Book Help Web: September 2006

Peter Ames Carlin and Catch a Wave

Peter Ames Carlin is a reporter who is devoted to his subject.

Carlin has been a journalist for many years and is currently a television critic for The Oregonian newspaper. He's also freelanced for many major publications.

His passion, though, is for music, particularly if it is music being performed by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. He's the biographer for Brian Wilson and has recently published Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of Brian Wilson. It's a biography that weaves song lyrics throughout.

Our reviewer's bottom line take on the book?

Go for it. Brian Wilson is important, and Peter Ames Carlin has probably written the definitive account of his life to date. Just remember to check for the hints of biographer bias that sometimes creep through.

But he has lots more good stuff to say about it. Go check it out for yourself.

Reading for a Year

Yesterday, I mentioned the upcoming Book Fair.

Today, I want to talk about one of the giveaways that they're doing: Namely, a giveaway in which you can win "reading for a year"--that is, if you read only one book a month. They'll be giving away a set of 12 books to three winners during the three days. The winners will get to choose 12 books out of a list of 36.

There are some great titles on that list too. Books such as Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold and Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale are both dominating the bestseller lists right now. Mitch Albom's latest book is on the list as is Dean Koontz' The Husband.

Books that you have read about here at Book Help Web include Kevin Clash's My Life as a Furry Red Monster and Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

But don't take my word for it, go check the books out for yourself and enter the contest on Oct. 3.

Book Fair

Did you save the date? Because the online book fair is getting closer.

If you'd like a preview of some of the things going on, check out www.loveofreading.com

Book Help Web is exited to a sponsor of this event. In the past we've often worked with the incredible folks over at FSB Associates, the organizers and hosts of the book fair. They're quite the experts in online book publicity and are responsible for many of the author Web sites you can find around the Web. They also provide book excerpts that sites can use from new and upcoming books.

The book fair will run from Oct. 3-5 and will include hourly book raffles, giveaways for a years wroth of reading, and giveaways for book clubs. It will also feature blogs, author interviews, and articles contributed by authors.

All around it looks like it's going to be a blast.

Don't miss it!

Ken Jennings: Brainiac

Ken Jennings achieved pop culture cult status after his 75-show run on Jeopardy! He was quickly labeled as the smartest man in America and such places as ESPN revised him as the nerd you wanted to punch out.

This month, he published his Jeopardy! memoirs and an in-depth look at the sociology of trivia in our society. Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs turned out to be a fascinating book written by a very funny, self-effacing and humble man. Ken Jennings as a person is imminently likeable. His writing style is equally engaging and entertaining.

You can read more about both Ken Jennings and his new book by following the links above. Also, watch this spot in the next couple of weeks for an exclusive interview with the trivia master who is currently touring the U.S. promoting his book.

The Bad Beginning

Part of the fun of The Series of Unfortunate Events is the disingenuousness of the narrator and the titles he chooses.

Yes, what happens in The Bad Beginning is unfortunate for the orphans. But it is far from a bad beginning for the readers. Instead, this gothic-toned tale is one that inspires laughter and intense appreciation. Daniel Handler, in the person of Lemony Snicket, has created a wonderful series that deserves every ounce of popularity it has gained.

It's a series which turns its back on commercially popular books for children. It doesn't go for cute or harmless. It doesn't refuse to include violence. It doesn't suggest that children can read only small words and fluffy stories. Rather, it trusts its young readers while gently poking fun at other happier types of books.

Handler also litters the books with fun references both literary and scientific. There are little hidden gems that make the books fun to read again and again.

In October, on Friday the 13th to be exact, The End will be released. Leading up to that time, we'll be posting reviews on Book Help Web of the series up to this point. Stay tuned and enjoy!

Daniel Silva: "There is evil in the world. We have a cynical, barbaric enemy who loves death."

Several weeks ago now, I attended a book signing by Daniel Silva. He was touring to promote his latest book The Messenger.

It was a fascinating discussion to attend as I was previously unfamiliar with his work and knew only that his novel had quickly shot up the bestseller list (though it also disappeared pretty quickly). I purchased the book at the store that day and settled in to listen to his lecture.

From my previous research into him, I knew that he had been a television journalist, achieving fairly lofty statuses as a foreign correspondent for CNN and political correspondent for UPI. He later wrote news for many of the major CNN news and talk shows. At the signing he talked about how that experience laid the foundation for novel writing and in particular espionage writing.

It was also a fascinating introduction to a character and a world that gave me a wonderful background before I sat down and read The Messenger. It even made me a little more forgiving of a choice he makes about his wife as it was one that fans of the series were very supportive of and encouraging him to do. It made me willing to suspend disbelief that perhaps it wasn't as callous as it seemed at first read.

If you'd like to read more about what Daniel Silva had to say about his writing, his characters, and his books, you can read my write-up of the book signing here.

I was fascinated enough that I not only quickly read The Messenger, but also picked up a couple more of books from earlier in the series.

My Life as a Furry Red Monster

One of my summer reads that was wonderfully refreshing was Kevin Clash's memoir of his life as the creator of Elmo.

Here was a memoir that was free of gossip, bitterness, and maliciousness. Clash has no axes to grind--or if he does, he kept them well-hidden. Instead, he shares with readers his pure joy and deep gratitude for the opportunity he's had to live his dream.

The book, My Life as a Furry Red Monster, is also a fun look inside the career of puppeteering and life on Sesame Street.

Kevin Clash has spent the past 30 years with Sesame Street. He's won three Emmys for performances and six Emmys as the co-executive producer of Elmo's World.

Inkheart and Inkspell

I'm always a little disappointed when I read a book that I'm really expecting to like and then I don't.

Even worse is when a book starts out really intriguing and then just sort of falls apart. Cornelia Funke's Inkheart was that way. I started out really enjoying it as my son and I listened to it on an audio recording during a cross-country drive we were making. The reading was done extremely well and I was fascinated by the premise and by the characters.

But it just couldn't hold itself up. The characters kept doing incredibly stupid things and the only reason seemed to be that the plot was demanding it. There was no explanation given for why these otherwise intelligent people would act the way that they did.

Yet, my disappointment with Inkheart didn't stop me from buying Inkspell--and in hardcover no less.

I'm mostly glad that I did. The sophomore offering in the series was far better than the first even though it ended on a cliffhanger that will launch the next book. It still had a lot of the same flaws as the first, but it also had all of the charm and the characters did start to become a little better motivated.

I'll have a review up sometime soon for those interested in reading it.

Rowling and airliner

New airline security has been saying no books on flights. This caused a bit of difficulty for a famous author recently.

J.K. Rowling was visiting the States for a fund-raiser with Stephen King and John Irving. On her way home, she was stopped by airline security who told her she'd have to part with the manuscript she was so closely guarding. The only problem was that this was the manuscript to the final Harry Potter book--one that she had been working on longhand during her U.S. stay and had no backup copies of.

Thankfully, another security guard recognized her and came to her and the manuscript's rescue.

Daniel Handler on Book Help Web

Now that I've sent you over to the Book Standard, let me welcome you back and point you in the direction of our Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) profile. While we have one review up right now, the recently released Beatrice Letters, I'm working with the ever-laboring Webmaster to try to get reviews of the first 12 books up before The End comes out on Friday, Oct. 13.

So stay tuned for The End.

Daniel Handler with The Book Standard

All right, usually I like to direct you to interviews at Book Help Web, not elsewhere on the Web. However, I read one today that was so much fun that I just have to share it.

Daniel Handler is proving to be as witty and wry in interviews as he is in his writing. The Book Standard interviewed him this week. The full interview is here:

http://www.bookstandard.com/bookstandard/news/author/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003122506

Enjoy!

Free downloads of out-of-print books

Google is taking a step forward in its massive online literature project. Its Google Book Search once limited users to reading texts online. Now all public domain books can be downloaded and printed--a huge step forward to anyone wanting to teach these works, study them, or perform them.

This is also likely to be a huge boon for students and researchers who can now find lots of old, out-of-copyright works and easily print out sections to file away for research purposes. It's also especially appealing because you can use Google search within the books to find particular passages or information. It's better than even the best index.

Save the date

If you're a book lover, you're going to want to set aside some time to be online from Oct. 3-5.

FSB Associates, one of the premier book Web publicists in the industry, is holding an online book fair. It looks to be the first event of its kind and they've spent months preparing it. The fair will include hourly book giveaways, podcasts with authors, book club giveaways, a reading for a year promotion, and excerpts from books.

They've also recruited such authors as Sue Grafton to do a reading from her book and other authors to share their favorite reading. And, like any good book fair, they'll have an exhibit hall of books.

Watch this space for more information as the book fair gets closer.

Talking to Kim Edwards

A few weeks ago, you may remember me raving about Kim Edwards and The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

I'm fortunate to get the opportunity to read a lot of good books. The Memory Keeper's Daughter continues to stand out as the best among many good books that I read this summer. It was truly stunning and I know that every time I go back and re-read it, I'll have more to think about and analyze.

Given the incredible experience I had reading the book, it was even more of a blessing to be able to interview Kim Edwards for Book Help Web. In it she talks about how important the sound of her writing is to her and that, "There's a constant interplay between the intuitive moments of inspiration and the more analytical shaping; writing involves both creative aspects."

She was as delightful to interview as her book was to read. I hope that you will now enjoy her words and if you haven't already--do buy and read her book. You'll be glad that you did.

Everybody dies

It must be the new thing in children's literature. First, J.K. Rowling warns us to expect two deaths in the final installment of the Harry Potter series.

Now, Lemony Snicket--who has had no shortage of deaths in his Series of Unfortunate Events so far--is warning us in a Newsweek article that there will be two deaths in his The End, coming out on Oct. 13.

No one need worry about young readers being overprotected. Nor am I going to start raving about "the good ol' days" as I still have a well-worn copy of Bridge to Terabithia.

Vote for Quill Awards

Last year, a new organization emerged to award outstanding books and generate excitement about reading. The organization was called The Quills Literary Foundation and they began giving out annual awards. It was founded by Reed Business Information (the company that owns Publishers Weekly) and NBC.

The awards were chosen through reader polls--with the news being spread by such organizations as Parade Magazine, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and the American Booksellers Association.

For the first year, awards were given to:

Book of the Year
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Debut Author of the Year
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Audiobook
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America by Jon Stewart

Children's Illustrated Book
Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook by Shel Silverstein

Children's Chapter Book/Middle Grade
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Young Adult/Teen
Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares

General Fiction
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

Graphic Novel
Marvel 1602 Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman

Mystery/Suspense Thriller
Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich

Poetry
Let America be America Again by Langston Hughes

Romance
44 Cranberry Point by Debbie Macomber

Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Story of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore

Religion/Spirituality
Peace is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End by Deepak Chopra

Biography/Memoir
Chronicles: Volume 1 by Bob Dylan

Business
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

Cooking
Rachel Ray's 30-minute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes by Rachel Ray

Health/Self-Improvement
He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo

History/Current Events/Politics
1776 by David McCullough

Humor
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America by Jon Stewart

Sports
Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King

Now year two of the Quill Awards is coming up. Would you like to have your say in what books were best this year? If so, go ahead and cast your vote right here.

Many of the nominees are books that we've talked about either here in this blog or have posted profiles and reviews of at Book Help Web. Many of you might remember us discussing such nominees as:

John Grogan's Marley and Me
Carl Hiassen's Flush
Cornelia Funke's Inkspell (actually, we haven't posted that review yet, but it's in the queue and will be up any day now)
Janet Evanovich's Twelve Sharp
George R.R. Martin's A Feast For Crows
Anderson Cooper's Dispatches from the Edge
Bill Buford's Heat
Julia Child's My Life in France
Tim Russert's Wisdom of Our Fathers
Al Gore
Maya Angelou
Elizabeth Peters
Arthur Conan Doyle
Stephen King

Books for Adult Women

Chick lit can be a fun, wonderful thing. But not all female readers are in their early 20s and obsessing over issues of dating and weight loss.

Hyperion has created a new publishing line for mature women called Voice. And no, they're not using "mature" as a euphemism for "over 65". Rather, they're looking to publish books that appeal to women who are in the middle or late stages of their life. Women with concerns that go beyond the initial falling in love and launching a career.

Launched by Hyperion publisher Ellen Archer and the former Viking executive Pamela Dorman (an editor on such projects as Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees and Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter), their first five books are due out this month and all are intended to appeal to women over 30. They're books that are about such things as balancing career and family and modern feminism.

Some of the first books will include:

The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts
Life's a Beach by Claire Cook
The Empty Nest, edited by Karen Stabiner

Peter Pan

Peter Pan is the boy who never grew up and it appears that he's also the story who will never die.

J.M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan as a stage play in the early part of the 20th century. It was later made into a Disney classic that was 20 years in the making.

In recent years, Finding Neverland was released as a major motion picture and Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson wrote two prequels--Peter and the Starcatchers and Peter and the Shadow Theives. The latter two books both shot up to bestseller ranks immediately upon release.

But now comes the first official sequel, a sequel chosen by the children's hospital which holds the rights to the Peter Pan charcters. There's a fascinating story in the New York Times that tells the story of how this sequel came to be. Despite the publisher locking down prepublication copies so that the story can't get out ahead of time, the Times managed to get a copy of the manuscript and share some tidbits from it.

Given the worthy cause that the royalties go to, here's hoping the new Peter Pan, Peter Pan in Scarlet, enjoys success similar to the original.

Mid-term Elections

I wonder whether politicians (or the people they hire to manage their campaigns) ever look at bestseller lists.

It was an idle thought that came to mind as I perused Amazon's list of topselling books. It was telling to me that six of the top seven all had political or economic overtones. They seemed like almost a laundry list of things that people appear to care about:

Lawerence Wright's The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century
Thomas Ricks' Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
North American Business Islamic Directory
Steven Levitt's Freakonomics
Patrick Buchanan's State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America

Granted, the lists are fickle enough that it would be difficult for anyone to develop any sort of hardfast theories about what message is going to sell with the public, but it does appear that at least the reading public are interested in educating themselves on important issues.

Labor Day Reading

It was a quiet day in the Redman household today. In between making turkey leftover dishes for the week (mostly turkey soup and a casserole) and playing family games (Dread Pirate was the day's favorite), we all curled up with different books.

My husband re-read a book by a mutual favorite author of ours, Stephen Saylor. It was one of the more recent titles, Last Seen in Massilia. It's one of the more heart-breaking ones in the series.

My son got to the mid-way point on his first encounter with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

As for myself, I finished up two new books: Kevin Clash's My Life as a Furry Red Monster and Jesse Kellerman's 3m1w. I'll have more to say about both of those in the days to come. Jesse Kellerman, son to novelists Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, will be featured in an exclusive interview at Book Help Web in the upcoming weeks. Given how entertaining his play was, I have high expectations for the interview.

I hope you also had a good weekend.

Labor Day Weekend

Here we are in September and I never got to an "August is..." posting last month.

Nor will I be doing September today as there is an eager line for the computer standing behind me.
Labor Day often marks the unofficial start of fall though. I've already noticed an increase in the number of people visiting pages of books that are often assigned in school. Makes me wonder whether there is a sudden rash of kids cramming in their summer reading at the last minute.

Me, I always spent my entire summers reading. My parents have pictures of me lying out at the beach reading a Nancy Drew or a Judy Blume book. Later as a teenager, I'd have a journal where I'd be writing in it or letters to the penpals with whom I'd exchange stories.

Summer was always the time for reading--reading books that I wanted to read and that became my friends, my entertainment, and my window to exciting new worlds. Not a whole lot has changed even though I don't get a summer vacation anymore. I still find myself reading more in the summer than I'm able to through the rest of the year.

This was the summer that I discovered new authors in genres that I rarely read (most of whom I've already blogged here). Currently, I'm reading a memoir by Kevin Clash, the puppetteer who created Elmo and it's a wonderful, uplifting read. Sitting on my table are several other books that I don't seem to be able to get to with the same speed that I devoured books for most of the summer.

Pity, too, because they look just as luscious.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Monday, September 25, 2006

Friday, September 22, 2006

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Friday, September 15, 2006

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Monday, September 11, 2006

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Friday, September 08, 2006

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Monday, September 04, 2006

Saturday, September 02, 2006

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