Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, February 20, 2007


Quarry Books: Yes, Boys Can!: Inspiring Stories of Men Who Changed the World - He Can H.E.A.L. by Richard V Reeves and Jonathan Juravich, illustrated by Chris King

Simon & Schuster: Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: Nightweaver by RM Gray

G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers: The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman

Overlook Press: Hotel Lucky Seven (Assassins) by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Brian Bergstrom

News

Koen-Levy Closes

As if there hasn't been enough turmoil in the world of wholesaling and distribution lately, we're saddened to note that Koen-Levy Book Wholesalers, Moorestown, N.J., has closed, effective yesterday. The company was founded in October 2005 with some of the assets of the old Koen Book Distributors and financial support from Levy Home Entertainment.

In an announcement, Jim Di Miero, senior sales and marketing manager at Koen-Levy, said, "Over the course of the past 15 months, the employees of Koen-Levy have given every ounce of energy to making the organization a viable business. As they say, 'timing is everything,' and trying to establish a new startup organization during a tough bookselling period proved to be too high a hurdle for all of us."

Koen Book Distributors, founded by Bob and Pat Koen, was once a major Northeast wholesaler and was a training ground for quite a few people in a range of positions in the industry.

We wish staff and owners well.


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Perseus Hopes to Close in Two Weeks; Goes on Listening Tour

Perseus Books Group, which won the auction for PGW last Friday, hopes to close within two weeks, at which point it will write checks to pay withheld fourth quarter revenue to the more-than-100 publishers that have signed with it.

David Steinberger, president and CEO of Perseus Books Group, said that the company has "received many positive e-mails from PGW clients offering their congratulations and expressing relief that the auction process is over. PGW publishers who have not yet signed agreements with us can still sign agreements between now and closing."

Perseus, which is already absorbing Consortium into its Jackson, Tenn., warehouse, is "working hard to make sure we have a smooth distribution," Steinberger said. Aware that CDS, the distributor Perseus bought in 2005, has had a poor reputation among bookseller accounts, Perseus has begun what Steinberger called "a listening tour." Perseus executives, including sales and marketing director Matty Goldberg, have already traveled to Chicago and spoken at length with several booksellers there. The group will soon visit Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Calif., Boston, Mass., and a fifth city, planning to meet 23 booksellers altogether.

"The accounts we met with raised a number of issues that we felt comfortable addressing in the meeting or in followups," Steinberger said. "The meetings have been very helpful, and we feel good about the first leg of the tour."

The tour had been planned late last year after the announcement that Consortium's fulfillment operations would be moved to the Jackson warehouse. "The tour has taken on even more importance with all the growth we're undertaking," Steinberger commented.


GLOW: Berkley Books: The Seven O'Clock Club by Amelia Ireland


Notes: 'Scrotum' Controversy; Joseph Low Dies

The New York Times took the bull by the horns, so to speak, in a front-page story on Sunday about the controversy among children's librarians and others over the use of the word scrotum in The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, this year's Newbery winner. (On the first page, protagonist Lucky's dog, Roy, is unluckily bit on the scrotum by a rattlesnake, an event that the author, who works as a public librarian in Los Angeles, said she based on a real incident.) Some librarians are not lending the book, while others call such an approach censorship. 

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Sunday's New York Times also outlined the problems of Mayday Books, a six-year-old anarchist bookstore in the East Village that is being evicted from the theater that houses it--the cause apparently being a violent fight between an actor and a bookseller. The actor "won."

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Book Club of America has apparently closed for business, according to Bargain Book News, which noted, "Many former employees have either formed or joined other bargain book companies and several calls to BCA's corporate offices were not returned to BBN's staff."

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National Book Warehouse, which once had 130 bargain bookstores, is in the final stages of bankruptcy, Bargain Book News reported. Claims total more than $20 million; liquidation of inventory is expected to amount to as much as $6 million. 

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Joseph Low, a children's book illustrator and New Yorker cover artist, died a week ago yesterday, February 12, at 95.

Today's New York Times wrote that "in the 1950s Mr. Low was known for his expressively witty linear style, which challenged the prevailing trends of Rockwellian realism, yet was consistent with European comic surrealism. Using wild pen gestures he created glyphlike characters meant for both adult and child that were both sophisticated and accessible."

In 1981, Low's Mice Twice was a Caldecott honors book.

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Borders has launched the Borders Book Group, which will offer four titles that rotate monthly. The recommended titles will consist of fiction, nonfiction and YA titles and be available at a 20% discount.

Borders is providing reading group guides, discussion questions and author biographies both in-store and online. In addition, customers may visit www.bordersbookclub.gather.com to discuss recommended book club books with other members as well as the featured authors. Borders has posted instructions on how to start an online book club.

The first four picks, for February, are Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, Looking for Alaska by John Green and The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan, the last of which won the National Book Award and the nonfiction Borders 2006 Original Voices Award.

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Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Board chairman whose memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin Press), appears in September, will be BEA's Conference Keynote Speaker on Friday, June 1, at 11 a.m. Greenspan will be interviewed by his wife, Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News.

BEA, which prognosticates across-the-board positive reaction to the economist whose likability quotient has continued an upwards trend, will suspend other programming during the event.

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Congratulations to Unshelved.com, the library comic strip site and e-mail that has turned five. Appropriately founders Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum "started writing the comic strip that would become Unshelved on a flight back from Comic-Con."

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The four Capitola Book Café booksellers who are seeking to buy the Capitola, Calif., store from its four owners (Shelf Awareness, January 6, 2007), have reached almost 70% of their goal for raising money for the purchase, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The amounts are coming from "large and small loans from community members."

Click here for a lot of information on the quartet and their plans for the store.

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Peppertree Bookstore has officially opened its second bookstore, in La Quinta, Calif., three times larger than its original store, in Palm Springs, according to the Desert Sun. Owner Christopher Johnson said that the store, which has indoor access to a neighboring, separately-run coffee shop, will focus on celebrity book signings, book clubs, workshops, children's storytimes and various community events.

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Effective yesterday, Ingram Publisher Services has begun distributing Graphic Arts Center Publishing, Portland, Ore., which emerged from bankruptcy on February 1. Ingram has an interest in the company, which besides its publishing operations is a distributor.

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Congratulations to Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, Va., managed by Kelly Justice, which has won Unbridled Books's display contest for two books by Lamar Herrin: House of the Deaf, a novel, and Romancing Spain, a memoir. Fountain wins a dinner for two at a Spanish or tapas restaurant.

House of the Deaf is about an American father searching for answers after his daughter is accidentally killed by Basque separatists while studying abroad. Romancing Spain describes how the author met his Spanish wife more than 30 years ago and struggled against custom, church objections and bureaucracy to marry her. It's also the story of his love affair with Spain itself and his recent journey back with his wife to search for the perfect pueblo in which to retire.
 


Image of the Day: Celebrating Wiley's 200th

Helping celebrate John Wiley & Sons's bicentennial at a recent party in San Francisco, Calif.: (from l. to r.) Stephen Kippur, executive v-p and president, professional/trade; Ken Fisher, author of The Only Three Questions That Count (a Wiley title); Will Pesce, president and CEO; and Jeff Brown, v-p and general manager, business & psychology, professional/trade.

Media and Movies

Media Heat: Candid Camera

This morning Good Morning America gets candid with Burt Boyar, who remembers a legend in Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr. (HC, formerly ReganBooks, $49.95, 9780061146053/0061146056).

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Today the Martha Stewart Show plays mind games with Dr. Gary Small, author of The Longevity Bible: 8 Essential Strategies for Keeping Your Mind Sharp and Your Body Young (Hyperion, $23.95, 9781401301842/1401301843).

Also on the Martha Stewart Show: dog trainer and behaviorist Kathy Santo, who offers canine wisdom in Kathy Santo's Dog Sense (Knopf, $19.95, 9781400043439/1400043433).

Rounding out Martha's trifecta of author appearances is chef Marcus Samuelsson, whose latest culinary tome is The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa (Wiley, $40, 9780764569111/0764569112).

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Today on the Oprah Winfrey Show: Nate Berkus, author of Home Rules: Transform the Place You Live into a Place You'll Love (Hyperion, $27.95, 9781401301378/1401301371).

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Today the Diane Rehm Show chats with Jane Smiley about her new novel, Ten Days in the Hills (Knopf, $26, 9781400040612/1400040612).

Diane Rehm also hears from Stephen Flynn on The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, $25.95, 9781400065516/1400065518). Flynn will stop by NPR's Morning Edition today as well.

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Tonight Dateline continues its "To Catch a Predator" series with NBC news correspondent Chris Hansen, author of To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home (Dutton, $24.95, 9780525950097/0525950095).

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On the Tonight Show, Jay Leno trades witticisms with Bill Maher, fellow funnyman and author of New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (Rodale, $14.95, 9781594865053/1594865051).


Books & Authors

Book Sense: May We Recommend

From last week's Book Sense bestseller lists, available at BookSense.com, here are the recommended titles, which are also Book Sense Picks:

Hardcover

Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty by Tim Sandlin (Riverhead, $24.95, 9781594489334/1594489335). "The year is 2022 and the location is an assisted living facility outside of San Francisco. It's a place populated by aging hippies, where whom you sit with at dinner depends on where you were in 1968. A gripping, hilarious look at the issues that Baby Boomers will take into the next stage of life."--Mary Muller, Market Block Books, Troy, N.Y.

Delilah's Everyday Soul: Southern Cooking With Style by Delilah Winder and Jennifer Lindner McGlinn (Running Press, $29.95, 9780762426010/0762426012). "Winder takes soul food to another level: she keeps just enough 'country' for comfort, but adds a twist that will appeal to more sophisticated palates. Each dish has a story tied to family and culture, and Winder's common-sense approach makes you feel like you are in her kitchen lending a hand."--Carolyn Martin, Olsson's Books & Records, Washington, D.C.

Paperback

Don't Make Me Stop Now: Stories by Michael Parker (Algonquin, $12.95, 9781565124851/1565124855). "The people in these stories are consumed by love and loss, and perform acrobatic acts of denial, hope, rage, and (occasional) healing. Parker demonstrates an awesome depth of compassion and imagination as he describes the painfully real and deliciously twisted fallout of love lost."--Audrey Brockhaus, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, Mich.

For Children

Mites to Mastodons: A Book of Animal Poems by Maxine Kumin, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski (Houghton Mifflin, $16, 9780618507535/0618507531). "This is no ordinary collection of animal poems! The fanciful and eye-popping illustrations bring each animal to life, and the verses perfectly capture the characteristics of a menagerie of creatures."--Myra Poe, Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, Milwaukee, Wis.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]



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