Concerning All Things Considered's list of "forgotten" Pulitzer fiction winners in Tuesday's issue, Jean Ross, branch administrator of the Potomac Community Library in Woodbridge, Va., wrote:

I have to put in a plea to everyone not to consign Conrad Richter's books to the dustbin of history. His trilogy, the Awakening Land, which concludes with The Town (the 1951 Pulitzer winner), is a wonderful combination of history and folklore. The books tell the story of the Ohio frontier, a story I rather doubt most high school students now know, given that--to them--"the frontier" is the Wild West of the movies. When you read these dark and atmospheric novels about one woman's family (also the story of one place's history), you absorb the feeling of that early frontier life. I credit these novels with sparking a life-long interest in the Ohio frontier and the early Westward movement. They should live! (Thanks to Ohio University Press for keeping them in print.)

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And considering that today's letter on the subject came from Jean Ross, our mistake in yesterday's letters column is quite striking: yesterday's missive indicating that the 1962 Pulitzer Fiction winner The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor is still available from Loyola Press and doing well came from Sharon Roth at Loyola, not Sharon Ross.

The pitfalls of working at 4 a.m. in London . . .

Because of drops in state funding, the Minnesota Historical Society Press/Borealis Books is cutting four positions and 30% of new titles, or about 9 out of the 30 books it publishes annually.

The press is refocusing its acquisitions program and will now concentrate in five core areas: Native American studies, environment and the land (which includes nature/travel and tourism/food and cookery), the immigration experience, Scandinavian studies and teaching Minnesota history, primarily at the high school, community college and university levels.

In addition, the press is launching an e-book initiative on July 1, offering 100 titles in a variety of digital formats that include the Kindle, the Sony Reader and digital delivery to public and academic libraries.

In a statement, press director Pamela McClanahan said, "Our cuts are in line with what is happening throughout the publishing industry, and we have already been working feverishly to reduce costs and improve margins. The reduction in new print titles, while necessary in this budget trimming, allows us to step back a little and evaluate and change with the new publishing models." She also praised the contributions of the four staff members who have been let go.

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Twilight has turned to retail darkness for Stephenie Meyer's bestselling vampire series at Deseret Book. The Salt Lake Tribune reported the company will no longer stock the books on shelves in its chain stores, though it will special order the titles for store pick-up or mail delivery. Only Meyer's adult novel, The Host, is currently listed on the store's website.

"We're never really given a reason for these things," said Steve Hartvigsen, manager of the Deseret Book store in West Valley City, Utah. "We just get a return sheet and send books back."

The Tribune added that the company is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and "the bulk of Deseret Book's business comes from the sale of religious titles." Meyer is a member of the church.

In an e-mail statement, Leigh Dethman, a Deseret Book spokeswoman, said, "Like any retailer, our purpose is to offer products that are embraced and expected by our customers. When we find products that are met with mixed review, we typically move them to special order status."

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Want to increase your sidelines sales? Win the NCAA basketball championship. The Virginian-Pilot reported that after North Carolina beat Michigan State on April 6, "this charming college town in the heart of the Research Triangle received an economic stimulus package like no other. . . . Within days, conspicuous consumption was alive and well again."

"You wouldn't know it was a recession, based on the response we've had," said Tarheel Book Store manager Christian Campbell. "People want this championship gear."

When North Carolina won the title in 2005, "it established a revenue record for the Collegiate Licensing Company's 160-plus schools, generating $590,000 from NCAA basketball championship licensing alone," according to the Virginian-Pilot.

Campbell said the total could be even higher this time, despite the economy: "We can only compare our numbers to 2005, and in comparison, we are up significantly. That surprises me."

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Today's Wall Street Journal examines the process of renting textbooks and concludes: "Overall, we found students could save money by renting, although if they need the book for longer than our summer rental the savings may start to dissipate. And don't forget to get those books back as soon as the semester ends, because you are on borrowed time."

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Ali Beheshti and Abrar Mirza pleaded guilty this week "to conspiracy to recklessly damage property and endanger life" in a case involving the firebombing of a house belonging to Gibson Square publisher Martin Rynja, according to Reuters. The "attack took place shortly before Gibson Square was due to publish The Jewel of Medina by journalist Sherry Jones, which traces the life of child bride, Aisha, from her engagement at the age of six until the prophet's death."

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Amazon is attempting to block the U.S. trademark application of Amazee, a social collaboration website based in Switzerland, and "is now trying to persuade the young company to change it to something else. This has apparently been going on for a couple of months, but now Amazee is stepping up and throwing some good old fighting words out there, claiming 'peaceful and cooperative efforts to reach an amicable solution' have led to nothing," TechCrunch reported.

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Nigerian author Chinua Achebe will advise Penguin South Africa on a new series that "aims to publish the very best in African writing," the Guardian reported. Achebe's story collection, Girls at War, will be one of six inaugural books in the Penguin African Writers series launching in August.

Also in this initial group are Weep Not, Child by Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Black Sunlight by Zimbabwean Dambudzo Marechera, Guyana-born Karen King-Aribisala's Hangman's Game, Neighbours: The Story of Murder by Mozambican Lilia Momple and Cote d'Ivoirian Veronique Tadjo's As the Crow Flies.

"The last 500 years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and now the time has come for Africans to tell their own stories," said Achebe. "Africa is not simple--often people want to simplify it, generalise it, stereotype its people, but Africa is very complex."

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"When Pixels Find New Life on Real Paper" was the headline for a New York Times piece on Randall Munroe, creator of a popular Internet comic strip xkcd, who "plans to venture forth from his playpen filled with plastic balls to publish an actual book."

In order "to become a truly 21st century publishing company" and introduce "a digital sensibility into our daily and long-range thought processes, and throughout our entire organization," Simon & Schuster president and CEO Carolyn Reidy has charged "each of our publishing units with creating non-traditional projects on a regular basis, and our supply chain team with integrating digital book production into our production and distribution workflow."

At the same time, Mark Gompertz, publisher of Touchstone Fireside since 1993 and publisher of Howard Books since last year, is becoming executive v-p, digital publishing, for the company. He will "lead and facilitate our digital publishing efforts, bringing an editorial perspective to work with our imprints, authors, agents, sales and marketing as we develop new business models and new forms in which our content, both original and previously existing, can be exploited digitally," Reidy said. "As we explore these new digital formats, complications will inevitably ensue, and Mark will help all of us at Simon & Schuster, as well as our authors and our accounts, to find solutions to these complex issues."

Gompertz will work with "Ellie Hirschhorn and the Simon & Schuster Digital staff, whom we rely on for business development; to identify and develop new digital products; to keep us abreast of the latest in cutting-edge technology and online behavior and trends; to build the distribution infrastructure and new SimonandSchuster.com that has made us leaders in the field; to create the overarching digital marketing and syndication programs with external partners that bring our content to the widest possible universe of digital platforms; and to help us to navigate the complex issues raised by new and unfamiliar technologies."

A replacement for Gompertz at Touchstone Fireside will be named soon.

Reidy cited "encouraging growth in our digital business. Not only are annual e-book sales rising faster than anticipated, but we are weekly being presented with new and exciting opportunities for making our content available, be it for transactional or marketing purposes. We have truly arrived at a moment when books can be purchased anytime, anywhere, by a huge percentage of the consumer population, using devices ranging from dedicated e-readers to the latest mobile applications."

Last Saturday at the Parkplace Book Company, Kirkland, Wash., more than 100 people celebrated the launch of The Amazing Adventures of a Working Girl: Real Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use (Running Press), in which Karen Burns chronicles the 59 jobs she's held--and offers advice about the workaday world. From l. to r.: Joanne Shellan, Valynn Leach, Parkplace co-owner Mary Harris, Karen Burns (with boa and pen in hand), Parkplace co-owner Rebecca Willow, Trish Sayler and Elizabeth Kincaid.

This morning on the CBS Early Show: Gail Simmons, author of Food & Wine Quick from Scratch Chicken (Time Inc. Home Entertainment, $17.99, 9781603200561/1603230568).

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This morning on Good Morning America: Scott and Bethany Palmer, authors of First Comes Love, Then Comes Money: A Couple's Guide to Financial Communication (HarperOne, $14.99, 9780061649912/0061649910).

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Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America: Bethenny Frankel, author of Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting (Fireside, $16, 9781416597988/1416597980).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Jodi Lipper, author of How to Love Like a Hot Chick: The Girlfriend to Girlfriend Guide to Getting the Love You Deserve (Collins Living, $14.99, 9780061706448/0061706442).

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Tomorrow morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe: Quinn Bradlee, author of A Different Life: Growing Up Learning Disabled and Other Adventures (PublicAffairs, $24.95, 9781586481896/1586481894)

Angelina Jolie and Patricia Cornwell "are teaming up for a killer deal," according to Variety. Fox 2000 "is acquiring screen rights to Cornwell's bestselling book series on medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, to develop as a vehicle for Jolie. . . a franchise is hoped for, but this film won't be tied to a specific Cornwell mystery title. Much the way that Jason Bourne morphed into an action hero in plots not rigidly locked into the Robert Ludlum book series, the opera-loving coroner Scarpetta will be the lead in a suspense thriller in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs and Seven."

Although Cornwell was "protective of her literary property," Variety noted that the "deal finally came together after Jolie and [producer Geyer] Kosinski met with the author and found common ground on the creative direction of the feature adaptation."

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, April 25

12 p.m. Adrian Wooldridge, author of God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World (Penguin, $27.95, 9781594202131/1594202133), examines how religious fervor and political unrest are reinforcing each other all around the world.

1:30 p.m. Book TV offers live coverage of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, including events, author interviews and viewer call-in segments. For more detailed information about Saturday's programs, click here. (Re-airs Saturday at 11 p.m.)

8 p.m. Jay Mathews, author of Work Hard. Be Nice (Algonquin, $14.95, 9781565125162/1565125169), discusses the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), a nationwide network of public charter schools created to teach low-income, at-risk students. (Re-airs Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and 11 p.m.)

9 p.m. For an event hosted by Labyrinth Books, New Haven, Conn., John Merriman, author of The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siecle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26, 9780618555987/0618555986), recounts the historical implications of a cafe bombing in 1894 by French anarchist Emile Henry. (Re-airs Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and Monday at 5 a.m.)

10 p.m. After Words. Patrice Hill interviews Alan Beattie, author of False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World (Riverhead, $26.95, 9781594488665/1594488665). Beattie considers why certain countries have been more financially prosperous than others. (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m., Monday at 12 a.m. and Sunday, May 3, at 11 a.m.)
     
Sunday, April 26

5:30 a.m. David Kilcullen, author of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (Oxford University Press, $27.95, 9780195368345/0195368347), talks about the relationship between the war on terror and smaller guerrilla wars being fought around the world. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and Monday at 6:45 a.m.)

2 p.m. Book TV continues its live coverage of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. For more detailed information about Sunday's programs, click here. (Re-airs Monday at 1 a.m.)

Linda Gregg won the $50,000 Jackson Poetry Prize, which honors "an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit but has not yet received major national acclaim," according to Poets & Writers magazine, which sponsors the prize. Gregg’s books, including her most recent collection, All of It Singing, are published by Graywolf Press.

The judges for this year's award--Brenda Hillman, Edward Hirsch and Charles Simic--described Gregg's poems as "charting human emotion at its most risky, leading the reader at times into a metaphysical or mystical utterance, and at times into a plain-spoken observation of a human world. Her poems are wise and beautiful."

Button Up!: Wrinkled Rhymes by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Petra Mathers (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16, 9780152050504/0152050507, 40 pp., ages 4-8, April 2009)

Here's a match made in children's-book Heaven: esteemed poet Schertle (All You Need for a Snowman) and Mathers, the artist behind the Lottie's World (the charming chicken) books. These 15 poems immortalize everyday moments. Was it Mathers's idea to portray "good old Bertie" in the inaugural "Bertie's Shoelaces" as a mocha-colored ferret sporting shades and a tufted purple mohawk? Only he could be cool enough to carry off salmon-hued sneakers with red "hang loose laces" ("we don't do bows"). By the time youngsters learn with "Violet's Hiking Hat" ("I'm taking a hike with Violet./ Violet's showing me things./ 'Hat,' says Violet, 'there's a caboose./ These are butterfly wings' "), sing "The Song of Harvey's Galoshes" ("When it's raining Harvey always puts us on,/ puts us on,/ we're together when the sunny weather's gone,/ weather's gone"), and witness "Emily's Undies" ("She doesn't wear diapers,/ not even to bed./ Now she wears undies/ with ruffles instead"), they'll be convinced that their clothes can speak to them. Schertle's rhymes and rhythms vary to suit each mood, and Mathers mixes it up with suspense-building vignettes of "Jack's Soccer Jersey" carrying Jack to a score and the tranquil full-bleed spread of "Joshua's Jammies" as his alligator mother elegantly carts Joshua off to bed. The pacing, too, is divine. Just when parents start to grow nostalgic over a breathtaking ocean backdrop for "Hand-me-down Sweatshirt" ("I started out Wendell's/ was passed down to May,/ she passed me to Karly,/ I'm Andrew's today . . . "), they will be lifted up by "Bill's Blue Jacket," aiding reluctant diminutive coat-wearers everywhere: "Arm in the left sleeve,/ arm in the right./ Button up! Button up! Button up/ TIGHT!" Full of surprises, perhaps a sniffle, and plenty of cheer ("Everybody clap your hands,/ everybody shout,/ Bill's got his jacket on,/ LET'S GO OUT!"), this one will be in constant demand.--Jennifer M. Brown

Last April 16, with a panel at the Museum of the City of New York, writers and language aficionados celebrated the 50th anniversary--to the day--of the publication of The Elements of Style, which has sold 10 million copies. The book began as a "privately published" 43-page volume, referred to as "the little book," for the students of William Strunk Jr., a professor at Cornell University. E.B. White, a student in Strunk's English 8 course in 1919, wrote that "he forgot the book but not the professor" until White "re-examined" the book in 1957 and wrote about it in the New Yorker in July of that year. After Macmillan editor J.G. Case enlisted White to revise and expand the book, Case reprinted White's New Yorker essay as the introduction to The Elements of Style.

Treasures related to the book were on view at the Museum. One was a letter from Case to White with a first printed copy of The Elements of Style: "Dear Mr. White, Here it is--lean and clean and sound as a dollar, which is what it costs." This and other material appear here.

Panelist Roy Blount Jr. claimed the longest relationship with Strunk & White. He received Elements of Style from his high school English teacher upon graduation 50 years ago. Roger Rosenblatt admitted to the briefest acquaintance with Strunk & White: He'd read Elements of Style for the first time that morning. He quickly got into the spirit of the discussion, however, using rule #17, "Omit needless words," to attack the title. "I think we can omit 'The,'" Rosenblatt argued, observing that even by White's own admission in the introduction the book "does not pretend to survey the whole field" and "the" suggests a connotation of definitiveness. After similarly disposing of "Elements" and "Style," he suggested that the book be called "Of."

"I thought this would be a fashion panel," said panelist Lauren Lipton. When she discovered the true thrust of the discussion, fear of "a sudden-death grammar competition" set in. For her, Elements of Style is a "symbol of the end of childhood." She went from English teacher Melody Martin--who told the students to call her Melody, took off her prosthetic arm to pass around and encouraged them to write stream-of-consciousness--to Mr. Meredith's English class when her family moved to Northern California in 1979. He touted sentence diagramming. Lipton chose Eagles lyrics and thus learned (while diagramming "Hotel California") that the Eagles were "the most insipid lyricists." But she also learned that she loved rules: "They give one freedom."

A father in the audience said he "forced" his 14-year-old to write a paragraph a day and wondered what more he could do to encourage her. Blount said, "Writing is not glamorous, but it's like working out: Pretty soon it feels better to work out than not to work out." Rosenblatt added, "Often we only learn what we think when we write." He suggested some exercises that have worked with the students in his writing class, such as playing jazz or giving her a rock to hold and asking her to write what comes to mind. Lipton urged the girl's father to "see if she can write the way she speaks."

The fate of words (are they disappearing?) and how they will be delivered to readers in the future, came up in two related questions about newspapers and advertisements. ("I don't worry about global warming or Al Queda," said one man, "but that the New York Times will predecease me.") Rosenblatt replied, "All things are ruined and solved by people wanting something. If it's not on paper, if it's on a screen, so be it. I believe one should concentrate on the lament, even if it can't be solved." And on the subject of disappearing words, Blount responded, "I believe there's a place where lost words go." He turned to the father of the 14-year-old: "That's something to tell your daughter to write about: The limbo where lost words go."

A parting thought: In his introduction, E.B. White called William Strunk Jr.'s "little book" his professor's parvum opus, "his attempt to cut the vast tangle of English rhetoric down to size and write its rules and principles on the head of a pin." That was in 1957. Five years earlier, White had written a book in which a spider named Charlotte leaves behind a parting gift for a pig named Wilbur: 514 baby spiders inside a giant egg sac. She tells Wilbur that the egg sac is her "magnum opus," her "great work--the finest thing [she has] ever made." If we omit needless words, the remaining words matter more.--Jennifer M. Brown

The following were the bestselling titles at independent bookstores in and near Chicago, Ill., during the week ended Sunday, April 19:

Hardcover Fiction

1. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
3. The World in Half by Cristina Henriquez
4. The Women by T.C. Boyle
5. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin
2. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
3. Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox
4. The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick

Paperback Fiction

1. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
2. Windy City by Scott Simon
3. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
4. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Paperback Nonfiction

1. The Billionaire's Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace
2. Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
3. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
4. Nudge by Richard Thaler

Children's

1. Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior by Chris Bradford
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Last Straw by Jeff Kinney
3. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
4. My Hippo Has the Hiccups by Ken Nesbitt


Reporting bookstores: 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 booksellers and Carl Lennertz!]