Shelf Awareness for Thursday, June 17, 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

Quotation of the Day

Great Indie Bookstores & the 'Emotional Connection'

"Danny Meyer, who is a restaurateur, once said, 'It's not about service, it's about hospitality. I don't want to be the best restaurant, I want to be the favorite.' My favorite thing about Boswell is the emotional connection that people have with this store. Right before the holidays a pair of regular customers--loyal customers--came up to me and said, 'When you first opened, the place was only so-so. At the time we said it was nice just to be polite, but now it really is great.' [Laughter.] I love that! I love that the place matters as much to them as it does to me. And I love that we’re headed in the right direction."

--Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis.,
in Poets & Writers magazine's Inside Indie Bookstores series. 

 

 


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


News

Notes: Tea Party Changes Name; Scandinavian Author Quest

Tea Party Bookshop, Salem, Ore., which has been struggling with a case of mistaken identity involving a certain national political movement (Shelf Awareness, May 10, 2010), will officially become Tigress Books on July 1. Willamettelive.com reported that owner JoAnne Kohler "has increasingly seen people wander in or call looking for information about the Tea Party, local rallies and events or people involved in the movement. Most leave disappointed without buying anything." To remedy the situation, Kohler chose a name that "stems from a blessing by a Tibetan Buddhist, Lama Karma, in Portland."

"He told me this year... in order to succeed, you need to be a tiger," she said. "I thought he meant in my personal life, which is true." The name change involved filing paperwork but "this wasn’t the most complex issue. Deciding on a name and creating an enticing and memorable logo has proven to be the biggest challenge. Additionally, Kohler said, she has to change advertising, paperwork and a myriad of other business identity requirements," Willamettelive.com wrote.

"I believe in the political process even if I don't agree with the message behind the Tea Party. To be honest, if the name had been adopted by radical eco-terrorists, I would have made the same decision," Kohler said, noting that the name issue has also given her the opportunity to assess and refine her business. "I have a much better feel for what the community wants and what people are looking for. I’m looking at this as an opportunity to make the store better all around and have fun doing it."

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There's publishing gold in those Scandinavian thrillers. Publishers and booksellers are following a trail of bestselling clues in their search for the next Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell. Possibilities include Jo Nesbo, Kjell Eriksson and Yrsa Sigurdardottir, the New York Times wrote.

"The question is, after everybody reads Hornet's Nest, what are they going to do?" said Stan Hynds, a book buyer at Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt. "I've got this funny feeling that every publisher is going to come out with the next Stieg Larsson."

"I think Larsson readers might turn to some of the other ones," observed Sonny Mehta, chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. "People have talked about Henning Mankell and Larsson almost in one breath. And they're talking about Jo Nesbo in that manner, too."

Indie booksellers are "giddy over the bump in sales" for Larsson's novel, the Times reported, adding that "many customers in their stores are just learning about the Millennium series for the first time. At Powell's in Portland, Mr. Larsson's books are selling so quickly--at least 1,500 a week--that the store's grateful employees have given them a nickname."

"We call them 'The Girl Who's Paying Our Salaries for the Next Few Months,' " said Gerry Donaghy, the new-book purchasing supervisor.

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"It's all a game of what can we do--what on earth can we do--to make books more noticed and stand out from the crowd," said M.J. Rose yesterday on NPR's All Things Considered, which profiled the author of The Hypnotist and 10 other novels who "works tirelessly to promote her books."

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Homer, Alaska, residents asked their City Council to keep big-box retailers out of the community. According to Sue Post, owner of Homer Bookstore, "shoppers from Kenai and Soldotna--where big box stores abound in cheap products--travel to Homer, Post said. 'They tell us they come here to buy their special gifts,' " the Tribune reported.

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Think you know your literary bookstores? To celebrate Independent Booksellers Week, the Guardian asked readers "how much do you know about their fictional counterparts? Take our literary bookshop quiz to find out."
        
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Mission Local spotted Scott Harrison, owner of the now-closed Abandoned Planet bookstore "unloading boxes of books this afternoon from his van (license plate: Camus) to give to the Treat Avenue donation center. Harrison said he's selling online at eBay and elsewhere, but the books he was dropping off were not moving. He hopes to open again in the Mission District but has no immediate plans."

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Bookish police blotter.

Raymond Scott, a "flashy British book dealer accused of stealing a rare first edition of Shakespeare's plays appeared for trial Wednesday in a silver limousine, sporting a Panama hat and flashing victory signs at reporters, the Associated Press reported. Scott allegedly stole "a 1623 folio from England's Durham University in 1998. The 53-year-old was arrested after a man took the volume to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, claiming he found it in Cuba and asking for verification that it was genuine."

Book thief William Jacques, who used false name to sign in to the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley library in London, "would leave after stuffing valuable volumes of Nouvelle Iconographies des Camellias by Ambroise Verschaffelt under a tweed jacket he would always wear on such visits," according to the Telegraph, which reported on his trial.

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Bloomsday hangover cure. Despite all the celebrating internationally yesterday, the Irish Times managed to find a few Dubliners whose interest in Joyce was, at best, sobering.

Patty Geraghty, who often walks past number 41 without knowing it was a Joyce house, admitted, "I think Ulysses is something you probably should have read, but I haven't. Is it poetry? Maybe I have read it and I've just forgotten it."

"From the very first day I was delivering post, I knew Joyce was born in this house," said postman Gerry Scanlon, who expressed little interest in the novel. "I know what Ulysses is about though. It's about this guy who went around Dublin on June 16th and ended up somewhere else from where he started out."

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O Magazine featured its summer reading list of "lush historical novels, wise contemporary tales and crowd-pleasing beach reads."

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What would you do to survive a vampire apocalypse? Could you react in the form of a rhyming couplet? Our friends at Unshelved have selected 10 contest winners, who will receive a signed copy of The Passage by Justin Cronin, courtesy of Random House's Library department. Read the winning verses here.

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Responding to--and enhancing--the New Yorker magazine's recent "20 Under 40" fiction issue, the Millions featured its "informal, unscientific, alternate-universe '20 Under 40' list."

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Effective next Monday, June 21, Allison Korleski is joining Interweave as acquisitions editor for the book division, a new position, and will oversee all book acquisitions. She was formerly a trade book buyer at Barnes & Noble, where she worked for 12 years. In the past eight years, she was responsible for categories including art, craft, photography, antiques and collectibles, general reference, gardening, weddings and home reference.

Calling Korleski "an intelligent and engaged business partner" with Interweave, v-p and book publisher Steve Koenig added: "I can think of nobody in the industry better suited for this role and I am thrilled to have her on board. And yes, she is a fantastic knitter and crafter."

Korleski began her book career at Waterstone's Booksellers in Boston, Mass., and later worked at Princeton University Press before joining B&N. She will telecommute from her home in New Jersey.

 


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


AAP: April Sales Increase, Big Gain for Hardcovers

In April, net book sales reported by 86 publishers to the Association of American Publishers rose 24.8%, to $629.8 million, and are up 11.8%, to $2.41 billion, for the year to date. The adult hardcover category showed notable strength, with an increase of nearly 50% for the month and 16.2% for the year.


Category
Sales % Change
E-books
$27.4 million 127.4%
Higher education
$74.5 million 112.8%
Adult hardcover 
$142.9 million
 49.2%
Downloaded audiobooks
$6 million  32.1%
Adult paperback 
$128.2 million  19.6%
Religious books 
$46.6 million  19.3%
Audiobooks 
$11.7 million  18.6%
Univ. press paperback 
$2.3 million  17.9%
Professional/scholarly
$54.4 million  14.6%
     
Children's/YA paperback 
$39.9 million -0.8%
K-12/El-Hi  $164.2 million -1.3%
Univ. press hardcover  $4.5 million -1.5%
Children's/YA hardcover  $40.5 million -11.2%
Adult mass market 
$49.1 million -17.7%


 

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


Bookstore Sales Slip 5.1% in April, Flat for Year

April bookstore sales slipped 5.1%, to $917 million, compared to April 2009, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau. For the year to date, total bookstore sales are flat at $5.237 billion.

Total retail sales in April rose 9.4%, to $366.3 billion, compared to the same period a year ago. For the year, total retail sales were up 7%, to $1,375.2 billion.

Bookstore sales so far this year have lagged behind the more robust sales reported by publishers and general retailers.

Note: under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.

 


Image of the Day: Happy Campers

Last Thursday through Saturday, dozens of six- to 10-year-olds attended Camp Anderson at Anderson's Bookshops in Naperville and Downers Grove, Ill., where they took part in a range of art, science and nature projects and activities, played games and conducted experiments. Camp Anderson was part of the Camp Workman promotion of camp and outdoorsy titles; other participants included Village Books, Bellingham, Wash., Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla., Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex., Lift Bridge Books, Brockport, N.Y., BookPeople, Austin, Tex., and Copperfield's, Santa Rosa, Calif.

 

 


The Coop Tour Part 4: 'Tumbling Underwear'

Michael Perry, author of Coop, reports from his road trip:


As I have been pulling some long hours behind the wheel over the last 48 hours, today's entry will be composed of snippets and catch-up. Story of my life, really, snippets and catch-up.

Archie from Lift Bridge Book Shop e-mailed a gentle correction to one of my previous posts, informing me that the pre-reading bagel-based event in Brockport was held not in the book store basement (as I reported) but rather in the Lower Level. Archie says this is a critical distinction as his office is down there and he could never get any work done in a basement. Not only do I accept the correction, but upon my return home, I shall no longer trudge across the lawn to write in that room above the garage, but will instead ensconce myself in what will henceforth be known as the Sky Parlor.

Remind me never again to buy coconut water. If you like the stuff, carry on, don't send remonstrative e-mails or take it personally. Having gone for a run, I was feeling thirsty but nutritionally virtuous and so rather than the doughnut shop of my dreams, I stopped at an organic health food store. When I saw the lovely pale green bottle (full marks on presentation), I recalled all the wonderful things I had heard about this miraculous nectar, and so I bought it and tipped it to my lips in anticipation of I'm not sure what, but I believe the look that surely overtook my face was similar to that of the kid who discovers that not only is his chocolate Easter bunny hollow, it is made of melted carob chips.

In the preface to Off Main Street I wrote about self-propelled book tours and how in fairly short order laundry becomes a civic obligation. I'm not quite there yet but have begun to hoard quarters for the not-so-far-off day when I will be writing my next blog post within sight of tumbling underwear.

I believe that's the first time I've ever written the words, "tumbling underwear."

Yesterday I had the opportunity to yap about my books before a group of some 25 booksellers at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association's Trunk Show in Syracuse, N.Y. I was there mainly to discuss Coop, but in an attempt to expand the regional relevance of my books, I took the opportunity to point out that:

• On page 50 of my first memoir, Population 485, I trace the name of my hometown--New Auburn, Wis.--back to Cayuga County, N.Y.

• In Truck: A Love Story, I describe a trip to New York City to view Edward Hopper's Seven A.M. in part because the piece reminds me of how I feel when I look at old advertisements for International Harvester pickup trucks. I also describe what happens when an unknown writer gets in a limousine that is longer than he is important. The ride didn't last long.

• Off Main Street may or may not contain any material of East Coast relevance, but it does contain an essay about my first-ever kidney stone. I fought the inclusion of this piece in the collection but my editor prevailed, and it has become one of my most popular "live" pieces, which shows how much I know. The point is (as I told the booksellers), 10% of all Americans have passed a kidney stone and so therefore 10% of all bookstore customers will have an interest in this book. And frankly, 10% is good enough for me.

The evening reading was at Colgate Bookstore in Hamilton, N.Y. Prior to the event, I had a nice 10-minute window of time during which I enjoyed a glass of water and a miniature zucchini pancake (topped with "frazzled" basil) (that's a new favorite culinary term, right up there with chiffonade) (I like to sneak these terms into conversation down at the fire hall) while chatting with Carl Lennertz of HarperCollins (Carl has been providing security for the tour for the past 48 hours) (that thing in his holster looks like a BlackBerry, but it is actually a SlimLine Taser) and overlooking the gorgeous green town square. The reading was held in one of downtown Hamilton's many vintage buildings, and the weather was so lovely we left the windows open. I read a few of my old standards but also diverted to read a section from Coop about my first visit to the midwife who would eventually deliver our baby upstairs in the slantways dead-end farmhouse in which we live. That's her on the cover of Coop, with our chickens. Her, meaning my daughter, not the midwife, although the midwife definitely deserves the cover after dealing with me.

Okey-doke. In 15 minutes I leave the motel room (the carpet here evidently rinsed in Eau-de-Wet-Cigar, but it's cheap and peaceable, with sparrows chip-chipping just outside the screen) (in defense of my publisher, they quite willingly put me up wherever I wish and indeed sometimes I reside in lovely accommodations indeed--last night it was a bed & breakfast owned by a woman who gave me the gift of a horse print for my daughter--but by and large I prefer the hotel money be spent on more miles and more bookstores) and make my way across the Hudson to Rhinebeck and Oblong Books, where I understand last night Judy Collins gave a reading. Perhaps I shall sing a few bars of "Farewell to Tarwathie."



Media and Movies

Media Heat: Bourdain on Tavis Smiley

Today on Fresh Air: Mark Moffett, author of Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions (University of California Press, $29.95, 9780520261990/0520261992).

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Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America: Emeril Lagasse, author of Farm to Fork: Cooking Local, Cooking Fresh (HarperStudio, $24.99, 9780061742958/0061742953).

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Tomorrow morning on the Early Show: Samantha Bee, author of I Know I Am, but What Are You? (Gallery, $25, 9781439142738/1439142734).

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Tomorrow on the Tavis Smiley Show: Anthony Bourdain, author of Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook (Ecco, $26.99, 9780061718946/0061718947).


This Weekend on Book TV: Matterhorn

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this week 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, June 19

10 a.m. Aaron Klein discusses his book The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists (WND Books, $25.95, 9781935071877/1935071874). (Re-airs Sunday at 8 p.m.)

12 p.m. Ian Johnson, author of A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27, 9780151014187/0151014183), talks about his exploration of Cold War spying and the West's disastrous encounter with radical Islam.

2 p.m. Charles Bowden, author of Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields (Nation Books, $27.50, 9781568584492/1568584490), chronicles the murders that have plagued Juarez, Mexico in recent years. (Re-airs Saturday at 8:45 p.m.)

5 p.m. Kai Bird, author of Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 (Scribner, $30, 9781416544401/1416544402), talks about growing up in the Middle East. (Re-airs Saturday at 11 p.m. and Sunday at 11a.m.)

7 p.m. At an event hosted by BookPeople Bookstore, Austin, Tex., Daniel Ruddy, author of Theodore Roosevelt's History of the United States (Smithsonian, $27.99, 9780061834325/0061834327), presents a selection of historical writing by the former president. (Re-airs Sunday at 4:30 a.m.)

10 p.m. After Words. Ralph Peters interviews Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24.95, 9780802119285/080211928X), who talks about the war and the Americans who fought in it. (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

Sunday, June 20

12 a.m. Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (Harper, $26.99, 9780061452055/006145205X), argues that people should be optimistic about the 21st Century. (Re-airs Sunday at 2 p.m.),

8 a.m. Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, contends that drugs do little to balance imbalanced brain chemistry. (Re-airs Sunday at 5 p.m. and Monday at 5 a.m.)

 


Movies: Hemingway & Gellhorn; Killing Rommel Killed

HBO has greenlighted Hemingway & Gellhorn, a project that has taken James Gandolfini six years to get to the screen. The film will star Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway and Nicole Kidman as Martha Gellhorn, whose "tumultuous romance and subsequent 5-year marriage took them to the Spanish Civil War as Gellhorn stood toe-to-toe with the literary master, putting his famous bravado and iconic style to the test. Gellhorn's competitive nature inspired the novelist to pen one of its most famous novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls," Deadline.com commented. Philip Kaufman will direct from a script by Barbara Turner and Jerry Stahl. Filming is scheduled to begin next year in Northern California.

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Disney has "jettisoned an adaptation of the Steven Pressfield historical novel Killing Rommel," according to Deadline.com, which noted that the Jerry Bruckheimer project was canceled "because it didn't fit the studio's family-friendly franchise mandate." 

 



Books & Authors

Awards: Michael Marks Awards

Selima Hill's Advice on Wearing Animal Prints won the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets, which "aims to highlight the importance of the pamphlet form in introducing new poetry to readers and celebrates the continuing vibrancy of the print pamphlet in the Internet age," Book Trade reported, adding that "small press publishers have been at the forefront of developing new audiences for poetry through such attractive and innovative publications."

Ali Smith, chair of judges, called Hill's collection "a courageous work; startling, strange and unforgettable, it's a piece of disciplined wildness which grows in power with each re-read."

 


Book Review

Book Review: Kraken

Kraken: An Anatomy by China Mieville (Del Rey Books, $26.00 Hardcover, 9780345497499, June 2010)



Fans of Michael Moorcock and Neil Gaiman should feel right at home in the London of China Miéville's Kraken--a city that closely resembles the one in this world, but one that's "full of dissident gods" and multiple entry points to other layers of reality (such as "trap streets," physical manifestations of imaginary thoroughfares which exist on maps only to create slight differentiations publishers can use to identify pirated copies). The slide into surrealism begins during a tour of the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, where a glass tank containing a 28-ft. squid has completely vanished from its specimen room. After disobeying a request not to discuss the disappearance with any outsiders, curator Billy Harrow is called in to the headquarters of the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit, a semi-secret branch of the Metropolitan Police. They believe the squid has been stolen in an effort to set off the end of the world; the question is: whose end? It turns out there are a lot of groups ready for the final days, and they've all got their own vision: "Ragnarok versus Ghost Dance versus Kali Yuga versus Qiaymah yadda yadda," one investigator observes flippantly.

Sure, as Billy plunges deeper into London's apocalyptic underground, accompanied by an apostate member of the grimly existentialist Church of God Kraken, the mystery of the missing squid is gradually made clear (after a few misdirects). But the most dazzling moments in Kraken are found in the smaller details, like a religious street brawl between Jesus Buddhists and a cult that worships a war god polecat ferret or the police-function "ghosts" the FSRC conjures up to bring in a spirit being who's organized a strike among the city's magical familiars. And then there's Goss and Subby, a genuinely squirm-inducing pair of supernatural killers stalking the story's edges.

Miéville's magical universe has an improvisational core, following a delirious assortment of metaphors through to their conclusions. (He sketches an entire religion from the question of why Noah's Ark is referred to in the Torah with the Hebrew word for "box" rather than "ship.") Ultimately it's a crisis of faith: can we believe so strongly in something, he asks, that the universe will bend itself to accommodate that vision? The answer isn't so simple; in some of the novel's most touching passages, Miéville breaks away from the increasingly grandiose adventure and touches base with Marge, whose forays in the other London in an effort to find her missing boyfriend (Billy's best friend) prove consistently more frustrating.

There is room for a sequel--the final scene is, in essence, an affectionate parody of a sequel setup--but Billy Harrow's mythic journey here is so complete unto itself it may be difficult to create another, equally compelling narrative on which to hang all the marvelous details no doubt waiting just off the edges of these pages.--Ron Hogan

Shelf Talker: Beyond Miéville's fanbase, the urban fantasy audience will eagerly plunge into this funny, vibrantly detailed magic-thriller epic; readers with mainstream tastes skirting the fantastic (think Lethem, Mitchell, Link) may be pleasantly surprised.

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Shelf Awareness welcomes new science fiction and fantasy reviewer Ron Hogan. Hogan says, "I started Beatrice.com, one of the first literary websites, when I was working at Dutton's Brentwood Books in the mid-1990s. I've kept it up all this time, with stints at Amazon, Mediabistro.com, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt along the way. I'm a lifelong science fiction and fantasy fan, and delighted to finally be writing about the genre professionally!"



Ooops

Red-Faced About Brown

Our story about the Brown Bookstore, Providence, R.I., yesterday erroneously stated that Event Network, which manages gift shops and does licensing for museums, zoos, science centers, etc., is managing the store. Event Network does not have any connection with the store. Instead, Brown Bookstore remains "an independent bookstore, and we're proud of it and doing very well," director Steve Souza said. We apologize for the mistake.

Souza noted that the bookstore had participated in a year-long university-wide review because of budget deficits. As part of that review, Brown decided to eliminate 60 positions, several of which were at the store, including one of the two fulltime buyers, but overall this was "a small percentage" of store staff.

The university has stated again that it has no intention of leasing or outsourcing the bookstore.

 


Deeper Understanding

In My Book Turns 10

"In my book, you're quite a character." The literary-themed phrase is one sentiment adorning In My Book cards, a greeting card and bookmark in one, introduced by Robin K. Blum 10 years ago last month.

A bookmark Blum handmade for her great-aunt's 70th birthday--given with a page-turner--was early inspiration for In My Book. "The length of the bookmark made me think about what they used to call 'long-line' greeting cards," Blum explained. From there she came up with the idea to combine a bookmark (the front portion of the card) with a removable, perforated section that can be used to write a personal note or greeting.

Each card begins with "In my book..." and concludes with one of 15 sayings, such as "you're an adventure" or "you're a mystery." An Illinois bookseller paired cards bearing the phrase "In my book, you're pure poetry" with a selection of Christmas poetry titles for holiday gift-giving. The cards are decorated with whimsical drawings by illustrator Meredith Hamilton and printed on textured watercolor paper. They come with a red envelope and retail for $3.95, a price that has held steady since Blum launched the company.

In February, Blum was a vendor at the inaugural Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention, organized by Lauren Roberts, a bookmark collector and founder of the online literary salon BiblioBuffet, and Alan Irwin of the Bookmark Collector blog. Blum later met one of the convention participants, librarian Hope Crandall, at the Public Library Association conference in Portland, Ore., where she exhibited In My Book cards. (Book Lust author and In My Book fan Nancy Pearl was a guest at Blum's booth.) Blum blogs under the moniker "birdie" for LISNews.org, a resource for library-oriented news, and tweets as @inmybook.

Blum, who previously worked in technical theater and for a children's book publisher, sold the first In My Book card at BookExpo America in Chicago a decade ago. They're now available at hundreds of outlets across the country, primarily independent bookstores and library shops. One purveyor is the shop at the Library of Congress, which began stocking them after Blum taped a business card to the buyer's desk while in the building to attend a congressional soirée. The greeting cards are also sold at museum stores, stationers, galleries and gift boutiques, as well as at www.inmybook.com.

Selling her product to small and independent businesses is an important principle for Blum, who runs In My Book from her home office in Brooklyn, N.Y. "I'm a supporter of independent businesses by inclination," she said. "When I started my business, I was approached by Amazon and other big-box stores, but I made the decision to support community bookstores by not offering it to the chains."

So what's the top-selling In My Book greeting? "You're a classic."--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

 


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