Happy Labor Day!
In part because of crucial business in the Bronx this afternoon (Yankees vs. Red Sox!), Shelf Awareness is taking off tomorrow and will return on Tuesday, September 4. Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!
In part because of crucial business in the Bronx this afternoon (Yankees vs. Red Sox!), Shelf Awareness is taking off tomorrow and will return on Tuesday, September 4. Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell,
illustrated by Henry Cole (S&S) was the most challenged book in
2006, according to the American Library Association, the AP (via the New York Times)
reported. The true story of two male penguins who raised a baby penguin
was seen by some parents and educators as "advocating homosexuality."
In all, 546 books were challenged last year and 30 were banned.
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Cool idea of the day: at its trade show in Atlanta, Ga., September 28-30, the Southeast Independent Booksellers Association will screen The Kite Runner, based on the bestseller and book group favorite by Khaled Hosseini. The movie will be released in November.
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And here's another cool idea:
With
the help of Schoolhouse Supplies--a volunteer-run free store for area
teachers that distributes supplies donated by the community--today
Powell's Books, Portland, Ore., is beginning to distribute 34,000 books
valued at $300,000 to Portland and Beaverton public school
librarians and teachers. The books are the fruit, as it were, of the
Powell's Schoolbook Challenge, held during the holiday season. For 45
days, beginning last November 14, Powell's donated 10 new books to
schools for every book pledge of $5.95 from an individual or business
in the community.
Portland and Beaverton school librarians and teachers select from a wide
assortment of elementary picture books, classic novels, history, math,
social science books, dictionaries, reference and learning tools. The
number of books allocated to each school depends on need, which is
determined by the school districts and Schoolhouse Supplies. Powell's
staff and Schoolhouse Supplies volunteers then box the books and
deliver them to the schools.
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Steven
Wilson, founder of Kudzu Book Traders and Academic Book Services and
owner of One Source Inc. and Wilson and Sons Antiques, Heirlooms and
Collectibles, died on Tuesday at age 49, Bargain Book News reported.
Wilson and a partner sold Academic Book Services to Follett earlier
this year. Wilson had opened Wilson and Son last October. The store in
Atlanta offers antiques, jewelry and a coffee shop that serves
breakfast and lunch.
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Labyrinth
Books, the scholarly bookstore with three locations--the original in
New York City near
Columbia University, a relatively new one in New Haven, Conn., near
Yale University and another in Princeton, N.J., that is scheduled to
open this fall--has
changed its name to Book Culture.
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Michael Link, who has been manager at Politics and Prose bookstore, Washington, D.C., for three years, is leaving at the end of this month and will become manager of publisher relations for the Joseph-Beth Group bookstores. He and his fiancee, a painter, wanted to move to Cincinnati, and after a casual inquiry, he landed the job with Joseph-Beth. He has worked at Politics and Prose for six years altogether. Owners Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade said they will miss his "warmth and joie de vivre" and "feel pangs of envy for Joseph-Beth."
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As
part of the celebration of its 80th birthday, the Strand Bookstore, New
York City, is continuing to ask customers--and members of the book
industry!--to vote for their five favorite books of any genre. Voting
ends at midnight on September 15. The top 80 titles, the Strand 80,
will be displayed in Strand stores and on the company's website. A
randomly selected voter will win the grand prize of all 80 titles. Vote
at strandbooks.com/strand80.
The grand prize drawing takes places during the Strand Bookstore
Literary & Arts Festival, a day-long celebration at the main store on Broadway on
October 13, from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Authors and artists are invited to meet
their fans and sign books. Among confirmed authors: Christian
Jungersen, author of The Exception, David Friedman, author of The Immortalists, Joseph Berger, author of The World in a City, Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost, and Michael Buckley, author of the Sisters Grimm series.
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Today on KCRW's Bookworm: Naeem Murr, author of The Perfect Man
(Random House, $13.95, 9780812977011/0812977017). As the show put it:
"Naeem Murr's work has been described as perverse--but he insists that
this perversity seems ordinary to him. Here, we examine Murr's ordinary
1950's Southern town, Pisgah, and the depravity, insanity, racism and
violence that seem ordinary to him."
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Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: educator Rudolph Crew, whose new book is Only Connect: The Way to Save Our Schools (FSG, $24, 9780374294014/0374294011).
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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a repeat: Stephen F. Hayes, author of Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (HarperCollins, $27.95, 9780060723460/0060723467).
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Tomorrow night on Real Time with Bill Maher: presidential hopeful and Senator John McCain, author of Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them (Twelve, $25.99, 9780446580403/0446580406).
Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Tuesday this week and
focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry.
The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more
information, go to Book TV's website.
Saturday, September 1
12:45 p.m. Public Lives. Roland Haas, author of Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin (Potomac Books, $24.95, 9781597970860/1597970867), discusses his 30-year career with the CIA. (Re-airs Sunday at 3:15 a.m.)
3:15
p.m. A panel debates U.S. foreign policy at FreedomFest 2007. Panelists
include Congressman Ron Paul (R.-Tex.), Dinesh D'Souza, Larry Abraham
and Doug Casey.
6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment first aired in 2000, Peter Hitchens, author of The Abolition of Britain: From Churchill to Princess Diana (Encounter, $16.95, 9781893554399/1893554392), decries what he feels is the loss of Britain's international stature and the decay of British culture. He also talks about his brother, Christopher Hitchens. (See Sunday at noon below!)
9 p.m. After Words. Cox News Service national correspondent Bob Deans interviews Michael Duffy, author with Nancy Gibbs of The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House (Center
Street, $26.99, 9781599957340/1599957345), about the man who
served as spiritual counselor to every president from Harry Truman to
George W. Bush. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and Monday at 3
a.m.)
Sunday, September 2
9 a.m. At an event hosted by
McNally Robinson Booksellers in New York City, New York University's
Mark Crispin Miller interviews Scott Ritter, author of Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement
(Nation Books, $13.95, 9781568583280/1568583281). Ritter contends that
the antiwar movement in the U.S. should look to military strategists
like Sun Tzu and John Boyd to help it end the Iraq War. (Re-airs Sunday
at 7 p.m.)
10:25 a.m. Heidi Kraft, author of Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital
(Little, Brown, $23.99, 9780316067904/0316067903), talks about her
experiences treating Marines as a Navy psychologist in Iraq. (Re-airs
Monday at 7 a.m.)
11 a.m. Kirsten Holmstedt, author of Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq (Stackpole,
$27.95, 9780811702676/0811702677), chronicles the lives of 12 women
serving in combat positions in Iraq. (Re-airs Monday at 6 a.m.)
12 p.m. In Depth. Christopher Hitchens joins Book TV for a live interview. Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School and author of more than a dozen books, most recently of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve/Hachette, $24.99, 9780446579803/0446579807). (Re-airs Monday, September 3, at 12 a.m. and Saturday, September 8, at 9 a.m.)
Monday, September 3
11 a.m. Johan Van Overtveldt, author of The Chicago School: How the University of Chicago Assembled the Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business
(Agate B2, $35, 9781932841145/1932841148), details how the University
of Chicago's economists, including Nobel Prize-winner Milton Friedman,
have shaped their field. (Re-airs Monday at 7:45 p.m.)