Shelf Awareness for Monday, August 27, 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

Quotation of the Day

Something Like Bargain Books. . .

"We try to create an attitude that, if you see it, you ought to buy it because chances are it ain't going to be there next time. You're going to come in and find that maybe we have some Lucky jeans that we're selling. You come in the next time and we don't have those jeans but we have some Coach handbags. That's the treasure-hunt aspect. We constantly buy that stuff and intentionally run out of it from time to time."--Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco, in a Q&A in today's Wall Street Journal.

 


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News

Notes: BAM Results; Madeleine B. Stern Dies

Net sales at Books-A-Million in the second quarter, ended August 4, rose 9.6% to $132.8 million, and net income rose 24% to $3.1 million. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 6.6%.

In a statement, Sandra B. Cochran, president and CEO, said, "The publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows generated record-breaking sales. Our marketing efforts along with our Fast Lane checkout process helped us achieve strong market share. In addition, continued discipline in inventory management, expense control and operational execution led to an improvement in profitability in a very competitive sales environment."

The company is maintaining a quarterly cash dividend of nine cents a share, payable on September 19.

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Madeleine B. Stern, a rare-book dealer, memoirist, biographer and literary sleuth, died last week at her home in New York City, the New York Times reported. She was 95.

With her longtime partner, Leona Rostenberg, Stern ran Rostenberg & Stern Rare Books for many years and was a co-founder of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. In 1942, she and Rostenberg discovered several potboilers written by Louisa May Alcott under a pseudonym and later oversaw their publication.

Stern also wrote several biographies, including one of Alcott. With Rostenberg, she wrote three delightful memoirs: Old & Rare: Thirty Years in the Book Business, Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion and, in 2001, Bookends: Two Women, One Enduring Friendship.

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Although Barnes & Noble won't sell If I Did It in its stores, the title has become hot on B&N.com--reaching No. 16 this morning--in part because on September 13 Oprah will bring together Nicole Brown Simpson's sister and Ron Goldman's parents, the AP reported. Denise Brown reportedly objects to the book's publication by the Goldmans.

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Bookselling This Week celebrates Read Between the Lynes, Woodstock, Ill., founded two years ago by Arlene Lynes. The store does such proactive marketing as seeking out local authors for book signings, partnering with nonprofit organizations and holding an annual Banned Books Night, when customers are invited to read from their favorite banned books.

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The Los Angeles Times asked four over-40 "randomly selected people" to describe their favorite weekend. Montecito Heights resident Oralia Michel said that, on Saturday afternoons, she "might stop at Vroman's Bookstore for a latte and a book," while on Sundays, "If I go to the Santa Monica Farmers Market, I'll drive down to Small World Books on the Venice Beach boardwalk. It's an eclectic, independent store, with smart employee reviews."

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Mark Nemmers is seeking a buyer for Bogey's Books, the Davis, Calif., bookstore he founded in 1990, the California Aggie reported. Nemmers would like to move abroad, he told the paper. If he can't sell the store by the end of the year, he will close it, he said.

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The Topeka Capital-Journal profiles Granny's Used Books, Topeka, Kan., which grandmothers Mysel Sherraden and Wanda Burge opened this past spring exactly a month after they first had the idea to become booksellers.

The store has a strong children's section and aims to appeal to seniors as well. 

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In yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Randy Cohen, who writes the Ethicist column, gives a ringing endorsement of the role of booksellers and librarians in providing material to all customers. (A reader who works at a bookstore and processes mail orders from prisoners indicated an aversion to filling orders from sex offenders.)

"You should treat all your customers the same--that is, fill their orders," Cohen advised the reluctant bookseller. "Every merchant--pharmacist, greengrocer or milliner--should do likewise, but a bookstore clerk, dealing in the exchange of ideas, has an even greater obligation. You are not a librarian, bound by a librarian's code of ethics, but you should be guided by it. Your duty is to provide books to anyone who walks (or writes) in to the store, not to determine a person's worthiness to read (or have a prescription filled or buy lettuce or wear a fetching hat)."

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The Hugo Awards, presented by the World Science Fiction Society each year at Worldcon, have a new website, TheHugoAwards.org, with a range of information about the awards, including lists of winners and nominees over the years, information on nominating and voting for awards and more. This year's awards will be presented September 1 in Yokohama, Japan, at Worldcon, this year also called Nippon 2007.

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We're not quite sure if this qualifies as the cool or cruel idea of the day, but the Scotsman featured a profile of Robin Ince, who "trawls the second-hand bookshops and charity shops of Edinburgh in search of suitable material to 'read out loud sarcastically' (as he tells me Stewart Lee once described it)."

Ince runs the Book Club, where "performers can go to try out new stuff. Not just material, but ideas. . . . Alongside the experimenting talent, there is always Ince--or a guest--reading from a book they had found and brought in, to the backing accompaniment of music selected at random from an unmarked list." 

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John R. Molish has joined Tantor Media as v-p of sales and marketing. In this newly created position, Molish will lead the audiobook company's retail, library and consumer sales divisions as well as its marketing efforts. He was formerly executive sales director at Brighter Minds Media and earlier worked at Ballantine, Penguin, St. Martin's and McGraw-Hill. He began his book career at B. Dalton Bookseller.

 


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


Stalking Craig Popelars: Burning Down Larry Brown's Cabin?

The winner of the Craig Popelars Stalking Contest--that is, figuring out where the Algonquin director of marketing disappeared to on August 17, his 40th birthday, as noted in an ad in our issue of that date--is Linda Urban, who imagined Popelars "being interrogated by authorities who believe he is responsible for burning down Larry Brown's fishing cabin and preventing firefighters from accessing water in the nearby lake, claiming the available water was 'for elephants.' Most suspicious: in his coat pocket a draft of a press release was discovered, claiming innocence in both actions and declaring that anyone who thought otherwise did not understand the nature of publicity."

Congratulations to Urban, who is the former marketing director of Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, Calif., and now writes fulltime. Her first YA novel, A Crooked Kind of Perfect, will be published by Harcourt next month ($16, 9780152060077/0152060073).

Honorable mention goes to Howard Cohen, who handles marketing and publicity at Keen Communications/Clerisy Press. He wrote:

"I know on good authority that Craig is tent-camping somewhere in North Carolina because he took a copy of our book Best Tent Camping: North Carolina that he asked Richard Hunt to send him for this weekend.

"That said, if it is a ruse, I'd think that Craig might be found in a secret underwater grotto deep below the earth's crust, drinking Old Grandad and Tang, singing Brandy, You're a Fine Girl at the top of his lungs and wearing a bowler hat, aquamarine bike shorts and a pair of Easy Spirit pumps (because it looks like a pump but feels like a sneaker)."

Thanks to the many entrants!

And happy birthday plus a few weeks to Craig!


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Sports, Sex, Cancer, Politics

This morning on the Today Show: Kris Carr, author of Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips (skirt!, $17.95, 9781599212319/1599212315).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Tom Stanton, author of Ty and the Babe: Baseball's Fiercest Rivals; A Surprising Friendship and the 1941 Has-Beens Golf Championship (St. Martin's, $23.95, 9780312361594/0312361599).

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Today on the Dennis Miller Show: David Zirin, author of Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket Books, $16, 9781931859417/1931859418).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: in a repeat, presidential hopeful and Senator John McCain, whose new book is Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them (Twelve, $25.99, 9780446580403/0446580406).

 


Movies: The Nanny Diaries

The Nanny Diaries, directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, starring Scarlett Johanson, Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti, has opened. A college student must balance her life with the spoiled brat under her care and his dysfunctional family. The movie tie-in edition by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus (St. Martin's Griffin, $13.95, 9780312374334/031237433X) is out.

 



Books & Authors

Attainment: More New Books Out This Week

Selected titles appearing tomorrow:

Mythology (Candlewick, $19.99, 9780763634032/ 0763634034), the latest in the 'Ology series that started with Dragonology and includes Pirateology, Egyptology and Wizardology.

The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose (Mira, $24.95, 9780778324201/0778324206) begins when a bomb in Rome nearly kills photojournalist Josh Ryder--as he recovers he has memories of ancient events and is drawn to save a woman named Sabrina and the treasures she protects.


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

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler (Dutton, $24.95, 9780525950400/0525950400). "Before you begin reading this luscious confection of a novel, unplug the phone, repair to your most comfortable chair, and enjoy the ultimate in luxury travel as you are transported via Courtney Stone, an archetypical 21st-century woman, to the elegant early-19th-century world of Austen's novels. I loved it."--Kathy Ashton, the King's English, Salt Lake City, Utah

28: Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen (Walker, $25.95, 9780802715982/0802715982). "Nolen tells the story of 28 people (out of at least 28 million) whose lives have been transfigured by AIDS. From children to soldiers, Nolen reveals the heartbreak and devastation that lie in the wake of this horrifying epidemic. A gripping tapestry with unforgettable players."--Tova Beiser, Brown University Bookstore, Providence, R.I.

Paperback

Old Wounds by Vicki Lane (Dell, $6.99, 9780440243595/0440243599). "The third in the Elizabeth Goodweather series, this story focuses on a crime from the past: the disappearance of a young girl in the mountains of North Carolina. Rich in folklore, music, and nature, Lane's writing has more twists than the Blue Ridge Parkway."--Jean Utley, Book'em Mysteries, South Pasadena, Calif.

For Young and Not-so-Young Adults

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown, $16.99, 9780316013680/0316013684). "Arnold Spirit, Jr., knows he has to find a way out of the poverty and despair on his Indian reservation, but when he transfers to a better, all-white school, he's treated like a traitor. This book should be heartbreaking. Instead, it's joyous and laugh-out-loud funny--a book I wish everyone in the world would read."--Carol Schneck, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, Mich.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]


Awards: NAIBA Books of the Year

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association 2007 Book of the Year Award winners are:

Best Fiction: The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud (Vintage), which the judges called "a richly drawn, brilliantly observed novel of fate and fortune--about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way--and not--in New York City. In this tour de force, the celebrated author Claire Messud brings to life a city, a generation, and the way we live in this moment."

Best Nonfiction: A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (FSG). "In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now 25 years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of 12, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By 13, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.  This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty."

Best Picture Book: Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes (Candlewick). A story that stars head librarian Miss Merriweather, who has "very particular rules in the library," until a lion visits since "there aren't any rules about lions in the library."

Best Children's Literature: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic). "Combining elements of picture book, graphic novel, and film, [Selznick] creates an entirely new reading experience," focussed on mechanical windup figures owned by French film director George Méliès.

The winners will be presented their awards Sunday, October 14, at NAIBA's Awards Banquet during its Fall Conference in Baltimore, Md.


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