Shelf Awareness for Monday, April 26, 2010


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

Styrons' Choice: E-Books to Be Published by Open Road

Random House has apparently softened the hard line it took late last year in claiming e-rights to many books by authors it published before digital editions became an e-reality (Shelf Awareness, December 19, 2009).

The New York Times reported that the publisher is not contesting plans by the estate of William Styron to publish e-book versions of Sophie's Choice, The Confessions of Nat Turner and Darkness Visible, among others, with Open Road Integrated Media, the company founded by former HarperCollins head Jane Friedman and Jeffrey Sharp. (Some of the titles are covered by more recent contracts that include language about e-books.) Open Road promises extensive online marketing efforts that include film clips with members of Styron's family as well as reproduction of material from the author's archives at Duke University. Open Road is also offering the Styron estate a 50/50 profit share on its e-book sales.

Random House spokesperson Stuart Applebaum told the Times that the Styron was "an exception" to discussions Random House is having with other longtime authors or their estates. Still, the move "potentially" opens "the way for other authors to take their e-books away from traditional publishers," the Times said.

Last December Random CEO Markus Dohle wrote an open letter to literary agents saying that the company's older contracts--the kind that referred to "book form" and "any and all editions"--gave Random "the exclusive right to publish in electronic book publishing formats."


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


Notes: New Bookstores; Children's Book Week Idea

On May 5, artists John Brodie and Blair Saxon-Hill are opening Monograph Bookwerks, dedicated to books on modern and contemporary art, design and architecture, in Portland, Ore.

The store's specialty will be artist monographs from 1900 to the present. It will also offer new, used and rare books covering architecture, design, photography, fashion, artist biographies and art criticism. Monograph Bookwerks will also sell studio pottery and mid-century ceramics, fine objects and original artwork.

Besides their careers as artists, Brodie owns Le Happy, a creperie restaurant and bar and Saxon-Hill is an immigration paralegal.

Monograph Bookwerks is located at 5005 NE 27th Avenue, Portland, Ore. 97211; 503-284-5005.

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John Coleman, owner of the Book Eddy, a used bookstore, is opening another store, in the Downtown North part of Knoxville, Tenn., according to Knoxville Metro Pulse.

Coleman wrote: "We will be carrying a small selection of new books (but with a twist to be announced later), vinyl records, and ephemera. (Almost) every trinket, fetish, goo-gah, piece of furniture, and wall hanging will always be for sale. We will sponsor special events in conjunction with Glowing Body [a yoga studio]. We will develop a dynamic web site that will allow customers to peruse new arrivals, place special orders, and make appointments to sell books or to see special selections from inventory."

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Carthage College, Kenosha, Wis., has begun construction on a new student union building that includes a bookstore to be run by Barnes & Noble "with an adjacent convenience store," the Kenosha News reported.

The student union includes a 200-seat theater, an art gallery, a large dining area, the "campus living room" and an interior "Main Street" that features the B&N store and national food vendors.

The building should open in August 2011.

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Cool idea of the day: the Sly Fox bookstore, Virden, Ill., is celebrating Children's Book Week, May 10–16, by donating a portion of the sales price of each book sold that week to the new North Mac Public Schools Foundation for its classroom grants program. The amount donated will range from $1 to $5, depending on the price of the book. Sly Fox owner George Rishel is secretary-treasurer of the Foundation, which he helped form.

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Book trailer of the day: Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown by Daniel H. Wilson (Bloomsbury).

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That word "city" in Powell's City of Books "is not to be taken lightly," the Dallas Morning News wrote in a profile of Portland's "bibliophile paradise."

"When out-of-town visitors want to know what they cannot miss in Portland, the answer is usually Powell's," said Nigel Jaquiss, a reporter for Willamette Week.

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"Parents have too much of a role in deciding which books their child is going to read. It is turning children off. They should let them choose," said Michael Norris of Book Publishing Report, which will release findings next month showing that, "despite the best intentions, it is well-meaning mothers and fathers who often stop their sons and daughters from picking up the reading habit," the Guardian reported.

"Even if a mother or father is just standing with the child when the bookseller asks them what they like to read, we have found that the child will give an answer they think their parent wants to hear. It will not be the same answer they would give alone," Norris observed.

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At the opening of the Beijing Foreign Languages Bookstore in Bejjing last week, "modern war and Mao dominated the reading," according to the Global Times.

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The New York Times explored a guest book in which Mark Twain recorded observations about "major dignitaries and minor deities, old friends and pint-size new ones, people who left too soon and people who showed up unannounced" at Stormfield, an 18-room villa that Samuel the author built in Redding, Conn.



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


Obituary Notes: Alan Sillitoe, Peter Porter

Alan Sillitoe, who "defined the new, anti-authority working class in novels such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," has died, the Guardian reported. He was 82.

The Guardian also reported the death of Peter Porter, winner of the Forward prize, the Whitbread poetry award and the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry. He was 81.



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


Image of the Day: Queen Visits for a Day

Anderson's Bookshop, Naperville, Ill., had a royal treat last Friday. Queen Rania of Jordan came to town and read from her new picture book, The Sandwich Swap (Hyperion), before 350 students at the Highlands Elementary School. The students decorated the gym and sang several songs. After the reading, the Queen accepted questions.

 

 

 


Media and Movies

Media Heat: The Great Reset

This morning on the Today Show: Bethenny Frankel, author of The Skinnygirl Dish: Easy Recipes for Your Naturally Thin Life (Fireside, $16, 9781416597995/1416597999).

Also on Today: Nina Willdorf will discuss The Smart Family's Passport: 350 Money, Time & Sanity Saving Tips (Quirk Books, $14.95, 9781594744488/1594744483).

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This morning on NPR's Morning Edition: Richard Florida, author of The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity (Harper, $26.99, 9780061937194/0061937193).

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This morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe: Anna Quindlen, author of Every Last One (Random House, $26, 9781400065745/1400065747).

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Today on the Rachael Ray Show: Erin Rooney Doland, author of Unclutter Your Life in One Week (Simon Spotlight, $22, 9781439150467/143915046X).

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Today on NPR's Fresh Air: Wilbert Rideau, author of In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance (Knopf, $26.95, 9780307264817/0307264815).

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Today on NPR's Diane Rehm Show: Ceci Connolly, one of the Washington Post staff who wrote Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All (PublicAffairs, $12.95, 9781586489342/1586489348).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Mireille Guiliano, author of The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook (Atria, $24.99, 9781439148969/1439148961).

Also on Today: Molly Ringwald, author of Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick (It Books, $25.99, 9780061809446/0061809446), will also appear.

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Tomorrow morning on the Early Show: Travis Stork, author of The Doctor Is In: A 7-Step Prescription for Optimal Wellness (Gallery, $24.99, 9781439167403/1439167400). He will also appear tomorrow on CBS's the Doctors and the Joy Behar Show.

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Tomorrow morning on Imus in the Morning: S.E. Cupp, author of Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity (Threshold Editions, $24, 9781439173169/1439173168). Cupp will also appear tomorrow on Hannity.

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Tomorrow morning on Morning Edition: Evan Thomas, author of The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 (Little, Brown, $29.99, 9780316004091/031600409X).

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Tomorrow on the View: Candace Bushnell, author of The Carrie Diaries (Balzer & Bray/HarperCollins, $18.99, 9780061728914/0061728918).

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Tomorrow night on the Daily Show: Richard Whittle, author of The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey (Simon & Schuster, $27, 9781416562955/1416562958).

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Tomorrow night on the Colbert Report: Conn Iggulden, author of The Dangerous Book of Heroes (Morrow, $26.99, 9780061928246/0061928240).



Movies: New Eclipse Trailer

Fans waiting breathlessly for Eclipse, the next movie in the Twilight series, were treated to a new trailer. CNN observed that to "accompany the long stares in a flower-filled meadow that we witnessed in an earlier trailer, the latest Eclipse teaser offers more violent sequences depicting that new army of bloodsuckers (the carnivorous kind), wolves going to battle and snippets of Edward's battle with Victoria."

 


Books & Authors

Awards: L.A. Times Book Winners; Carnegie Medal Shortlist

The winners of the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, including the first graphic novel award, are:

Biography: Linda Gordon for Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits (Norton)
Current Interest: Dave Eggers for Zeitoun (McSweeney's)
Fiction: Rafael Yglesias, for A Happy Marriage (Scribner)
Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Philipp Meyer for American Rust (Spiegel & Grau)
Graphic Novel: David Mazzucchelli for Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)
History: Kevin Starr for Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950–1963 (Oxford University Press)
Mystery/Thriller: Stuart Neville for The Ghosts of Belfast (Soho Press)
Poetry: Brenda Hillman for Practical Water (Wesleyan University Press)
Science and Technology: Graham Farmelo for The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom (Basic Books)
Young Adult Literature: Elizabeth Partridge for Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary (Viking Children's Books)

In addition, Evan S. Connell won the Robert Kirsch Award lifetime achievement award, and Dave Eggers won the first Innovator's Award.

The awards were announced during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held this past weekend. For finalists and other information, go to latimesbookprizes.com.

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Eight titles have made the shortlist for Britain's 2010 Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Carnegie Medal for children's writing:
 
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant
Rowan the Strange by Julie Hearn
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick

"It's interesting that the eight titles that really stood out for us buck the current trend for escapism and the paranormal in young adult fiction," said Margaret Pemberton, chair of judges. "Their writers have been brave with their choice of subject matter and have confronted some very real issues, but the quality of the writing carries each and every story."

Finalists were also named for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for children's book illustration and can be found here. Winners in both categories will be announced June 24.


IndieBound: Other Indie Favorites

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:
 
Hardcover
 
The Creation of Eve
by Lynn Cullen (Putnam, $25.95, 9780399156106/0399156100). "The story of Sofonisba Anguissola, the Renaissance painter, has long been forgotten. Michelangelo's tutelage and recommendation send her to Spanish Queen Elisabeth as a lady-in-waiting. While each endures heartbreak from men they love but can never have, Cullen takes us into the world of painting and political stratagems. This masterpiece is beautifully heartbreaking and impossible to put down."--Lauren Denham, the Alabama Booksmith, Birmingham, Ala.
 
Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro (Simon & Schuster, $26, 9781416541622/1416541624). "An excellent scholar and an engaging writer, Shapiro looks at the weird and enduring history of doubting that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare: When did it start? Who perpetuates it? What does it mean? And what can it tell us about the limits and pitfalls of human imagination? This is a study for all interested readers--guaranteed to be the best broad-interest Shakespeare book of the year."--Mark David Bradshaw, Watermark Books, Wichita, Kan.
 
Paperback
 
Chef: A Novel by Jaspreet Singh (Bloomsbury USA, $14, 9781608190850/1608190854). "Set in war-torn Kashmir, a young Sikh's training to become an army chef is the setting of this hauntingly atmospheric novel. Chef weaves together themes of conflict, duty and allegiance to self, friends and country. Throughout runs the current of food: as art, as love, as teacher and even as weapon. A quietly passionate and beautifully crafted book."--Anne Adare, the Toadstool Bookshop, Keene, N.H.
 
For Ages 9 to 12
 
The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Farewells by Debbie Levy (Hyperion Books for Children, $16.99, 9781423129011/1423129016). "Debbie Levy takes full advantage of the power of words, intertwining her lyrical writing style with entries from her mother's journal and autograph album. This book chronicles her mother's last year in 1938 Nazi Germany before departing to the United States. This is a can't-put-down book that will spark discussions among readers both young and old."--Anna Weddington, Pomegranate Books, Wilmington, N.C.
 
[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]
 
 



Mandahla: Mother's Day Possibilities, Part 4

The Informed Gardener Blooms Again by Linda Chalker-Scott (University of Washington Press, $18.95 trade paper, 9780295990019/0295990015, January 2010)

Linda Chalker-Scott's new collection of myth debunking about gardening is a welcome follow-up to her first book, The Informed Gardener, which came out in 2008, just in time to prevent us from piling rocks in the bottoms of pots, thinking it would help drainage (it hinders water movement). She is a landscape-oriented urban horticulturist with a background in plant stress physiology, so she knows what she's talking about, starting with sustainability, a "buzzword that can set your teeth in edge." What she means by sustainability is supporting the natural processes in a garden, choosing plants and products wisely and creating gardens that don't require continual input of packaged fertilizers and pesticides. Accordingly, much of her current book is devoted to soil additives, mulches and understanding how plants work. She offers extensive sidebars about why weeds will always be in our gardens and tips for diagnosing plant problems, and explains why buying ladybugs for pest control is a bad idea. Written in an easy-to-understand manner, with scientific reasoning, both of Chalker-Scott's books are perfect for the novice gardener and the pro.

The English Garden at Night by Linda Rutenberg (Verve/IPS, $40, 9780976912781/0976912783, April 2010)

This stunning book showcases the night photography of Linda Rutenberg, who has captured the mystery and tranquility of 10 remarkable English gardens. The long exposures allow more color saturation, giving the photographs a tonal quality that is difficult or impossible to get any other way. Some photographs use flash, others only moonlight. Some are downright eerie, perfect settings for a vampire or two; others are incredibly romantic, like the roses against a brick wall in the Knot Garden at Hatfield House or the Privy Garden against a peach-colored sky; all are luminous. A "Pink Chiffon" opium poppy glows with an inner fire, a ruined arch evokes centuries of history, willow-weave sculptures seem to be undulating in a field, Silk Road lilies hover like coral lanterns, and a wlldflower meadow shimmers in lavender light. The introduction to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, describes the allure of these secret midnight gardens: "From evening into the deep hours of darkness the landscape seems to breathe a sigh of relief and settle back into itself; it becomes the landscape of royals, plant-hunters, and dreamers again."--Marilyn Dahl



Shelf Starter: Soul of a Citizen

Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times, new and revised by Paul Rogat Loeb (St. Martin's Griffin, $16.99 trade paper, 9780312595371/0312595379, March 30, 2010)

Opening lines of a book we'd like to read:

Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers.--Thomas Merton
 
We're often taught to view our lives as a zero-sum game. With all the pressures we face, we barely have time for family and friends. How could we possibly take on some demanding cause?

Yet for all the frustration we expect, when we do get involved, we get a lot back: new relationships, fresh skills, a sense of empowerment, pride in accomplishment....

Again and again, I've heard active citizens say that what motivates them the most is the desire to respect what they see in the mirror. [It's] about values, about taking stock of ourselves and comparing the convictions we say we hold with the lives we actually lead. It's about seeing ourselves from the viewpoint of our communities, the earth, maybe even God. If eyes are windows to the soul, and faces reflections of character, looking in the mirror lets us step back from the flux of our lives and hold ourselves accountable.

Sound a bit daunting? It can be. As the saying goes, not one among us is without fault. But such self-examination also can be enormously rewarding. For it's equally true that not one among us lacks a heart, which is the wellspring of courage.... At the core of our being lie resources many of us never dream we possess, much less imagine we can draw on.--Selected by Marilyn Dahl




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