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Quotation of the DayThe Book: Too Many 'Moving Parts'"Conventional print publishing is a daunting business. No matter
what an organization's size, it faces challenges unknown to wikians and
bloggers. A printed book, as one production editor pointed out to me,
is really a machine with a half-million parts, any one of which can go
wrong."--Edward Tenner, in a thoughtful piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education about digital technology's mixed effect on readers and publishers.
NewsNotes: Instant Libby Book; The Appeal of Wi-Fi in StoresFollowing the guilty verdicts yesterday in
the case against Scooter Libby, former chief of staff for Vice
President Dick Cheney, Union Square Press, the Sterling Publishing
imprint founded earlier this year by Philip Turner, is publishing its
first title, an instant book on the case to be written by investigative
reporter Murray Waas. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby will
appear next month in paperback and retail for $12.95. Waas has covered
the Plame investigation and the Bush administration's use of pre-war
intelligence for the National Journal. Jeff Lomonaco, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, will provide research assistance.
--- --- A hot read at investment bank Lazard is "photocopied galleys" of The Last Tycoons, an April Doubleday title by former Lazard executive William D. Cohan, today's Wall Street Journal reported. The book "delves considerably into the peccadilloes of the bank's senior executives, both past and present. It also moves to uncloak some of the business mystique of the bank." Much of the focus is on Lazard chairman and CEO Bruce Wasserstein, whom Cohan said has made more money from investment banking than any single man in the past 10 years "because he's a smart, opportunistic principal investor." --- --- Effective
last month, Orange Avenue and its new teen imprint, Zest Books, are
being distributed by Independent Publishers Group. The company was
previously distributed by Publishers Group West. Our friends at Unshelved, the daily comic strip set in a library, have hired Jim Demonakos to be senior business strategist. Most recently he was public relations and marketing coordinator for Image Comics, a comics and graphic novels publisher. He also is organizer of Emerald City ComiCon and owns the Comic Stop chain of comic bookstores in the Seattle area. In a statement, Demonakos said of the Unshelved strip, "The characters and the library setting have a very broad appeal, and I look forward to helping tap into its mainstream potential."
Heads Up: Making Information PayIt pays to check this out. Previous editions have been well-received. The fourth annual Making Information Pay seminar, sponsored by the Book Industry Study Group, will take place May 10, 9 a.m.-12 p.m., in New York City and has the theme "using emerging technology to improve your bottom line." Speakers are:
Media and MoviesMovies: 300Directed and written by Zack Snyder and starring Gerard Butler, Lena
Headey, David Wenham, Dominic West, Rodrigo Santoro and Vincent Regan,
300 opens this Friday, March 9. The movie, about the 480 B.C. Battle of
Thermopylae, at which King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fought King Xerxes
and his army of hundreds of thousands of Persians, is based on the 1999
graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, which itself is based
on the 1962 movie, The 300 Spartans. Miller and director Snyder have collaborated on 300: The Art of the Film (Dark Horse, $24.95, 9781593077013/1593077017), which includes production photos, studio art and more. Overlook Press reports that its recently released Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World by Paul Cartledge ($30, 9781585675661/1585675660), which covers the same hallowed ground, is the house's bestselling title at the moment and has gone back to press. Monday's USA Today ran a Q&A with Cartledge. Media Heat: A Priest, A Rabbi, A DoctorThis morning on the Today Show: Father Andrew Greeley, whose new book
is Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships with Women
(Forge, $17.95, 9780765317766/0765317761). He'll also grant an audience
to MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews today. --- Because of the Libby verdict yesterday the Charlie Rose Show bumped this author to tonight from last night: Martha Raddatz, chief White House correspondent for ABC News and author of The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family (Putnam, $24.95, 9780399153822/0399153829).
Books & AuthorsNew Imprint Gives Second Life to On the Night You Were BornFeiwel & Friends is one for one. The Holtzbrinck imprint's inaugural publication, On the Night You Were Born written and illustrated by Nancy Tillman,
is #10 on the New York Times children's bestseller list for the week
ending March 4. The picture book has appeared on the list several times
since its publication in October, reaching as high as the #2 spot.
There are a total of 150,000 copies of the book in print after five
printings. The publication of On the Night You Were Born marked Feiwel
& Friends's soft launch, and the official debut list is slated to
appear this fall. Lead titles include the picture book Ballerina Dreams, the true story of a teacher who created a ballet program for children with cerebral palsy, and the young adult novel The Poison Apples about three girls who plot revenge on their evil stepmothers. Mandahla: The Spellman Files ReviewedThe Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster, $25, 9781416532392/1416532390, March 13, 2007) 
Isabel "Izzy" Spellman is a private investigator who works for her
parents' company, Spellman Investigations. It's often an exasperating
job, since her family is more than a bit eccentric. They have
absolutely no boundaries when it comes to snooping. They tail each
other, wiretap each other, even blackmail each other. As children,
older brother David cornered the market on perfection, so Izzy mined
the depths of imperfection. When her parents asked why her life was a
round of rides in squad cars, conferences in principals' offices,
vandalism, grounding, illegal drugs and combat boots, she replied that
balance was needed: "Added together and divided evenly, David and I
would be two exceedingly normal children." Izzy began working for
Spellman Investigations when she was 12; she thrived, since breaking
the rules of society, not to mention invading others' privacy, was
something she took to rather well. "For instance, when you're driving
at night, it's easier to maintain a visual on a car with only one
working taillight. I still remember the day Uncle Ray passed me a
hammer and told me to smash out the taillight of Dr. Lieberman's
Mercedes Benz. That was a perfect day." The birth of younger sister
Rae upset the sibling balance, but she fit into the family perfectly. A
snooping prodigy, Rae started surveilling at age six; now 14, she
excels at it.One of Izzy's many issues is her inability to maintain a relationship, and she keeps a file of ex-boyfriends, complete with hobbies, duration of liaison and last words ("You ran a credit check on my brother?"). Her mother keeps trying to set her up--"[She] had found another lawyer she wanted me to drink coffee with. I tried explaining to her that I was capable of drinking coffee without legal help."--and brother David is not above blackmailing her into blind dates. Working on a divorce case, she meets and begins dating a dishy dentist, Daniel Castillo, but keeps this a secret from her family, and keeps her family's profession a secret from Daniel, telling him they are teachers. This subterfuge lasts about as long as one would expect, and after her parents hire Rae to follow Izzy to find out who the new boyfriend is, Izzy decides to get out of the business. They agree, on the condition that she finish one last assignment: a missing persons case almost as old as her little sister. The case is interesting, but not as interesting as the Spellmans. The parents, Albert and Olivia, have raised an absolutely insane family, whose children spend as much time spying on each as they do hiding pieces of themselves, while mom and dad meddle incessantly. Deranged and duplicitous, they are still as endearing as they are maddening, and certainly follow their own star: "I could have asked Rae what she was up to, but that is not our way. Instead, I followed her." The Spellman Files is a zany and hilarious debut for Lisa Lutz.--Marilyn Dahl |
