airs Sunday at 3 a.m., Monday at 5:45 a.m. and Sunday, July 20, at 4:45 p.m.)
     
10 p.m. After Words. Evan Kleiman interviews Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Melville House, $19.95, 9781933633497/1933633492). Patel explores the global food system and what he contends are its insufficiencies. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m., and Sunday, July 20, at 12 p.m.

Sunday, July 13

12 a.m. For an event hosted by McNally Robinson bookstore, New York, N.Y., John Gorenfeld, author of Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom (PoliPointPress, $24.95, 9780979482236/0979482232), takes a critical look at the founder of the Unification Church. (Re-airs Sunday at 7 p.m., Monday at 7 a.m. and Sunday, August 3, at 8 a.m.)

2 a.m. Nicholas Daniloff, author of Of Spies and Spokesmen: My Life as a Cold War Correspondent (University of Missouri Press, $24.95, 9780826218049/0826218040), recounts his career reporting from the Soviet Union. (Re-airs Sunday at 11 p.m. and Monday at 4 a.m.)

8 p.m. S.E. Cupp and Brett Joshpe, co-authors of Why You're Wrong About The Right: Behind the Myths--The Surprising Truth About Conservatives (Threshold Editions, $25, 9781416562825/1416562826), argue against what they deem to be unfounded stereotypes about Republicans. (Re-airs Sunday, July 20, at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday, July 21, at 7 a.m. and Sunday, August 31, at 10 a.m.)

Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse (Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan, $16.95, 9780312378868/0312378866, 240 pp., ages 10-14, September 2008)

Setting her novel during the summer of 1903 in Brooklyn, Newbery Medalist Hesse (Out of the Dust) delves into the lives of a Jewish family that fled persecution in Russia even earlier than the characters in her Letters from Rifka (who left in 1919). Fourteen-year-old narrator Joseph Michtom ("rhymes with 'victim'") dreams of one day going to Coney Island, like Dilly Lepkoff, the pickle vendor. That would make Joseph truly "lucky," he thinks. But Joseph has a great deal to be grateful for: His father, who came to Brooklyn 16 years ago, runs a successful candy business ("While Brooklyn slept Papa turned the window of Michtom's Novelty Store into a candy fantasy"). And in February, after Mama saw a cartoon of President Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear cub in Mississippi, she got the idea that they should make stuffed bears with movable limbs--and the Michtoms can't make them fast enough. Hesse explores the subtleties of an immigrant community in which some families have more than others, whether it be money or health, as well as what drives its members apart and what brings them together. One of the novel's most moving scenes involves Joseph's Aunt Golda, whom he lovingly calls "The Queen," and how he and she together define what makes an American.  Another depicts the spontaneous kindness the neighborhood boys show Jacob Rostowsky, who was mentally damaged in Russia by the butt of a Cossack's rifle, in a game of pickup baseball. A row with his parents leads Joseph to a trip to Coney Island that changes his outlook on everything, and when Joseph's three-year-old brother, Benjamin, gives his beloved Teddy bear (the very first one his parents ever made) to an orphan girl, Joseph wonders, "What bear had I been carrying . . . And what would it take for me to let it go?" Hesse lays out many surprising discoveries, for Joseph and for the rest of his family. Some people harbor secrets of great bravery, others of great cowardice. But the characters here are deeply human. A subplot about a group of children living under the Brooklyn Bridge is not fully integrated into the plot and can be distracting at times, but it does demonstrate to readers the dire circumstances for many immigrant families, especially children. Ultimately, this is the moving story of the pivotal summer in which Joseph Michtom becomes a man.--Jennifer M. Brown