Notes: Bullish About Books; 'Reader in Chief'
Charles Kaine, owner of the Reader's Cove, was one of several Fort Collins, Colo., retailers who told the Coloradoan
that they "remain upbeat about the upcoming holidays despite national
projections that sales will grow at their slowest rate in six years as
consumers worry about their jobs, housing, the stock market and high
gas and food prices."
"Books are really good investments for the
holidays and can be less expensive than other things, like
electronics," said Kaine, who projects 5%-7% growth in the fourth
quarter. "But, it's not going to be pretty. People are going to be more
reserved in purchasing this year, and I think we will see a lot less
purchasing on the Internet."
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Sherlock's Tomes, Bridgeton, N.J., has a reservation on October 7 at S.R. Riley's Musical Cafe, but it's for more than a meal. The two-year-old bookstore that specializes in mysteries, children's books, classics and bestsellers is moving into a 500-sq.-ft. space in the Beatles-themed cafe, according to the Press of Atlantic City.
"We're hoping this will be the kick that's needed for S.R. Riley's and for Sherlock's," Linda Durkin Richardson, co-owner of Sherlock's Tomes, told the paper. "And we won't have to walk so far for lunch."
Richardson and Jim Chiappardi had been looking for a new site for the store since the building in which it operates was sold in June and had wanted more space anyway--in part to host more book clubs and perhaps a writers' group.
The bookstore and cafe have partnered already on several events, including appearances and book signings by May Pang, a girlfriend of the late John Lennon, and Larry Kane, who chronicled the Beatles' 1964 North American tour.
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First Lady Laura Bush,
dubbed by Librarian of Congress James Billington the "reader in chief,"
will host the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
The event has "grown from about 30,000 attendees in 2001 to more than
120,000 last year," according to the Associated Press.
"I
love the whole idea of the National Mall being turned over to
literature for a Saturday a year," Bush said. "It still has that feeling
of a lot of book lovers together, people who love to read and who love
books and who are very happy."
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The Library of
Google? Jorge Luis Borges' story, "The Library of Babel," should
perhaps be invoked every time the quantum growth of the digital book
world is mentioned. And even though Alberto Manguel wasn't talking
digital in his New York Sun
article, there was something eerily apt in his description of the
Borges story as "nothing less than an attempt to describe the chaotic
order and meaning of the universe, building on the ancient notion of
the world as a book (or a book itself divided into an almost infinite
number of books) in which we ourselves are written, and which we also
attempt to read."
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Creative Loafing Atlanta has named Wordsmiths Books, Decatur, Ga., "best place for author readings/signings" in both critics and readers polls. Congratulations!
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Two days ago, a shipment of more than 5,700 books donated by Harvard University Press, the MIT Press and Yale University Press left their shared TriLiteral warehouse, Cumberland, R.I., bound for Iraq. The Sabre Foundation, using a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, will arrange the logistics of delivering the books to the Iraq National Library and Archive as well as the libraries of Baghdad University, Mustansiriyah University and Baghdad Technical University.
Iraqi librarians were allowed to choose up to three copies of each title and picked from a range of subjects, including philosophy, law, history, art and environmental studies. The shipment includes textbooks, new titles and classic monographs.
In a statement, William P. Sisler, director of Harvard University Press, said the press was delighted "to help restore in some small way the intellectual capital that has been destroyed in this tragic war."
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Cool Idea of the Day: In connection with a talk by Noah Andre Trudeau, author of Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea (Harper), Scott Meyer, owner of Merritt Bookstore, Millbrook, N.Y., arranged for a visit by reenactors from the 150th New York State Volunteer Infantry Regiment and the Hudson Valley Ladies Aid Society who wore Civil War-period clothing and answered questions from the audience. Read the Millbrook Round Table's history of the evening here.
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Uncool Idea of the Day: Musical rights to American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel about an investment banker-serial killer have been sold, Variety (via the New York Times) reported.
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Promotions in the HarperCollins Speakers Bureau:
- Jamie Brickhouse has been promoted to v-p, director. Under her leadership, the Bureau has grown by 15%, signed on an additional 75 authors and begun to include media spokesperson deals.
- Julie Elmuccio has been promoted to assistant manager. She has been with the Speakers Bureau since its creation three years ago and will continue to book top speakers as well as assist in new marketing initiatives while co-managing the department.
- Blair Bryant Nichols has been promoted to coordinator. In the past year, she has worked as a speaker booker and handles speaking campaigns for some authors.
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Debbie Burleson has rejoined Baker & Taylor as retail territory manager, serving, along with Charles Greiner, booksellers in the South. She was most recently an account executive at Ingram Digital Group, where she sold e-books and electronic content to the higher academic market. Earlier she was a marketing brand manager at B&T, where she managed independent studios and placed independent product into the retail, CDF and library markets. She may be reached at Debbie.Burleson@btol.com or 800-775-7930, ext. 3168.
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This Friday, Miracle at St. Anna, the movie directed by Spike Lee based on the James McBride novel, opens. McBride, author of The Color of Water, wrote the screenplay for Miracle at St. Anna, which follows a group of African-American soldiers fighting in Italy during World War II. The tie-in edition is available from Riverhead ($15, 9781594483608/1594483604).
As he did with his Caldecott Medal-winning Kitten's First Full Moon, Henkes once again artfully straddles the line between observing animals' true nature and imagining what they might be thinking. Here the author-artist considers what a bear might meditate on during the long stretch from first snow to first thaw (even the front and back of the dust jacket echo this idea). In the opening credits (the copyright and dedication pages), Old Bear walks to the right of a spread, then halfway off the page as a light snow begins to fall. He takes shelter in a hollowed-out giant tree trunk as the snow comes down harder. Then he begins to dream of each season in turn. "He dreamed that spring had come and he was a cub again." Henkes depicts the furry fellow in his youth, curled up in the center of a giant pink crocus ("The flowers were as big as trees"). Yellow and blue butterflies and humongous daffodils dot the landscape. For summer, "the sun was a daisy, and the leaves were butterflies," thick as a hedge; blueberries rain from the clouds above. In autumn, everything turns crimson and golden--"even the birds and the fish and the water." But a touch of blue here and there, in the river, in a waterfall, in the sky, allows children to point to a glimpse of the world as they know it in the painting. The winter sky evokes the Northern Lights, with a crystal-blue and white landscape of newly fallen snow, and the heavens "blazing with stars of all colors." Henkes uses a four-panel window-pane style illustration to depict the ursine hero's restlessness as the sky changes to spring hues outside his den. When Old Bear at long last wakes up, what awaits him is so beautiful that "it took him a minute to realize that he wasn't dreaming." Henkes slyly includes elements in the springtime scene that were present in his dreams during his season-long slumber, beautifully evoking the almost surreal experience of walking out into a spring day filled with blossoms and fragrances, abundant sunlight and butterflies after a long, dark winter. Even youngest children will know just what that Old Bear is feeling.--