Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, April 24, 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

Notes: David Halberstam Dies; Store Changes

Sad news.

David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest and more than 20 other books on a range of subjects, died yesterday in a car crash in Menlo Park, Calif. He was 73.

The New York Times's long obituary nicely noted that Halberstam alternated "books with a weighty theme with one that might seem of slighter import but to which he nonetheless applied his considerable reportorial muscles." Many of those books were about sports, including The Summer of '49 and The Breaks of the Game. His more serious works included The Children, The Fifties and Firehouse.

Halberstam recently finished The Coldest Winter: American and the Korean War, which is scheduled to be published in September by Hyperion.

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George Skanse Jr. plans to close the Book Gallery, his used and rare El Paso, Tex., bookstore, by the end of the year, according to the El Paso Times. The culprit: property taxes that Skanse said had doubled in recent years.

Still, Skanse told the paper he will continue to sell online and may reopen in smaller space eventually.

Founded in the 1950s by Skanse's father, the store has 300,000 books and specializes in Southwest, regional and El Paso history books. The Times called the Book Gallery "one of the largest bookstores in the Southwest and a favorite Central El Paso hangout for writers and bookworms," among them Cormac McCarthy.

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Barnes & Noble plans yet another simultaneous store closing and opening: it will take place in April 2008 in Glendale, Calif., near Los Angeles, where the company will open a new location in the Americana at Brand on Colorado Street between Central Avenue and Brand Boulevard. The day before that store opens, the B&N at 245 North Glendale Avenue will close.

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Libraries continue to add books and other material in a variety of languages to serve immigrants, and in Minnesota many are for the most recent newcomers, including Hispanics, Somalis and Hmong, the AP (via Forbes) reported.

Among other programs: one launched in January by the State Library of Ohio to attract more Hispanics; Austin, Tex., libraries' New Immigrant Centers; Houston libraries' increasing selection of titles in Vietnamese; and the ALA's Dia de los Ninos/El Dia de los Libros (Children's Day/Book Day) on April 30.

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Brunch & Bullets, the second of two inaugural thriller luncheons sponsored by the International Thriller Writers, takes place on Saturday, May 5, in Greenwich, Conn., at 11 a.m. The organization is honoring member R.L. Stine with a Silver Bullet Award "for the amazing contribution he has made to fostering the love of reading in tens of millions of young people over the course of his wondrous career."

Besides Stine, attending authors should include Michael Palmer, Doug Preston, Joe Finder, Stephen Coonts, Lincoln Child, F. Paul Wilson, Jim Fusilli, Wendi Corsi Staub, Peter Spiegelman, Peter Blauner, Chris Grabenstein, Jon Land, Carla Negers, Lawrence Light, M.J. Rose and Linda Fairstein.

For more information about the event, which will raise money for local chapters of Reading Is Fundamental, go to regonline.com.
 


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Media and Movies

Media Heat: Freedom's Power

This morning on Good Morning America: Eduardo Xol, author of Home Sense: Simple Solutions to Enhance Where and How You Live (Rayo, $24.95, 9780061249761/0061249769).

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Today the Martha Stewart Show welcomes former Disney executive Michael Eisner, author of the memoir Camp (Warner, $22.95, 9780446533690/0446533696).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show, Paul Starr freely discusses Freedom's Power: The True Force of Liberalism (Basic Books, $26, 9780465081868/046508186X).

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Today Fox's Hannity and Colmes Show focuses on Making War to Keep Peace by the late Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (HC, $26.95, 9780061195433/006119543X).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Dr. Andrew Weil, whose most recent book, Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Well-Being (Anchor, $14.95, 9780307277541), came out in paperback earlier this year.

 


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


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

Valentine: A Love Story by Chet Raymo (Cowley Publications, $19.95, 9781561012862/1561012866). "This is a beautifully written historical novel of the perhaps life of St. Valentine. Chet Raymo is an excellent writer who deserves a wide audience."--Kathryn Henderson, Market Street Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Family Romance: A Love Story by John Lanchester (Putnam, $27.95, 9780399153006/0399153004). "After the deaths of his parents, novelist John Lanchester uncovered secrets about their lives--including that his mother had taken on a new identity. His story, weaving together the threads of the lives of his grandparents, parents, and himself, will resonate with anyone who has explored the unanswered questions in their own family history."--Carol Schneck, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, Mich.

Paperback

Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich (Random House, $12.95, 9781400065882/1400065887). "These super-short, imaginative essays kept me laughing the whole way through. Each piece starts from idle speculation (What do video game characters say inside the cartridge? How do ant-farm inhabitants react to being stymied by glass in their tunneling efforts?) and follows through to its absurd conclusion. A perfect gift for a high school or college student!"--Susan Taylor, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

For Pre-Schoolers

I'm Not Going Out There! by Paul Bright, illustrated by Ben Cort (Good Books, $16, 9781561485352/1561485357). "We loved this book about childhood fears. With rhyme and rhythm that is fast and fun, it's one that children will want to read repeatedly. The illustrations are very bright and interesting with loveable characters."--Katie Bobowski, Browsing Bison Books, Deer Lodge, Mont.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]


Attainment: New Books Out Next Week

Selected titles with a pub date of next Tuesday, May 1:

The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars
by Robert D. Hormats (Times Books, $27.50, 9780805082531/0805082530). A leading international finance expert reveals how our national security depends on our financial security.

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday, $24.95, 9780385517874/0385517874). A new novel from the author of Fight Club and Haunted.

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris (Ace, $24.95, 9780441014941/0441014941). The seventh vampire-themed novel starring Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress in small-town Louisiana.

Dream When You're Feeling Blue
by Elizabeth Berg (Random House, $24.95, 9781400065103/1400065100). Set in Chicago during World War II, Berg spins a story about three sisters and the men they love.

Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy
edited by Jack Dann (Berkley, $25, 9780425215180/0425215180). Never-before-published stories by Neil Gaiman, Eoin Colfer, Garth Nix and other fantasy scribes.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, $26.95, 9780007149827/0007149824). The Pulitzer Prize winner's multi-faceted novel is equal parts whodunit, love story, homage to 1940s noir and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption.

Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage
by Dina Matos McGreevey (Hyperion, $23.95, 9781401303648/1401303641). The former First Lady of New Jersey recounts the details of her marriage to ex-governor and "gay American" Jim McGreevey.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver (HarperCollins, $26.95, 9780060852559/0060852550). In her first nonfiction narrative, novelist Kingsolver recounts her family's year-long effort to live off the land at an Appalachian farm.


On sale in paperback May 1:

Guinness World Records 2007 edited by Claire Folkard and Craig Glenday (Bantam, $7.50, 9780553589924/055358992X).

Cover of Night by Linda Howard (Ballantine, $7.99, 9780345486516/034548651X).

Short Straw by Stuart Woods (Signet, $9.99, 9780451220844/0451220846).

The Husband by Dean Koontz (Bantam, $7.99, 9780553589092/0553589091).


Attainment: Late Arrivals

And here are two major titles coming in the next few months. At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (HarperCollins, $30, 9780061147784/0061147788), the memoir by former CIA director George Tenet that had been vetted for some time, appears on May 30.

In addition, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary, a biography of Senator Clinton by Carl Bernstein (Knopf), goes on sale on June 19. The reporter of Watergate fame has spent eight years on the book, which Knopf chairman and editor-in-chief Sonny Mehta described this way: "I believe his book will stand as the most detailed, comprehensive, and revealing account we have of a woman who helped define one presidency and may well step into another."



Book Review

Mandahla: Watching Baseball Smarter Reviewed

Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-Experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks by Zack Hample (Vintage Books USA, $14.00 Paperback, 9780307280329, March 2007)



The first thing that struck me about this book (other than the urge to circle "smarter" with a red pen) was discovering just how difficult playing baseball is and what the players have to go through to get to the majors. Unlike other sports, the farm system weeds (and nurtures) quite effectively, so the majors players are good, something to keep in mind next time you want to shout insults: "So when you see a hitter swing at a bad pitch or watch a good one, feel free to yell at him, but keep in mind that all he did was guess wrong against one of the world's best pitchers who has spent his entire life preparing to strike him out."

Whether explaining pitch sequences and signing, grooving the ball or the count (most players have better batting averages when the bases are loaded because the pitcher doesn't want to walk in a run, so he's inclined to throw a fastball), Hample makes the basics and the intricacies of baseball both understandable and fun. He throws in a few statistics for the geeks, as well as weird rules; for instance, the batter is allowed to switch to the other side of the plate during his at-bat, except when there are two strikes. The details--the best pitchers often have the worst pick-off moves because they aren't used to dealing with base runners--fascinate and inform, as does the extensive glossary. Hample recommends reading the glossary first--fat chance. Who does that?--but helpfully italicizes the words in his text, from the familiar (caught looking) to the more esoteric (mustard). He suggests watching baseball on TV, while muting the sound and listening to the radio, where you'll hear better descriptions and more baseball jargon. He discusses groundskeepers, umpires, arguing, etiquette, uniform numbers, cheating, crotch adjustments and superstitions. When Tim Flannery's 18-game hitting streak ended in 1980, he said, "I'm superstitious. Every night after I got a hit I ate Tex-Mex food and drank tequila. I had to stop hitting or die." Has any other game provided such good quotes from so many players? As Red Barber said, "Baseball is dull only to dull minds." Amen.--Marilyn Dahl


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