Remembering Maurice Sendak on his 85th Birthday

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The animated doodle on Google’s main search page today is really inspired. If you haven’t already seen this tribute to Maurice Sendak, there’s a screen shot below. You can view it via this link, and make sure you click on the arrow to start the animation.
Screen shot 2013-06-10 at 3.47.59 PM

Last May, soon after Sendak’s passing, I published a recollection on this blog called, Warding Off a Zealous Censor of Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. Via this link, I invite you to read about this episode from my bookselling days, when a prudish religious conservative woman demanded we stop selling Sendak’s work.

Update: I also just found this animated video on the Daily Beast narrated by Sendak himself.

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#FridayReads, June 7–Eric Lundgren’s “The Facades” & Suzanne Corkin’s “Permanent Present Tense”

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#FridayReads, June 7–The Facades by Eric Lundgren–a witty and heart-filled novel about a man in a post-apocalyptic world who’s searching for his family. I’m also reading Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H.M. by Suzanne Corkin–a scientific biography of a historic medical subject, a man who after undergoing brain surgery suffered a permanent loss of his capacity to make and retain long-term memory. In 2008, when I was Editorial Director of Union Square Press, I heard an NPR segment about Prof. Corkin’s work with H.M. and contacted her to ask if she was writing a book. Indeed, she said she was working on a manuscript, though she added it was a long way from completion and she suggested I should stay in touch with her agent. When I left the job in 2009, I wondered what would become of the project. At BEA last week I was pleased to see it had ended up on the list of Basic Books. Please click through to see full post and all pictures

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One More BEA In the Books

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It was not the most energetic Book Expo America (BEA) I’ve ever attended, but it was still a good show for me. Wednesday–when the Buzz panel was held, before the Exhibit Hall officially opened–was a good day. And then the next 3 days (Thursday-Saturday) were a roller coaster with busy, agitated activity to slow times when one could imagine the proverbial bowling balls rolling down the carpeted aisles. On Friday afternoon, there were so many publishing executives off the main part of the floor–I surmised many of them were in meetings, closeted behind the black curtains I saw that shrouded makeshift conference rooms at a distance from the publishers’ stands–that there was a palpable deflation of activity out on the floor. And yet, over all, I picked up many galleys and download cards of important forthcoming books. It took three jumbo zippered red totes that I’d kept picking up at the McGraw-Hill stand to drag it all home, which I did by myself. 

On Saturday, BEA for the first time ever opened itself to members of the reading public, not just book industry professionals. I saw many well-organized groups of fans and other readers powering around the floor, often under the concierge-like care of publicists who brought them en masse to signings with authors like Sylvia Day (at Harlequin), and Jami Attenberg and Jeffrey Deaver (at Hachette). There must have been at least 20 lines I saw like that today. I also saw smaller groups of two or three Power Readers, as the BEA dubbed them, eagerly snapping up galleys and stuff. I know there were some book industry people who, when the announcement of this innovation was made, were skeptical it would be a good thing, but I’d say that this not so daring–and to me, welcome–experiment went very well, indeed.

I took a pic of the jacket of David Folkenflik’s forthcoming Murdoch’s World: The Last of Old Media Empires, a book I’m very eager to read, having in 2008 edited and published a book on Roger Ailes, Dark Genius: The Influential Career of Legendary Political Operative and Fox News Founder Roger Ailes by Kerwin Swint.Murdoch book

I’ll have more to write and share about the book convention over the next few days and weeks, with photos and reporting. Meantime, glad to get a post up today, even though I’m exhausted from the four days of the show.

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Book Expo America–Off to a Quick Start on Day I

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Buzz panelAlthough the exhibit floor doesn’t open until tomorrow, there was lots of activity at the Javits Center today. My wife and I stopped in the hall just before 10:00 AM and got our badges as certified press, covering BEA for this blog. In the late afternoon, was the annual Editors’ Buzz panel, where a select panel of editors get to pitch their favorite titles of the coming fall season. By far the most exciting presentation was made by Liese Mayer [spelling corrected here from above tweet], of Overlook Press who touted the novel she acquired just after joining the company, The Facades, a first novel by Eric Lundgren. She said the novel combined elements of Kafka’s forbidding city and Batman’s modern Gotham. I grabbed one of the galleys and, after her compelling presentation, am eager to start reading the book. I also was interested in the presentation by  Picador editor Anna deVries of The Affairs of Others, a novel by Amy Grace Loyd and so took a galley of it. Now, running off to evening activities!

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A New NBCC Award for a First Book, in Honor of John Leonard

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I am an associate member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), the only association of freelance and full-time book critics in the country. Readers of this blog may recall the superb literary event, with readings and awards, they put on every spring in NYC. This link is for my coverage of the most recent celebration this past March

This morning I was excited to learn that the NBCC is adding a new category for their annual awards, a citation that will recognize the best first book of the year. It could be a novel, a book of short stories, a memoir–it will not be limited to a particular genre. The award will be given in memory of the late John Leonard, longtime NBCC member, and eternally effervescent man of letters. The announcement was just emailed to members, with the screenshot of it pasted in below these lines. The NBCC is a great organization of dedicated readers and writers. You can follow them on Twitter, @BookCritics and check them out on the web, NBCC.

NBCC.

 

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The POT THIEF Mystery Series–Licensed to Open Road Integrated Media

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I’m happy to announce that as literary agent for author J. Michael Orenduff, in conjunction with the Silver Bitela Agency, my company Philip Turner Book Productions recently licensed the six-book POT THIEF mystery series to Open Road Integrated Media, a major player in digital publishing. The books, previously self-published by Mr. Orenduff, are The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy, The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein, The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier, The Pot Thief Who Studied D. H. Lawrence, and The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid. They will all be published by Open Road in print and digital editions beginning in 2014.

As a devoted mystery reader myself, I adore the POT THIEF books and have earlier written about them here. They are set in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico, featuring dealer in Native America pottery Hubie Schutz and his sidekick in sleuthing, wise-cracking Susannah Inchaustigui, a descendant of one of the region’s old-line Basque ranching families. They meet most afternoons at Hermanas Tortilleria, to sip margaritas and discuss their latest puzzler. After years running Undercover Books, a bookstore where I sold lots of mysteries, and as an editor publishing mysteries, I know the mystery market well and am particularly excited that the many readers of Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn mysteries, also set in the American Southwest, will now also be able to discover the POT THIEF books. In their earlier editions, the POT THIEF books won numerous awards and raves from mystery readers, including this one from Anne Hillerman, the late mystery master’s daughter: “I inhaled this book. Witty, well-crafted and filled with unexpected plot turns, The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid will delight J. Michael Orenduff’s many fans—and win him new ones.”

If you haven’t yet heard of Open Road, I suggest you visit their website. They have more than 3000 active titles, including five books by my longtime author Ruth Gruber, as well as titles by dozens of important authors such as William Styron, Rachel Carson, Andre Dubus, and Mary Glickman, always in digital editions, and sometimes in print editions, too. They’ve been operating for three years, innovating and growing along with the emerging ebook market. The company was recently profiled in an excellent piece via this link at paidcontent.org. 

I’m delighted for my author J. Michael Orenduff and also very pleased to be working with Ed Silver and Babz Bitela of the Silver Bitela Agency, who are representing the POT THIEF brand for film and TV rights. In fact, they are already sharing with producers an excellent screenplay based on the series, written by previously credited screenwriter, Robert C. Powers.  Announcements of the deal I made with Open Road have appeared in Publishers Weekly and in PublishersMarketplace.com, both of which mention the Silver Bitela Agency (these may only be available by subscription so I’ve made screenshots of both to be sure they can be read by GGB readers). Happy I could share this great news the same week as Book Expo America (BEA), the book industry’s annual convention, taking place at NYC’s Javits Center May 30-June 1. Please click here to see deal coverage from the two book industry outlets.

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#FridayReads, May 24–“Before the Frost,” a Kurt & Linda Wallander novel

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Henning Mankell photo#FridayReads Henning Mankell’s thriller 2004 thriller Before the Frost, featuring Detective Kurt Wallander and his grown daughter Linda, who like he did earlier in life, chooses to become a police officer. With surprising synchronicity, in Michael Connelly’s 2011 Detective Harry Bosch novel The Drop, (my May 10th #FridayReads), his teenage daughter informs him that she is going to choose police work for her career. I don’t believe these two writers, one in Sweden, the other in Los Angeles, read each other’s work or have directly influenced each other. Instead, I believe that with these authors–who have each written ten or more books featuring their detective protagonist–become extremely invested in their characters and loyal to them, so that in their protean creativity, they endow the two characters–late middle-aged single fathers in each series–with full lives and late-in-life-joy from growing closer to their own child. This highlights one of the things I love most about these books, Mankell’s and Connelly’s, as well as those by other authors I enjoy–featuring characters Travis McGee, Bernie Gunther, and Joe Gunther (no relation to the former), by John D. MacDonald, Philip Kerr, and Archer Mayor, respectively: The author is so devoted to their creation that they give them full lives, and I as a faithful reader, feel obliged to be solicitous of and devoted to them myself.Mankell photo

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#FridayReads, May 10–“The Drop,” Michael Connelly; “A Man W/out Breath,” Philip Kerr; “Black Count,” Tom Reiss

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Friday Reads May 10

I’m so lucky to have so many terrific books to read this weekend and over the coming days. And, after these three, I’ve got a Henning Mankell novel I’ve never read, Before the Frost, a thriller that features not only his longtime series character, Kurt Wallander, but also his grown daughter Linda, who over several earlier books had voiced her ambition to become a police detective, like her father. In fact, the novel is officially dubbed “A Kurt and Linda Wallander Novel,” just as all the earlier ones were “Kurt Wallander” books. Interestingly, in Michael Connelly’s The Drop, featuring his series character Harry Bosch, the detective’s teenage daughter, Maddy, has told her father that she wants to become a police officer.

As I have written in earlier posts about Mankell’s books, I love his books, and all these detective authors for the loyalty over many books that they show to their characters. The cases become more engrossing and their characters more believable and more sympathetic the deeper you read in to each series. This is certainly also true for Philip Kerr’s whose A Man Without Breath I started this afternoon. This is the ninth book portraying Bernie Gunther, the German police inspector trying to somehow stay alive during WWII, while retaining his dignity and moral center, while the Nazis all around him engage in mayhem and corrupt self-dealing. I’ve also posted often about the Gunther books.

As for Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, I met Tom Reiss and heard him read from his book at the National Book Critics Circle annual awards ceremony in March, and was enchanted by what I heard of his biography of Alexandre Dumas’ father. More recently, his book won the Pulitzer Prize. I read Chapter One last night, in which Reiss explains how he came to discover the elder Dumas, a remarkable figure who had been all but lost to history. I’m really eager to get back to his book, and so glad I have this nonfiction to balance all my novel reading.

Please note, if you want to read any of the books I’ve written about in this post, I’ve embedded links in each title. If you click on them, it will lead you to pages at Powell’s Books where you can order them. As I explain in a note near the upper right corner of this site, they then return a portion of your purchase price to me to help maintain this site.

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