Shelf Awareness for Friday, April 14, 2006


Yen Press: Mono Vol. 1 by Afro, translated by Amber Tamosaitis

St. Martin's Press: Sucker Punch: Essays by Scaachi Koul

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: To Steal from Thieves by M.K. Lobb

Berkley Books: Get swept away by these new romantasy reads!

HarperOne: Open When: A Companion for Life's Twists & Turns by Dr. Julie Smith

News

Notes: Wal-Mart Blocked; B&N on the 'Boulevard'

Wednesday night nearly 1,400 people attended a county commissioners' hearing in Ravalli County, Montana, to discuss an interim zoning measure that would put a size cap on new retail developments and keep a Wal-Mart from opening (Shelf Awareness, April 10). Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Mont., wrote that mail and e-mail that the commissioners had received ran about 10-1 in favor of the measure and speakers ran 82-28 in favor. When the commissioners asked for a show of hands, which was 4-1 in favor, "the overwhelming nature of the majority sank in," Lawrence continued. "A murmur, then laughter, shouts, cheers, and applause broke out spontaneously."

After several hours of public testimony, the commissioners discussed the measure, then voted 3-0 to implement the interim regulations. "I can't tell you how beautiful it was!" Lawrence added.

Incidentally Bookselling This Week has a profile of Lawrence, who has been nominated to become the next president of the ABA. Lawrence is a multitalented man: a trained forester, a licensed pilot, an author, a musician and already a president--of the Hamilton Players Community Theater.

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Barnes & Noble has signed a lease agreement to open a store in Pearland, Texas, near Houston. Scheduled to open in 2008, the store will be located in the Pearland Town Center at Highway 288 and Broadway and will stock the usual close to 200,000 book, music, movie and magazine titles and include a cafe.

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In other B&N news, the Walden Galleria in Cheektowaga, the largest shopping mall in the Buffalo, N.Y., area, is undergoing a $50-$60 million renovation that will give the mall what the Buffalo News calls a "boulevard" feel and includes a new Barnes & Noble.

According to mall executives, the Galleria will have "a series of quaint but upscale store fronts with a 'Main Street' atmosphere. On-street parking will be allowed to further the ambience of Main Street."

The new B&N is being built in a gutted former movie theater. The movie theater is moving elsewhere in the mall.

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Mineralogist Frederick H. Pough, who in 1953 published the basic guide for amateur rock collectors and beginning geologists, A Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals (Houghton Mifflin, $20, 039591096X) while a curator at the American Museum of Natural History, died last Friday at the age of 99.

Talk about a backlist gem. Part of the Peterson Field Guide Series, Pough's book is in its fifth edition and, according to the New York Times, has sold more than a million copies.

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Despite the James Frey debacle--or perhaps in part because of the continuing sales of A Million Easy Pieces--memoirs remain a hot commodity, according to a long nonfiction story on the subject in today's Wall Street Journal.

This year, publishers "plan to put out twice as many [memoirs] as last year," and agents and editors are receiving more memoir submissions than ever. Lee Gutkind, founder of Creative Nonfiction, told the Journal that while in the past writers would begin with autobiographical fiction and then branch out into other fiction, now "the novel's not hot anymore, and the autobiographical novel has been replaced by the memoir."

Among the reasons for memoir's increased popularity, according to the paper: reality TV's focus on ordinary people; "the ascent of narrative nonfiction with such books as The Perfect Storm and Shadow Divers"; and the category's strength in backlist.


Oni Press: Mr. Muffins by Ben Kahn and The Littlest Fighter by Joey Weiser: REQUEST AN E-GALLEY!


Book and Bookstore Sales: Two Gauges

Bookstore sales in February were $1.052 billion, down 1.7% from $1.07 billion in February 2005, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. By contrast, total retail sales in February were $286.4 billion, up 7.4% from $266.7 billion in February 2005.

For the year to date, bookstore sales have risen $3.2 billion, up 2.3% from $3.1 billion in the same period a year ago.

The Census Bureau revised January bookstore sales upwards to $2.143 billion from its original estimate of $1.964 billion. As a result, instead of showing a drop, January sales rose 4.4% over the same period in 2005.

Similarly the Bureau revised upwards bookstore sales for all of 2005 to $16.224 billion. As a result, instead of falling 1.85%, 2005 bookstores sales were down 1%.

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.

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The Association of American Publishers's monthly sales report, based on statistics supplied by publishers, pegged net sales in February at $358.4 million, up 12.3% over February 2005. For the year to date, net sales rose 6.6% to $945.9 million. Categories with the biggest gains were higher education, up 155.7% to $10.4 million, and adult mass market, up 103.1% to $54.3 million. Other strong categories were all soft format: children's/YA paperback, up 23.6%; university press paperback, up 56.7%; and adult paperback, up 18.1%.

Categories with the biggest drops were children's/YA hardcover, down 42.1%; religious books, down 33.7%; and university press hardcover, off 20.5%.

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In related news, general retail sales in March rose 0.6%, an improvement over February's 0.8% drop, according to figures issued by the Commerce Department yesterday. Bookstores were among the categories of retailers with gains.

Economists agreed that the year was off to a good start, although many predict a slowdown later in the year. In March, a gain in jobs apparently lifted consumer confidence and helped blunt the effect of rising interest rates, higher gasoline prices and a cooling housing market.


GLOW: Holiday House: Rabbit Rabbit by Dori Hillestad Butler and Sunshine Bacon


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Retracing Manhunt

This morning the Today Show tracks down James L. Swanson, author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer (Morrow, $26.95, 0060518499).

And in what could be a fascinating piece, on Sunday, CBS Sunday Morning will retrace the manhunt in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. Swanson will accompany correspondent Bob Orr on the trek.

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Tonight ABC's 20/20 devotes a full hour to Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $25.95, 006073132X).

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Scheduled for tonight on the Charlie Rose Show, guest host Jon Meacham, managing editor of Newsweek and author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (Random House, $22.95, 1400065550), hears the word of Garry Wills, author of What Jesus Meant (Viking, $24.95, 0670034967), and Kevin Phillips, author of American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (Viking, $26.95, 067003486X).

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Tomorrow NPR Weekend Edition interviews David Edmonds and John Eidinow, authors of Rousseau's Dog: Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment (Ecco, $25.95, 0060744901).

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On Sunday ABC This Week tries to get reoriented with Joe Klein, the author of Primary Colors whose new book is Politics Lost: The Lost Music of American Politics (Doubleday, $23.95, 0385510276).


Pin-Up Expert Waiting for a Call

We assume there are many experts, admittedly amateurs, on the subject of Bettie Page, the famous pin-up girl of the '50s who is profiled in the new movie The Notorious Bettie Page, which unveils itself today in New York and Los Angeles and goes into wide release in the next few weeks. Still, Duke University Press notes that that Maria Elena Buszek, author of Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture, which will be published in July, "can speak to a general audience about Bettie Page's life and impact on our culture as well as about the history of the pin-up girl."

Assistant Professor of Art History at the Kansas City Art Institute and a regular contributor to Bust magazine, Buszek "reveals how the development of the pin-up is intimately connected to the history of feminism." A chapter of her book profiles Page.

Among other books with many pages on Bettie:

Betty Page Confidential by Stan Corwin Productions (St. Martin's Griffin, $14.95, 0312109407)
Bettie Page: Queen of Hearts by Jim Silke (Dark Horse, $19.95, 1569711240)
Bettie Page: Queen of the Nile by Jim Silke and Dave Stevens (Dark Horse, $12.95, 1569714738)


Books & Authors

Absolutely Positively Not Wins Fleischman Humor Award

Absolutely Positively Not by David LaRochelle (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic) has won the 2005 Sid Fleischman Humor Award, presented by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators to work that "exemplifies excellence in humor writing."

LaRochelle has written almost 25 books; Absolutely Positively Not is his first YA novel.

The award will be presented at the Golden Kite Awards Luncheon August 6 during the SCBWI's Annual Conference in Los Angeles.



The Bestsellers

The Book Sense/PNBA List

The following are the bestselling titles at Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association stores during the week ended Sunday, April 9, as reported to Book Sense:

Hardcover Fiction

1. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore (Morrow, $24.95, 0060590270)
2. Tomb of the Golden Bird by Elizabeth Peters (Morrow, $25.95, 0060591803)
3. Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (Putnam, $25.95, 0399153446)
4. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (Riverhead, $25.95, 159448905X)
5. The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean (Morrow, $23.95, 0060825308)
6. The Blight Way: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery by Patrick F. McManus (S&S, $24, 0743280474)
7. Seeing by Jose Saramago (Harcourt, $25, 0151012385)
8. Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark (S&S, $25.95, 0743264908)
9. The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (Pantheon, $22.95, 0375423699)
10. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant (Random House, $23.95, 1400063817)
11. Cell by Stephen King (Scribner, $26.95, 0743292332)
12. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday, $24.95, 0385504209)
13. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult (Atria, $26, 0743496701)
14. Gone by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine, $26.95, 0345452615)
15. The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch (Bloomsbury, $23.95, 1582346054)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips (Viking, $26.95, 067003486X)
2. Marley & Me by John Grogan (Morrow, $21.95, 0060817089)
3. My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme (Knopf, $25.95, 1400043468)
4. Cobra II by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor (Pantheon, $27.95, 0375422625)
5. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong (Knopf, $30, 0375413170)
6. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Viking, $25.95, 0670034827)
7. Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95, 0060738170)
8. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Viking, $24.95, 0670034711)
9. The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (FSG, $27.50, 0374292884)
10. The Jesus Papers by Michael Baigent (HarperSanFrancisco, $27.95, 0060827130)
11. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X)
12. A Year in the World by Frances Mayes (Broadway, $26, 0767910052)
13. Dark Ages America by Morris Berman (Norton, $25.95, 0393058662)
14. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316172324)
15. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $25.95, 006073132X)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Picador, $14, 031242440X)
2. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Vintage, $14, 1400078776)
3. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin, $14, 0143036696)
4. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor, $12.95, 140007570X)
5. Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos (Grove, $13, 0802142109)
6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Anchor, $14.95, 0307277674)
7. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House, $13.95, 0812968069)
8. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 1594480001)
9. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.95, 0316010707)
10. A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell (Ballantine, $14.95, 0449004139)
11. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin, $15, 0143034901)
12. Close Range by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $14, 0684852225)
13. The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch (Bloomsbury, $13.95, 1582346291)
14. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (Mariner, $13.95, 0618711651)
15. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (Penguin, $14, 0143036742)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Vintage, $14, 0679745580)
2. Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl (Penguin, $15, 0143036610)
3. Collapse by Jared Diamond (Penguin, $17, 0143036556)
4. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Plume, $15, 0452287081)
5. Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (Harvest, $15, 0156031442)
6. Plan B by Anne Lamott (Riverhead, $14, 1594481571)
7. Night by Elie Weisel (FSG, $9, 0374500010)
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $14, 074324754X)
9. Bad Cat by Jim Edgar (Workman, $9.95, 0761136193)
10. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay, $14.95, 0316346624)
11. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (Random House, $14.95, 0812973011)
12. The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Norton, $13.95, 0393327655)
13. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (Norton, $16.95, 0393317552)
14. The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber (Anchor, $14.95, 1400077761)
15. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor, $14.95, 0307276902)

Mass Market

1. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Anchor, $7.99, 1400079179)
2. The Sign of the Book by John Dunning (Pocket, $9.99, 0743482476)
3. With No One as Witness by Elizabeth A. George (HarperTorch, $7.99, 0060545615)
4. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket, $9.99, 1416524797)
5. Locked Rooms by Laurie R. King (Bantam, $6.99, 0553583417)
6. The Serpent on the Crown by Elizabeth Peters (Avon, $9.99, 006059179X)
7. One Shot by Lee Child (Dell, $7.99, 0440241022)
8. Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman (HarperTorch, $7.99, 006056346X)
9. Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry (Ballantine, $7.50, 0345469283)
10. Ireland by Frank Delaney (Avon, $7.99, 0060563494)

Children's (Fiction and Illustrated)

1. Warriors: The New Prophecy #4: Starlight by Erin W. Hunter (HarperCollins, $15.99, 0060827580)
2. Night of the New Magicians (Magic Tree House #35) by Mary Pope Osborne, illustrated by Salvatore Murdocca (Random House, $11.95, 0375830359)
3. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0694003611)
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf, $16.95, 0375831002)
5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (children's movie tie-in edition) by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0060765461)
6. Skippyjon Jones by Judith Schachner (Puffin, $5.99, 0142404039)
7. The Tenth City (The Land of Elyon, Book 3) by Patrick Carman (Orchard, $11.99, 0439700957)
8. Magyk (Septimus Heap, Book One) by Angie Sage (HarperTrophy, $7.99, 0060577339)
9. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, $18.99, 0763625892)
10. Into the Wild (Warriors #1) by Erin W. Hunter (Avon, $5.99, 0060525509)
11. The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau (Random House, $5.99, 0375828257)
12. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $21, 037582670X)
13. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (Chicken House, $7.99, 0439709105)
14. Warriors: The New Prophecy #1: Midnight by Erin W. Hunter (HarperTrophy, $5.99, 0060744510)
15. Flyte (Septimus Heap, Book Two) by Angie Sage (Katherine Tegen, $17.99, 0060577347)

[Many thanks to Book Sense and PNBA!]


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