"Nothing of what I've done is by a business plan. I was an English major who didn't know what sales tax was before I got into this business. Basically I've learned this business just by doing. I had a sense of purpose and a sense of mission and a sense of passion. I had a very strong sense of what an independent bookstore ought to be. That's what informed everything I've done for the past 25 years."--Mitchell Kaplan, Books & Books owner and ABA president, in an interview in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

 

Yesterday's New York Times Magazine features a piece about Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio's deep involvement in the Dia Art Foundation, where he was chairman of the board and primary donor to the tune of at least $35 million for Dia:Beacon Riggio Galleries, the contemporary art museum in Beacon, N.Y., that opened in 2003. The pretty picture ended, however, after former Dia director Michael Govan left for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the rest of the board sought to build a museum in New York City to replace its small Chelsea space.

One board member called Riggio "a huge force of nature." Govan said of his major patron, "He helped create a great thing." Commenting on Dia:Beacon's location, a former Nabisco factory, Riggio said, "It was just a seedy, broken-down place. I saw the place and went wild for it--I think because I had had the experience over a lifetime of building bookstores in some very unorthodox spaces." For a revealing, nuanced portrait of the most powerful bookseller in the U.S., admission is free online.

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Bookselling This Week celebrates Oscar Wilde Bookshop, New York City, which turns 40 on November 27. Kim Brinster, who owns the 800-sq.-ft. store in Greenwich Village that "has played a key, though shifting, role in the LGBT literary world," said, "We're in every travel guide, and about 70% of our business is from international tourists. We're kind of a tourism center. I see people all day long from all over the world."

Once a haven for young gays and lesbians, the store now is a place where Brinster sees teens shopping with a parent. "The kids are excited to be in the store, and the parents are excited to buy books for their children that the kids can relate to. Of course, we still have far to go, but to see parents and children come in together is a really nice thing."

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"I wanted to create a business that gets people talking, thinking, communicating with one another and gets folks out of their house," Crystal Bobb-Semple, co-owner of Brownstone Books, Brooklyn, N.Y., told the New York Amsterdam News in a profile of the Bedford-Stuyvesant bookshop.

The article noted that "Crystal, who has consumed the written word her entire life, said that she is disturbed by how many people see Brownstone Books as a bookstore that only sells Black books. 'We would like be thought of as something broader. People who read tend to read everything, and our inability not to offer everything hurts us. . . . It's love for community and helping people to realize this is not about class or effort to mimic another type of neighborhood. This is about love."

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Under the Sycamore Tree bookstore, Grayslake, Ill., "is a charming and magical experience for children and grown ups alike," according to the Lake County News-Sun, which profiled the bookshop and its owner, Jackie Harris.

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In July 2008, Barnes & Noble plans to open a bookstore in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in the Village at Riverstone Shopping Center.

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Bound to Read Bookstore, Marshall, Minn., will relocate next year. The Southwestern Minnesota Independent reported that the bookshop is leaving the Market Street Mall for the Bistro block building downtown. The new location is about 1,500 square feet, slightly larger than the current space.

"I’m really excited to be able to market and network with other independent businesses owners," said owner Mary Suelflow. "An independent store is well-suited for the downtown environment."

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Putting her money where her optimism is, Dorothy Sim-Broder opened Written Words Bookstore, Shelton, Conn., to fill a void of independent bookstores. According to the Shelton Weekly, "Sim-Broder said she found it pathetic that her town had no bookstore she knew of to call its own. Despite horror stories of failed business ventures and ominous predictions that books are a dying form, Sim-Broder decided to trust her instinct with Written Words. 'I went with my gut about how I shop.'"

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Garry Potter midnight madness re-appeared over the weekend, when the Russian translation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on October 13. RIA Novosti reported that "the Rosman publishing house expects to sell 1.8 million copies in its first week. A second edition of 200,000 books is currently being printed. . . . The company took unprecedented measures to prevent possible plot leaks, including enhanced security at warehouses and tough control over bookshops. Moreover, the company's security service monitored mailboxes of its employees engaged in producing the Russian version of the book." Sound familiar?

Because Russian has no "h," Harry Potter is pronounced Garry Potter by Russian speakers. Not to mention poor Gogwarts.

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"A nation of readers" was how the Prague Post characterized a recent National Library survey, which revealed that "on average Czechs add almost seven new books to their personal collections each year" and "boast a collection of 274 books in their homes." According to the survey, Czechs read an average of 16 books per year. Why? "Despite common perceptions to the contrary, compared to Western countries, books are cheap," said Zdenek Fekar, a spokesman for Kanzelsberger bookstore chain.

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Congratulations to Lance Fensterman, event director of BookExpo America, who is being promoted to industry v-p at Reed Exhibitions. He will now also be responsible for the New York ComicCon and Anime shows.

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Claudia Remley has joined National Book Network and the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group as v-p for new business development at Cooper Square, the company's joint venture with a hedge fund. Remley had run her own publishing consulting business, Topaz Educational Services, since 1999. Before that, she held a range of executive positions at Simon & Schuster, Scholastic and HarperCollins.

Peter DeAngelo, who had been in charge of arranging acquisitions since Cooper Square's founding earlier this year, has left the company.

Later this month Linda May joins the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group as v-p of marketing. Most recently she was v-p of marketing at Greenwood Publishing Group and earlier was v-p of creative service and communication at the Gale Group, director of marketing at Grolier Educational Corporation, v-p of marketing and sales at ABC-Clio and director of marketing at G.K. Hall.

 

Reservation Road, based on John Burnham Schwartz's novel and directed by Terry George, will be released this Friday, October 19. Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo star as the fathers of two families whose lives tragically come together after the hit-and-run death of a child. The movie tie-in edition is available (Vintage, $13.95, 9780307387165/030738716X). This is the first Random House Films co-production.

 

This morning on Good Morning America: Joel Osteen, author of Become a Better You (Free Press, $25, 9780743296885/0743296885). He will also appear on the show tomorrow and Wednesday.

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This morning on the Today Show: Donald Trump, author of Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life (Collins, $26.95, 9780061547836/0061547832). He will also appear tonight on Larry King Live.

Also on Today: Jerome Groopman, M.D., the New Yorker staff writer and author of How Doctors Think (Houghton Mifflin, $26, 9780618610037/0618610030).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show:

• Howard Kurtz, author of Reality Show (Free Press, $26, 9780743299824/0743299825)
• Paul Krugman, author of The Conscience of a Liberal (Norton, $25.95, 9780393060690/0393060691)

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate: Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human History (Viking, $27.95, 9780670018239/0670018236).

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Today on NPR's Fresh Air: Alice Sebold whose new novel is The Almost Moon (Little, Brown, $24.95, 9780316677462/0316677469).

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Today on NPR's All Things Considered, Eric Clapton discusses his new book, Clapton: The Autobiography (Broadway, $26, 9780385518512/038551851X).

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Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Garrison Keillor, host of A Prairie Home Companion, whose new book is Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon (Viking, $25.95, 9780670063567/0670063568).

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Doubleday, $27.95, 9780385516402/0385516401).

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Tonight on Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Alex Roy, author of Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World (HarperEntertainment, $25.95, 9780061227936/0061227935).

 

Congratulations to Al Gore, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, in an undisputed vote, for his work to spread awareness of global warming and what to do about it. Rodale Books, publisher of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, which has 700,000 copies in print and accompanies Gore's Oscar-winning documentary of the same name, is also publishing The Path to Survival. That title will appear next May and picks up where An Inconvenient Truth left off, offering "a visionary blueprint of the changes that we should make as a world community in order to prevent the climate crisis from threatening the continued viability of human civilization, on both a large and small scale."

Published by Penguin Press, Gore's The Assault on Reason appeared this past May.

In an act of exquisite timing, The World According to Gore: The Incredible Vision of the Man Who Should Be President edited and with an introduction by Bill Katovsky (Skyhorse Publishing, $12.95, 9781602392328/1602392323) was published on October 10, two days before the Nobel announcement. With a first printing of 15,000, the book, a collection of recent quotations and statements by the former Vice President, has gotten a lot of hits on political websites and blogs, and Katovsky will be interviewed on several talk radio shows this week.

 

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

Hardcover

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell (Harcourt, $23, 9780151014118/0151014116). "Unbowed by rules, always the nonconformist, young Esme disappears from society. Sixty years later, great-niece Iris learns of her existence and tries to reconstruct Esme's lost life. Family voices weave a conflicting chimera of a peculiar past. Esme is unforgettable, there's a heart-pounding denouement, and the unraveled mystery is sublime."--Nancy Jandl, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass.

Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind by Paula Kamen (Da Capo, $26, 9780306814662/0306814668). "Paula Kamen writes about her longtime friend, writer, and activist Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking, who killed herself in 2004. Kamen creates an intimate and compelling story about an extraordinary woman and her sudden, mysterious death."--Linda Bubon, Women & Children First, Chicago, Ill.

Paperback

The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari (Tor, $15.95, 9780765317537/0765317532). "With its winning combination of King Arthur and the Book of Job, this book deserves to stand on the bookshelf next to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. A witty and thought-provoking contemporary fantasy about the vicissitudes of life that we all face."--Erik Tsao, Books Etc., Portland, Me.

For Children Ages 9 to 12

The Chicken Dance by Jacques Couvillon (Bloomsbury, $16.95, 9781599900438/1599900432). "An engaging story that captures the heart and soul of young Don Schmidt, who stumbles upon his family's secrets. The story sensitively deals with deceit, friendship, and loyalty while untangling what is important for Don and his family."--Judith Lafitte, Octavia Books, New Orleans, La.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]

Depending on your point of view, Shalom Auslander either is wickedly funny or simply wicked. In this startlingly original memoir, he chronicles his lifelong theological wrestling match with a vengeful, Biblical God. It's an uproariously funny, shockingly blunt rollercoaster ride that likely will appall and delight readers in equal measure.
 
The title of Auslander's memoir unquestionably is intended to evoke comparisons to Philip Roth's 1969 novel, Portnoy's Complaint. Roth's early works, like Portnoy and Goodbye, Columbus, expressing his savage critique of the secular materialism and sexual repression of the prosperous generation of American Jews after World War II, provoked outrage in the Jewish community. Auslander takes aim at a much smaller segment of that community, but he's no less acerbic in his portrait than Roth at his most biting.
 
Auslander grew up in the 1970s in the Catskills town of Monsey, N.Y., home to an insular community of highly observant Jews. To describe his family as dysfunctional only reveals the pitiful inadequacy of that term. His alcoholic father is physically and verbally abusive, and his submissive mother is obsessed with illness and death. "My family and I are like oil and water," he writes, "if oil could make water depressed and angry and want to kill itself." The family is shadowed by the death of Auslander's younger brother Jeffy at the age of two.

Foreskin's Lament is peppered with rollicking set pieces. Some of the memorable include his description of an agonizing boyhood afternoon spent struggling to observe the strictures of the Sabbath or his account of the 25-mile hike he and his wife took from Teaneck, N.J., to Madison Square Garden to watch a Rangers' playoff game while technically adhering to the prohibition against riding on that holy day.
 
What gives Auslander's memoir its distinctive quality is that it strives to be more than a comedic rant against a certain strain of fundamentalist religion. It arises out of a rich and deep tradition within Judaism of humans arguing on a deeply personal level with God. "I believe in God," Auslander writes, "It's been a real problem for me." He describes "an endless cycle not of the celebrated 'faith followed by doubt,' but of appeasement followed by revolt; placation followed by indifference."
 
Unfortunately, just when you think Auslander is going to reach for something more than a superficial potshot at the Almighty, he succumbs to the temptation to train his fire on an easy target or settle for a cheap laugh. Speaking of the decision he and his wife made to have a doctor circumcise their son two days after his birth instead of observing the circumcision rite prescribed by Jewish law, he writes, "It was the foreskin that broke the camel's back." His frequent use of profanity, although common among comics of his generation, is nonetheless disappointing for a writer of his evident gifts.
 
At age 36, Auslander could be either his generation's Philip Roth--or its Jackie Mason. Without doubt, his is a distinctive, challenging and highly entertaining voice. Still, it's fair to ask the question: Is he wise, or simply a wise guy?--Harvey Freedenberg