Another stand-alone newspaper book review section will disappear February 22, when the Washington Post plans to stop publishing Book World and move book coverage to "the Style section and a revamped Outlook section," according to the Post. Executive editor Marcus Brauchli estimated that the Post will publish about three-quarters of the roughly 900 reviews it currently carries each year.

"Clearly, we value coverage of books and literature," he said, citing declining revenue and circulation at the newspaper as motivating factors in a decision meant to help trim expenses. "Our readership is, among metropolitan areas, one of the most literary, book-consuming populations in the country. We understand they read and care a lot about books on contemporary affairs as well as literature and fiction."

The Post added that Book World will survive online at washingtonpost.com, and "will include not just an archive of reviews but reporting on publishing and a calendar of Washington area literary events."

Marie Arana, who edited Book World before taking a buy-out from the Post in December, told the New York Times blog ArtsBeat that she thinks "it's going to be a great disappointment to a lot of readers. I just hope that there's enough coverage and emphasis and attention given on the pages where Book World will now appear in print in Outlook and Style and Arts to satisfy those readers."

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Two new bookstores are opening in Asheville, N.C. The Mountain Xpress reported that Montford Books & More debuted January 16 in the space formerly occupied by the Reader's Corner. Owner Kay Manley said becoming a bookseller is "something I've always been interested in. It seemed like a good opportunity."

In early February, Thomas and Donna Wright will "expand their literary kingdom from the seasonal Little Switzerland Book Exchange to downtown Asheville's Battery Park Book Exchange," which was described as "an elegantly appointed sprawl of rooms fitted out with couches, wide shelves and Oriental rugs."

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The buzz continues for Lanora Hurley and Daniel Goldin, who will take over two of the four Harry W. Schwartz bookshops scheduled to close (Shelf Awareness, January 20, 2009). OnMilwaukee.com interviewed Hurley, who said, "I have wanted to own my own bookstore for a very long time. When other kids were playing doctor or school, I was playing bookstore. That being said, the transition to owner seems like a natural one for me."

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Parade magazine will host the Water for Elephants Book Club Sweepstakes beginning Friday, January 30, and ending March 6. Entrants have the chance to win a mountain getaway to Asheville, N.C., for themselves and four of their book club friends. The prize includes round-trip airfare, lodging at the Inn on Biltmore Estate, a tour of Biltmore, ground transportation and dinner with author Sara Gruen. Readers can register at Parade.com (the site goes live on Friday at 5 p.m.).

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The Mind of the Judge, a short film which takes viewers inside the judging room of the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE), will premiere Thursday, February 5, during a special luncheon ceremony honoring winners of the 2008 PROSE Awards at the annual conference of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers in Washington, D.C.  

Produced and directed by New York filmmaker Mary Rose Synek, The Mind of the Judge was shot in early January, as 15 judges from the publishing world and academia debated and chose finalists and winners from among nearly 500 entries. Following its screening at the awards luncheon, the film will be available for viewing on the PROSE Awards website.
 
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Sterling Publishing Company promoted Sharmilla Sinanan to the newly created position of senior manager, marketing services (formerly the ad/promo department). Sinanan will oversee the entire marketing services department, including catalogs, advertising and promotion, copyediting and art design.
 
Sterling also promoted Simone Gibbs to the position of marketing coordinator and Megan Perritt to associate publicist. Perritt will oversee the publicity for the distribution clients, as well as continue to work on body, mind and spirit titles for Sterling and Ethos.

The children’s book community mourns the tragic loss of Kate McClelland, former head of youth services for Perrot Memorial Library in Greenwich, Conn., and Kathy Krasniewicz, who had succeeded McClelland as head of the library’s youth services. They were in a cab Wednesday morning headed to the Denver International Airport, to take a return flight from the American Library Association conference, when the vehicle was struck by a hit-and-run driver, according to Greenwich Time.

The Children's Book Council will hold the first of its CBC Forum series, "The Buyer's Perspective: Looking Back on 2008 & Looking Ahead to 2009," Tuesday, February 3, from 4-6 p.m. at the Scholastic Auditorium (557 Broadway) in New York City.

Shelf Awareness children's book editor Jennifer M. Brown will host the event. Panelists include Becky Anderson, owner of Anderson's Bookshop, Downers Grove and Naperville, Ill.; Elizabeth Bluemle, owner of Flying Pig Books, Shelburne, Vt.; Trevor Dayton, vice-president, Kids and Entertainment, Indigo Books & Music, Toronto, Ontario; and Laura Pennock of Levy Home Entertainment.

Panelists will share their perspectives on the state of the children's book market, including reflections on the 2008 holiday selling season, trends and surprises, what's been driving customers into stores, and hopes and concerns for 2009. There will also be a Q&A session, followed by a wine and cheese reception with the panelists. This is a ticketed event, offered only to members of the CBC. To reserve a free-admission ticket, call 212-966-1990 or e-mail Kelly Giordano.

The CBC Forum Committee--chaired by Andrew Smith, v-p, deputy publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers--is mounting a series of educational lectures, panel discussions and networking events offered to CBC members in the upcoming year. 

"Our goal in creating the CBC Forum is to further guide the children's book community towards discussion and collaborative progress," said Robin Adelson, CBC's executive director. "To that end, we are thrilled to have a committee in place that is dedicated to providing programming that educates and enriches the children's book publishing community."

Canines in the nation's capital are flaunting their presidential pride with collars bearing the slogan "Bark for Barack." The accessory is one of the Obama-themed items being sold at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C.

Customers have been clamoring for merchandise ranging from finger puppets and playing cards to basketball shirts and bumper stickers, particularly last week on Inauguration Day, when 350 customers turned out to watch Barack Obama's swearing-in and drink a champagne toast to the new commander-in-chief. "It was very festive here all day long," said Politics & Prose co-owner Barbara Meade. By the time store closed that evening, most of the Obama mementos were gone. "We hardly had one thing left. People were just grabbing everything in sight."

Meade is now deciding which of the plethora of items to continue carrying in the store. Those specific to the inauguration, such as T-shirts and sweatshirts with the inaugural seal and a program booklet published by the Democratic National Committee, will not be re-stocked. Nor will specially commissioned tote bags made from laminated front page copies of the Washington Post, one heralding Obama's nomination win and the other his election victory. Items that will be replenished include an Obama action figure, paper dolls, trading cards, a "Book Lovers for Barack" pin and what Meade described as the "most spectacular" piece--a colorful scarf hand woven by a craftsman in Ghana with Obama's name embroidered on it.

Politics & Prose patrons are also buying up books commemorating Obama's rise to the White House. During the last month, expensive pictorial tomes like Deborah Willis and Kevin Merida's Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs ($26.95) and Scout Tufankjian's Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign ($29.95) significantly outsold lower priced volumes like Time magazine's President Obama: The Path to the White House ($19.95). "It seemed that everybody was so euphoric they just lost all perspective on cost," said Meade. "Certainly our January will be up substantially over last year because of the inauguration sales."

Across the country in Seattle, Wash., University Book Store customers have been purchasing commemorative issues of Life, Rolling Stone and other magazines as well as the DVD "This Is Our Moment: Election Night 2008," featuring Obama's speech in Chicago's Grant Park. "By far the bestselling titles" with an Obama connection, noted buyer Jay Weaver, are the President's own two tomes: Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

Future voters are learning all about Obama from a trio of books for middle grade readers--a children's edition of Tufankjian's Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign, Change Has Come: An Artist Celebrates Our American Spirit by Kadir Nelson and Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Bryan Collier. A book Weaver anticipates will be a strong seller is the recently published Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids' Letters to President Obama, edited by Jory John, a compilation of correspondence from school children who answered the question "What should President Obama do now?" The missives touch on topics ranging from the economy, education, war and race relations to more lighthearted subject matter like snow cones, puppies and multiplication.

McNally Jackson Booksellers in New York City is focusing not on books written by or about Obama but mostly on the books the President read in his 20s, which the store has collected in a display titled "How History Was Made: Books that Inspired a President." "There is an incredible range of books and writers," said McNally Jackson's John McGregor, who came up with the idea for the display shortly after Obama won the election in November.

McGregor conducted extensive research to compile the list of more than 50 featured titles, drawing on such sources as Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope and interviews given by Obama. "It was a really deep period of contemplation and study for him," said McGregor. The young Obama's reading selections ranged from Shakespeare's King Lear and Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son. Also included in the display are some more recent books Obama has indicated reading, such as Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Gandhi: An Autobiography.

The books are arrayed on one entire table and half of another, one of the largest displays the store has ever done. Some of the titles are also showcased in a front window, and even in bitterly cold weather passersby are stopping in their tracks to take a closer look. "People have been really curious about it and asking how we came up with the books," said McGregor. Some of the top-selling titles are Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance, The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes and Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer.

Typically store events inspire displays, but in this instance it's the opposite. Due to strong customer interest, McNally Jackson is hosting a panel on February 13--moderated by Spiegel & Grau editor Chris Jackson, husband of store owner Sarah McNally--that ties in with the theme of the display. Laura Miller, Susan Jacoby, Colm Tóibín and David Samuels will discuss Obama's presidency in a literary context based on the books he read during that influential period.--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville
Benito Cereno by Herman Melville
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
The Bible
The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow
Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
The Collected Writings of Thomas Jefferson
The Confessions of St. Augustine
The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
Dynamics of Faith by Paul Tillich
Exodus by Leon Uris
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
Gandhi: An Autobiography
Gandhi's Truth by Erik H. Erikson
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth
Gilead by by Marilynne Robinson
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Hamlet by Shakespeare
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr
King Lear by Shakespeare
Loon Lake by E.L. Doctorow
Mila 18 by Leon Uris
Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr
My Life as a Man by Philip Roth
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
The Outsider by Richard Wright
Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky
Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Working by Studs Terkel
World's Fair by E.L. Doctorow
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Today on Oprah: Lauren F. Streicher, author of The Essential Guide to Hysterectomy: Complete Advice from a Gynecologist on Your Choices Before, During, and After Surgery-Including the Latest Treatment Options and Alternatives (M. Evans, distributed by NBN, $19.95, 9781590770573/1590770579).

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Tomorrow on NPR's On Point: Brian Raftery, author of Don't Stop Believin': How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My Life (Da Capo Press, $16, 9780306815836/0306815834).

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Tomorrow night on Larry King Live: Joe Torre, co-author of The Yankee Years (Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385527408/0385527403).

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Tomorrow night on 20/20: Reva Seth, author of First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages (Fireside, $14, 9781416561729/1416561722).

Also on 20/20: Helen Fisher, author of Why Him? Why Her?: Finding Real Love By Understanding Your Personality Type (Holt, $25, 9780805082920/0805082921).

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, January 31

8 a.m. For an event hosted by Bluestockings Bookstore, New York, N.Y., Julia Mickenberg and Philip Nel, co-authors of Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature (NYU Press, $32.95, 9780814757208/0814757200), explore themes that include encouraging children to question authority. (Re-airs Sunday at 5 a.m.)

9 a.m. Donald Kettl, author of The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How to Fix Them (Norton, $25.95, 9780393051124/0393051129), offers suggestions for reforming government crisis response. (Re-airs Sunday at 4:15 p.m.)

11:45 a.m. At an "American Conversation" series event hosted by the National Archives, Washington, D.C., E.L. Doctorow discusses his life and work (Re-airs Saturday at 8 p.m. and Monday at 6:45 a.m.)   

7 p.m. Kath Weston, author of Traveling Light: On the Road with America's Poor (Beacon, $25.95, 9780807041376/0807041378), talks about the five years she traveled the U.S. by bus, speaking with people she considers to be "moving through poverty." (Re-airs Sunday at 7 a.m.)

10 p.m. After Words. David Brooks interviews Gwen Ifill, author of The Break-Through: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (Doubleday, $24.95, 978-0385525015/038552501X), in which she examines a new generation of African-American politicians. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., Monday at 3 a.m. and Sunday, February 8, at 12 p.m.)
     
Sunday, February 1

12 p.m. In Depth. Historians Frank Williams, Chairman of the Lincoln Forum, and Edna Greene Medford, member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission’s Advisory Council, will join Book TV for a live interview to discuss Lincoln's life and legacy. Viewers can participate in the discussion by calling in during the program or e-mailing questions to booktv@c-span.org. (Re-airs Monday at 12 a.m., Saturday, February 7, at 9 a.m., and Monday, February 16, at 11:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m.)

Neil Gaiman is having a good week. On Monday morning, in the midst of promoting the movie inspired by his book Coraline, which releases February 6, he received a phone call from Rose Trevino, chair of the Newbery committee. The Graveyard Book had won the 2009 Newbery Medal. Gaiman has called the novel a twist on Kipling's The Jungle Book, except that hero Nobody Owens is "somebody who gets raised by dead people" instead of animals, and "Bod" is mentored by a man called Silas, who is not quite like the other ghosts.

All day long in Denver on Monday, librarians were twittering about Gaiman's tweets of "delighted swearing," as he puts it in his blog. You may follow his tweets on Twitter.com, his blog entry of the Newbery call, and watch him reading aloud The Graveyard Book (Gaiman is especially pleased with the crowd's reaction midway through chapter 7, "Every Man Jack," where he had to stop at a cliffhanger). Tuesday, he appeared on the Today Show. Shelf Awareness spoke with Gaiman yesterday while he was en route to the airport to fly back to Los Angeles.

If memory serves, you wrote Coraline late at night, about 20 minutes at a clip, at the same time that you were writing American Gods.

That’s very true. I started it many years before, the idea was this was the project I was doing "on my own time," and then we moved to America, and I ran out of "my own time"--it no longer existed. I sent [what I had] to my editor, Jennifer Hershey, and she said, "It's amazing, what happens next?" And I said, "Why don't you send me a contract, and we'll both find out." And she did, bless her. But the problem was I didn't have any more time, so I decided that instead of reading 10 pages before bed, I'd write half a page. I started [Coraline] for Holly, who's now 23, and finished it for Maddy, and she's now 14.

Was Coraline your first book for children?

It was my first novel for children, technically, but in reality when I was 20 or 21, I wrote my very first book, and it was a children's book. I sent it, I think, to Penguin, and they wrote back with an encouraging note, I put it in the attic and forgot about it. After Coraline and Wolves [The Wolves in the Walls] came out I was reading to my daughter Maddy every night and I remember I went to the attic, found it, read it to Maddy, and then put it back in the attic where it will stay until I'm dead.

You've said The Graveyard Book was inspired by your then 18-month-old son riding his tricycle in your neighborhood cemetery. Was there a specific gate in that cemetery that inspired the ghoul-gate?

The ghoul-gate was inspired by a grave I found in Cornwall about two-and-a-half years ago. I'd taken a little cottage with no wireless, no Internet, and I wrote [chapters] two and three there, "The New Friend" and "The Hounds of God." In the little town of Redruth, I drove past a cemetery and wandered around, and there was one grave that was funghoid--it had a statue, but the statue no longer looked like an angel but rather like a giant fungus. There was a crack down the middle as if something had been trying to get out; it looked like an opening to somewhere. The line wandered through my head, "There's a ghoul-gate in every graveyard."

I loved that Silas tells Bod that he was worse than Bloody Jack (the man who murdered Bod's family), yet Silas is completely sympathetic. Did you name him for Silas Marner?

I don't think so. Some characters turn up with names, and some don't--the ones who don't, you spend an awfully long time worrying about their names. The boy in the graveyard was someone I'd wondered about for 20-odd years. Then I ran into that line, "Rattle his bones/ Over the stones/ It's only a pauper/ Who nobody owns." Whereas Silas was Silas from the moment he walked onto the page.

Before Monday morning, did you know what a Newbery Medal was?

Oh of course! When I was eight years old maybe I picked up my Puffin copy of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, and I loved it enough that it registered as a Newbery. In the years that followed, I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh; From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Lloyd Alexander's The Prydain Chronicles, because they won the Newbery. So yes, I never imagined it would be an award that it would be my lot to ever take home. I'm awed by it.

So what do you think about children's books?

They're terrible; they should be banned. What kind of question is that? I think they're wonderful. When I was a kid, I was a kid with a book. As far as I was concerned, had you asked me at the age of seven what the most important things in the world are, I'd probably say the first six Narnia books, the first three Mary Poppins books. . . . Had I discovered The Hobbit yet? Not yet. The books that took pride of place on my shelves were Stig of the Dump by Clive King, Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green. I was the kind of kid who, during my summer holidays, would persuade my parents to drop me off at the library in the morning, and I'd spend my day there. Sometimes I'd pack a lunch. At 6:30 when they closed, I'd walk home.

Children's fiction, for me back then, was the most important thing there is. It has a holy place and position that adult fiction doesn't have. Adult fiction is a wonderful thing and enriching to the soul and mind, and it takes you to great places. But children's fiction can change the world and give you a refuge from the intolerable. It can give you a place of safety and show you the world is not bounded by the world you live in--there's more than that.--Jennifer M. Brown

If I Stay by Gayle Forman (Dutton/Penguin, $16.99, 978052542100/0525421033, 208 pp. ages 14-up)

What makes life worth living? Family? Friends? Music? Love? Seventeen-year-old Mia asks herself these questions after she and her family suffer a tragic car accident one wintry Oregon morning. At the time of the crash, Mia had her eyes closed in the back seat, taking in the first notes of Beethoven's Cello Sonata No. 3, the piece she'd planned to practice if the snow day had not separated her from her cello at school. By page 12, Mia knows that her parents died on impact, and as she searches frantically for her eight-year-old brother, Teddy, she finds instead her own body: "Am I dead?" she wonders. She watches herself being medevaced to Portland, where she had planned to hear her boyfriend, Adam, perform with his rock band, Shooting Star, which is on a fast track to success. In the 24 hours during which the novel takes place, Forman skillfully moves between Mia's out-of-body experience and related snippets of memory. At the sight of her grandparents in the hospital waiting room, Mia recalls how her grandmother first planted the seed that led to an audition for Juilliard and how, when her Gran sprained her ankle and couldn't accompany Mia to her audition, silent, steadfast Gramps stepped in. As Mia wonders how Adam will get word of her accident, she thinks about their first date--to hear Yo-Yo Ma play--and when Adam confided that what first attracted him to her was her passion for the cello ("I'm obsessed with music and even I don't get transported like you do," he tells her).
 
Throughout Mia's first-person narrative, Forman seamlessly threads musical references--some overt, such as Mia's response to hearing Yo-Yo Ma play ("That man has a way of making the cello sound like a crying woman one minute, a laughing child the next. Listening to him, I'm always reminded of why I started playing cello in the first place--that there is something so human and expressive about it"), others that make clear how music is part of the fiber of Mia's being ("I thought of the tuning fork I used to adjust my cello. Hitting it sets off vibrations in the note of A--vibrations that keep growing, and growing, until the harmonic pitch fills up the room. That's what Adam's grin was doing to me during dinner"); in Mia and Adam's first experience of intimacy, they "play" each other as cellist and guitarist. At one point, as Mia's body lies comatose in the hospital, a nurse suggests to Mia's grandparents that it is up to Mia whether she stays or whether she will give up the struggle and join her parents. This idea gives weight to each of Mia's memories, as Forman follows the heroine's movement, like a bow against the strings of her cello, between the two choices. The author endows the narrative with as much humor as poignancy and lays bare the challenges Mia has encountered in each of her relationships as well as the breakthroughs, leaving readers in suspense until the final bars.--Jennifer M. Brown