Shelf Awareness for Thursday, March 26, 2009


Del Rey Books: The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Dial Press: Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood

Pantheon Books: The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera

Peachtree Publishers: Leo and the Pink Marker by Mariyka Foster

Wednesday Books: Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

Overlook Press: How It Works Out by Myriam LaCroix

Charlesbridge Publishing: If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars by Richard Ho, illustrated by Huynh Kim Liên and Phùng Nguyên Quang

Shadow Mountain: The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall (Proper Romance Victorian) by Rebecca Anderson

News

Notes: Milwaukee Stores Update; Off the Grid

Yea! Both Daniel Goldin and Lanora Hurley, two of our favorite booksellers, are on track to open their stores in former Harry W. Schwartz locations--in early April in Goldin's case and April 1 for Hurley, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Goldin has secured funding from a bank loan and family members, and Hurley has also taken out bank loans as well as received financial help from several customers.

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"Now Available: Books Not Requiring Internet Access" was the headline for a Star Tribune profile of Micawber's Bookstore, St. Paul, Minn., which noted, "As more social interaction occurs on the Internet, the kind of personal interaction a visitor experiences at a place like Micawber's becomes more valuable, not less. It's difficult to picture the online equivalent of browsing a section of books, reading bits of commentary on specific titles left by employees, and leafing through a few to evaluate whether to make a purchase."

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"'A is for apple,' 'B is for ball'--that's so boring!" said author Bev Bos, owner of
Turn the Page Press, a children's bookstore that opened recently in Roseville, Calif. According to the Press-Tribune, visitors to the bookshop should expect to "find books that encourage interaction, play and are 'simply irresistible' to young minds."

Bos was inspired to open her bookstore "after being asked repeatedly at her lectures what books she recommended parents read to their kids," the Press-Tribune added.

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Literary java gems. In the Guardian, "coffee fanatic" Benjamin Obler, author of the newly released (in the U.K.) novel Javascotia, "presents his notes on his favourite significant appearances of coffee in literature."

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The fifth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, which will feature 160 writers from 40 countries in conversations, panels, readings and performances, takes place April 27 to May 3 in New York City.

The theme this year is Evolution/Revolution, and many events mark significant historical anniversaries, including Galileo's telescope (1609), Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859), the Cuban Revolution (1959), the collapse of Communism across Eastern Europe (1989) and Tiananmen Square (1989).

For a schedule of events and participating authors, click pen.org/worldvoices.

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The most recent Lit Life column in the Seattle Times looked at how the economic downturn has affected Seattle's literary life. Among the findings: author events are drawing large crowds but a used bookstore has closed and the shutdown of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer led to the end of book critic John Marshall's column.

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Another former Collins person finds a new gig: effective May 4, Caroline Sutton, formerly executive editor at Collins, becomes editor-in-chief of Hudson Street Press. Earlier she worked at Random House and Touchstone Fireside.

 


HarperOne: Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World by Craig Foster


Obituary Note: John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin, the historian whose work focused on the African-American experience and the effect of slavery, died yesterday. He was 94.

His classic work, published in 1947 and one of many influential titles he wrote, was From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans. His autobiography was Mirror to America.

In its detailed, appreciative obituary, the New York Times wrote: "During a career of scholarship, teaching and advocacy that spanned more than 70 years, Dr. Franklin was deeply involved in the painful debates that helped reshape America's racial identity, working with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall and other major civil rights figures of the 20th century."

 


Park Street Press: An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey by Peter A Levine


Image of the Day: Eureka!

Three northern California authors, all published by Eureka Books, signed their new books as a fundraiser during Fortuna Library Day on March 14 in Fortuna, Calif. From l. to r., Natasha Wing, whose latest Night Before title is The Night Before St. Patrick's Day; Mary Nethery, author of Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival, written with Kirby Larson, an IRA Teacher's Choice Award; and Barbara Kerley, author of What to do About Alice?, a Sibert Honor Book.

 


G.P. Putnam's Sons: Take Me Home by Melanie Sweeney


Field Notes from the Bologna Book Fair: Glass Half Full

Shelf Awareness is grateful to Emily van Beek, agent and rights director at Pippin Properties who, along with Pippin rights associate and chief translator, Samantha Cosentino, offers those of us Stateside a taste of the doings at the 2009 Bologna Children's Book Fair.

Salve dalla fiera di Bologna! My colleague Sam, who is fluent in Italian, assures me this means "greetings from Bologna!" (All I know how to say is the important stuff like parmigiano, vino, carciofe and tortellini.)

Tuesday evening marks the halfway point in the 2009 Bologna Children's Book Fair. I've been happily perched in the bustling Literary Agents' Center and the view from up here is, for the most part, "glass half full"! The Agents' Center is located in a sunny bridge that straddles halls 25 and 26 (and which is, by the way, vastly improved this year with the addition of three restrooms on our level--molto bene and grazie mille!!).

I'm happy to report that, from here, the international publishing skies look relatively clear (I hope I'm right!). This is my sixth Bologna Book Fair and, despite the world economic crisis and the challenging and painful times we've been through at home, the Agents' Center is abuzz and as busy as usual. While some foreign publishers express a certain degree of caution, by and large spirits are up, enthusiasm for quality titles has not waned, and the international publishing community seems optimistic. At Pippin, we completed several licenses in the days leading up to the fair, closed an auction pre-fair and are in the midst of an auction now; we're entertaining offers at our stand, and we hope to solidify interest in the weeks to come. I believe this level of business is being conducted by my colleagues in the agenting arena overall.

Even before heading to Bologna I'd sadly heard of subagents, licensing agents and publishers who'd had to take rain checks altogether (some at the last minute) because of economic concerns. So I wondered if this year's fair was really going to be perceptibly quieter, but I'm relieved and delighted to say that many in attendance haven't noticed much of a dip in hustle and bustle.

That said, it's safe to say that the American houses, in particular, have been extra mindful of budgets this year. In some cases, booth size is dramatically smaller. In many--maybe most--cases, U.S. publishers have whittled the number of staff (read: editors) in attendance to none. And some publishers seem to have arrived in Bologna a day or two later than in the past so as to save the extra night's hotel. Nevertheless, I hear that the U.S. subsidiary rights teams in attendance are very busy and doing brisk business with foreign publishers.

Every half hour, we meet with a new international publisher, scout or subagent. And so, every half hour, I've had the chance to ask those who've journeyed beyond the agents' center and roamed the halls below what their impressions are of this year's fair. One cannot make generalizations. However, the economic crisis does not yet seem to have impacted international publishers to the same degree. Yes, some worry that the effects of the struggling economy haven't been fully felt yet and they're bracing themselves, but by and large people are still buying books for kids (fantasy, chick lit, vampires and werewolves are still hot); books continue to make wonderful gifts, budgets are being met, foreign publishers are here in full force, and they are on the hunt for Bologna Book Fair treasure as ever before.

Andiamo!--Emily van Beek

 


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Joe Torre in the Late Show's Lineup

Tomorrow morning on the Today Show:

  • Harley Pasternak, author of The 5-Factor Diet (Ballantine, $15, 9780345513496/0345513495)
  • Joshua Cooper Ramo, author of The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It (Little, Brown, $25.99, 9780316118088/0316118087)
  • Susie Orbach, author of Bodies: Big Ideas/Small Books (Picador, $14, 9780312427207/0312427204)

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Tomorrow on NPR's Living on Earth: Gordon Hempton, author of One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World (Free Press, $26, 9781416559085/1416559086).

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Tomorrow on 20/20: Candy Spelling, author of Stories from Candyland (St. Martin's, $25.95, 9780312570705/0312570708).

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Tomorrow night on the Late Show with David Letterman: Joe Torre, author of The Yankee Years (Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385527408/0385527403).

 


Movies: Trailer for Where the Wild Things Are

Check out this trailer for the film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's novel, Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze and starring Mark Ruffalo, Max Records, Catherine Keener and James Gandolfini.

 


This Weekend on Book TV: American Buffalo

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, March 28

8 a.m. For an event hosted by Fact & Fiction bookstore, Missoula, Mont., Steven Rinella, author of American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon (Spiegel & Grau, $24.95, 9780385521680/0385521685), recounts the history of the buffalo and its use as an American symbol. (Re-airs Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 a.m.)     

8:45 a.m. For an event hosted by Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, D.C., Tanya Lee Stone, author of Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream (Candlewick, $17.99, 9780763645021/0763645028), talks about the "Mercury 13," who trained to become astronauts in 1960. (Re-airs Saturday at 9 p.m., Sunday at 4 p.m. and Monday at 4 a.m.)

11:15 a.m. For an event at Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, D.C., Adam Gopnik, author of Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life (Knopf, $24.95, 9780307270788/0307270785), examines the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, who were born on the same date, February 12, 1809. (Re-airs Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2:15 a.m.)

6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment that first aired in 1997, Nat Hentoff, author of Speaking Freely: A Memoir (Penguin, $16, 9780143036753/0143036750), discussed his time in New York as a columnist, activist and music critic.

10 p.m. After Words. The Wall Street Journal's Deborah Solomon interviews William Cohan, author of House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street (Doubleday, $27.95, 9780385528269/0385528264). Cohan details the rise and fall of Bear Stearns and its government-forced merger with J.P. Morgan.(Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m., Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m., and Sunday, April 5, at 11 a.m.)

Sunday, March 29

9:30 a.m. David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (Doubleday, $27.50, 9780385513531/0385513534), recalls the journey of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappeared in the Amazon rainforest in 1925. (Re-airs Sunday 10 p.m. and Monday at 4:45 a.m.)
     

Books & Authors

Awards: Yale Series of Younger Poets Winner

The winner of the 2009 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, sponsored by Yale University Press and judged by former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück, is Juvenilia (a tentative title) by Ken Chen, which the press will publish next April.

Chen is the executive director of the Asian American Writers' Workshop. His work has been published or recognized in Best American Essays 2006, Best American Essays 2007 and the Boston Review of Books.

 


Children's Book Review: Wild Things

Wild Things by Clay Carmichael (Front Street/Boyds Mills, $18.95, 9781590786277/1590786270, 248 pp., ages 9-11, May 2009)

It's hard to resist the voice of 11-year-old narrator Zoë, who stars in Carmichael's (Bear at the Beach) swiftly-paced first novel, alongside a supporting cast of eccentric characters nearly as wild as she. A feral black-and-white cat, for example, whose perspective unfolds through an occasional third-person narrative (and fills in some of the characters' background), suspects human beings just as much as Zoë does. Their reluctance to trust and their gradual softening (the feline for Zoë, and Zoë for her uncle) run in tandem. Despite her age, Zoë's had enough life experiences to fill the memoir she's started writing. Her mentally unstable mother went from man to man before finally taking her own life--which is how Zoë wound up with Uncle Henry Royster, the half-brother of the father she never met who's also deceased. The girl and her uncle's matching gap-toothed smiles and red hair attest to their common DNA; they also share a rather prickly independent-minded personality. But as time goes on, they grow quite fond of each other.  Zoë, who always found refuge in the library, warms to Henry's book collection ("Next to animals, I loved books more than anything"), and she rethinks her initial impression of her fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Avery ("dumb as petunias"), when the woman starts leaving books for Zoë and gives her time and space in the back of the room during the school day. Carmichael portrays a small Southern town with its requisite busybodies and odd personalities as well as a history of social dynamics that stretches back at least a generation. A rundown cabin in the woods and a mysterious white deer with an evasive companion introduce additional intrigue that helps Zoë to discover who she is in the world, both literally and figuratively. At times, the third-person sections focused on the cat (whom Zoë names Mr. C'mere) feel intrusive, but the relationship between the cat and the heroine is so essential to Zoë's development that readers will likely overlook this narrative device. This cluster of quirky, winning characters will feel like a throng of old friends by story's end.--Jennifer M. Brown

 



The Bestsellers

Chicagoland's Top Titles Last Week

The following titles were the bestselling books at Chicago independent bookstores during the week ended Sunday, March 22:

Hardcover Fiction
 
1. Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
2. The Women by T.C. Boyle
3. Sleepwalking in Daylight by Elizabeth Flock
4. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
5. Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy
 
Hardcover Nonfiction
 
1. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
2. House of Cards by William D. Cohan
3. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
4. A Lion Called Christian by John Rendall
5. The Lost City of Z by David Grann
 
Paperback Fiction
 
1. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
2. Watchmen by Alan Moore
3. The Commoner by Jonathan Burnham Schwartz
4. Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley
5. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
 
Paperback Nonfiction
 
1. Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
3. The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
4. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
5. Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup
 
Children's
 
1. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2. The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney
3. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
4. Lincoln and His Boys by Rosemary Wells
5. Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortenson

Reporting stores: Anderson's, Naperville and Downers Grove; Read Between the Lynes, Woodstock; Book Table, Oak Park; the Book Cellar, Lincoln Square; Lake Forest Books, Lake Forest; the Bookstall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka; and 57th St. Books; Seminary Co-op; Women and Children First, Chicago.

[Many thanks to the stores and Carl Lennertz!]

 


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