"About 20 years ago, I had an old guy come in here. He'd been living out here for many years and said he was looking for a book he'd had when he was a kid, so I sent him back to where the boys' books are. Anyhow, about 15 minutes later, he's holding a book in his hand, and he's shaking. He not only found the book, he found his name in it, when he was 9 years old. Can you believe that? He found his own copy, right on the shelf. The guy was actually crying. He was 80 years old or something, and tears were rolling down his cheeks."--Bob Weinstein, owner of the Book Baron, Anaheim, Calif., in a wistful Los Angeles Times piece about his bookshop's imminent closing.

 

Canadian booksellers who met with the finance minister yesterday have suggested removing GST from books in Canada as a way of dealing with customer dissatisfaction about book pricing, the Victoria Times Colonist reported.

As noted here recently, a few stores have tried to appease customers wanting prices that reflect the current par exchange rate by selling at U.S. prices, even if at a loss. Some publishers are already discounting prices to retailers, and more will adjust prices on future new titles.

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A trailer for the Out of the Book/Powell's Books film about The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam, the second such production following On Chesil Beach, is available now on outofthebookfilms.com as well as on YouTube. The film will be shown at events hosted by more than 60 bookstores across the country November 11-December 15.

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Among highlights of a recent meeting of the board of the New England Independent Booksellers Association:

• The NEIBA newsletter will be delivered electronically beginning with the March 2008 issue.
• NEIBA is planning on Spring 2008 educational seminars and forums likely May 1-2 in the Portsmouth, N.H., and Portland, Me., area.
• NEIBA is working with NPR affiliates in New England to add "discover your local bookstore" links on their websites.

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The 2007 edition of BISAC's Subject Headings, which includes revisions to the comics and graphic novels section and the addition of a Bibles section separate from the religion section, has been released. The code lists are available online in Excel and Word formats and are available under license to BISG members; non-members can purchase a license. For more information, go to BISG's website.

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Borders has published another exclusive book, And the Grammy Goes to . . . The Official Story of Music's Most Coveted Award by David Wild, a Rolling Stone contributing editor, Emmy-nominated TV writer and lead writer for the Grammy Awards, with a foreword by Quincy Jones. The book includes a Grammy trivia game on DVD.

In addition, Borders is selling an exclusive two-disk compilation CD, the Ultimate Grammy Collection: Classical Pop and Classical R&B, as well as the official 50th Grammy Awards art poster.

George Jones, Borders Group CEO and a newly elected director of the Grammy Foundation, said that the Grammys' "history is a fascinating walk through the history of modern music in America. We expect this book to be in high demand as a holiday gift, and are pleased to team exclusively with the Recording Academy to bring it to life, especially for Borders customers. It is just a part of our ongoing efforts to provide our customers with compelling titles they cannot find anywhere else."

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Boris Wertz, COO of AbeBooks.com, has left the company but will continue as a member of the board and an advisor on key projects. He is creating a venture capital business with Burda Digital Ventures, the German media company that is the majority shareholder in AbeBooks.com, that will be located in Vancouver, B.C. Wertz joined AbeBooks.com in 2002, when the company bought JustBooks, an online marketplace he had co-founded in Germany.

In related changes at AbeBooks.com:

• Laura-Lea Berna, most recently director of customer support and operations, has been promoted to v-p of operations.
• Shaun Jamieson has been promoted to director of sales and account management and president of Fillz.com, one of AbeBooks.com's subsidiaries. He joined the company in 2004 and was manager of sales and account management and director of business development for Fillz.
• Thomas Nicol, director of marketing since April, takes on additional responsibilities, including a spot on the board of BookFinder.com, another subsidiary company.

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Do you hear the books crying? In the Huffington Post, Brenda Scott Royce chronicles her lifelong affection for libraries and recalls her first visit to one, where the librarian told her "while some books were always in demand, others had never been checked out at all. She said that if you listened closely, you could actually hear these overlooked books crying."

The memory returned recently with news that her current local library is in danger of closing because of city budget cuts. "Do you know the fiscal health of your public library?" she asks. "The next time you visit, listen closely. You may hear the books crying."

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Never underestimate the power of a book. Last week, New York state legislative leaders announced the creation of the Saratoga-Washington on the Hudson Partnership, a commission that will work to protect the integrity of the Saratoga battlefield federal park--the historic ground where the Battles of Saratoga were fought, campaigns that dramatically altered the course of the American Revolution.

The Albany Times-Union reported on the passionate and unlikely collaborative effort by Roy McDonald, a "very conservative" assemblyman from Saratoga County; and Steve Englebright, a liberal Democrat from Suffolk County, that led to the establishment of the commission.

McDonald had given a copy of Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War by Richard Ketchum to Englebright, who was inspired to begin "making trips up to the Saratoga battlefield historic site to orient himself. That's when he saw how development was getting close. That's also when Steve found out that a small private farm where the British general John Burgoyne actually surrendered to our Horatio Gates was up for sale. Asking price was $290,000."

Motivation enough to compel McDonald and Englebright to join forces and try to prevent the farm from falling into developers' hands. "All this," as the Times Union put it, "from the gift of one book--to the right reader."

 

We're deeply saddened to report that Fup, Powell's Books's store cat, died on October 25 at age 19. She was a longtime resident of Powell's Technical Books and her adventures were chronicled regularly on Powells.com.

View a touching tribute from Ron Silberstein, assistant manager of Powell's Technical Books, and many heartfelt comments from Fup fans everywhere on Powells.com.

The store asks that in lieu of cards or flowers, donations be made to the Oregon Humane Society in Fup's name.

This morning the Today Show focuses on The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz (Collins, $24.95, 9780061472572/0061472573).

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This morning's Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., features two interviews:

• Peter Charles Melman, author of Landsman: A Novel (Counterpoint, $24.95, 9781582433677/1582433674)
• Ken Wells, author of Crawfish Mountain: A Novel (Random House, $25.95, 9780375508769/0375508767)

The show airs at 8 a.m. Central Time and can be heard live at thebookreport.net; the archived edition will be posted this afternoon.

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Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Eric Nuzum, author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula (Thomas Dunne Books, $23.95, 9780312371111/031237111X).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Ed Sikov, author of Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis (Holt, $30, 9780805075489/0805075488).

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Today on NPR's Here & Now: Eve LaPlante, author of Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall (HarperOne, $25.95, 9780060786618/0060786612).

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WETA's Author Author! features Susan Tyler Hitchcock, author of Frankenstein: A Cultural History (Norton, $25.95, 9780393061444/ 0393061442).

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Tonight on Nightline: Don Lattin, author of Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge (HarperOne, $24.95, 9780061118043/0061118944).

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Tonight on the Daily Show: William F. Buckley, Jr., author of The Rake: A Novel (HarperCollins, $24.95, 9780061238550/0061238554).

 

On Monday evening bibliophiles turned out at the New York Center for Independent Publishing to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Women's National Book Association and toast the launch of National Reading Group Month, an endeavor started by the organization this year.

The soirée's master of ceremonies was Carol Fitzgerald, co-founder and president of the Book Report Network (far right). Authors (from left) Adriana Trigiani, Wally Lamb, Beverly Swerling, Laura Dave and Matthew Sharpe (not pictured) entertained the crowd with readings from their works and participated in a lively Q&A session.--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead/Penguin) has won the 2007 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, given by the Mercantile Library Center. The judges wrote:

"Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ--the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.

"Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss."

The finalists for the award were:

• Bearing the Body by Ehud Havazelet (FSG)
• Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski (FSG)
• Finn by Jon Clinch (Random House)
• Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon (HarperCollins)
• The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander (Knopf)
• Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman (Pantheon) 

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Among recipients of the 2007 Presidential Medal of Honor, announced yesterday by the White House, are:

• Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird
• Brian Lamb, co-founder and CEO of C-Span and host of Booknotes on Book TV from 1989-2004
• Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God (Free Press)
• University of Chicago economist and Nobel laureate Gary Becker, author of The Economics of Discrimination, A Treatise on the Family and The Economics of Life.

 

The author of dozens of books, hundreds of short stories, many screenplays, teleplays, stage scripts, poems and essays, Ray Bradbury is one of the most celebrated writers of our time. Among his best known works are Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury's most recent book, Now and Forever, was published weeks after his 87th birthday. He has been honored with a National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a National Medal of the Arts and a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. He lives in Los Angeles.

On your nightstand now:

See next answer.
 
Favorite book when you were a child:

Actually, there were two: Tarzan of the Apes and Thuvia, Maid of Mars. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote both and they influenced me tremendously between the ages of nine and twelve. They both sit on my nightstand now.

Your top five authors:

Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.

Book you've faked reading:

Why would I ever fake reading a book? Books are meant to be read.
 
Book you are an evangelist for:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I've read it many times and seen many film adaptations of it. This book helped me as a writer, and I wrote The Halloween Tree, in a way, as my own Christmas Carol.
 
Book you've bought for the cover:

I don't buy books for their covers. A nice cover is fine, but it's what inside that counts.
 
Books that changed your life:

All the books of H. G. Wells, which helped me care about the future. Also because books like The Invisible Man are paranoid, and all 15-year-old boys are paranoid. That's when they discover what death means; they take a stand against death and Mr. Wells helped a 15-year-old boy do that.
 
Favorite line from a book:

"He was born with a gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad." This is the opening line of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini.
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I consider it to be the greatest American novel of the last 75 years. My fun comes from buying a new copy of the book and walking across Paris, starting in the morning at the Eiffel Tower, reading and walking all day, stopping for a coffee or an aperitif, and finishing the book out in front of Notre Dame at sunset.

 

Unnatural History explores the change over the last 200 years in our experience of breast cancer--the occurrence, the medical response and the public and personal attitudes about the disease. Dr. Aronowitz's position is that "we have oversold both the fear of breast cancer and the effectiveness of screening and treatment, leading to miscalculation at the individual and societal levels." We seem to be surrounded by breast cancer: friends, relatives, ourselves diagnosed; pink everywhere, from a cat-shaped wine bottle with a remembrance ribbon to thousands of T-shirted women Walking for the Cure; constant public-service messages; and the omnipresent dread where all women seem to be waiting for the inevitable diagnosis, even though if 1 in 8 women get breast cancer, 7 in 8 won't. Women fear it more than any other disease, and Aronowitz explores the reasons why in this academic, yet highly accessible, work, analyzing "the historical change over the last two centuries from isolated, private fears of breast cancer to immense individual and collective concern over the risk of breast cancer."

He structures his book around the experiences of women, starting in 1813 with Susan Dillwyn Emlen, a Quaker from a tightly-knit family; he discusses the experience of Rachel Carson in the 1960s, who was publicly silent about her breast cancer but whose relationship with her doctor expressed the continuity with earlier women "in the efforts of patients, physicians, and others to find some balance among sustaining hope, retaining trust, and honesty"; he excerpts letters and diaries of these and other women, their families and doctors, whose stories add an intense personal dimension to his study. During Emlen's life, cancer was not seen as a great danger, since widespread infectious and epidemic diseases were more deadly. Surgery was not a preferred option--it was a horrific procedure, done without anesthesia, and not very effective; however, some women chose it because surgery was the antithesis of resignation. The introduction of ether in the 1840s meant that more surgery was performed, and along with a heightened sense of surgical responsibility, by the early 20th century the central element in cancer campaigns was "do not delay" if any symptoms are noticed, and individual responsibility was stressed. The increased visits to doctors concerning cancer signs, and the resulting improved survival statistics, created a cascade effect of even more check-ups; at the same time, increasing women's fear about cancer was considered quite effective, and was presented in a highly moralistic manner ("If she does not watch for those signs . . . she has no one to blame for the consequences but herself."). The delay message also "allowed physicians to blame time or the patient rather than their surgery or disease concepts if a bad outcome ensued."

By the 1960s, it was clear that little progress had been made against breast cancer, in spite of the awareness campaigns and medical research. The response was to create a mass surveillance of symptom-less women, and cancer activists wanted a means of prevention that was more technological, that "paid back" the public in the present for their investment in research for future gains, and that fit the needs of the cancer establishment and the realities of American private medical practice. As mammography became the standard screening procedure, individual responsibility shifted to all adult women, resulting in more diagnoses, especially of minimal and non-invasive disease.

Current challenges include stubborn mortality rates for breast cancer: they had remained virtually level from the 1930s to the 1990s, falling only slightly in the past few years. At the same time, the odds of getting breast cancer have increased, while the fear of getting it has increased dramatically. Breast cancer risk is not merely a set of numbers, it is a set of practices and beliefs that seem so necessary and logical that they are not subject to critical inquiry. Aronowitz's book is a lead-in to this inquiry, as he considers risk statistics, the way efforts to control the increase in risk have perpetuated fear, the blurring of risk and disease, the marketing of risk-reducing medications and doctor-patient relations. "Fear of cancer has reached so intensely and intimately into our lives and the allure of control has been so incessantly promoted that the experience of cancer risk in American society has a unique, self-sustaining existence."

Dr. Aronwitz has written a compelling and rich history, so much so that a review can barely skim the highlights. In addition, he wants us to think critically about risk evaluation. Aronowitz hopes that knowledge of this history will help clinicians and patients respond more thoughtfully to the challenges presented by the many options we have for confronting breast cancer.--Marilyn Dahl