"When Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont held its debut Festival of Mystery, there were five writers and 22 fans in attendance," observed the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review of the event that last year attracted 41 writers and more than 350 readers.
"It's like opening up a new bookstore and closing it within 24 hours," said Mary Alice Gorman, owner of the bookstore and host of today's 14th Festival of Mystery.
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Cool Idea of the Day: The Milwaukee Journal reported that "May ushers in ladies' month in literature here," with local appearances by Jane Hamilton, Elinor Lipman, Anita Shreve, Mameve Medwed and Elizabeth Berg.
What moves this fully into the cool category is that when Jane Hamilton reads during grand opening weekend of the Boswell Book Company this week, Pegi Taylor will introduce the author in "the same bookstore she once owned."
"I'm so touched that (bookstore owner) Daniel Goldin asked me to do the introduction," said Taylor, former co-owner of Webster's Books, which occupied the space where Boswell is today from 1979-1990. "I'm committed to independent books-and-mortar stores. And I'll be able to show people exactly where I was sitting when I first received a letter from Jane about the publication of The Book of Ruth."
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Some newspaper and magazine companies are expressing their dissatisfaction with Amazon's Kindle by "forging alliances with consumer-electronics firms to support e-readers that meet their needs," the Wall Street Journal reported. "Chief among their complaints about the Amazon portable reading gadget is the way Amazon acts as a middleman with subscribers and controls pricing. In addition, the layout isn't conducive to advertising."
Among the companies seeking alternatives is the Hearst Corporation. According to Journal, the company "is backing a venture with FirstPaper LLC to create a software platform that will support digital downloads of newspapers and magazines. The startup venture is expected to result in devices that will have a bigger screen and have the ability to show ads."
In addition, Gannett's USA Today and Pearson's Financial Times "have signed up with Plastic Logic Ltd.," and even "News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal, also is exploring a possible investment in a Kindle competitor."
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The PEN World Voices Festival concluded Sunday. You can find great blog coverage of last week's readings and panels at PEN and Words Without Borders.
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Robin Hemley chronicled an Orwellian case of corruption that has seriously affected booksellers in the Philippines. In his McSweeney's essay, "The Great Book Blockade of 2009," Hemley wrote that in recent months "virtually no imported books had entered the country, in part because of the success of one book, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. The book, an international best seller, had apparently attracted the attention of customs officials. When an examiner named Rene Agulan opened a shipment of books, he demanded that duty be paid on it."
Inspired by the lure of easy money after the Twilight importer paid the requested duty, "customs curtailed all air shipments of books entering the country. Weeks went by as booksellers tried to get their books out of storage and started intense negotiations with various government officials. What doubly frustrated booksellers and importers was that the explanations they received from various officials made no sense."
(Thanks to Richard Nash for sharing the tweet and link from Charles Tan in the Philippines, who commented: "I wish this was satire but it's not.")
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Obituary note: Marilyn French, noted feminist and author of The Women's Room, died Saturday. She was 79. In her obituary, the New York Times observed: "With steely views about the treatment of woman and a gift for expressing them on the printed page, Ms. French transformed herself from an academic who quietly bristled at the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era to a leading, if controversial, opinionmaker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. 'My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world,' she once declared."
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Carol Ann Duffy has succeeded Andrew Motion to become Britain's first female poet laureate, breaking four centuries of male domination. The Guardian reported that she "only agreed to accept the post ahead of poets Simon Armitage and Roger McGough because 'they hadn't had a woman.'"
"I look on it as recognition of the great women poets we now have writing," said Duffy, adding that while she was prepared to write the "official verse which the laureateship requires," she would only do so if inspired. "If not, then I'd ignore it." An interview with Duffy is available here.
The Guardian noted that "As one of the bestselling poets in the U.K., Duffy has managed to combine critical acclaim with popularity: a rare feat in the poetry world. . . . As well as her seven collections for adults, marked by their accessibility, lightness of touch and emotional depth, Duffy also writes poetry and picture books for children, edits anthologies, and has written a number of well-received plays."
Another children's book, a fairy tale, is on the way: Templar Books, a Candlewick imprint, is publishing Duffy's The Princess's Blankets, illustrated by Catherine Hyde, in November ($18.99, 9780763645472/0763645478).
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U.A. Fanthorpe, a poet who had a chance to become Britain's first female poet laureate in 1999, died recently. She was 79. In the Guardian, Richard Hendin called Fanthorpe "an extraordinary character. You might find yourself in some provincial English market town, and happen upon a member of the WI with a little stall selling marmalade, and that woman would look precisely like U.A.--but what she was selling was not marmalade. What you got from her was amazing poetry that quietly de-centred you and made you think."
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Glenn Beck, the talk show host and bestselling writer, signed "a wide-ranging contract with CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster publishing arm that gives him profit participation in each new book, a perk the publisher has traditionally reserved solely for its most important writers, such as Stephen King," according to the Wall Street Journal. Beck will receive smaller advances in exchange for a share of the profits.
"The Michener Museum is really special. It's a big part of the history of Doylestown," store owner Pat Gerney said. "Normally I say no to things like this because we can't afford it, but this time I made it happen. It's a fantastic exhibit."