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Best use of book title-dropping? The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, author of the bestseller about globalization, "The World is Flat." According to early reports about his new online interview show, every interview (with newsmakers like Bill Gates) will begin with the question, "When did you realize the world was flat?"
If you just can’t wait for Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s work to arrive in bookstores, she’s posting chapters of her new novel, "Envy," at her website. In an interview she has explained her reasons for showing her work in progress. But, meine freunde, if you don’t sprechen deutsch, don’t bother.
Anyone who knows any of the secrets about the Harry Potter series finale should be very careful. Fans are not taking any would-be spoilers lightly. And just as New Zealand enjoyed a surge of tourism after Peter Jackson’s "The Lord of the Rings" movies, trips to Scotland are way, way up to see the real-life models for Hogwarts and other familiar places in the novels.
Norman Mailer understands Günter Grass’ long silence about his World War II service in the Waffen SS. Some parts of one’s personal history are just difficult to explain, Mailer said at a recent New York Public Library event that also featured an appearance by Grass.
Nick Owchar
 Yes, I know ... New Jersey is the great nowhere between New York and Pennsylvania, famous for its turnpike and its refineries and, for the last several years, the exploits of Tony Soprano and his crew. But New Jersey has also spawned a lot of writers — including William Carlos Williams and Philip Roth. Joyce Carol Oates lives in Princeton; Richard Ford wrote an entire trilogy about the place. Now, a new generation has emerged to take on the state’s odd mix of the blighted and the benighted: the suburbia to end all suburbias, a universe of endless sprawl.
In “Living on the Edge of the World” (Touchstone: 242 pp., $14 paper), editor Irina Reyn has assembled 18 essays by writers including Tom Perrotta, Jonathan Ames, Lucinda Rosenfeld and Dani Shapiro, who look at New Jersey not as a state of the union but as a state of mind. It’s a great idea — not because it plays against our preconceptions (it doesn’t) but because it encourages us to engage with the place at a level that’s beyond cliché.
New Jersey, after all, is a lot like anywhere: a place to run from, a place to run to, a place where you might find out who you are. And in a nod to the state’s lingering status as cultural punch line, all the contributors here are identified by the highway exit they live near, a deft touch that reminds me of Michael Rumaker’s masterful New Jersey story “Exit 3.”
David L. Ulin
It’s no surprise that Bloomsbury is racking up orders on the final installment of the "Harry Potter" series. You can find plenty on the Web about how the publisher is being deluged.
But what is surprising is Bloomsbury’s next move. You might expect more books cut from the same cloth--look at all the Knights Templar books that flooded the market last year in an attempt to capitalize on "The Da Vinci Code" craze and stoke the fires. But the subject mentioned in news reports about the publisher’s post-Potter plans is not a Potter clone but a book about Warren Buffett.
A study of the legendary investor’s philosophy and life, titled "The Snowball," will be published by the firm in spring 2008. In light of Buffett’s large and devoted fan base and his amazing career--some might even say it’s (that’s right) magical--maybe the decision isn’t that strange.
Nick Owchar
 Deciding not to publish something doesn’t always conclude a matter, especially when it happens in the British press. The Spectator pulled its review of Tina Brown’s "The Diana Chronicles" for unspecified reasons, but today the piece has surfaced, courtesy of the Guardian.
Was it too sharp? Too snarky? Wait, isn’t that what the Brits do best?
The Spectator’s reviewer, Sarah Bradford, has written books on the late princess, as well as on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lucrezia Borgia. She calls Brown’s book a combination of "self-consciously pacey modern schlock and sentimental drivel," then goes on to list everything she finds insufferable about the book, including the attention the author focuses on herself at the expense of her subject--including the absence of photographs in the British edition. Well, there is one. "Perhaps the publishers find themselves strapped for cash after the much vaunted advance they allegedly paid," the reviewer says near the end. "Punters, on payment of an advertised £18.99, will have to be content with an alluring picture of the other blonde, Tina Brown."
Set this review beside our own, and it seems like the reviewers didn’t read the same book. What gives? Our reviewer, Patt Morrison, found "The Diana Chronicles" to be "adroit and penetrating." Maybe she would have hated it, too, if she had been the Diana chronicler everyone had first thought of--until Brown came along.
Nick Owchar
The one time in my adult life that I ever stopped writing for an extended period, I was in a bad mood for months. That’s why I’m dubious when writers announce that they’re retiring — I just don’t think it’s possible. Kurt Vonnegut famously decided to stop writing in 1997 after the publication of his final novel, “Timequake”; in 1999, he published three (yes, three) books, and later contributed pieces to the progressive magazine In These Times — pieces that became the basis for his 2005 bestseller “A Man Without a Country.” Alice Munro made similar noises late last year after the publication of her short-story collection “The View from Castle Rock,” only to tell interviewers of the stories she still intended to write.
The latest writer to announce retirement plans is Annie Dillard, the 62-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” and a dozen or so other works. Dillard has just published her second novel, “The Maytrees,” but New York magazine is reporting that this is it for her. “I’m tired,” Dillard told Daniel Asa Rose in an item for the magazine’s Intelligencer column. “I worked so hard all my life, and all I want to do now is read.”
That’s a lovely sentiment, but I remain unconvinced. Writing, after all, is less a vocation than an obsession, a disorder of the blood. Even J.D. Salinger, hiding out for 40-plus years in New Hampshire, has reportedly produced an office full of manuscripts for release after his death. And though Dillard has never made any bones about the fact that writing is a struggle — “I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend,” she acknowledged in her 1989 book “The Writing Life” — 62 is awfully young to give it up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Dillard write again.
David L. Ulin
Remember the dreary announcement by the National Endowment for the Arts, in 2004, that literary reading in the U.S. was on a steep decline? The endowment’s report, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," shocked and irritated many with its description of falling reading standards. Part of the decline, the report said, was due to our media-saturated culture distracting people away from timeless texts. But unlike other prophets and their dire predictions, the NEA didn’t stop there. It followed up its words with action in the form of "The Big Read," a program developed by the NEA and other groups. The program is designed to bring vibrant discussions of great books to a neighborhood near you by awarding grants and developing book clubs and discussion groups.
This fall, several Los Angeles-area organizations--including the L.A. Public Library, Will & Company, Cal Poly Pomona Foundation and Rancho Cucamonga Public Library--will be among 117 groups nationwide rediscovering (or, for that matter, discovering for the first time) novels by John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, Rudolf Anaya, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston and many others.
According to an NEA announcement Monday, the grants will range from $5,000 to $20,000. Each community reading group also will receive reading guides for specific books, online support and other materials to make this a rewarding experience for all comers. "The Big Read" begins in September, and any group that’s sorry it missed the opportunity to participate will have a second chance: Another "Big Read" begins in January 2008, and the application deadline is at the end of July.
Nick Owchar
 What exactly is a dime novel? According to a fascinating new book, “Dashing Diamond Dick and Other Classic Dime Novels” (Penguin: 344 pp., $15 paper), the form had its roots in the 1860s, when publisher Irwin P. Beadle developed a series of short, lurid fiction titles called Beadle’s Dime Novels. The genre hit its stride in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as America became a mass culture with the technology — including “advances in printing methods and papermaking” and “the development of communication and transportation systems” — to produce books that were disposable and cheap. Dime novels were mostly potboilers, short (around 100 pages) and full of action: westerns, detective stories, love sagas and novels about sports.
“Dashing Diamond Dick” features five dime novels, all originally published between 1894 and 1904. Edited by J. Randolph Cox, the book includes a Frank Merriwell baseball novel (“Frank Merriwell’s Finish or, Blue Against Crimson”) and a Nick Carter mystery (“Dr. Quartz II, at Bay; or, A Man of Iron Nerve”), as well as a handful of other less iconic efforts that give readers the flavor of the form.
It ain’t literature, but it is fun, and not just for the adventures (which — let’s be frank — don’t all age well). No, it’s more the sense of catching a glimpse of American popular culture while it was still in a nascent state, in the process of becoming, and, as such, more than a little bit weird and wild. What these novels offer is a look at another America, at its fascinations and entertainments. They also laid the groundwork for 1930s pulp fiction, which — much like the blues and baseball — ultimately rose above disposable status to become a quintessentially American popular art form, a throwaway genre that transcends itself.
David L. Ulin
San Diego book agent Sandy Dijkstra is calling on the area’s readers, writers, booksellers and publishers to protest planned changes to the Union-Tribune's coverage of books, which she said includes a shuttering of its Sunday book review section after the June 24 issue.
Beginning July 1, Dijkstra said in an e-mail alert fired off Friday afternoon, book reviews will be folded into two pages within the Sunday entertainment section, and reduced in number by 50%.
Chris Lavin, the Union-Tribune's senior editor, special sections, said late Friday that the paper does "have plans to adjust the way we’re presenting book coverage," but said that Dijkstra's information "is not complete or accurate."
Any changes, Lavin said, "will both improve and broaden our coverage of books." However, he declined to discuss specifics, saying, "We’ll do that in the pages of the newspaper when the details are final. Our readers will be the first to know."
Financial pressures at newspapers across the country have resulted in cutbacks in newsprint space devoted to books, including at the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and the Los Angeles Times, where the Sunday Book Review section was packaged with the Opinion section beginning in mid-April. (The Times' Book Review has also launched Web-based review columns and books coverage.)
The cutbacks have produced an outcry from literary communities wherever they have occurred, with some likening it to an "intellectual brownout."
Dijkstra urged the "reading community" in San Diego, which she described as one of the top 10 book-buying cities in the country, to "deluge" the Union-Tribune with letters demanding the book section's restoration.
Dijkstra, in her e-mail blast, also called on the book community to descend on the newspaper's offices "bearing a coffin filled with the books of the many authors whose works would no longer be reviewed" and "stage a read-in."
"Now is the time to act!" she wrote.
— Kristina Lindgren
 A few years ago, you could still find Jack Kirby's fantastic comic books about "The New Gods," but only in a black-and-white edition. It's so odd and frustrating that DC Comics would decide to give us Kirby's vision stripped of all its colors.
Now, over the next few months, DC is bringing back the entire Kirby saga, known collectively as "The Fourth World," in several big, beautiful hardcover editions with all the rich colors of the originals. The first of these, "Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, Volume One" (DC Comics: 396 pp., $49.99), has just been published and includes appreciative essays by comics writers Grant Morrison and Mark Evanier.
Here are the first appearances of the warrior Orion from the world New Genesis; the evil Darkseid from the molten planet Apokolips; a heroic, powerful Jimmy Olsen with stories of his own; and the hero known as Mister Miracle who draws his power from new technology and gadgetry. There's also the band of young heroes called "the Forever People," who are straight out of the Age of Aquarius. With names like Mark Moonrider and Beautiful Dreamer and some corny dialogue — "Dig this place! It's got the ingredients of the cake but it needs more baking!" — these super-powered kids seem more suited to hanging out at a Grateful Dead show than battling cosmic evil.
The work presented here shows why Kirby, who died in 1994, deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Will Eisner, say, or Alan Moore and Frank Miller. All these comics creators pushed and expanded the genre into new areas. In some ways, Kirby's comics are a rich time capsule — not just for his tribute to the Flower Children of the '60s with the Forever People, but in recurring themes about fallen father figures, the power of young people and youth movements, the tensions caused by unwinnable wars and the standoff between two major powers, New Genesis and Apokolips, which undoubtedly was inspired by the Cold War. "I hear you, Orion!" Darkseid yells as they first confront each other. "The battle begins!"
These Kirby creations came in the early 1970s, after his bitter departure from Marvel, where his style had set the tone and brand for that house. According to Morrison and Evanier, Kirby felt snubbed by Marvel's management, that he was treated as a mere penciller while Stan Lee was given sole credit for some of their mutual creations. "They thought everything good on the pages had come from Stan," writes Evanier, who had worked with Kirby. "One lawyer-type even told Jack he was delusional to think he was anything more than a dime-a-dozen pencil- pusher. It was enough to drive a person to rage. Or at least over to the competition."
Ronin Ro's Kirby biography, "Tales to Astonish," published by Bloomsbury in 2004, describes the artist's bitter struggles. Evanier will publish his own Kirby biography later this year.
In the end, Kirby triumphed — not with vast wealth, but by not being forgotten. The DC omnibuses are evidence of the enduring appeal of his stories. Future generations will come to see Kirby as an exciting myth-maker whose message was life-affirming. In light of Kirby's career ups and downs, the words of Mister Miracle seem to also apply to him: "My enemies think that escape from this is impossible. But they’re in for a rude shock!"
— Nick Owchar
 You can find plenty of histories (by Robert McCrum and David Crystal, for instance) tracing how much the English language has changed — read: "changed" as "deteriorated" — since the Elizabethan era.
Or you can turn to a new edition of "Shakespeare's Sonnets" and find clear evidence of this decline on every page. Published by Duckworth Overlook (474 pp., $37.50), this splendid volume has been edited and supplied with commentary by David West, a renowned translator of Virgil, among others.
In his introduction, West confides that he began this project "knowing nothing about Elizabethan history" — wait, how can this be a wonderful edition if it's by a Shakespeare novice? More on that later.
Printed beneath each sonnet is a simple paraphrase that is ideal for directing classroom discussions and clearing away confusion over certain lines. Take the opening lines of Sonnet 30, which gave Scott Moncrieff the title for his translation of Proust: "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, / I summon up remembrance of things past." West’s paraphrase is: "hen I think about the past...."
This approach is perfect for the teacher struggling to get students to unplug their iPods and give the Bard a chance. The paraphrases reduce the intimidating language into something more familiar that they will understand. But, alas, there is that villainous word "reduce": On each page, two moments in the English language's history stare back at the reader — the boldly ornamented figures of the late 16th century and the flat, simple prose of our own. Which do you prefer, Sonnet 33's rich declaration ("Full many a glorious morning have I seen") or the homely paraphrase ("A bright morning often means a dull day")?
West came to this project for his own pleasure. "Having spent my working life on Lucretius, Horace and Virgil, I took to the Sonnets in retirement," he writes. He was curious about them, not intent on developing a project. But as he sought out commentaries to guide him, he became increasingly dissatisfied and convinced of the need to write his own.
Though he doesn’t have the fluency and familiarity of preeminent poetry critic Helen Vendler, West is an ideal commentator. He gives fascinating discussions of the classical allusions that Shakespeare, like all Elizabethan poets, sowed into their works. West also offers a meditative model of retirement for all book lovers — if, of course, their 401(k) money holds out.
— Nick Owchar
The Hollywood gossip website TMZ.com posted a link Tuesday afternoon to the entire manuscript of O.J. Simpson’s “If I Did It” — one day after the family of Ronald Goldman won the rights to the book in federal court. According to Wired.com, the link had been removed by the middle of the day, after TMZ received “a takedown notice from a trustee overseeing the bankruptcy case of Simpson — but not before hundreds, if not thousands, of people likely downloaded it and passed it on to friends.” TMZ has left a pair of excerpts from the book’s notorious final chapter, in which Simpson describes (sort of) the murders of Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson as if they were a fever dream.
It’s hard to say what’s more disturbing: the account itself, a kind of peekaboo tease in which Simpson claims that “something went horribly wrong,” although he “can’t tell you exactly how”; TMZ’s breathless self-promotion (even now, the page is tagged with a red banner declaring “Exclusive”); or the swirl of legal machinations that continues to surround this case, obscuring any sense of right and wrong. But in the end, what may be most telling is the way this episode leaves one less with a feeling of outrage than of exhaustion, the desire to see the whole sordid Simpson saga finally put behind us once and for all.
David L. Ulin
Have you looked longingly at "The Dangerous Book for Boys," the latest children's sensation from Britain, and wondered: Where are the how-tos for girls? Where are those guides harking to a day before iPods, Atari, American Girl catalogs and YouTube? Turns out the publishing industry has scrambled to come up with at least half a dozen titles to more than balance the scales.
HarperCollins, the U.S. publisher of the bestselling boys' book by British authors Conn and Hal Iggulden, has tapped Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz to write "The Daring Book for Girls," to be published Nov. 1. Among its contents: five karate moves every girl should know; famous women spies; stocks and bonds; and how to make your own comic book. It is, blogs Buchanan, "a book for any girl with an eye for adventure and a nose for trouble."
Scholastic Press is also rushing out a U.S. version of another British bestseller, Juliana Foster's "The Girls' Book: How to Be the Best at Everything," on Sept. 1. Released by Buster Books in Britain in February, "The Girls' Book" tells how to survive a zombie attack, deal with bullies, do the perfect handstand, build the best sandcastle, make a compass and find the North Star.
Next up is "The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls" by Rosemary Davidson and Sarah Vine, due July 19 in Britain. It promises instructions for making scones, daisy chains and elderflower cordial. No U.S. publisher is yet onboard, says USA Today.
And in celebration of that resourceful paragon of sleuthing and sensibility, Nancy Drew, now a retro heroine in the movie by the same name that hit theaters June 15, three handbooks will hit U.S. stores this fall. First out is Amy Helmes' "The Wisdom of Nancy Drew: The Nancy Drew Guide to Solving Life's Little Mysteries," published by Cider Mill Press in October, followed in November by "Clues for Real Life: The Classic Wit and Wisdom of Nancy Drew" from Meredith Books and "The Official Nancy Drew Handbook: Skills, Tips, & Life Lessons" by Penny Warner from Quirk Books.
They may not be of help this summer, but get your Christmas lists started.
— Kristina Lindgren
Your soy latte with a chai chaser is available on practically any corner, but what about food for the mind? Readers may soon have a grab-and-go option for that too: The Espresso Book Machine, which promises to print and bind a requested book in three to five minutes, will be unveiled for the pressThursday morning at the New York Public Library’s Science, Industry and Business Library on Madison Avenue.
The machine was demonstrated earlier this month at BookExpo America, as reported in this column. It’s an intriguing idea: Amazon.com and other such websites gave readers a way to find books more efficiently than just by browsing the shelves in their neighborhood shops (although searching is half the fun, unless you’re in a hurry). Now, the founders of On Demand Books, which has developed the machine, are suggesting in press materials that the device will have the effect of "revolutionizing the publishing industry by eliminating returns, shipping, and inventory."
Thursday’s event for reporters will feature a question-and-answer session with Jason Epstein, co-founder of On Demand Books (the latest accomplishment in his long and illustrious publishing career); Dane Neller, co-founder of On Demand Books and former chief executive of Dean & Deluca; Thor Sigvaldason, chief technology officer of On Demand Books; and Kristin McDonough, director of the public library’s Science, Industry and Business Library.
Nick Owchar
The knighting of novelist Salman Rushdie has triggered outrage in the Muslim world, with a leader in Pakistan going so far as to claim that it justifies suicide attacks, the Guardian, the BBC and other news sources reported this morning.
 Rushdie’s knighthood, for his services to literature, was announced Saturday on an honors list presented on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday.
Iran immediately condemned the honor given to the novelist, who went into hiding in 1989 after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for Rushdie’s death after the publishing of "The Satanic Verses." "Giving a medal to someone who is among the most detested figures in the Islamic community is...a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials," Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini declared at a news conference.
In Pakistan, a cabinet minister told parliament members that attempts to kill Rushdie, including suicide attacks, are justified "unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the ‘sir’ title." "This is an occasion for the [world’s] 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, said in parliament. "The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on [Rushdie’s] body, he would be right to do so. . . ."
Nick Owchar
(Photo: The Associated Press)
As I get older, I sometimes look back at missed opportunities and have a few regrets. When I read in the paper about the passing of Mark Harris in May, one of those regrets of my life resurfaced.
I knew Mark Harris when I was in high school with his son, Anthony, in the early 1970s. I say I knew Anthony’s father, but to me he was just the parent of another classmate. We lived in Valencia, a brand-new housing development at the time, where everyone was a transplant--some, like myself, from as near as the San Fernando Valley; others, like the Harrises, from as far away as New York. I felt a special kinship to their family, because the Newhall area at that time was about 99% Republican, or at least it seemed that way. Football and Nixon were held in equally high regard. We were considered oddballs, because we were lefties, we had friends of all colors and ethnicities, and my mom worked for a living. The Harrises were all those things and more.
I knew Mr. Harris was a writer--he had written "Bang the Drum Slowly," and I’d seen the movie version, loving its compassion for those who are different. What I didn’t realize at the time was that Anthony’s dad was one of the truly brilliant American novelists of the 20th century.
About 12 years ago, I happened upon a first edition of "Bang the Drum Slowly," and I figured it was about time to read the book by my long-lost friend’s dad. It was a revelation. Its simple, direct prose was unbearably moving. The characters of baseball players Henry Wiggen and Bruce Pearson were so fully developed that I wanted to believe they were real. Baseball becomes mythical and tangible at the same time--and a heartbreaking metaphor for life.
"Bang the Drum Slowly" whetted my appetite for the other Henry Wiggen books, which I acquired and read in order: "The Southpaw," "Bang the Drum Slowly" (a second time), "A Ticket for a Seamstitch" and "It Looked Like Forever." That was it. I was hooked. I wanted more. I craved the humor and simple beauty of Harris’ prose, the characters that etch themselves into your psyche, the situations that make you laugh and cry at the same time.
And this is where that regret enters because I wish I’d known then, at 16, what I know now at 51. I wish I’d known that Anthony’s dad was an American master and that I could have learned something from a uniquely gifted storyteller. Perhaps some of his genius stemmed from that modesty, from his being just another father of another classmate. And perhaps I learned as much as I needed to--about compassion and tolerance, strength and frailty, courage and insecurity--from Wiggen and Pearson, from the characters Speed and Jacob Epp.
Pamela Wilson
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is teaming with his novelist daughter Lucy Hawking to take a new generation of readers into the cosmos.
 Their novel, "George’s Secret Key to the Universe," due in bookstores in October, aims to give middle-school children a time-traveling adventure to the planets, black holes and beyond through the eyes of a boy who befriends his scientist neighbor and the man’s daughter. And Cosmos, the super-computer that makes it all possible, is the target of shady people with nefarious designs.
"We are thrilled that Professor Stephen Hawking has written this one-of-a-kind book for children," Rubin Pfeffer of Simon & Schuster’s Books for Young Readers said in a statement.
Hawking’s bestselling classic, "A Brief History of Time," which explains for average folks the nature of the universe, has "inspired millions of adult minds around the globe," Pfeffer said.
This joint effort by the Hawkings "will make this complex material readily accessible to a younger audience," he added.
The book will be illustrated by Garry Parsons ("Krong!," "On a Camel to the Moon"). Collaborating on the story line for "George’s Secret Key" is Christophe Galfard, a mathematician and former research assistant to the elder Hawking.
Kristina Lindgren
(Photo: The Associated Press)
In a rare tour of three U.S. cities for the seventh and final "Harry Potter" novel, author J.K. Rowling will read to L.A.-area school kids and sign books at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre on Oct. 15, the author announced today.
 Three student-only events are planned by the billionaire British writer to promote "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." The book, which won’t be released until 12:01 a.m. on July 21, is already Amazon’s No. 1 seller, with pre-orders running well ahead of Khaled Hosseini’s critically acclaimed bestseller, "A Thousand Splendid Suns."
"What J.K. Rowling loves most is to talk with her readers, and that is what she will be able to do on this very special U.S. tour," said Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Books’ children’s division. "Rowling will engage in lively conversations with her fans in each of the three cities she will visit, seeking to once again experience touring the way it all began 10 years ago and the way she most enjoys--with a book, an author and her readers."
Rowling’s other readings will take place at New Orleans’ Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on Oct. 18 and at New York’s Carnegie Hall on Oct. 19. Another Carnegie Hall reading the same evening will be open to 1,000 fans of any age lucky enough to win a pair of tickets. Sweepstakes entry rules and information will be available beginning July 30 on Scholastic’s website.
Tomorrow is the entry deadline for another sweepstakes, the chance to fly to London to attend Rowling’s July 21 midnight reading of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" at the Natural History Museum. Seven U.S. winners will be chosen at random. Slackers will have to rush a printed entry form marked "for Friday delivery" to: Scholastic, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Sweepstakes, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
In the meantime, bookstores across the Southland are gearing up for Hogwarts-style release parties for the night of July 20. Scholastic plans a first U.S. run of 12 million copies (under the Arthur A. Levine imprint), up from 10 million for 2005’s "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
As for who can attend the 3,400-seat Kodak Theatre event, Scholastic will pick a local school in September. The chosen school "will be given a Sorting Hat [for a] random drawing of students." No word yet on how Scholastic will select the winning school.
Kristina Lindgren
It's a consolation that, despite the financial perils and other rocky circumstances causing venerable literary journals such as Antaeus to go out of business, the Paris Review has managed to recover and grow since the death of George Plimpton in 2003.
Many thought the magazine's days were numbered with Plimpton's passing. Then, a distinguished search committee chose author and journalist Philip Gourevitch as Plimpton’s successor; and now the publication has made another wise acquisition, bringing in Granta’s Matt Weiland in the newly created position of deputy editor, the publication announced this week. Weiland’s creds, in addition to his stint at Granta as deputy editor, include working for The Baffler, The New Press and co-editing books with Sean Wilsey and Thomas Frank.
And, one other thing mentioned in the announcement that deserves a little attention here: With Gourevitch’s arrival in 2005, "circulation has since doubled, as have advertising revenues." How many publications can say that?
Nick Owchar
 Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe has won the 2007 Man Booker International Prize after beating a truly breathtaking list of finalists. Contenders for the award included Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Doris Lessing, Carlos Fuentes, Don DeLillo and Salman Rushdie. The award includes a cash prize that is the American equivalent of about $120,000. Achebe, 76, has written many books, but the novel most often cited as establishing him as a major global voice is "Things Fall Apart," which centers on the character of Okonkwo and his household and shows us what African tribal life was like before the arrival of colonialism.
Elaine Showalter, one of the judges, said Achebe "inaugurated the modern African novel" and "illuminated the path for writers around the world seeking new words and forms for new realities and societies."
According to the prize website, the Man Booker International Prize was started to reach beyond the work of writers from the Commonwealth and Ireland--which is where the Man Booker Prize for Fiction focuses--and recognize the fiction of writers of any nationality whose work is available in English. Announced in 2004, the prize is given at two-year intervals (with such a stellar list of candidates, two years seems like hardly enough time to determine who deserves it most!): Its first recipient was Albanian writer Ismail Kadare in 2005.
British newspapers are, understandably, buzzing with news about the award, but it’s the Guardian that gives the most refreshing insight into what this all means. The paper points out that the award should be seen as a sharp jab directed at Stockholm for never having awarded Achebe a Nobel Prize.
Nick Owchar
 A former child soldier from Sierra Leone whose bestselling memoir has made him an overnight celebrity, an indie filmmaker and a British teacher whose Brontë-esque novel was the subject of a publishers’ bidding war are among five nominees for the book industry’s debut author of the year award.
Nominees for the 2007 Quill award are: Ishmael Beah for "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier," which Starbucks began promoting in February in its coffee shops across the country and donating $2 for each copy sold to a UNICEF fund; Miranda July, director of the 2005 movie "Me and You and Everyone We Know," for her short-story collection "No One Belongs Here More Than You"; Diane Setterfield, a French teacher from Yorkshire, England, for "The Thirteenth Tale," a gothic suspense tale; Daniel J. Levitin, a cognitive psychologist from Montreal, for "This Is Your Brain on Music"; and music critic Rob Sheffield for "Love Is a Mix Tape," a memoir about his late rock critic wife and the soundtrack of their life together.
More than 6,000 of the nation’s booksellers and librarians will vote on the nominees, who were named Tuesday by Publisher’s Weekly. The winner will be announced Sept. 10. The public will then be able to vote online for the Quill book of the year from among the best adult and children’s books in each of 18 categories.
The populist-oriented Quill Awards were launched by the industry in 2005. That year, J.K. Rowling won top honors for her sixth note: sounds like she might have written at least one other non-harry potter book. book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," and Elizabeth Kostova was named the debut author of the year for her runaway bestseller, "The Historian."
— Kristina Lindgren
 Critics of Khaled Hosseini have complained that the situations set down in "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns" fall into the category of basic melodrama disguised with exotic dress and locales.
That didn’t prevent "Kite Runner," his first novel, from becoming an enormous, unexpected bestseller in 2003; and "A Thousand" immediately landed on major bestseller lists when it was published last month.
Hosseini’s book tour for "A Thousand" comes to Los Angeles this week, and Dutton’s Brentwood Books and Vroman’s Bookstore are anticipating expecting big turnouts.
Hosseini will read and answer questions at Dutton’s on Wednesday, while Vroman’s has planned its Thursday night event at All Saints Church in Pasadena.
Nick Owchar
Jane Yolen, Jonathan Carroll, Mary Pipher and Neil Gaiman are among the contributors to the 2007 edition of "The New Writer’s Handbook: A Practical Anthology of Best Advice for Your Craft and Career" (Scarletta Press: 280 pp., $16.95 paper), a series aimed at helping writers with the entire process: pitching a proposal, drafting a manuscript, marketing, you name it.
And yet, on this weary Monday morning, the only piece of interest was thriller writer Ridley Pearson’s on "The Three-Act Structure." The third act, Pearson explains, is all about resolution: "The end often shows the reuniting with someone from whom the protagonist separated at the start of the story: This could be an idea, a belief system, or a person. The protagonist, and the reader along with him, is made whole. Ordinary life can continue again."
"Name a film or book you think rises above others," Pearson concludes, "and chances are...the story line will fit into this form."
Hold it, now, what about last night’s final episode of "The Sopranos"? The show’s final minutes: the antithesis of wholeness.
Nick Owchar
 "The Dangerous Book for Boys" by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden (HarperCollins: 288 pp., $24.95) is a publishing phenomenon in England and now a runaway bestseller in the United States since its publication here a few weeks ago.
It is being hailed as wildly clever and is sure to spawn all kinds of knockoffs. But it also is firmly in the tradition of how-to and outdoorsy books for boys, a genre that has fallen into disuse by an urban population first constrained by feminism and then hooked on electronic entertainment. Notable precursors are the Boy Scouts of America's "Handbook for Boys" and "The American Boy's Handy Book" (still available from Dover Editions, a producer of facsimile classics), without which no household with male offspring used to be complete.
An excellent end-of-the-school-year gift, this book is a compendium of the traditional knowledge that the authors think boys are losing. There are entries on the world's best paper airplane, making invisible ink (urine is apparently very useful), teaching your dog tricks, building a treehouse and a go-cart, playing poker, making a periscope, first aid (if you're not getting hurt, you're not playing hard enough), Latin phrases every boy should know, the Ten Commandments, a guide to historical pirate flags (the Jolly Roger was just one of many) and accounts of famous battles with all the gruesome bits left in. The authors' unapologetic boyishness (there is an entry on how to deal with girls!), coupled with their utter devotion to the idea that a thing worth doing is worth doing well, suggest why it has been so successful.
Parents will be uncomfortable with one or another entry in "The Dangerous Book" (the chapter on "Hunting and Cooking a Rabbit" has drawn a gasp or two), but once they see boys pounce on the book -- it was brilliant, if slightly illogical, to put the word "Dangerous" in the title -- no one can object to the excitement it generates.
Sonja Bolle
 The Esotouric bus tours of literary L.A. have received an item in this column before, and now there’s another effort to build and maintain the visibility of L.A.’s literary heritage by an organization calling itself Nobody Reads in LA.
Construction continues to change downtown Los Angeles--old buildings are turning into swanky lofts that are intended to attract fresh professionals to live in the area. But what about perceptions of the city’s cultural life? Who is taking care of that? According to the website, Nobody Reads in LA is a "loose-knit group of individuals striving to create a stronger cultural, literary and historical sense of downtown Los Angeles. . . . Behind our efforts--which extend far beyond that of a traditional book club--is the desire to examine downtown as one of the two poles, along with Hollywood, whose gravitational pull traces L.A.’s eccentric orbit."
In the book industry, Los Angeles has long been criticized as lacking a center: Publishers frequently complain that it’s more difficult plotting effective author tours here than, say, in San Francisco or Manhattan--nothing in this city, they say, presents itself as an obvious literary hub. If Nobody Reads in LA succeeds, perhaps such a hub will be found at Lost Souls Café in downtown L.A., where the group will meet. Discussions are being planned on books that have contributed to the various images--noir capital, land of lost souls and desperate people--hanging over the city: Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Charles Bukowski and Reyner Banham. Directions, times and specifics can all be found at its website.
The club’s first meeting will take place June 13 at the café and center on John Fante’s "Ask the Dust." Afterward, there will be a brief walking tour of places associated with the author. Who said that books and exercise don’t mix?
Nick Owchar
 Malcolm Lowry seems an unlikely candidate for a comeback. The British author, who died in 1957 at age 47, was perhaps the most unregenerate of all the alcoholic underachievers in the literary canon; after his second novel (and acknowledged masterpiece) "Under the Volcano" appeared in 1947, he never completed another book. Yet Lowry wrote some of the lushest, most beautiful prose imaginable, especially when describing his life at Dollarton, British Columbia--where he spent many years on the beach in a squatter’s shack--which he evokes with such grace and acuity that it emerges as a three-dimensional landscape in your mind.
Now Lowry has returned, after a fashion. This April, HarperPerennial reissued "Under the Volcano" (402 pp., $14.95 paper) with an afterword by William T. Vollmann; in late August, the New York Review of Books will publish "The Voyage That Never Ends: Malcolm Lowry in His Own Words" (512 pp., $24.95), a collection of stories, poems, drafts and letters edited by Michael Hofmann, which marks the first American edition of new Lowry work in more than 30 years.
What’s the draw? The obvious answer has to do with the 50th anniversary of the author’s death, since the publishing industry likes nothing better than an occasion to commemorate as an excuse for bringing out new books. But with Lowry, it is--as it should be--more complex. This is a writer, after all, whom few readers even remember, and even fewer have read. And yet his work is among the finest 20th century literature ever produced: vulnerable, thoughtful, transfigured by doubt and dissolution, loss and evanescence, as well as the proximity of death.
This is why Lowry drank so much, and it’s why he sabotaged his career in its moment of greatest triumph, retreating, not finishing, working in fragments that had to be pieced together after he was gone. As he writes in the poem "After the Publication of ‘Under the Volcano,’ " which appears in the new book:
Success is like some horrible disaster
Worse than your house burning, the sound of ruination
As the roof tree falls following each other faster
While you stand, the helpless witness of your damnation.
Fame like a drunkard consumes the house of the soul
Exposing that you have worked for only this--
Ah, that I had never suffered this treacherous kiss
And had been left in darkness forever to founder and fail.
David L. Ulin
In the end, Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Cormac McCarthy yesterday didn’t amount to much. Oprah seemed out of breath (or nervous, a word that seems strange applied to her); McCarthy looked embarrassed, uncomfortable, but trying to be good-natured about it. At times, when she teased some humanity out of him, the camera caught something, a look of real displeasure or anger. "You’re blushing," she said, after asking him if "The Road" was a love story of sorts. A grimace flashed across his face.
Much on the Web, however, credits Winfrey with an unqualified triumph for getting McCarthy even to sit down in front of a camera. TV Guide says McCarthy warmly confided in her, and the Edmonton Journal’s headline reads "Talk Show Goddess Meets Mr. End of the World." Most of the media coverage shares this view, as does the blog My Tragic Right Hip.
But what was so great about the interview? Based on his body language, McCarthy was trying to keep himself from running out the door. He’ll probably never do this again, and it would have been good to hear his response to questions about influences (everyone, including himself, mentions Faulkner, but where did the necrophiliac interest and the operatic violence come from? You can’t put all of that on F’s shoulders) or even the fact that the plotlines of "The Road" and "No Country for Old Men," his most recent books, are much more conventional and familiar than anything in his previous novels--does that mean the storyteller is getting tired?
Still, there were some memorable comments in the interview, which was live-blogged on the Dizzies; you can find some interesting nugget-sized quotes there.
What did you think of the interview? Share your comments with us.
Nick Owchar
 The next writer who can now plan on an early retirement and the purchase of a yacht or summer home is Jeffrey Eugenides, whose "Middlesex" has been selected by Oprah Winfrey for her book club's summer read.
Eugenides’ novel--about a Greek American family in Michigan and its hermaphrodite child, Cal/Calliope--follows Oprah’s recommendation of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Like McCarthy’s novel, "Middlesex" received a Pulitzer Prize (in 2003) for fiction. Its current rank on Amazon.com is 541, but that’s certainly going to change. There’s only one direction to go, and that’s up.
This afternoon, Oprah talks to McCarthy in an interview much anticipated--and thought impossible, until Oprah managed it--by the literati. More on that later.
--Nick Owchar
National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered" recommended novelist John Gardner’s "The Sunlight Dialogues" yesterday in its first segment on suggested summer reading. You may remember that in the 1970s Gardner was a provocateur, insisting that most contemporary literature was "tinny" and insubstantial. Critics were divided on his work: Some called him a genius, author of such lyrical and perfectly constructed works as "The King’s Indian" and "October Light"; others thought he was a didactic bore, citing books like "The Wreckage of Agathon."
One thing most agreed on, however, was that Gardner cut an enormously romantic figure, with his long white hair, good looks, leather jacket and pipe--to say nothing of his tragic and untimely death at 49 in a 1982 motorcycle accident. The one novel of his that seems deserving of claims to greatness is "Grendel," which is ubiquitous on high school English syllabi and began drawing new audiences to "Beowulf" more than 30 years before Seamus Heaney’s popularization. But NPR has decided to focus on "The Sunlight Dialogues," a sometimes-overlooked story about the brooding conversations between a policeman and a captive madman fluent in classical mythology. NPR provides an excerpt from the book, as well as an opportunity to hear Gardner’s son, Joel, read from it.
--Nick Owchar
Like some reluctant rock star, former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame enthralled a banquet hall full of readers and industry types at BookExpo America, telling them that she had finally decided to sue those responsible for blowing her cover to “hold government officials to account” and to “prevent future abuses” of power.
"I was very much against it," Plame said, portraying herself as a mild-mannered civil servant and mother who was pulled into the spotlight against her will. She said that she and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, had "had many discussions at high volume." In the end, Wilson’s argument won out. "Just as you have to be vigilant to protect our national security, we have to be vigilant to protect our freedom of speech," she said.
Bestselling hip-hop artist Russell Simmons ("Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success"); actor Alan Alda, whose book "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself" is due out in September; and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. whose "The Conscience of a Liberal" will be released in October, were also on the panel. But Plame was the big draw.
She is awaiting a federal judge’s ruling over whether her suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, his former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, presidential advisor Karl Rove and former deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage can proceed.
Last week, she filed another lawsuit, this time to block the CIA from interfering with her book, "Fair Game," which will be published in the fall by Simon & Schuster. She and her publisher claim that the agency, its director, Michael V. Hayden, and National Intelligence Director J. Michael McConnell are blocking her from publishing employment dates and information about her CIA work against nuclear arms proliferation that became public with her outing. She pooh-poohed the notion that her book would put the nation’s security at risk, noting that the contested information was had been published in the Congressional Record and is available on the Internet.
"This makes a memoir somewhat problematic," Plame said. "The way I’ve been treated is absurd."
— Scott Timberg
Perhaps the strangest party at last weekend’s BookExpo America in New York was the 80th birthday celebration of the Strand, the venerable lower Broadway bookstore — “eighteen miles of books,” promises the signage — where disorganization has always been a virtue and the only way to find anything is not to look for anything at all. The party’s sponsors were Publishers Weekly and (yes) AARP, which may be a reflection of the shifting demographics of the industry, and the guests of honor included Pete Hamill, Art Spiegelman, Fran Lebowitz and former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who served as master of ceremonies.
But if the Strand has never been a party space — guests mingled in dense clusters throughout the second-floor stacks, eating deli sandwiches and birthday cake — the store has cleaned up considerably in recent years, appearing shockingly organized. New paperbacks were stacked on tables in the front of the store, and there’s now an elevator to get upstairs, where children’s literature (at the Strand?!?) is sold along with Strand T-shirts, Strand tote bags and Strand onesies for infants with a literary bent.
What’s happened here? It’s as if your bohemian uncle had become a banker, as if Joe Gould actually wrote his imaginary history and flogged it on Oprah Winfrey’s show. Don’t get me wrong: The Strand is one of the finest and most idiosyncratic bookstores in America, and its survival bodes well for all of us.
Yet there’s still an irony at work here, for what was missing at this 80th birthday celebration was the true guest of honor — the anarchic, sprawling, incomprehensible soul of the Strand itself.
— David L. Ulin
“The Road,” this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, is one of five nominees for the third annual Quill Award in fiction, publishing industry officials announced in New York. But that’s pretty much the only overlap with the more prestigious Pulitzers and National Book Awards among the 90 Quill finalists unveiled in 18 categories Saturday at BookExpo America, the nation’s largest gathering of booksellers.
Other fiction finalists are Da Chen for “Brothers,” Phil LaMarche for “American Youth,” Marisha Pessl for “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” and Matthew Sharpe for “Jamestown.” In mystery and suspense, “The Collaborator of Bethlehem” by Matt Beynon Rees is vying with “What the Dead Know” by Laura Lippman, “Body of Lies” by David Ignatius, “The Overlook” by Michael Connelly and “A Welcome Grave” by Michael Koryta.
The Quill Awards were created as a populist answer to the more rarified Pulitzer and National Book Foundation winners, who are selected by small committees of literary practitioners. By contrast, the Quills were launched to let the public vote online for their favorites across a broad range of categories that are mostly shunned by the literati, including romance, food, health, audio, science fiction, mystery and children’s picture books.
Last In October, for example, Tyler Perry’s “Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea’s Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life,” was named book of the year at the second annual Quill Awards, an event televised on some NBC-TV stations.
Last year’s lack-luster voting for Quill finalists prompted organizers to change the process. The 2007 finalists were chosen by editors at the trade magazine Publishers Weekly. Booksellers and librarians will announce their choices in each category on Sept. 10, then the public will be able to vote online for best book of the year among the 18 winners. That selection will be revealed in a New York ceremony on Oct. 22, to be broadcast Oct. 27.
--Josh Getlin
Continue reading Building a buzz for books… »
 Anyone interested in (but unable to attend) BookExpo America, which concludes this weekend at Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Center, can find extensive coverage on the Web. The best of this comes from the folks at Galley Cat. There’s also traditional coverage supplied by Publishers Weekly and of course the official BookExpo America website.
Along with the more highly publicized events--a tribute to David Halberstam, for instance, and Alan Greenspan’s keynote speech--attendees can see an "Espresso Book Machine," which is being likened to an ATM vending machine for books. The machine is aimed at supplying a reader with a specific title in the same way that you order a can of soda. It was designed by On Demand Books, a company founded by publishing executive Jason Epstein and his business partner Dane Neller. Balzac, anyone? Coming right up! A little Dostoevsky, please? Sure, no problem! According to advance press information, the first commercial model of the Espresso Book Machine will be installed this month at the New York Public Library. On Demand Books is also in talks with national book retailers and hotel chains.
A company called Long Pen-Unotchit is demonstrating a "long-distance pen and ink autographing device" that allows authors to sign legal signatures for fans who are thousands of miles away. The company description credits the invention as "the brainchild of Margaret Atwood." With her sci-fi track record, why is this not surprising?
Ian McEwan and his editor Nan Talese will attend a screening tomorrow of "Ian McEwan: On Chesil Beach," a 27-minute film about McEwan’s new novel that includes interviews and commentary from McEwan and various critics, as well as footage of the novel’s primary settings. The film is described as the first in the series "Out of the Book," a new venture of Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore. A panel discussion follows the screening, and on McEwan’s website you can find more information about when that film might be coming to a bookseller--in place of a live author tour, maybe?--near you.
Nick Owchar
Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberto Menchú is the big draw for Feria del Libro, Los Angeles’ fifth annual family book fair to be held Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. on the south lawn of City Hall.
Menchú, a presidential candidate in her native Guatemala, will appear on the main stage at noon, following opening ceremonies at 11 a.m. with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Los Angeles Unified Supt. David L. Brewer.
The event, which drew an estimated 15,000 people last year, is primarily aimed at Latino families, as the lineup of authors suggests: José-Luis Orozco ("Rin, Rin, Rin...Do, Re, Mi"); Max Benavidez ("Maria De Flor/a Day of the Dead Story"); Amada Irma Perez ("My Diary From Here to There"); Rene Colato Lainez ("I Am René, the Boy/Soy René, el Nino"); and Jorge Argueta ("A Movie in My Pillow").
But Henry "The Fonz" Winkler will also be reading from his "Hank Zipzer" books, including his latest, "The Curtain Went Up, My Pants Fell Down," as will Ogo Okoye-Johnson ("Oma, the Faithful Daughter") and Caroline Arnold ("Taj Mahal," "A Panda’s World").
The Feria del Libro began as an effort to increase reading, especially among youngsters, in Boyle Heights, an area with limited access to bookstores and libraries, according to festival organizers. A highlight of the event is the awarding of $25,000 to winners of the Million Word Challenge, a countywide school program to recognize voracious young readers.
For more information, go to Feria del Libro’s website.
The streets immediately surrounding City Hall and 1st, 2nd, Spring, Main and Temple streets, will be closed to vehicular traffic.
Kristina Lindgren
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