Nice Ice event: Today at 6:30 p.m., Watermark Books & Café, Wichita,
Kan., will host a presentation and signing by Scott Phillips, author of
The Ice Harvest (Ballantine, $12, 0345440196). Set in Wichita,
the novel was made into a movie that opened November 23. Starring John Cusack, Billy Bob
Thornton, Randy Quaid and Oliver Platt with a screenplay by Richard
Russo, The Ice Harvest is playing at
the nearby Premiere Palace theater, which will have four showings in
the afternoon and evening. Phillips will talk in part about how a book
is turned into a movie.
---
Future editions of Life of Pi will add an element of style: illustrations. But only after an international contest. Newspapers and the book's publishers in Canada, Britain and Australia are sponsoring the competition. Author Yann Martel called the contest "another way of sharing the story." The Age in Melbourne, Australia, shares the story, with a photograph for illustration.
---
As part of its "Holiday Gifts for Katrina Children" program, this week PMA publishers are sending 10,000 new children's and YA books to children made homeless and affected by Hurricane Katrina. PMA is working with Operation U.S.A., a disaster charity that has been providing supplies to some 60 school-based clinics in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
"The thought was to get gifts in the hands of these kids for the holidays," said Susan Nicoletti, PMA's coordinator of the Katrina project. "What we found is that, for some children, this might be the first new book they have ever received."
PMA is continuing its donations to libraries destroyed by flooding from the hurricane.
---
In related news, contributions to the American Library Association's Hurricane Katrina Library Relief Fund have topped $200,000. More than 1,000 ALA members, companies, individuals and others have donated money to the fund, which will be used to help rebuild hundreds of libraries destroyed or damaged by the hurricane. ALA will solicit donations for the fund at the midwinter meeting in San Antonio, Tex., January 20-25.
---
Former publisher, new literary agent Larry Kirshbaum mulled the problems of publishing from a new vantage point in today's New York Times. He lamented that many people in New York houses feel "that they're not in control, that they are puppets and the corporate bosses are manipulating the strings."
He also said, "The demands of publishing and marketing a book today have grown to exceed the ability of a publisher to cope. I felt very keenly that we were leaving so many good marketing ideas unexplored because there were too many authors and too little time."
Still, Kirshbaum has a reputation for concentrated and innovative marketing. "The fact is that we are a consumer products business. You go into Costco and you're not that far from batteries and corn flakes."
---
Today's Times also has a piece that originally ran in its International Herald Tribune that surveys contemporary German literature and finds it running against stereotype and thus much more exportable. "Having eschewed the traditional model of heavy, politics-laden prose in favor of light, even lively storytelling, German authors are in the midst of a breakthrough that is propelling their work to hitherto unfound success abroad."
Among the titles being picked up in Britain and Norway, for example: The Chess Automat by Robert Loehr, The Measurement of the World by Daniel Kehlmann and Herr Lehmann by Sven Regener.
---
In a kind of one-for-two replacement, when Barnes & Noble opens a new store in March 2007 in Mankato, Minn., it will close a B&N and a B. Dalton Booksellers that currently operate in Mankato, which is about 80 miles southwest of the Twin Cities. The new store will be in the River Hills Mall at the intersection of Highway 22 and Highway 14. The Dalton store is in the same mall; the B&N that will be closed is at 1859 Adams Street.
---
Future editions of Life of Pi will add an element of style: illustrations. But only after an international contest. Newspapers and the book's publishers in Canada, Britain and Australia are sponsoring the competition. Author Yann Martel called the contest "another way of sharing the story." The Age in Melbourne, Australia, shares the story, with a photograph for illustration.
---
As part of its "Holiday Gifts for Katrina Children" program, this week PMA publishers are sending 10,000 new children's and YA books to children made homeless and affected by Hurricane Katrina. PMA is working with Operation U.S.A., a disaster charity that has been providing supplies to some 60 school-based clinics in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
"The thought was to get gifts in the hands of these kids for the holidays," said Susan Nicoletti, PMA's coordinator of the Katrina project. "What we found is that, for some children, this might be the first new book they have ever received."
PMA is continuing its donations to libraries destroyed by flooding from the hurricane.
---
In related news, contributions to the American Library Association's Hurricane Katrina Library Relief Fund have topped $200,000. More than 1,000 ALA members, companies, individuals and others have donated money to the fund, which will be used to help rebuild hundreds of libraries destroyed or damaged by the hurricane. ALA will solicit donations for the fund at the midwinter meeting in San Antonio, Tex., January 20-25.
---
Former publisher, new literary agent Larry Kirshbaum mulled the problems of publishing from a new vantage point in today's New York Times. He lamented that many people in New York houses feel "that they're not in control, that they are puppets and the corporate bosses are manipulating the strings."
He also said, "The demands of publishing and marketing a book today have grown to exceed the ability of a publisher to cope. I felt very keenly that we were leaving so many good marketing ideas unexplored because there were too many authors and too little time."
Still, Kirshbaum has a reputation for concentrated and innovative marketing. "The fact is that we are a consumer products business. You go into Costco and you're not that far from batteries and corn flakes."
---
Today's Times also has a piece that originally ran in its International Herald Tribune that surveys contemporary German literature and finds it running against stereotype and thus much more exportable. "Having eschewed the traditional model of heavy, politics-laden prose in favor of light, even lively storytelling, German authors are in the midst of a breakthrough that is propelling their work to hitherto unfound success abroad."
Among the titles being picked up in Britain and Norway, for example: The Chess Automat by Robert Loehr, The Measurement of the World by Daniel Kehlmann and Herr Lehmann by Sven Regener.
---
In a kind of one-for-two replacement, when Barnes & Noble opens a new store in March 2007 in Mankato, Minn., it will close a B&N and a B. Dalton Booksellers that currently operate in Mankato, which is about 80 miles southwest of the Twin Cities. The new store will be in the River Hills Mall at the intersection of Highway 22 and Highway 14. The Dalton store is in the same mall; the B&N that will be closed is at 1859 Adams Street.