Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, February 21, 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

Letters

Bookseller: Scrotum Book Gets Bum Rap

Diane Capriola, co-owner of Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga., writes:

I wanted to comment on today's brief article about all the controversy surrounding The Higher Power of Lucky. Ironically enough, I began reading this book on Saturday night, only to wake up Sunday morning (kind of late I'll admit) to have my husband tell me about a front page story in the Sunday Times about a children's book with the word scrotum in it.

I was a bit surprised by the use of the word, since after all, it's not a word you see often in a book for kids. But I do think that the controversy is completely uncalled for. There is nothing at all subversive about this book--rather, reading it is like the slow motion unwrapping of a much-desired gift on Christmas morning. It is that good. To take it off bookshelves or to refuse to lend it would be an incredible shame for children, parents and teachers.

The use of that word has both nothing and everything to do with what the book is about. Lucky, the plucky 10-year-old protagonist, is trying to find her way in the world. She is curious and looks to the small circle of adults in her life to outfit her with what she needs, even if she sometimes gets the information from them through plain old eavesdropping.  She is seeking her "higher power"--that intangible force which will help her overcome, or at least survive, some seemingly insurmountable events in her life. But it is also a coming-of-age-story as she begins to feel the stirrings of adolescence and to let go of some of her young child ways.

I'm not sure why people still shy away from giving things, especially parts of the anatomy, their true name to children. Realistically, most nine year olds probably already know a slang term or two for this area of the male anatomy. But Patron offers us a perfect teaching moment on the first page of this wonderful book--give kids the facts because they certainly can handle them. And they certainly need them as well.

As my litmus test, I asked my two boys, ages 11 and 8, what their thoughts were on this controversy. My 8 year old laughed loudly and immediately walked off to create a cartoon about the controversy. My 11 year old, always willing to consider both sides, read the first page of the book.  He came back to me, nonplussed about seeing the word scrotum in print, but wondering why adults were not concerned that the narrator of the dog's unfortunate story was so drunk that he could not stand up when the dog was bitten.

[Editors' note: For the best commentary on the scrotum controversy, find someone who has saved the SIBA list serve on the subject.]


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News

Notes: Book Fair's 50th; SCIBA Dinner; Closings and Openings

The Newton TAB helps celebrate the 50th birthday of the New England Mobile Book Fair, which despite its name has its main business in a very stationary if unruly storefront in Newton Highlands, Mass. It also has a sister company, Jessica's Biscuit at ecookbooks.com, which sells cookbooks. The online business "works well synergistically with the Book Fair," COO Steven Gans told the paper. "You have two divisions that can stand on their own . . . and if one is not doing well, the other can be."

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Bookland is closing its Concord and Keene, N.H., bookstores but the Paulsen family, which owns Bookland, will continue to operate G. Paulsen Company, a wholesale book, magazine and newspaper business in Pembroke, N.H., the Concord Monitor reported. The wholesale business preceded the stores, which were opened in 1967 and the mid 1980s, respectively.

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Barnes & Noble and Borders announced several store openings yesterday:

In September, B&N will open a store in the Dothan Pavilion shopping center at AL Highway 53 and Murphy Mill Road in Dothan, Ala. In November, the company will open a store in the Palms Crossing shopping center at 3300 Expressway 83 in McAllen, Tex.

For its part, in April Borders will open a 23,000-sq.-ft. store in the Arlington Highlands lifestyle center at I-20 and Matlock Rd., in Arlington, Tex. There are already some 10 Borders and two Waldenbooks stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

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Barnes&Noble.com proudly announced that for the third consecutive year it has received the number one rating in customer satisfaction in the entire e-commerce category of 200 companies, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index conducted by the University of Michigan and ForeSee Results. The rankings are based on an annual survey of more than 65,000 consumers. 

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The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association will hold its 2007 Children's Books & Literacy Dinner on Friday, March 16, at the Westin Pasadena in Pasadena, Calif. The event begins with a cocktail reception and bookstore exhibits at 6:30, followed by dinner and program at 8.

Speakers include:

  • Caldecott-winner Brian Selznick, a veteran of the old Eeyore's Books for Children in New York City, whose new book is The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
  • Robin Preiss Glasser, who has illustrated many books, including You Can't Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and America: A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney.
  • James A. Owen, who has written and illustrated two dozen Starchild comics and the Mythworld series of novels as well as wrote and illustrated the book Here, There Be Dragons, which is being developed as a feature film by Warner Bros.

For more information, go to SCIBA's Web site.

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Effective immediately, the following two presses are being distributed by National Book Network:

Tatra Press, Suffern, N.Y., which publishes literary fiction and general trade titles.
Norwood House Press, Chicago, Ill., which specializes in team-specific sports books for children. 

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Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing has made the following appointments: 

  • Elka Villa has been named director of retail and mass marketing, adding mass marketing to her portfolio.
  • Julie Christopher has joined the company as associate director of marketing. She formerly handled mass market and trade marketing at HarperCollins Children's Books.
  • Lucille Rettino, who has been responsible for marketing SSE and Pulse, will now also market Aladdin books.
  • Kelly Stocks has been promoted to marketing coordinator. She has been an assistant in the marketing department for more than a year.
  • Grayson Walker, a recent graduate of the University of Virginia, has been named sales and sub rights assistant.
  • Christine Noh has been named marketing assistant. She formerly worked at the Eric Carle Museum, where she managed the Eric Carle Web site.

 


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


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Gordon Ramsay Back in the Spotlight

This morning the Early Show questions Deborah Tannen about You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation (Ballantine, $14.95, 9780812972665/081297266X).

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This morning's Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., has the theme Southern Mysteries and features two interviews:
  • Harry Hunsicker, author of Next Time You Die (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95, 9780312348502/0312348509)
  • Barbara Colley, author of Scrub-a-Dub-Dead (Kensington, $22, 9780758207661/0758207662)

The show airs at 8 a.m. Central Time and can be heard live at thebookreport.net; the archived edition will be posted this afternoon.

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Today on NPR's Morning Edition, Margaret MacMillan illuminates Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World (Random House, $27.95, 9781400061273/140006127X).

Also on Morning Edition: Stephen Flynn, author of The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, $25.95, 9781400065516/1400065518).

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Today on Oprah: Jeff Henderson, author of Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras (Morrow, $24.95, 9780061153907/0061153907).

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On the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, hot-tempered chef Gordon Ramsay fires things up; his Roasting in Hell's Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection (Harper Paperbacks, $13.95, 9780061191985/0061191981) is on sale in paperback next month. 

 



Books & Authors

Awards: NEA's Inaugural International Literature Prizes

As reported in today's New York Times, the inaugural International Literature Awards of the National Endowment for the Arts, intended "to give Americans greater access to worthy foreign literature in translation" and to promote the translation and publication of a work from Greece or Spain (this year's geographic focus), went to three presses:
  • Archipelago Books, Brooklyn, N.Y., for Vredaman, a novel by the Basque writer Unai Elorkiaga.
  • Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, Ill., for I'd Like, 13 linked stores by Amanda Michalopoulou of Greece.
  • Etruscan Press, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., for American Fugue, a novel by Alexis Stamatis of Greece.
Each press won $10,000 and matching awards from Greece and Spain.


Attainment: New Books Out Next Week

Selected titles with a pub date of next Tuesday, February 27:

Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey by Alison Weir (Ballantine, $24.95, 9780345494856/0345494857). A fictional account of the tragic young girl and political pawn who reigned as queen of England for nine days.

Puss 'n Cahoots by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown (Bantam, $25, 9780553803648/ 0553803646). Feline detective Mrs. Murphy is on the case when a murderer strikes at a horse show.

Shopaholic & Baby by Sophie Kinsella (Dial, $24, 9780385338707/0385338708). Shopaholic series fans will enjoy more adventures with Becky Bloomwood, who goes on a spending spree for her unborn child and hires a gumshoe to find out if her husband has gone astray.

Storm Runners by T. Jefferson Parker (Morrow, $25.95, 9780060854232/0060854235). In this thriller from Edgar Award-winner Parker, a former Orange County, Calif., detective becomes ensnared in a web of intrigue that ultimately leads back to the man who killed his family.

The Taste of Innocence by Stephanie Laurens (Morrow, $24.95, 9780060840860/ 0060840862). Laurens' latest Cynster tale is set in 19th-century England.

The Watchman by Robert Crais (S&S, $25.95, 9780743281638/0743281632). Private eye Joe Pike, sidekick in Crais' Elvis Cole novels, takes center stage battling the bad guys.

The Fiber35 Diet: Nature's Weight Loss Secret
by Brenda Watson with Leonard Smith (Free Press, $26, 9781416547181/1416547185). The author of Renew Your Life shows how to lose weight and improve health by taking advantage of the benefits of fiber.

In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing by Lee and Bob Woodruff (Random House, $25.95, 9781400066674/1400066670). In this dual memoir, the former ABC World News Tonight anchor and his wife share the story of their lives both before and after the serious injuries Bob sustained while covering the war in Iraq.  

The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes
by William Ury (Bantam, $25, 9780553804980/0553804987). No is the new Yes, according to the director of Harvard's Global Negotiation Project and author of Getting Past No, who outlines a three-step method for using the word effectively.

Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman (Spiegel & Grau, $24.95, 9780385519311/0385519311). The financial guru investigates the sometimes complicated, dysfunctional relationship women have with money.

Out in paperback on February 27:

The Rebels of Ireland
by Edward Rutherfurd (Ballantine, $16.95, 9780345472366/0345472365). The conclusion to the bestselling Dublin Saga.

Deadly Game by Christine Feehan (Jove, $7.99, 9780515142617/0515142611). A paranormal romance from the author of Night Game.


Deeper Understanding

Robert Gray: A Virtual Square Books Q&A Duet

Two feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures in Vermont were sufficient reasons to take our bookstore Web siteseeing tour south this week to Square Books in Oxford, Miss.

Mary Warner, events coordinator/marketing director, and Lyn Roberts, store manager, graciously teamed up to answer a few questions about the bookshop's online strategy. To preserve the letter and spirit of their responses, they will temporarily assume the not-so-secret identity of SB.

Robert Gray: What is the history of your site?

Square Books: Our Web site is celebrating its 10th anniversary. In 2001, we started using BookSense.com to handle online sales. Before that transition, the site was for information only. Our primary business is done at our store's location, but the Web site serves as a nice marketing/publicity tool.

RG
: Do you have an in-store Web team?

SB: With the exception of the hosting, most of the Web site is managed in-store. We can change the content of the Web site easily by logging into an administrator side of the site. Our calendar page requires the most updating.

RG: What doesn't your site do now that you wish it could?

SB
: We would like to have a way for customers to search our inventory online for books without revealing the quantities we have on-hand. We understand that BookSense.com has a tool that can help facilitate this, but sometimes a book might be on hold for another customer and it would be misleading to show that we have it "in-stock."

RG: Do you sell a substantial number of books online?

SB: We don't sell a substantial number. However, online sales have increased over the years. When we first started selling books on the Web site, we received one order per month. Now it is at least one order per day.

RG: Tell us about Dear Reader and Speed Reader.

SB: Dear Reader is our store newsletter that, with the exception of printing, is produced entirely in-house. Mary is the managing editor and designer of the newsletter. She works with Lyn and buyer Cody Morrison to decide on the content of each issue. Staffers submit their recommendations. We produce five issues, plus a full-color catalogue, each year. Although we have a customer database of 10,000 people, our newsletter is mailed to 5,500-6,000 households. It is also viewable online through our Web site.

Speed Reader is a weekly listing of events and book recommendations that is e-mailed every Monday to subscribers. Speed Reader is a text-only e-mail with "Buy Now" http links. We find that sending an e-mail more than once a week or embedding images results in subscribers unsubscribing to the e-mail.

RG: Do you have considerable staff interest and participation in Web site content?

SB: Feedback on Web content has been limited to only those who seem to understand Web sites. Austin Keeling, a staffer who manages IT and network problems, has added many features to our Web site to make it easier to use on the administrative side. He has also created a staff-only bulletin board on which staffers can post store/book-related messages online. It is underutilized, but lately there has been renewed interest in using it in addition to IBID interoffice messaging.

RG: What does Thacker Mountain Radio do for your store?

SB: TMR has strong ties to the community, but also introduces people to Off Square Books (where it is broadcast) and Square Books. Because of its inherent operation as a media outlet, TMR has also been a way to generate publicity for authors who come to Square Books. Currently TMR is working on live streaming and podcasts. For now, a streamed version can be heard on Mississippi Public Broadcasting on Saturdays at 7 p.m. This is a rebroadcast, but it is still definitely worth listening to.

RG: You have several Friends of Thacker Mountain Radio listed, with links to their sites. Does this generate funds to pay for the broadcast and the talent?

SB: Their sponsorship is not an affiliate agreement, but as sponsors we do receive funding from them. Their support does help pay for everything from the broadcast to the talent.

RG: What is on your Web site wish list for the immediate future?

SB: The Web site is in need of a face-lift. We would like to redesign it to be more aesthetically pleasing and easier to navigate. Web sites are best utilized when things are simple, so tweaking the Web site with that in mind might help increase traffic.

We now return Mary and Lyn to their individual identities.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)


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