Big box book clubs

Posted on 7 January 2010 by Eliza, Associate Editor

Many of you may have heard by now that Sam’s Club is launching a book club this Saturday in Marietta, Georgia. The first pick will be BookPage favorite Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman, which hits shelves on Jan. 12. The book will be featured in 600 Sam’s Club stores around the U.S.

Because we can only guess how exciting it is for a debut author to get such widespread recognition, we asked Hoffman to comment on the buzz for her book:

“It just keeps going on and on, and now [it's sold in] seven countries. Bookspan picked it up and they’re making it their Main Street selection. Sam’s Club picked it up to be their first book club pick. It’s surprising to me that this is happening. I can’t wait to see CeeCee in German, and Italian!”

In other book club news, Ronlyn Domingue’s The Mercy of Thin Air has been chosen as Costco’s pick of the month for January. BookPage reviewer Iris Blasi writes that The Mercy of Thin Air, about a girl trapped in the “between” level that exists between life and the world that follows, tracks “an extraordinary love affair over nearly three-quarters of a century.”

Will you pick up a book based on recommendations from Sam’s Club or Costco (or Oprah or, of course, BookPage)?

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Ann Beattie's new novella

Posted on 7 January 2010 by Trisha, Managing Editor
Ann Beattie

Ann Beattie

After five years of silence, acclaimed American writer Ann Beattie will return to fiction this June. Her upcoming release, Walks With Men (Scribner) is described as an “intense” novella that captures New York in the early 1980s (when Beattie came to NYC). It follows a young woman’s infatuation and disillusionment with a writer 20 years her senior. Perhaps the most innovative thing about the book is that it will be published simultaneously in two formats, as is often done in the U.K. The trade paper will be $10, and the hardcover edition, $15.

One of the many reasons I like going to London is that I can often find books from my favorite authors a.) sooner and b.) cheaper, even with the crazy exchange rate, since new releases are published in paperback. If things were done similarly here, would you buy more books?

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What we're reading Wednesday

Posted on 6 January 2010 by Lynn, Editor

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
Reagan Arthur / Little Brown, on sale January 18

Three years after a debut that dazzled the literary world (Then We Came to the End) Joshua Ferris returns with a second novel that is both difficult to describe and hard to forget. In The Unnamed, successful corporate lawyer Tim Farnsworth succumbs to a mysterious compulsion—he can’t stop walking. At times, the urge strikes so suddenly that Tim darts out of his Manhattan office or his suburban home and pounds the pavement until his feet are bloody and his body collapses in an exhausted heap. As his marathon walks continue, the blinding urge has a devastating effect on Tim’s career, his family and his health. The Unnamed challenges readers with its unlikely premise and lures them with writing that is intense, compelling and relentless in its narrative power.

He walked past neighbors’ houses, he walked barefoot down Route 22. He walked past the supermarket: empty parking lot and an eerie glow. He walked past the Korean Baptist church and the Saks-anchored mall into the dreams of the late-night drivers who took home the image of some addled derelict in a cotton robe menacing the soft shoulder. He looked down at his legs. It was like watching footage of legs walking from the point of view of the walker. That was the helplessness, this was the terror: the brakes are gone, the steering wheel has locked, I am at the mercy of this wayward machine. It circled him around to the south entrance of the forest preserve. Five, six miles on foot after a fourteen-hour day, he came to a clearing and crashed. The sleep went as quickly as a cut in a film. Now he was standing again, in the cricket racket, forehead moist with sweat, knees rickety, feet cramped, legs aching with lactic acid. And how do you walk home in a robe with any dignity?

Watch for a Meet the Author Q&A with Ferris in the February issue of BookPage and read an interview with Ferris from 2007.

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Men in 2010?

Posted on 6 January 2010 by Trisha, Managing Editor

2009 was a big year for the female literati, with new releases from major talents like Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Lorrie Moore,  Jayne Anne Phillips and Alice Munro.

But in 2010, when it comes to anticipated fiction releases from literary heavyweights, the authors everyone is buzzing about are almost all male. The action starts next month, when Don DeLillo releases Point Omega (Doubleday), his first novel since 2007′s Falling Man.

Then on February 23, John Banville will publish The Infinities (Knopf), billed as a literary gem with a playful side that finds immortals vying over the soul of a dying mathematician.

March 29 brings the release of Ian McEwan’s Solar (Doubleday), which promises to be as topical as his last novel, 2005′s Saturday—it’s the story of a physicist who just might have hit on a way to save the planet. (Read our earlier post about this book.)

In April, Australian Peter Carey returns with his first book since His Illegal Self, Parrot and Olivier in America (Knopf). Described as a comic novel, the book is set in the 19th-century United States and is inspired by the real-life experiences of Alex de Tocqueville.

May features a new release from Martin Amis, another major British writer. Will The Pregnant Widow (Knopf), rumored to be his most autobiographical novel yet, be a hit like The House of Meetings, or a flop like the infamous Yellow Dog? We’ll find out May 11. And of course on May 25, readers everywhere will be flocking to bookstores to pick up a copy of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Knopf), the last of Steig Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander books.

And finally, June 29 brings the long-awaited fifth novel from David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (Random House). They’re dubbing this epic tale, set in 1799 Japan, Mitchell’s most ambitious work yet, which is saying something when you’re talking about the author of Cloud Atlas.

What 2010 release are you waiting to read?

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"Read for your life" with Katherine Paterson

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Eliza, Associate Editor

Katherine Paterson

Since we seem to be on a children’s/YA lit roll, I’ve got another news item to pile on the list. (Don’t worry: We haven’t forgotten about the grownup stuff!)

Beloved YA novelist and Newbery Medalist Katherine Paterson, the author of Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob Have I Loved and many others, has today been named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. She succeeds Jon Scieszka.

According to the Library of Congress, “The position of National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature was created to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education, and the development and betterment of the lives of young people.” Paterson will serve a two-year term. The focus of her tenure will be “read for your life.” (We can get behind that mission!)

In reviewing the book The Same Stuff as Stars, Dean Schneider gives us a glimpse at Paterson’s ability to use books to stretch children’s imaginations and boost their spirits: “[Main character Angel] feels part of the grander scheme of the universe. Just as adults became her guides, so do the stars, and she feels that maybe she, too, might take her lead from those beaming celestial bodies. No matter what other people did or failed to do, you could try yourself to be something like Polaris, shining strong and bright and fixed in a swirling world of darkness.”

Why do you think Paterson will make a great Ambassador for Yong People’s Literature?

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The babysitters are back!

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Eliza, Associate Editor

Confession: I actually started squealing when I learned of the prequel to “The Baby-Sitters Club” series, a novel called The Summer Before that will be released in April 2010.

On New Year’s Eve, BSC publisher Scholastic distributed a press release with information about The Summer Before. The book will be about, well, the summer before the Baby-Sitter’s Club was founded, detailing a time when four tweens are “on the edge of something big—not just the club that will change their lives, but also the joys and tribulations of being a girl.”

Scholastic hopes the prequel will renew interest in the whole series, and they will also re-release paperbacks of some of the original books, starting with Kristy’s Great Idea. So kids raised on Wii and Webkinz can relate to the books, certain anachronisms (“cassette player”; “perm”) will be updated.

In a recent article from the New York Times, the words “rabid passion” are used to describe the relationship between The BSC and its fans, and I understand. Although I didn’t read all 213 titles of Ann M. Martin’s series, I probably read 100—and I modeled aspects of my life after Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey. (I wanted Kristy’s athletic ability; Mary Anne’s boyfriend/organizational skills; Claudia’s jewelry; and Stacey’s clothes.) Not only were the girls in the series fun, entrepreneurial and relatable. They also dealt with issues like not fitting in at school, arguing with friends, divorce and diabetes. And they resonated with a lot of kids. Baby-Sitters Club books have sold 176 million copies.

What do readers think? Will The Summer Before be a hit? Will passionate fans jump to revisit Kristy and the gang, or is it better not to tamper with a series that’s already great?

What’s your favorite book from the series? I was always partial to the “Super Specials,” especially Super Special #5: California Girls! (“Who would believe it—the Baby-sitters have won the lottery! And with their winning money, the girls are all going with Dawn to… California!”) Which girl were you? (I was a Mary Anne/Claudia hybrid, if that’s possible.)

Related in BookPage: Read a review of Everything for a Dog, Ann M. Martin’s recent children’s book.

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Predicting the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz and Sibert

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Eliza, Associate Editor



With the announcement of the American Library Association’s children’s and teen book awards coming up soon (on January 18), it’s prediction season in the  children’s book world. English teacher and children’s book reviewer extraordinaire Dean Schneider, a member of the 2008 Newbery Committee, shares some of his predictions, a number of which he reviewed for BookPage:

Newbery Medal: When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead)

Newbery Honors: Marching For Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary (Elizabeth Partridge); Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Philip M. Hoose); The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Jacqueline Kelly)

Caldecott Medal: The Lion & The Mouse (Jerry Pinkney)

Caldecott Honors: All the World (Elizabeth Garton Scanlon)

Printz Medal: Marcelo in the Real World (Francisco X. Stork)

Printz Honors: Lips Touch by Laini Taylor; Fire (Kristin Cashore)

Sibert Medal: Charles & Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Deborah Heiligman)

Sibert Honors: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Philip M. Hoose); Marching For Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary (Elizabeth Partridge); Truce (Jim Murphy); A Savage Thunder: Antietam and the Bloody Road to Freedom (Jim Murphy)

Do you have any other predictions? Also, be sure to bookmark the Children’s Page on BookPage.com. In the bottom left corner, we highlight award winners from the past. This week we’re featuring 2006 Caldecott Honor Book Rosa, by Nikki Giovanni and Bryan Collier.

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A Whole Nother Trailer

Posted on 4 January 2010 by Eliza, Associate Editor

This morning I came across a book trailer for Dr. Cuthbert Soup’s debut YA novel, A Whole Nother Story (the book came out a couple weeks ago). The trailer cracked me up, and I thought you might enjoy something silly to kick off your week:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1UmK256GtE]

If you’re a Lemony Snicket fan, I think Dr. Cuthbert Soup, who has a similar mysterious persona, will hit the spot. Here’s a preview of his writing, from a behind-the-book essay in BookPage:

I had my motivation but did I have a story to tell and, more importantly, would my story be worthy of that coveted slot between War and Peace and Wart Removal For Dummies? After all, the last thing I wanted was to write a book that would find itself lying on a table beneath a sign reading, “Books for under three dollars” or” Books: twelve cents a pound” or “Free kindling.” Actually the last thing I wanted was to be eaten alive by a swarm of larger-than-average ants. Still, authoring an uninteresting book was fairly high on the list of things I did not want to happen.

Click here to continue reading Soup’s essay. Will you be checking out A Whole Nother Story?

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A New Year's Day giveaway

Posted on 1 January 2010 by Trisha, Managing Editor

Happy New Year!

To set the tone for 2010, we’re giving away the paperback version of one of 2009′s hottest mystery debuts. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the first in a new series starring precocious preteen sleuth Flavia de Luce, who solves mysteries in 1950s England between bouts with her two older sisters.

sweetness at the bottom of the pie

In our review, BookPage contributor Arlene McKanic said that “Readers will want more, much more, of Flavia de Luce!” If you want to find out what all the fuss is about before the sequel, The Weed that Strings the Handman’s Bag, comes out in March, leave a comment telling us about the best mystery YOU read last year. We’ll pick a winner from among the entries received before 10 am CST on January 4. Good luck!

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Novels as crossword puzzles or “Choose Your Own Adventure”

Posted on 1 January 2010 by Eliza, Associate Editor

I’m always interested in discovering new authors, and a couple weeks ago I was intrigued by an obituary for Milorad Pavic, a Serbian novelist who died on Nov. 30, at age 80. I haven’t read any of Pavic’s books, but it seems that readers who love language and nonlinear narratives would find a gold mine in his novels.

Dictionary of the Khazars, from 1988, is organized (you guessed it) like a dictionary. According to the New York Times, the novel, “which purports to be the republication of a late-17th-century dictionary printed in poison ink, opens encouragingly:

The author assures the reader that he will not have to die if he reads this book, as did the user of the 1691 edition, when ‘The Khazar Dictionary’ still had its first scribe.” Ha!

Landscape Painted With Tea, another of Pavic’s novels, is organized as a crossword puzzle: “Readers may approach the book chronologically by reading only the “Across” sections, or less chronologically and with more digressions by reading the “Down” sections. Either strategy gradually reveals the story of a soul-searching architect who roams a labyrinth of meditation and memory.”

That description reminded me of a novel I’ve been working at reading for a couple of years now. (I know you all have one: the book you keep picking up and putting down again—but dang it you will finish it!) Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch is structured in an equally unusual fashion as Pavic’s books; you can either read it in direct sequence, from beginning to end. . . or you can “hopscotch” through the book’s chapters by following a table provided by Cortázar. (I think of it as a “Choose Your Own Adventure” for grownups.)

Since I’m compiling my reading list for 2010, I wondered if readers had suggestions for other wackily-structured novels, or authors who employ an unusual device in their writing.

And as an aside: What book are you determined to finish in 2010? After reading Trisha’s rave a couple days ago, I also want to read Wolf Hall!

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Prepping for your book club in 2010

Posted on 31 December 2009 by Eliza, Associate Editor

Join a community of book clubs on BookPage.com

As 2010 rolls around, I know many of you will be making picks for a book club you’ve been a part of for years, or you’ll be joining a new group. (Or, maybe you’ve got your picks lined up months in advance. If so, please share the titles in the comments!)

My mom recently joined a book club in Arkansas, and I know she’s excited about January and February: Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo and Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage are on the docket.

If you’re just starting a club, BookPage has many resources: We have a book club column in the print edition of BookPage (click here for December’s highlighted books); and we’ve got an entire page dedicated to all things book club on BookPage.com, where you can learn about new books out in paperback, write a profile about your club or review books your group enjoyed.

What books will your club be reading in 2010?

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What We're Reading Wednesday

Posted on 30 December 2009 by Kate, Associate Editor

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
September 2009, Riverhead

Three members of my family gave copies of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna for Christmas gifts this year; I had to borrow back the copy I’d given my mom in order to finish the last 50 pages. Fortunately, once I returned it to her, I had plenty of new books to choose from! My mom and I share a love for Nick Hornby, so she had given me a copy of his newest novel, Juliet, Naked, which I started on my flight home.

Juliet, Naked follows the intertwining stories of Duncan, a college professor in a small English town whose one passion is for the music of Tucker Crowe; Duncan’s girlfriend Annie, who is beginning to realize how angry she is that she’s just spent 15 years with a man who loves Tucker Crowe more than her; and Tucker Crowe himself, who has been in near-seclusion in rural Pennsylvania since shortly after the release of his greatest album, Juliet, in 1986. Hornby has a gift for illuminating the inner lives of his characters, from their moments of petty jealousy to the recognition of their scariest or most humbling needs. I especially appreciate his insight into the kind of fannish obsession that Duncan has for Tucker Crowe, which both embarrasses and sustains him. I always love Hornby’s characters, and this book is no exception; I’m almost excited that I have another flight tomorrow, so I can have an excuse to plow through the rest of Juliet, Naked and find out how it ends!

What really frightened him was how spectacularly his transgression had paid off. All these years, he’d done nothing more than read and listen and think, and though he’d been stimulated by these activities, what had he uncovered, really? And yet by behaving like a teenage hooligan with a screw loose, he had made a major breakthrough. He was the only Crowologist in the world who knew about that picture, and he could never tell anyone about it, unless he wished to own up to being mentally unbalanced. Every other year spent on his chosen subject had been barren compared to the last couple of hours. But that couldn’t be the way forward, surely? He didn’t want to be the kind of man who plunged his arms into trash cans in the hope of finding a letter, or a piece of bacon rind that Crowe might have chewed. By the time he got back to the hotel, he had convinced himself he was finished with Tucker Crowe.

Related in BookPage: Read our review of Juliet, Naked.

What are you reading today?

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Hilary Mantel goes beyond Wolf Hall

Posted on 30 December 2009 by Trisha, Managing Editor

Hilary MantelThe novel Wolf Hall has gotten more than its fair share of press this fall and winter—Booker Prize notwithstanding, it also earned a place on our top 10 fiction list and a glowing review from contributor Lauren Bufferd—but I couldn’t resist adding one more blog post to the load. I finished the novel last week. Contrary to what the paragraph in your high school history book might imply, it took years of plotting and scheming for Henry VIII to get his marriage annulled and marry Anne Boylen, and Mantel’s brilliant, meticulous recreation of these events is a remarkable achievement, if occasionally overwhelming to those unfamiliar with the 16th-century mindset. (However, corporate types and frequent “Survivor” viewers will probably identify easily with the cutthroat atmosphere and clandestine alliances.) Equally impressive is her reinvention of Thomas Cromwell, a man she sees quite differently from most historians.

Wolf Hall is first in a trilogy, and during a recent interview at Daunt Books in London, Mantel revealed a bit more about the second installment, The Mirror and the Light. “It picks up in the autumn of 1535, when the holiday makers at Wolf Hall in Wiltshire take Cromwell through his further rise and his abrupt fall in 1540,” says Mantel toward the end of this clip (part 3 of 3 of the interview):


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Announcing BookPage Book of the Day!

Posted on 30 December 2009 by Eliza, Associate Editor

We are thrilled to announce the launch of BookPage Book of the Day – our first-ever daily e-newsletter!

This idea has been in the works for a while. We figure that many of you don’t have time to read BookPage cover-to-cover, and it might be easier to take a little bite of it every day.

With BookPage Book of the Day, you’ll receive a brand new review every weekday in your inbox. We’ll cover fiction on Mondays and Thursdays, nonfiction on Tuesdays and Fridays, and mystery or romance on Wednesdays. We’re only covering the newest books, so in January you can look forward to recent (or coming) releases from Tracy Chevalier, Elizabeth Gilbert, Beth Hoffman, J.M. Coetzee, Jude Deveraux and more.

(As a personal note, I’ve already read the books featured on Monday and Thursday in the first week in January, and they were both excellent. Seriously: There are some great books coming out in 2010.)

Sign up here – and enjoy!!

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E-books for Christmas

Posted on 29 December 2009 by Eliza, Associate Editor

On Dec. 26, Amazon reported that it sold more e-books than physical books on Christmas Day. Also, the Kindle was the top gift sold on Amazon this holiday season (and apparently the top-selling gift on Amazon.com of all time).

These stats—at least regarding sales of e-books vs. physical books on Christmas Day—did not surprise me. One of the lures of e-books is instant gratification, and if anyone got an e-reader under the tree this year, I would bet that one of the first things they did was some online shopping for an e-book.

I received only physical books this year (including Jane Austen’s Little Advice Book – Aww), although I have big plans to blog about my experience reading on BookPage’s Kindle.

Since I know readers of The Book Case are some of the busiest readers around, I wondered how you received books this year. Did you get a new e-reader? Or did your family and friends stick to gifting classic ink-and-paper books?

Also: What was your favorite book you received? My family didn’t give me too many books this year (probably because my bookshelf is about to topple as it is), although I was intrigued by Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes; my cousin excused himself from our Christmas dinner table in order to race through the final pages…

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