Book Help Web: June 2006

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Evanovich scores big

Janet Evanovich has scored a coup!

According to Nielsen BookScan, her debut of Twelve Sharp had the bestselling week of any book so far this year. That's pretty good considering it outsold the debut week of Dan Brown's paperback release of The Da Vinci Code and James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

How many books did she sell last week? 163,000--which represents a new record for her as well. Her previous book debuted last year with 126,000 sales.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Alan Hess and Googie Architecture

Reviews continue to expand as a literary form.

Book reviews have been around for centuries, and music reviews have a similarly long history. But there are lots of other things about which reviews are written. Almost anything that can be purchased can be reviewed. It's why such sites as Epinions.com has such enduring popularity and usefulness.

Alan Hess is a critic/reviewer. His specialty? Architecture. He is an architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News and writes architecture columns for Silicon Valley Life. He's also the author of several books.

This week at Book Help Web, we added a profile of this writer as well as a review of one of his books. In this book, he explains how a coffee shop with a whimsical name became a style of architecture. The name? Googie. The style? Fifties coffee shop architecture.

When the style was first unveiled at a corner coffee shop, architects hated it. Restaurant owners, however, loved its attention-grabbing style (think anything you see in Jimmy Neutron). Two partners fresh out of college took a hold of the style and began refining and perfecting it.

Want to learn more? Pick up Alan Hess' book. Or give yourself a nibble at this site.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Gillian Lee-Fong-Farris

Every reader knows the joy of stumbling across an unfamiliar author or title and being surprised by how enjoyable the work is.

I recently received an advance reader copy of a first-time author.

I approached it with a bit of hesitation as it wasn't one that I had requested or knew anything about. Too often the books that I receive unsolicited are so far outside my interest area or are so poorly put together that reading becomes a chore.

Thankfully, this book was a wonderful, entertaining, and educational read. The book was Tembe by Gillian Lee-Fong-Farris.

Tembe is a short, young adult novel that tells the story of a boy becoming a man. He belongs to a group of people in Jamaica who are all either escaped slaves or descendents of escaped slaves. Their lives and traditions are a meld of many cultures and are centered around staying hidden and free.

Lee-Fong-Farris writes with a charm that makes the book engrossing. While the coming-of-age story is an old theme, she sets it in a culture about which little has been written.

It comes out in September by Absey & Co. Press. It's a book I would easily recommend to any teacher or school-age child. For that matter, it's a pleasant read for any adult who is looking for something quick.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Ghostwriting for Lost

I'm a big proponent of ghost-writing--and not just because it's one of the ways I support my family.

To me, it makes sense that you would pair someone who has a story to tell with someone who has writing skills. It can be a perfect matchup that respects one's readers.

But I do have to wonder what the conversation was between ABC, Hyperion, and ghostwriter/thriller novelist Laurence Shames.

"Hi, Laurence? We'd like you to ghost write a thriller for us."

"Great! Who will I be working with?"

"Actually, you won't be working with anyone."

"Oh, so there won't be a name on the cover?"

"There will be--it's just that the person doesn't exist."

"So, I'm ghosting for a ghost?"

In fact, Laurence Shames, a former ethics columnist for Esquire and author of such books as The Naked Detective and Tropical Depression, ghost wrote Bad Twin for a fictional character from the ABC hit television show, Lost. The book was published under the name Gary Troup and managed to sell 30,000 copies. There was speculation that it had been written by Stephen King.

I wonder if this is a trend that we'll start to see from the media conglomerates--books written to promote television shows. Personally, I think it a pretty entertaining marriage.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

One More Tidbit

Janet Evanovich's Twelve Sharp had the largest initial printing of the week with a print run of 1,250,000. It also helped that she had the paperback version of Eleven on Top released on the same day as her new hardcover.

Book News Tidbits

The world of publishing can be a fascinating one. It's such a richly diverse industry--and one that always seems to have a dark cloud of pessismism hanging over it. In an article about how book sales increased 3.8 percent last year to 3.1 BILLION, there is a quote by a publisher talking about how the general population has a declining interest in books and that the younger generation doesn't read. A researcher talks about how books are losing market share because the emerging generation isn't going to spend money on books.

It's a song that's been sung for so many generations that it's hard to put much credence in it. Reading habits change, but you'll never convince me that books are going to disappear or people are suddenly going to lose the need for storytelling.

Radio didn't kill books. Television didn't kill books. The Internet didn't kill books. Neither will any new media development. They'll change publishing, but we'll always still want a story.

Speaking of publisher news, here's a few tidbits from around the Web today:

A contract has been signed for a sequel to the 1963 novel, The Graduate. Charles Webb will be getting $56,000 to publish the next book in the United Kingdom.
Hatchette Books (the French publisher that now owns Time-Warner, Mysterious Press, etc.) will be publishing Ted Turner's life story. His agent was disappointed in that the publishing rights sold for only $4.5 million.
Lee Iacocca is coming out with a third book, "Where Have all the Leaders Gone?". It's due to come out on Father's Day 2007.
Bill Clinton is publishing a book on community service.
Dan Brown's Angels and Demons is going to be made into a movie. Is anyone surprised?
Zadie Smith's third novel, On Beauty, won the Orange Prize for Fiction. The Orange Prize comes with one of the biggest literary prize pots and is open to women who publish novels in English.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Janet Evanovich: Twelve Sharp

It's got to feel rewarding to have one's book be #4 on the Amazon topselling list before the book is even released--especially if, like Janet Evanovich claims, you motivate yourself by spending your book money before you get it.

Janet Evanovich's 12th Stephanie Plum novel was released today (and its release saw it climb a few more places on the Amazon list). Always one to delight in and with her fans, she's throwing a party today at a Foxwoods casino.

Janet Evanovich is also the latest interview at Book Help Web. She responded to ten of our questions yesterday, which you can read here. Amongst other things, she told us that if she were ever to write an episode for her favorite comic series, it would have Uncle Scrooge looking for a solid gold motor coach at a NASCAR race.

Enjoy the interview and come tell us what you think of Twelve Sharp!

Monday, June 19, 2006

Post-Father's Day Tribute

I've been awfully lucky when it comes to fathers. The two who have been in my life--my father and the father to my child--are both incredible men whom I admire, adore, and love.

My father is a man of the highest integrity--a man with a quiet sense of humor who

almost never loses his temper. He's a deeply religious man and an optimist who shares with the Apostle Paul the secret of being content in any and every situation. He's a man who practices humility and servitude, two qualities that lift him up in a way that pride never can. While he fulfills many roles in his community, his family was and is at the top of his list. He's a devoted husband who has spent a lifetime loving one woman. He was always available to his two children and provided a loving example. And now, he delights in his grandson, playing with him with the same abandon and glee that he did his children.

My husband, while different in temperment and humor style from my father, is an equally devoted father. If you ask him what he does for a living, the first thing he'll say is that he's a stay-at-home father--the teaching and the acting will be mentioned afterward. I've learned about being a mother by watching him with our son. The easy bond between the two of them never fails to amaze me. They're buddies, but my husband never forgets that his role is that of father before friend.

So I count myself fortunate when it comes to fathers.

I also count myself fortunate to have lived around such voracious readers who always have a book at hand. So in tribute to both men, I give you as Father's Day reading some of the books that they have enjoyed and appreciated throughout the years.

My father:

The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren
In His Steps by Charles Sheldon
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

My son's father:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Friday, June 16, 2006

Book movies

It looks like we are, in fact, going to see more movies from the Chronicles of Narnia series. Walden Media has scheduled the release of Prince Caspian for Dec. 14, 2007.

I think one of the things I most like about these movie adaptations is that they drive people back to the books. My own personal bias is that no one should leave childhood without getting to visit Narnia at least once--they may not be as enchanted with it as I have been, but at least they will have gotten to visit. (That's C.S. Lewis on the left--the Oxford prof that penned the Narnia series.)

Walden Media may be a company I'll have to watch more closely. They certainly seem to have a knack for recognizing good children's literature. They've adapted Carl Hiaasen's Hoot, E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, and the first in the Narnia series, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Word is that they have also acquired the rights to Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series and a trilogy by Isabelle Allende. I haven't read Allende's books yet, but Cooper's are another one of those classics whose appeal holds throughout the years.

Now, will they please redo the Lloyd Alexander Chronicles of Prydain series? Preferably starting with The Book of Three and ignoring that monstrosity that Disney put out using the title of the second novel?

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Poet Laureate: Donald Hall

As of yesterday, we have a new poet laureate.

It's a prestigious position, but can you name the person who held it

since 2004? How about the new one? OK, can you name any poet laureates? How many? Have you read any of their poetry?

The new poet laureate, Donald Hall, wants to raise the visibility of poetry. He's hoping that he'll be able to work with media outlets like NPR and HBO to put more poetry through the airwaves and cable lines.

Donald Hall is a poet who taught at the University of Michigan from 1957 until 1975. It was there that he met and married fellow poet (and then-student) Jane Kenyon. The two of them moved to a New Hampshire farm and began producing volumes of poetry. Hall's poetry began focusing on love, loss, and death after Kenyon's death of leukemia in 1995.

In addition to poetry, Hall has written novels, children's books, and plays. He was educated at Harvard and Oxford.

Oh, and so you won't leave here saying you don't know any poet laureates, here are a few through the years for you:

The first poet laureate was Joseph Auslander. He was appointed in 1937 and served through 1941. Unsurprisingly, his fame came from his war poems.
Robert Penn Warren served from 1944-45. He later won two Pulitzers and wrote an important textbook on studying poetry at the college level.
Louise Bogan was the first female poet laurate. She served from 1945-1946. In addition to writing poetry, she spent 38 year reviewing it for the New Yorker magazine.
Karl Shapiro served as poet laureate after coming home from World War II. His fiance had published the poetry he sent her, poetry that would win a Pulitzer Prize.
Robert Lowell, the father of confessional poetry, was another poet laureate from the 40s.
Elizabeth Bishop
Conrad Aiken
William Carlos Williams
Robert Frost
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Pinsky served three terms in a row--more than any other poet laureate. He held the post from 1997 to 2000.
Ted Kooser served the most recent term from 2004 to 2006. He's also a Pulitzer winner and has won two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships among other awards.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Laurie King's Writer's Improv

Awhile back, I wrote about Laurie King's Writer's Improv. That took place on May 20 and you can see the results here.

On the author's blog, she wrote: "What I wrote on Saturday (which will remain up on the Santa Cruz Parks Department site for a while) is simply a first draft, the writer feeling her way into a story. It’s jerky, clumsy, directionless, and on the edge of bad, but it’s there, and I can work with it."

What are your thoughts?

Monday, June 12, 2006

Mary Higgins Clark: Scaring the daylights out of me

I had a reading experience last night that I haven't had for a long time. I read a book that so frightened and enthralled me that not only could I not put it down, I couldn't move while reading it.

I'd been to a garage sale on Friday afternoon and picked up a handful of books that I figured would make some light summer reading. They included a couple of titles by Mary Higgins Clark. I'd read one book by her and knew that she was an extremely popular author. So I wanted to see more of her stuff. I'd previously read You Belong to Me, a novel I found entertaining and had enjoyed.

The book I read of hers last night was A Cry in the Night. I grabbed it as I was going to bed, thinking that I would read a chapter or two before I fell asleep. Thankfully, I had gone to bed early that night because three hours later when my husband came to bed he found me rapidly turning pages. He tried turning out the light and I told him that I couldn't stop reading now or I'd have nightmares all night. I found myself truly terrorized by the book even though I was pretty sure I knew what was happening.

Since my husband wanted to sleep, I moved to the bathroom where I discovered that I had several neck and back crimps because I hadn't moved at all since I started to read (except for the movement necessary to turn pages.

It's reading experiences like that which make me such a fan of reading.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Turning 38

I turned 38 today. I can't claim it is much of an earth-shattering birthday nor that I'm having epiphanies of any sort. It's a good age--certainly as good as any of the ones that came before it.

But to celebrate said birthday, I figured I'd take a moment to see if I could list 38 books that have been meaningful in my life in some way--either because they changed the way I thought, had soem sort of profound effect on me, or was simply highly entertaining and made me laugh and appreciate life more.

So, in no particular order:

The Bible
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster
What Paul Really Said About Women by John Temple Bristow
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
The Screwtape Letters By C.S. Lewis
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Christy by Catherine Marshall
All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Creed or Chaos by Dorothy Sayers
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
The Way the Crow Flies by Anne-Marie MacDonald
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
C.S. Lewis' science fiction trilogy
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
A Darker Place by Laurie R. King
A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King
Roman Blood by Stephen Saylor
Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie
Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Are you there God, It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Lorax (tied with And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street) by Dr. Seuss

Now, if I were to make the list again tomorrow, there might be entirely different books that would appear on it, and I'm certain I'll come up with others that make me go, "Oh! How could I forget about..."

But for today, that's my list.

Eudora Welty

Like most people, I enjoy collecting the odd bit of trivia. One of the more interesting pieces I picked up recently was about that great American writer, Eudora Welty. She's one of those

writers who qualify as a literary giant. She's won a Pulitzer, an American Book Award, a Christopher Medal, a National Medal of Arts and even a French Legion of Honor. The list of her awards go on and on.

More importantly, people genuinely like and enjoy her books.

One of her early works was Why I Live at the P.O.. In 1990, Steve Dorner was busy creating an e-mail program. He wanted the program to be easy to access and easy for people to use. He remembered reading Why I Live at the P.O. and felt that strum of recognition that we get from reading those meaningful books in our lives. So he named the e-mail program he was working on after her--thus was Eudora born.

That bit of trivia, along with a review of one of Welty's photography books, Country Churchyards, was added to Book Help Web yesterday. The review was written by Tom Barnes, publisher of Travel Help Web.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Childhood Writings and Borrowing Characters

I can't ever remember not making up and writing stories. Until the mice got ahold of it, my parents kept a copy of a story I wrote when I was four: Judy and the Four Bears. James Joyce had nothing on my stream of consciousness writing.

Looking back now, I have to laugh about how heavily derivative my writing was for most of my early years. I borrowed characters and setting with complete disregard for copyright or trademark. If there was a character I liked in a book and the author wasn't writing anything more, then I would. Movies? Television? Sure, they were all fair game.

So I always feel a certain strum of recognition when I read about authors who are willing to admit that they did similar things as children. Granted, authors such as Kathy Lynn Emerson have long since outgrown their derivative writing and blossomed into writers with great creativity and success, but I still appreciate that they played with writing when they were young.

Emerson even credits her early writing as giving her the ease now with switching genres. She's a writer who has written mysteries, romances, biographies, and children's books.

I happened across her for the first time when she contributed a short story to a collection entitled Much Ado About Murder, edited by Anne Perry. In that story she once again borrowed characters of another's creation and gave them her own unique spin in what was an utterly delightful story. She brought us Shakespeare's Beatrice and Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing after they've been married for a while. We see that they are still as passionate and witty as ever as they apply their intellect to a murder mystery.

It was a good read amongst the many good stories in that collection and I'm glad that I found her. She's definitely a writer I'd like to read more of.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

New Interview: Michael Silver

Good sportswriters have a magical ability about them to connect with readers. They manage to evoke a wide range of emotions by writing about things that can be rather repetitious.

Growing up, I never missed a column or article by Mitch Albom. It didn't matter whether I was interested in the sport he was covering or not--he was just that good. He made me care. It's perhaps the trademark of a good sportswriter--that they make you care.

Michael Silver is another one of those sportswriters who knows how to make his readers care. His column in Sports Illustrated has a huge following in part because he is so passionate about his subject. Last year he was one of the first sportswriters to be allowed into New Orleans after the hurricane hit. He accompanied a football player back to his home and then talked to people around the city. His account of the visit is compelling.

He also recently published a biography on Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin. He spent years

following her on the way to the Olympics as she trained with his alma mater, Cal-Berkeley. Golden Girl: How Natalie Coughlin Fought Back, Challenged Conventional Wisdom, and Became America's Champion is a book about the champion swimmer, her coach, and the sport. It's also a plea to parents of athletes to not overwork their children or make the sport so it isn't fun.

For our latest author interview, Book Help Web chatted with Michael Silver about his latest book as well as a bit about his previous biographies with such athletes as Jerry Rice, Dennis Rodman, and Kurt Warner. When asked why readers respond so well to sports writing, he said, "We’re all intrigued by the notion of watching people respond to intense pressure."

And intrigue is something that Michael Silver does very well.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Bookstore visits

I do adore trips to the bookstore, though they're usually so deadly on my pocketbook that I can't do it too often. My family was going in many different directions on Friday and we made our rendezvous point a bookstore. Despite the fact that it was not an overlarge bookstore, we managed to wander in it for a half hour before finding each other.

One of the things that impressed me was that the bookstore was able to have a large table display of books that the plethora of different book clubs were reading. There must have been 30 groups all reading widely different reading materials.

It may be an electronic age, but there will always be books because there will always be readers. Book clubs are an especially wonderful way for people to make connections--even over something as solitary as reading.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

June is...

I didn't get to book recommendations for May, but now we're in June, the month of weddings, of graduations, of school letting out and summer starting for real. So let's take a look at June's "official" designations and see what books we can match up to each commemoration.

Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month

While cats romp through more mystery books than would be prudent to name, I'm going to go with simpler fare and suggest the children's classic picture book by Wanda Gag, Millions of Cats. Even if you're an adult, a 5-minute foray with this book can brighten your day with its sweetness.

Cancer in the Sun Month

While the cancer that made the main character in Good Grief a widow was bone not skin cancer, Lolly Winston's first novel is a wonderful story about Sophie coming to terms with the loss of a beloved husband.

Dairy Month

I'm back at my son's bookshelf for my next recommendation. Maurice Sendak provided so many images from my childhood--and from many people's childhoods. His Where the Wild Things Are is a classic that captivated many of us. But it's Dairy Month, so let's skip that one for the moment and go to In the Night Kitchen. In this charmingly bizarre children's book, Mickey falls into a pitcher of milk. I'll let you read the rest of the tale to find out what happens.

If you're looking for something a little bit older--perhaps for that 10 to 15 age range--then check out Caroline Cooney's Face on the Milk Carton. It has Cooney's trademark suspense in a tightly written story about a girl named Janie who sees her own face on the milk carton.

Gay & Lesbian Pride Month

Laurie R. King is easily one of my favorite authors. Her books are refreshingly original and she has a courage about her approach to a wide variety of topics. She never takes the easy out, but brings a real intellectual honesty to her works. While she is best known for her Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series, she has also written a series featuring San Francisco cop Kate Martinelli. One of my favorites in that series is To Play the Fool. To quote from that review:

The other element of the novel that made it different from others in its genre
was the relationship between Kate and her domestic partner, Lee. Although
the book does not dwell overlong on it, it makes us aware that Kate doesn't
have it easy as a police officer in a lesbian relationship that has made the
news one too many times. Yet, the relationship between the two women is both
sweet and touching without getting sappy or overwrought.

Recreation Month

Over the next several months, you're going to start seeing a lot more travel book reviews on Book Help Web. Why? Because one of the newest members of the Help Web family is Travel Help Web--with a publisher, Tom Barnes, who has written a great number of travel book reviews.

In the mean time, perhaps you'd like to explore Los Angeles through the eyes of photographer Larry Brownstein in his tabletop book, Los Angeles: Where Anything is Possible.

Or if you're looking for something more fanciful, perhaps you'll want to pick up an older classic, William Pene DuBois's 21 Balloons, the story of Professor William Sherman's travels to Krakatoa as told to the Western American Explorers Club.

National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month

For this recommendation, I'm turning toward the kitchen. Not my kitchen, though, but the kitchen of the late Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. Their Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home has a section on vegetables that come complete with illustrated directions for peeling and chopping garlic and tomatoes.

National Rose Month

The lovely rose has inspired writers to climb literary heights ever

since William Shakespeare first penned "a rose by any other name." Umberto Eco's brilliant Name of the Rose remains one of the best books I've ever read--and the movie with Sean Connery wasn't bad either.

But I'm going to turn to ancient Rome for my National Rose Month recommendation: Stephen Saylor's Roma sub Rosa series. Roma sub Rosa means "Rome under the rose". The rose was the symbol of Horus, the god of silence. Saylor adopted the phrase to dub his series as a telling of the history of Rome's secrets. His "finder" Gordinius is a fascinating detective and the series is definitely one of the best of the many set in ancient Rome.

Zoo and Aquarium Month

At the risk of overloading this month's books with children's picture books, I've got to suggest Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo.

Great Outdoors Month

Jim Jamieson is fascinated with birds. He's also a photographer par excellence. Put those two together and you get the picture book 48 Hours of Flight. He spent 48 hours in the Bosque del Apache wildlife preserve. His love for the wildlife preserve and for national parks in general shines through all of his work. If you can't get to New Mexico (or even if you can), this might be the book to help you celebrate the Great Outdoors this month.

Bike Month

If you're going to celebrate bike month, what better way than by reading the autobiography of one of the most famous cyclists of our time: Lance Armstrong. His It's Not About the Bike chronicles not only his athletic career, but also his fight against cancer.

Goat Trauma Awareness Month

No, really...or not. You decide.

National Candy Month

Isaac Asimov first began reading science fiction after his father opened a candy store. The pulp novels were sold along with the candy, but not before young Asimov first devoured their pages.

And who can think of candy and books without thinking of Roald Dahl and his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

That's all the book recommendations I'm going to make today, but it's far from the end of things to commemorate this month. Here are several more for you:

Drive Safe Month
National Tennis Month
National Safety Month Black Music Month
Carribean American Heritage Month
National Home Ownership Month
Perennial Gardening Month
National Soul Food Month
International Men's Month
National Seafood Month
Turkey Lovers Month
National Accordian Awareness Month
American Rivers Month
Torture Awareness Month
National Ice Tea Month
National Papaya Month
National Pest Control Month
Fight the Filthy Fly Month