Visiting relatives in Boulder, Colo., ABA CEO Oren Teicher took time out to have breakfast with Boulder Bookstore booksellers--and a future bookseller. From l. in the back row: Joey Brashers, Scott Foley, Stephanie Schindhelm, Mandy King, Tracy Box. From l. in the front: Teicher, Arsen Kashkashian and Kashkashian's daughter, Martina.

All is, apparently, forgiven. Almost a decade after the legendary Franzen-Winfrey feud, Oprah is expected to announce Jonathan Franzen's Freedom as her latest book club pick on today's show. Dennis Johnson started the speculation earlier this week at MobyLives, then upped the ante Wednesday with a photo of the cover sporting an Oprah stamp.

By Thursday, the guessing game reached genuine media frenzy status, with the Associated Press (via USA Today) reporting that three booksellers who "asked not to be identified" had confirmed the pick.

"I'm not a bit surprised (about Winfrey's choice)," said Lorin Stein, editor of the Paris Review and a former editor at FSG, Franzen's publisher. "Oprah has always shown great faith in the American reader. In that sense, I think she is a model to those of us in the literature business."

"I think anything that gets a wonderful literary book to millions of people would make anyone in my profession happy," said Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of the New Yorker, which serialized early versions of two chapters from the novel.

The Guardian reported that a Chicago bookseller said, "We're just praying now that Farrar, Straus and Giroux has a secret cache of Freedom to disperse... because it's been next to impossible to keep it on our shelves."

The Los Angeles Times Jacket Copy blog was a bit dubious about the prediction, noting that the "casual reader might be forgiven for thinking the choice has been announced. But in fact, no one has been able to get confirmation from either Oprah's team or Franzen's publisher.... So yes, it would be ironic if Oprah's last book club pick favored the very author that made her suspend her book club and ignore contemporary fiction for a time. Franzen? Really? But it might also mark a reconciliation, a kind of bringing together of former literary antagonists in a generous move of closure for people who love books. And that would be so very Oprah."

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In a letter sent to Barnes & Noble shareholders yesterday that has a more reasoned tone than the company's earlier communications on the subject, CEO William J. Lynch, Jr., made the case for the company's long-term strategies and urged shareholders "to support Barnes & Noble and vote the WHITE proxy card FOR your Board's highly qualified nominees and AGAINST the precatory shareholder proposal to amend the Shareholder Rights Plan."

B&N's strategic plan is based on the several objectives, Lynch observed, including projected gains in the company's retail bookstore business based on "fewer bookstore competitors--It's clear there will be fewer bookstores in this country and as we continue to maintain the best real estate portfolio of locations and best run retail bookstore model, our stores will be the beneficiary of this consolidation. We love our bookstores and we intend to make them even better places to shop in the future.... Today, the Company owns approximately 18% of the U.S book market, and we expect that figure to grow to 20-25% over the next three years."

Lynch also wrote that B&N expects "to capture over 25% of the market for eBooks, eTextbooks and Digital Newsstand in total by 2013, projecting to over $1 billion in digital revenue for Barnes & Noble."

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Publisher Keen Communications--whose imprints include Menasha Ridge Press, Wilderness Press and Clerisy Press--plans to open a bricks-and-mortar shop, Roebling Point Bookstore, in Covington, Ky., later this fall. Richard Hunt, co-owner with Bob Sehlinger, told Bookselling This Week that they "want to serve the people that pass by our doors every day. We want to be in the midst of the conversation, to listen to what people say about what they're reading, what they're doing, what they're reading on."

The owners' vision for the bookstore, which will share Keen's headquarters, is to create a community resource. "We can support the other local independent businesses by offering an additional draw to the area," said Hunt, adding, "We don't have beaucoup space or cash to be giving the store that expensive wallpaper, otherwise known as excess inventory. But perhaps the day is coming when the superstore with 150,000 titles on hand isn't imperative. Is it more important to the customer to have a nearby store that caters to what they're looking for and someone welcomes them by name when they come in?"

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Call it an iNdie bookstore. Tomorrow, Loren Qualls and Nick Valdez will open Off the Shelf, an "iPad lounge and bookstore" in Merced, Calif. The Sun-Star reported that "visitors can use one of the lounge's in-house iPads--and those who have their own can plug into Off the Shelf's computer catalogue of books. For those who prefer to read the old-fashioned way, Off the Shelf also has a huge complement of used books and magazines to choose from."

"It has its own personality, which is important. It adds something different that I think Mercedians will enjoy and like," Qualls said. "It's really a place where people can feel creative and express themselves."

The store is located at 315 W. Main Sreet., Merced, Calif. 95340; 209-349-8862.

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Cool idea of the day: Warwick's bookstore, La Jolla, Calif., hosts "Coffee With a Bookseller" on the second Tuesday of each month. Over coffee and scones, Seth Marko "leads customers on a 'casual, informal journey' through new releases and Warwick’s staff picks," Bookselling This Week reported.

"It can be a great way to connect with your reading community," said Marko. "People love that it's informal, and I usually field a barrage of questions on how the book industry works, which is always fun to talk about. I love to point out to people that you don't get 'Coffee With a Bookseller' from Amazon or B&N! It gets people thinking and keeps them shopping local."

The event "gets more and more popular every month as word gets around. People really enjoy the 'insiders' look at what's new, so when they come to one Coffee, they almost always come back the next month," Marko added. Attendees receive 20% discount on any of the six to 12 titles typically discussed.

The bookshop is considering expanding the concept to incude a nonfiction version with bookseller John Hughes and perhaps a gift book/cookbook event for the holidays.

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Obituary note: Pulitzer Prize-winning historian William H. Goetzmann died Tuesday, the New York Times reported. He was 80.

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In the Wall Street Journal, Cynthia Crossen explored the difference between long books and big books--"The uncut version of Stephen King's The Stand is 1,141 pages, and while it's a popular and, some say, mind-bending book, it's no War and Peace. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1,488 pages), on the other hand, is both long and big."

With that theory in mind, Crossen suggested some "big, long books I would put on my reading list, including The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1,312 pages), Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford (864 pages), Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1,472 pages), Bleak House by Charles Dickens (960 pages), as well as "Mark Twain's autobiography, the first volume of which will be published in November."

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In response to the Huffington Post's recent list of 100 Game Changers, which neglected the book trade, Jason Pinter offered his suggestions for 12 Game Changers in Publishing: Andrew Wylie, Dawn Davis, J.A. Konrath/Seth Godin/Pete Hamill, Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Karp, Suzanne Collins, Dorchester Publishing, Jennifer Weiner/Jodi Picoult, Jonathan Franzen, Ben Greenberg, Amy Einhorn and the late David Thompson.

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Mental Floss featured 7 Curious Facts About 7 Dr. Seuss Books.

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Book trailer of the day: Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall (Quirk Books).

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Weekend homework assignment: Mental Floss featured a "Who said it?" quiz challenging your ability to distinguish between the memorable words of novelist Jane Austen and those of professional wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. We don't like to brag--and we're not sure what this says about the relationship between literature and wrestling--but one Shelf Awareness staffer scored a perfect 100 on this test.

 

In connection with National Reading Group Month, which is sponsored by the Women's National Book Association and is designated for October, the National Reading Group Month Selection Committee has chosen a dozen novels and one memoir as this year's Great Group Reads. The titles, recommended for reading groups at bookstores, libraries, online and elsewhere, are:

Blame by Michelle Huneven (Picador)
The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle (Harper Perennial)
Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship by Cathie Beck (Voice)
Eternal on the Water by Joseph Monninger (Gallery)
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow (Algonquin)
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli (St. Martin's)
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden (Picador)
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (Doubleday)
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin (Harper Perennial)
Room by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)
Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye (Unbridled Books)
Up from the Blue by Susan Henderson (Harper)

The committee sought "under-represented gems from small presses and lesser-known mid-list releases from larger houses . . . which perhaps have flown under the radar of reviewers and reading groups."

The organization is providing shelf talkers, table-top posters and other display aides for download. Find the National Reading Group Month Marketing Toolkit at www.nationalreadinggroupmonth.org/involved.html. For more general information, go to NationalReadingGroupMonth.org and wnba-books.org.

 

On CBS Sunday Morning:

Steven Rattner, author of Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27, 9780547443218/0547443218).
Michael Hiltzik, author of Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century (Free Press, $30, 9781416532163/1416532161).

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Sunday night on 60 Minutes: Jimmy Carter, author of White House Diary (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30, 9780374280994/0374280991).

 

 

ABC is developing a series based on Pat Conroy's novel The Prince of Tides. Deadline.com reported that the one-hour drama is expected to be a closer adaptation of the book than the 1991 movie starring Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte. Bob Brush and Mel Harris are writing the script. Conroy will be a non-writing consultant for the project.

 

 

Moviegoiers in 10 cities nationwide will have the opportunity to see an advance screening of Freakonomics on a "pay what you want" basis, Variety reported. The screenings promotion will take place next Wednesday at Landmark Theatres in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Denver and Seattle.

The film, adapted from Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, opens nationwide October 1. Magnolia Pictures and the Green Film Co. are offering tickets for the screenings next week exclusively through MovieTickets.com, where "filmgoers can choose a price between no money at all up to $100 upon completion of a questionnaire."

"The pay-what-you-want screening represents a fun and engaging way to illustrate the underlying premise of Freakonomics--the application of economics and incentives-based thinking to everyday situations to uncover surprising and sometimes controversial conclusions," said producer Chad Troutwine.

 

The shortlist for this year's Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award includes:

The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar (Twelve/Hachette)
The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World by David Kirkpatrick (S&S)
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (Norton)
More Money than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite by Sebastian Mallaby (Penguin)
Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy by Raghuram Rajan (Princeton University Press)
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking/Penguin)

"This year's shortlist combines compelling narrative with trenchant analysis of the big questions facing the business and financial world, two years on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers," said Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times. "The standard of writing is high and the insights into the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis are laid bare."

The overall winner of the £30,000 (US$46,919) prize will be announced October 27 at an awards dinner in New York City. Shortlisted authors will each receive £10,000.

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The Independent Book Publishers Association has opened the 23rd annual Benjamin Franklin Awards for entries. The awards have 56 categories that recognize excellence in editorial and design and are selected by more than 160 judges, including librarians, booksellers, reviewers, publicists and editors. Winners will be announced next May at a gala at the end of IBPA Publishing University, just before BookExpo America begins.

 

Michele Norris, host of NPR's All Things Considered, is co-winner of the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for The York Project: Race and the '08 Vote and was chosen as 2009 Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists. She has written for, among other publications, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. As a correspondent for ABC News from 1993 to 2002, she earned Emmy and Peabody awards for her contribution to the network's 9/11 reporting. She has been a frequent guest commentator on Meet the Press, the Chris Matthews Show and Charlie Rose. Norris lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and children. Her memoir, The Grace of Silence, will be published by Pantheon on September 21, 2010.

 

On my nightstand now:

Vida by Patricia Engel, Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead, Take One Candle Light a Room by Susan Straight, Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, Composed by Rosanne Cash, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and a BIG stack of cookbooks because I am always composing fantasy menus (for my own movable feast).

 

Favorite book when you were a child:

Curious George.

 

Your top five authors:

Toni Morrison, Flannery O'Connor, Langston Hughes, Ayn Rand, Tracy Kidder.

 

Book you've faked reading:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It was a bad choice to pretend I had read the book on a date years ago, because the conversation over dinner revealed that I in fact had read a lot about the book, but had not actually read the book itself. Needless to say, that relationship did not last. My husband, Broderick Johnson, recently received a lovely reprint of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as a gift. Perhaps I will finally read it now.

 

Book you're an evangelist for:

Wonderfully bound empty books with quality lined paper. I always keep a stack, and I frequently gift them to people to capture their thoughts. I know we as a society have moved toward smart phones, computers, PDAs and electronic communication. But there is nothing like the written word. The WRITTEN word.

 

Book you've bought for the cover:

Moses by Carol Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Kadir Nelson. This children's book about Harriet Tubman has the most beautiful cover I have ever seen. Harriet Tubman, who is usually depicted as a fierce warrior, in this amazing illustration looks like a wise woman of peace who has a light that shines through her soul straight in to the eyes of the reader. Magnetic. Magnificent. A book that lives up to the cover.

 

Book that changed your life:

The Bible. At different times for different reasons.

 

Favorite line from a book:

"We will not be forced away from what is ours. Martin King with Coretta at his side, gave the South to black people, and reduced the North to an option. And, though I realize the South belonged to me all the time, it has a newness in my eyes. I gaze down from the plane on the blood-red hills of Georgia and Alabama and finally, home, Mississippi, knowing that when I arrive the very ground may tremble and convulse but I will walk upright, forever."--In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker.

The book was a birthday gift from my now deceased sister, Marguerite, and I have always loved that passage. After this year, after all I have learned about our legacy in the south, it has, as Ms. Walker says, a newness in my eyes.

 

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

 

 

"She is still the most famous of all Frenchwomen after Joan of Arc and the most famous French personality of the nineteenth century after Napoléon," writes Robert Gottlieb in this compact and delicious biography of Sarah Bernhardt, legendary actress, publicity magnet and tireless benefactor to her beloved France. Sarah ascended from inauspicious beginnings: she was illegitimate; and her mother, a popular Jewish courtesan, woefully neglected her. To get young Sarah out from underfoot, her mother shipped her off to first a boarding school and then a convent school, where she converted to Catholicism and even briefly considered becoming a nun.

Sarah, from the start, wanted to be the center of attention and was not above creating spectacular scenes to get it. What could be more logical than going onstage to be paid for her obvious genius? Making a striking physical first impression, she joined the Comédie-Française at a young age. She was small (five feet tall and extraordinarily thin), with wild thick red-gold hair, piercing eyes that changed from gray to green to blue and a voice described as "silvery." Her first stage roles, however, brought critical drubbings, leading her less-than-supportive mother to grouse, "See! The whole world calls you stupid, and the whole world knows that you're my child!"

After her disastrous debut performances led to a parting of the ways with the Comédie-Française, Sarah eventually rose to acclaim and prominence elsewhere. She also began her tradition of sleeping with her leading men, aggressively taking center stage in all productions, travelling with a menagerie (alligators and boa constrictors were welcome) and ultimately returning to the Comédie-Française as its undisputed star. Take that, Maman, you aging courtesan!

Bernhardt had an undeniable way with clothes, and Gottlieb has included a marvelous selection of photographs of that élan, onstage and off. Marlene Dietrich would have killed for the glorious white silk man-drag outfit that Sarah wore while she sculpted during her 1870s fine-artist period. As for her romantic life, Gottlieb obliges with reports that her love affairs were intense and, like her, quite short. To one lover, she wrote, "You must realize that I am not made for happiness. It is not my fault that I am constantly in search of new sensations, new emotions." In addition to recounting delectable anecdotes of Bernhardt's dramatic life, Gottlieb pays tribute to her astonishing 60-year theatrical career: celebrated early in plays by Victor Hugo and Jean Racine, at 75 she played a 30-year-old male drug addict. When friends asked if she could go onstage after having her leg amputated, she blithely proclaimed, "I shall have myself strapped to the scenery!" This was a woman who defined "Legend."--John McFarland

Shelf Talker: A delectable, witty short biography of legendary French actress Sarah Bernhardt, and a decidedly unstuffy debut for Yale's Jewish Lives series.

 

Perhaps there is an alternate universe, imagined in a lost story by Jorge Luis Borges, where author events are never constricted by time--a land where readings stretch to infinity, no books need be sold and no one in the audience ever, ever gets restless or leaves early.

Unfortunately, for booksellers hosting author events, infinity isn't an option. It takes delicate choreography to get people into their seats at a reasonable time (the five-minute rule), introduce the author, listen to the reading while watching the clock, spark a Q&A session if necessary, escort the author to a signing table and, ideally, sell some books.

Last week, Matt Norcross of McLean & Eakin Booksellers, Petoskey, Mich., asked an interesting question: "Do any booksellers have a polite way to wrap up/cut off an author who could go on talking all night? I loathe this (cutting people off) and more often than not let people ramble far to long."

An early warning system helps, suggested Mandy King of Boulder Book Store, Boulder, Colo. "We always tell our publicists and authors in the confirmation e-mail that the event should last no longer than 45 minutes, including Q&A. Then, when the author arrives at our store, our event host gently reminds them of this policy. We tell the author that there is a direct correlation between low book sales and events that last longer than 45 minutes. The nudge about book sales usually is enough to make sure the author keeps their presentation within the time limit. It's not a foolproof method, but it works 99% of the time. The other 1%, we jump in with an extra mic during the Q&A and announce that we only have time for one more question."

Cheryl McKeon, formerly of Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, Wash., agreed: "When I hosted, we tried to outline the format to each author before the event, and I'd explain that events 'usually last about an hour, because if people have to leave we don't want them to go before they get to buy a book.' Then, I'd give the 'one more question' signal where the author and the audience could see me--playing the bad cop. If the author was long-winded, he thought the store needed the space, the audience thought the author had a deadline, and nobody was offended. Probably most hosts have some variation on this plan."
 
Describing himself as "the designated schlepper for off-site events" at the Bookshelf, Cincinnati, Ohio, Charlie Boswell--whose wife, Cary, is one of the bookshop's co-owners--said a "practical suggestion is to remind the authors beforehand that the object is to sell their book, so the Q&A and talk must end at ____, and that you will give them an enormous hint that that time is approaching. If necessary, have a staff person knock over a paperback display to create a noisy diversion, or pinch a baby..."
 
Shortly before the start of events hosted by the Bookworm of Edwards, Edwards, Colo., Besse Lynch explains the 30-15-20 format to authors. This includes "30 minutes for the talk including any reading of short passages, 15 minutes of Q&A and 20 minutes of signing. I always point out the clock on the wall in front of the author so that they can pace themselves.

"Of course it never fails that some authors will take the ratio into their own hands. No matter how hard you try to explain that we set the structure for a reason--to entertain our guests and sell books--the author will ultimately do whatever they want, sometimes reading straight from the book for the entire 30 minutes and other times forgoing any sort of presentation at all and heading straight to Q&A. Sometimes I daydream about setting up an author event training course where the author would have to pass a series of practicums and tests before they are sent out on tour... Though ultimately, we never cut off the author; they are the reason we are here."

Donna Paz Kaufman of Paz and Associates said her overall strategy evolved from her experience as a bookseller: "At Davis-Kidd Booksellers and especially in the training field where I often have a tight schedule of guest speakers, I can't let people go on and on. Here's what I've learned from bookstore events and from training mentors:

1. Tell them in advance how much time they have and let them know you'll give them a five minute warning.
2. Stand up when it's time for them to wrap-up.
3. If necessary, begin walking closer to them if they keep going at an uncomfortable and inappropriate length of time.
4. If they simply don't stop even when they see your cues, keep walking closer and then jump in at the first chance to politely say a kind word about the presentation and say you're sorry you've run out of time. Then you can open things up for questions or invite customers to get their books signed.

"You'll know when to allow an engaging author to go on a little longer," she observed. "You'll also know when customers are getting fidgety. In both cases, you're in charge and others are looking to you to intervene (or not)."

Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, Va., "used to be a booking agent for comedians and the perfect show always leaves the audience a little bit hungry. If an author hits a home run during Q&A, saying something funny, poignant... the perfect ending, whatever, I won't let him ruin it by having the poor schlep answer the same old 'So, what are you reading now?' or 'Are you working on anything new?' or (god help me) 'What is your process?' Bleah!

"I just get up off my stool at the back of the room (or wherever I'm standing) and just walk straight for them clapping and saying 'That was amazing! Thank you so much! If you have any more questions for the author, I'm sure he'd be happy to answer them for you as he signs your book.' That rewards the people who bought a book and shuts down the ones who just came to the event because they love to hear the music of their own voice. You know who I'm talking about. I admit I did actually turn the lights off once.  Sometimes you just have to tell people the old saw: 'You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!' "--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)