Shelf Awareness for Friday, October 26, 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: Poisoned Pen Grows; Tehran Coffee Shops Close

"In business, it's grow or die. However, you have to limit the risk so that it doesn't bankrupt you," said Barbara Peters, owner of the Poisoned Pen bookstore, Scottsdale, Ariz., in an Arizona Business Gazette article chronicling the bookseller's dramatic revival after an extremely challenging period.  

According to the Gazette, "The Poisoned Pen bookstore's downtown shop was killed during a fight between Phoenix code inspectors and the Bentley Projects, an art gallery where the mystery-book specialist opened a branch in 2005. The story here, though, is how owner Barbara Peters ran an inquisition into what happened and used the information to keep expanding her Scottsdale-based business after the branch closed earlier this year."

The article praised her upbeat attitude, and Peters said she now regards the experience as "a very expensive PR campaign. We've created new customers, hosted some events we might not otherwise have . . . and received a lot of ink."

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Today's New York Times profiles Kinokuniya's new bookshop near Bryant Park and suggests that the bookstore chain "has decided that Japanese is no longer the center of its universe." In addition to the Japanese-language books that have been the mainstay for Kinokuniya's 26-year-old outlet at Rockefeller Center, the new store also features an array of titles from "Asia and beyond."

"At the old store the main purpose was to sell to the Japanese community,” said Shigeharu Ono, director of Kinokuniya in New York.  "We want to expand our audience."

Although Japanese-language works account for 70 percent of the stock at the older bookshop, Ono said English-language books would likely be in the majority at the new store. The first floor at the Bryant Park location, "serenely decorated in blond-wood flooring and minimalist black shelving," offers a generous selection of titles in English, ranging from translations of Japanese contemporary and classic novelists to works by Salman Rushdie and Anita Desai.

For Japanophiles, the new store features "plenty of Japanese-language novels, fashion magazines and a mother lode of manga in both Japanese and English," as well as a branch of Cafe Zaiya, the Japanese-style pastry and sandwich shop. Store manager John Fuller said that the Bryant Park location will also hold more events in English.

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Bookselling This Week
features a "shop local" daily double combination, with articles about the upcoming America Unchained! day on November 17, as well as the winner of Scholastic's My Main Street contest.

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, nearly 50 communities in the U.S. will urge residents to shop at locally-owned, independent businesses as part of America Unchained!, a national celebration sponsored by the American Independent Business Alliance. AMIBA director Jennifer Rockne said America Unchained! is timed just prior to Black Friday "to catch people before the bulk of their gift buying." She added that she would "love to see more bookstores everywhere get involved. The campaign is easy to pull together because it's mainly a media campaign, and we have materials available."

Emily Wynn Hinely represents the next generation of "shop local" aficionados. The 10-year-old voracious reader from Newnan, Ga., won Scholastic's My Main Street contest, celebrating the publication of the new Main Street series by bestselling author and Newbery honoree Ann M. Martin. Emily entered the contest at Scott's Books, owned by Earlene Scott and "a Newnan fixture for 32 years." As the store submitting the victorious entry, Scott's also comes up a winner by earning a visit from Ann M. Martin.

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Coffee shops in four of Tehran's bookstores were closed this week "after receiving a 72-hour ultimatum from Amaken-e Omoomi, a state body governing the retail trade," according to the Guardian.

One of the closed cafés was at a well-known bookshop, Nashr-e Sales, "which has hosted reading sessions by writers, including the Nobel prize-winning Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk, and become a popular meeting point for literary types."

"Amaken justified the closures by declaring that the coffee shops constituted an illegal 'mixing of trades,' " the Guardian added. "However, critics suspect the move is aimed at restricting the gathering of intellectuals and educated young people."

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"Off-the-wall bookstores offer cheaper, hipper selections that will get almost anyone to rediscover the reading habit," the Cal State Fullerton Daily Titan claimed. The paper directed readers to local bookstores that "are more offbeat than your average Borders or Barnes & Noble. These reader retreats may not offer music listening stations, Wi-Fi or chai lattes, but after visiting these stores, you'll realize there's more out there than supermarket paperbacks."

Recommended stops included "literary hog paradise" Acres of Books in Long Beach, the Bookman in Orange and the Bookman Too in Huntington Beach; Soap Plant in Los Angeles, Skylight Books in Los Feliz ("always abuzz with bespectacled hipsters"), Comics Unlimited in Westminster and Babeland in Los Angeles.

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The Gathering Awareness and Book Center, Pensacola, Fla., will celebrate its 18th anniversary Saturday. According to the Pensacola News Journal, the Gathering, owned by Georgia and Johnny Blackmon, "is known for offering an array of Afrocentric books and a variety of gift items including figurines, artwork, greeting cards, baskets, carvings, soap and candles. The store also sells merchandise from Africa and the Caribbean."

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Blog begets publisher. Wired magazine profiled Dzanc Books, a small publisher "poised to succeed, hiring staff and expanding quickly. And that may be because it sprouted from a blog rather than a traditional printing press, and it is certainly web-savvy."

Dzanc Books is the brainchild of novelist Steve Gillis and Dan Wickett, whose litblog, Emerging Writers Network, has attracted a loyal readership since its inception in 2005.

"I have been as much of a pain-in-the-neck presence online as I could have been in last five years," said Wickett. "We have developed fairly large communities of readers and writers we believe will support us. If half of our members ran out and bought a book, it would be more successful than many small-press books."

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A Harry Potter trick for Halloween. The Boston Globe reported that in Wakefield, Mass., St. Joseph School's pastor, Rev. Ron Barker, removed Harry Potter books from the school's library, "declaring that the themes of witchcraft and sorcery were inappropriate for a Catholic school. . . . The removal at St. Joseph's is the first reported instance that the wildly popular series has been banned in the Bay State, according to the American Library Association."

The Globe also noted that Harry joins some distinguished historical company: "In 1650, William Pynchon's The Meritorius Price of Our Redemption was publicly burned because colony leaders considered it too critical of the Puritan religion. In 1878, the New England Watch and Ward Society was founded to ban books, fight pornography, and 'watch and ward off evildoers.'"

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And a Harry Potter treat. A first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone--from a first printing of only 500 copies--sold for the record-breaking price of £19,700 ($40,390) at a recent auction. The Guardian reported that "the auction also featured an uncorrected publisher's proof copy of the book, produced for internal use and promotion, and with 'JA Rowling' printed in error on the title page. It went for £2,250 ($4,613)."

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The Salt Lake Tribune reported on bookstore Ladies Nights, which began in 1986 at the Fort Union Deseret Book store and have since evolved into biannual events at 20 Deseret Book stores in Utah.

 


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Media and Movies

Media Heat: Senator Hutchison's Leading Ladies

Today on Oprah: Marcus Buckingham, author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance (Free Press, $30, 9780743261678/0743261674).

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Today on the View: Deborah Norville, author of Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work for You (Thomas Nelson, $19.99, 9780785221937/0785221937).

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Tonight on Real Time with Bill Maher: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, author of Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers (Harper, $25.95, 9780061138249/006113824X).

Also on Real Time: retired general Wesley K. Clark will discuss his book A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country (Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95, 978-1403984746/1403984743).

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Today on ABC News's 20/20: Ben Casnocha, author My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley (Jossey-Bass, $24.95, 9780787996130/0787996130).


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


Books & Authors

Image of the Day: Reps Celebrate Books & Books's 25th

Cheers! Among the hundreds of people who helped celebrate the 25th anniversary of Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla., last weekend were the following reps: (from l. to r.) Wayne Donnell, Jeff Cope, Marty Conroy, Books & Books owner Mitchell Kaplan, Gail Whitten, Tom Murphy, Jim Murphy, Eileen Becker and Geoff Rizzo (kneeling).

 


Hudson's Best Books of 2007

Hudson Booksellers, which operates 66 bookstores and sells books in some 400 Hudson News newsstands in airports and transportation terminals to the tune of $100 million a year, has announced its list of the Best Books published this year. The winners were chosen for their "innovation, readability, thematic impact, popular appeal and cultural relevance." 1000 Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini was chosen as Book of the Year.

"Our goal is to help customers connect to great reads quickly, especially during the hectic holiday travel season," Sara Hinckley, v-p, book buying and promotions, said in a statement. "The lists will be prominently displayed in all Hudson Booksellers and large Hudson News stores, starting December 1."

Best Fiction:
  • Away by Amy Bloom
  • The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
  • The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
  • Falling Man by Don DeLillo
  • The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
  • 1000 Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  • A Free Life by Ha Jin
  • Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
  • After Dark by Haruki Murakami
  • The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
Best Nonfiction:
  • The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson
  • A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
  • Boom by Tom Brokaw
  • I Am America by Stephen Colbert
  • American Creation by Joseph Ellis
  • The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
  • God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
  • Einstein by Walter Isaacson
  • Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver
  • The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Best Children's:
  • The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden
  • Mahalia Mouse Goes to College by John Lithgow
  • Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
  • The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Best Business:

  • Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner
  • Microtrends by Mark Penn
  • The No Asshole Rule by Robb Sutton
  • The Black Swan by Nasim Nicholas Taleb
  • Wikinomics by Don Tapscott

Hudson is also highlighting Books We Love and a Newsworthy/Noteworthy category.

 



Deeper Understanding

Shelf Talk: Graphic Lit/Young Reader Recommendations

The most common question I received after my first Graphic Lit column (Shelf Awareness, July 31, 2007) was "What comics/graphic novels would you recommend for younger readers?" Luckily, there's no shortage of answers! In this installment, you'll find a few of my highly subjective picks for great comics for kids, from pre-readers to late teens. I've done my best to specify age and/or skill level ranges for each title, but as always, this varies based on the individual needs and tastes of young readers. And if you're an adult who's new to graphic novels, you might consider picking these up for yourself: as with reading in a new language, it can take some practice to read comics "fluently" and with enjoyment, and starting with these accessible titles can be a great way into the world of graphic lit.

My first encounter with graphic novels as a kid was the wonderful Tintin series by Belgian artist Herge, who wrote his books about the adventures of the globe-trotting young reporter from the 1920s to the 1970s; most titles are now available in paperback from Little, Brown. Great for everyone from beginning readers to teens, the series features great characters, humor and sophisticated plots carried by Herge's unique "clean-line" drawing style. There is some contextual racism typical of the time and place (i.e., African characters are drawn with minstrel-show exaggeration, Japanese characters are often villainous, etc.); this should ideally be addressed by parents before giving Tintin to kids, and some titles (Tintin in the Congo, for example) are probably best avoided. But for the most part, the series offers innocent adventure and an addictive way to get kids into reading. My favorites are the two-part drama of The Secret of the Unicorn ($9.95, 9780316358323/0316358320) and Red Rackham's Treasure ($9.95, 9780316358347/0316358347); you can find titles and ISBNs for nearly 30 readily available titles at the Hachette website.

Because of my bookstore's market and my own taste I tend not to bother with teen series titles, which need lots of shelf space and knowledge to keep the selection fresh. But I'd make an exception for the smart, powerful storytelling of Brian K. Vaughn in his superhero series Runaways, published by Marvel Comics. The young protagonists (ranging in age from 11 to 18) discover that their parents are actually evil--a powerful group of supervillains called the Pride--and that they themselves have various superpowers, and suddenly find themselves running from authority and trying to make up for their parents' crimes through acts of heroism, while dealing with the regular difficulties of growing up. I'd recommend this highly for middle readers to late teens; though there is some violence (and the death of several major characters) the sophisticated moral dilemmas, rich characterization and compelling storytelling make it worthwhile, and the overarching motif is one all teens can identify with. And the trade editions are inexpensive enough for teens' wallets. All titles Marvel Comics (Diamond), $7.99:

  • Runaways Vol. 1: Pride & Joy 9780785113799/0785113797
  • Runaways Vol. 2: Teenage Wasteland 9780785114154/0785114157
  • Runaways Vol. 3: The Good Die Young 9780785116844/0785116842
  • Runaways Vol. 4: True Believers 9780785117056/0785117059
  • Runaways Vol. 5: Escape to New York 9780785119012/0785119019/
  • Runaways Vol. 6: Parental Guidance 9780785119524/0785119523
  • Runaways Vol. 7: Live Fast 9780785122678/0785122672

Any discussion of comics for middle readers would be incomplete without Gene Yang's American Born Chinese (First Second Books, $17.05, 9781596431522/1596431520) which was the first graphic novel to be nominated for the National Book Award in 2006 (in the category of Young People's Literature).  A three-part story incorporating Chinese mythology, examinations of stereotypes, and a subtle take on ethnicity and belonging, this title has a lot going on.  But it's also just a story about kids trying to fit in at school and figure out who they are, accessibly written and enjoyably drawn.  Like the best children's literature, this masterful book can be enjoyed on many levels by many ages, and is one parents might want to read along with their elementary school or teenaged kids.

Some graphic novels occupy a similar territory to the best illustrated children's books, though they have the potential to be much more complex. Shaun Tan's recent masterpiece, The Arrival (Arthur A. Levine, $19.99, 9780439895293/0439895294), is such a book: it begs to be pored over by a child sitting on a parent's lap, but it also richly rewards the attention of the most sophisticated grown-up. Told entirely without words (with drawings reminiscent of Chris Van Allsburg), Tan's tale is clearly an immigrant story, and the sepia tones evoke 19th century Ellis Island. But the worlds his characters escape from, and the one where they arrive, are strange and wonderful, filled with unfamiliar animals, foods, buildings and customs that make the struggles of coming to a new land freshly resonant. This is truly a crossover work, sure to be snapped up by everyone from pre-readers to adults.

For young readers just developing a taste for comics, The Clouds Above by Jordan Crane (Fantagraphics/Norton, $18.95, 9781560976271/1560976276) is a small joyful discovery. A contemporary fable about a boy and his cat escaping classroom tyranny for aerial adventures, this brief story by an indie comics stalwart is both sweet and snappy and satisfying to early readers to early teens.

The work of several dozen up-and-coming comics writers is showcased in the gorgeous anthologies Flight Volume One ($19.95, 9780345496362/0345496361), Flight Volume Two ($24.95, 9780345496379/034549637X), Flight Volume Three ($24.95, 9780345490391/0345490398) and Flight Volume Four ($24.95, 9780345490407/0345490401), published by Villard/Random House. While not specifically geared toward young readers, the aesthetic of the ongoing collection is influenced by web comics and very contemporary; many of the short pieces in these volumes were created by young artists and might even inspire teens to try creating comics themselves. Pre-teen to late-teen readers will likely enjoy them; visit the beautiful Flight blog for more about wunderkind series editor Kazuo Kabuishi and the contributing artists, and samples of their work.

Art Spiegelman, who brought comics to the attention of the adult literary world with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, is also a proponent of bringing good comics back to kids. He created a great collection for pre-readers to middle readers called Little Lit. The contributor list boasts such names as Maurice Sendak, David Sedaris, Neil Gaiman and Lemony Snicket, and the combination of brilliant comic writers and talented artists makes for a one-of-a-kind collection of smart, goofy stories perfect for pre-readers to middle readers. The three first volumes (Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies, Strange Stories for Strange Kids and It Was a Dark and Silly Night) are functionally out of print and hard to find, but there's now a fantastic "best of" in paperback called Big Fat Little Lit (Puffin, $14.99, 9780142407066/0142407062). And readers can visit the Little Lit website for more stories and games.

This is just the beginning--here's hoping you and your young readers open the door to the world of Graphic Lit with these great titles! You can email me with thoughts, questions or suggestions at booknerdnyc@earthlink.net.--Jessica Stockton Bagnulo

 


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