On September 9, Crown's Three Rivers Press imprint will publish a new book called Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise, the Associated Press reported. The paperback will have a first printing of 300,000 copies and be priced at $13.95. The e-book version will also sell for $13.95 and go on sale September 8.
The book, which has a foreword by Senator Obama, consists of material from the Obama for America campaign as well as some of Obama's speeches. The contract for the book is between Obama's campaign and Crown. The campaign will donate net proceeds to charity.
Obama has a contract with Crown to write two more books, including a children's book.
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For those of us who spent too much time in the woods last week: There's a literary angle to the story of former Senator John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter. Hunter was once known as Lisa Druck, who in the 1980s was, shall we say, active on the party circuit in Manhattan. During that time, Jay McInerney was her boyfriend for at least a few months. He said later, "I spent a lot of time with her and her friends, whose behavior intrigued and appalled me to such an extent that I ended up basing a novel on the experience." The book is Story of My Life (Vintage, $12, 9780679722571/0679722572), first published in 1988. The Druck/Hunter character is Alison Poole.
In yesterday's New York Times, Maureen Dowd commented: "When you appall Jay McInerney, you know you're in trouble."
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Books-A-Million has opened a 15,500-sq.-ft. store in Spring Hill, Tenn., south of Nashville. Grand opening celebrations for the store, located at 1040 Crossings Boulevard, are planned for August 16 and 17. The new BAM is the company's 17th in Tennessee.
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The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the American Library Association have created a website to help booksellers and librarians promote Banned Books Week, September 27-October 4. In part, the site, bannedbooksweek.org, will help consumers find participating bookstores and libraries.
Bookstores and libraries that would like to be listed should submit details of their Banned Books Week activities at http://bannedbooksweek.org/signup/. After a review, the material will be posted.
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The Women's National Book Association is launching the second National Reading Group Month in October "to promote reading groups and to celebrate the joy of shared reading." Events featuring popular reading group authors will be held around the country, and some take place at bookstores and book festivals. The group also plans a publicity campaign. A range of publishers are involved, and other groups in the book world are invited to join the effort.
For more information about becoming involved, contact Jill Tardiff, WNBA National Reading Group Month chair, at jtardiff-wnbanational@att.net.
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On the bookstore tourism road again. Deborah Baker, owner of
Baker Books, Dartmouth, Mass., will sponsor another Greenwich Village
Bookstore Adventure September 13, according to SouthCoast Today, which reported that the new trip follows a successful tour last spring (see Shelf Awareness,
February 25, 2008), when "more than 100 SouthCoast booklovers bused
down to Greenwich Village in New York City for a fun day of exploring
more than 20 independent bookstores, all within walking distance."
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Forget
Obama vs. McCain. Denver, Colo., squared off with St. Paul,
Minn.--sites of this year's Democratic and Republican conventions--in
the Seattle Times
travel section, where the Tattered Cover Bookstore was described as
"the best of Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Co. and Portland's Powell's
combined in an 1800s building with plush green carpeting, reading lamps
and comfy sofas and chairs."
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In the Wall Street Journal, ESPN's Jeremy Schaap suggested five books on the Olympics that "are pure gold."
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In the grand tradition of the recent Best of the Bookers award, the Bookseller
will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Diagram Prize for Oddest
Book Title of the Year with the "Diagram of Diagrams--a public vote to
find the oddest book title of the past 30 years."
Among the contenders are previous winners Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (1978), How to Avoid Huge Ships (1992), Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers (1996) and The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification (2006).
