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A little while ago, INTERN posted about a fictitious Character Transformation Bazooka which could make characters have deep realisations and catharses instantly, with no justification.

There are a few other weapons of mass manuscript destruction (WMMD) in the arsenal.

One is the Triumph Bomb, or T-Bomb.

If you go see just about any movie that's playing in a mainstream theatre, there's bound to be at least one scene involving a Moment of Triumph: the submarine crew realizes they've fixed their leaking vessel just in time (hugs, shouts, and meaningful apologies ensue) or a pair of starcrossed mental defectives realizes they're meant for each other and triumphantly race to the nearest marriage office.

These moments of triumph usually happen after about ninety minutes of false starts, dissapointments, and disasters.

One comment INTERN finds herself writing frequently in novel critiques is that the moments of triumph in the story come too soon, or make no sense, or seem to drop out of the sky with nothing to warn their approach but a faint whistle on the breeze. There haven't been enough obstacles or disasters to make the triumph meaningful—or the stakes were too low for anyone to care.

T-bombs are especially rampant in manuscripts that involve the following:

-unrequited love
-battles (literal battles. like, with axes and longswords).
-stories with quirky mysteries (particularly in YA and MG books)
-stories about overcoming bullies (particularly in YA and MG)
-characters with diseases
-stories involving sports

Actually, it is possible to drop a T-bomb in just about any kind of novel.

INTERN has been doing a lot of research into this triumph thing, and has found that really effective triumphs in novels happen only after one or a few of the following have happened in the story:

-a character has had to sacrifice something
-a character has had to make a high-stakes choice or moral decision
-a character has tried several other options and failed
-a character has suffered a hard loss or injury over the course of struggling towards a particular goal
-a character has, indeed, been struggling in some way, not floating along easily.
-a character has been forced to change significantly
-a character has undergone real trials and conflicts pertaining to the goal

If none of these things have happened, but your characters are still smiling weepily and holding each other while Chariots of Fire plays in the background, they're probably the victims of a T-Bomb. Edit at will!

**

INTERN is heading out for an extended Thanksgiving visit with her family, so she will be away for the next week. Have courage, revisioneers, and good luck!

"The 'rogue', be it to do with elephant, tiger, lion, or hippopotamus, is the individual who does not even respect the law of the animal community, of the pack, the horde, of its kind. By its savage or indocile behavior, it stays or goes away from the society to which it belongs."

—Jacques Derrida, from The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I, the inaugural edition of a series of Derrida's unpublished lectures, attempts to deconstruct the traditional determinations of the human through an examination of the persistent association of bestiality or animality with sovereignty in western literature, edited by Geoffrey Bennington and Peggy Kamuf.

Jacques Derrida (1930—2004) was director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, and professor of humanities at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of many books published by the University of Chicago Press. Geoffrey Bennington is Asa G. Candler Professor of Modern French Thought at Emory University and the author of numerous works, including Interrupting Derrida.

Experiential Learning with Indian Corn:

Book to read: Burro’s Tortillas
Temporary eBook Viewing Code: YRJ9CU
Code expiration date: 11/27/2009
Please click on the following link:
http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/ebooktrials.php?e=YRJ9CU

For additional information:

• http://sylvandellpublishing.com/RelatedWebsites/RelatedWebsites_BurrosTortillas.htm
• http://go.si.edu/site/TR/Events/nmai?pg=informational&fr_id=1050&type=fr_informational&sid=1080
• http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/ancienttech/grinding_corn.html

Just released in paperback are two literary gems from P.F. Kluge: Gone Tomorrow and Biggest Elvis. A longtime writer-in-residence at Kenyon College in Ohio, Kluge has written seven acclaimed and beloved novels. He also works as a journalist, writing for magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Islands, Playboy, and Reader's Digest. And we're thrilled that Overlook will be publishing a new novel by P.F. Kluge, A Call From New Jersey, in September 2010.

Here's what Kluge says about Biggest Elvis, originally published in 1995, and now back in a print with the one of our coolest covers ever!

"What began as one Philippines-based novel, then another, became a trilogy with Biggest Elvis. In this case, journalism led to fiction. I visited the mammoth U.S. Naval base at Subic Bay twice, once on assignment for Rolling Stone magazine, once for Playboy. The place was unforgettable: a neon wilderness, a sexual vanity fair, a high water mark of American military and cultural power. There was more there than a pair of magazine articles could accommodate. Then my friend Lazarus Salii (see The Edge of Paradise) told me of a trio of singers who had come to Palau and been stranded there, broke. The three men were an Elvis Presley show, each incarnating a stage of the king’s life. The idea of three Elvis’s knocking around the world was appealing to me. A novel—which ought to be a movie—was born. It had music, sex, romance, politics, exotic locations. It was an American Year of Living Dangerously. Of all my books, this was the most fun to write. Every day, the question from manuscript to author was: what kind of fun are we going to have today? I think it shows.”

Author Blythe Woolston asked a good question (possibly because I was begging for it): “Can you explain why covers for YA are always hard to do?”

Several reasons:

1. I don’t think you can look for a literal narrative image in the book for an effective cover. I mean, you could, but I think it’s a bad idea. I’ve said a million times, YA novels are generally more about character and voice than they are about plot or situation (obviously, there are exceptions, but the trend holds). But . . .

2. You really don’t want to use the cover to paint (literally or figuratively) a portrait of the main character.  This is why when you do get a “face” cover these days, it’s often done with partially obscured faces, extreme close-ups, or any number of other  tricks to keep the cover about character without intruding too much on the reader’s imagined vision of the character.

3. So you’re left with trying to convey some sort of emotional/metaphorical abstraction with design, photography (mostly stock), and type. All for an audience that can be incredibly discerning and picky about design. Fun stuff.

One book I’ve worked on provides a nice illustration of trends and challenges in YA fiction. It’s a novel called The Fat Girl by Marilyn Sachs, and it was first published by Dutton in the early 80s. It’s a first person, dark YA with an unreliable narrator (hint: it’s not about the fat girl). Here’s the jacket for the first edition:

I’d call this character focused, but too much in-focus—that is, too explicit. Even if the clothes and the hair weren’t dated, this cover would still be problematic in contemporary YA for the simple reason that it takes away too much from the imagination.

And here’s the cover for a later mass-market edition, still from the 80s. This is the cover that may have been on the book all the way into the early 90s when the book went out of print.

This cover is a scene from the book. I’d call it a narrative, plot-based cover, and it tells me absolutely nothing about the book’s voice and overall tone. Again, even if the look was up to date, it would fail as a cover now.

Fast forward to 2005. I heard about the novel on Roger Sutton’s blog* and was intrigued. I tried to find it, and discovered it wasn’t in print. I found a used copy, read it, and loved it. A lot. It’s a book that really rings true, even after 25 years. So, I bought the rights from Marilyn Sachs, and we republished it, with this cover in 2006:

I can’t say this is a perfect cover (this is one of those cases where an excellent designer basically created the cover I always wanted), but I think it’s heading in the right direction at a minimum. It’s an intriguing image, a little disturbing, and it gives a sense of the dark tone of the book without prejudicing the imagination at all.

The book has done very well for Flux and seems likely to remain part of its backlist for a long time.

Bottom line: over nearly thirty years, nothing about the text of this book has changed. Not one word. It’s held up for readers very well. Can’t really say the same of the covers, eh?

* Funny to look back at that blog post of Roger’s from 2005. I commented that I couldn’t find the book, and someone called “Sara Z” commented that she had loved Sachs’s books growing up but had missed The Fat Girl. Gee, I wonder what became of Sara Z.?

As I’ve mentioned before, author Steve Brezenoff and and I have been working with a YALSA Galley Group in St. Paul called Teen Know Best to figure out the best way to put a cover on that guy’s book, The Absolute Value of –1 (|-1| for short). We’re almost done. I’ll let  Steve and TKB director Adela Peskorz tell how it’s going:

Steve, on his blog:

Last night was our last pre-final-cover meeting with the wonderful TKBs. It was a blast, naturally, and there were even more questions and comments for me, which was nice. See, there was more time at the end before the members had to scatter because we only looked at four comps on the old overhead. Anywho, the questions and comments were mostly very flattering and I probably went red once or twice.

The point is I think most of the members who read |-1| (at least those who spoke up) liked it.

Oh! And the covers. Well, I was pretty hot on one of 'em, and pretty cold on one of them, and downright unmoved by another, but one of them in particular has me more excited than a crawfish at a clambake. Unfortunately, the AE warns me that it's nowhere near in the bag yet, what with all the necessary approvals down the road from Sales and departments like Sales. So I can't say anything specific about it. You'll all have to be patient with me. But it won't be long, mind you, as we need finals pretty right quick for the catalog.

Adela, on the TKB blog:

The whole process was fun! We loved Brezenoff’s book (especially the controversial twist :0) and enjoyed the company of Steve, Andrew, Elizabeth, and all their friends at our meetings!

We can’t wait to see The Absolute Value of -1 in print!!

I can say that Steve’s preferred cover is in the process of being wrestled into the bag. Things look good.

For my part, I’ll just say it was great to have so much thoughtful feedback on this project. The teens in the group blew me away repeatedly with their insights.

Covers for YA novels are always, always, always hard. I’ve worked on scores of them, and it only gets more difficult. Sometimes I wish Steve had written a  self help book, in which case we’d have been done ages ago:

I mean, it’s just a mock up, but see how I left room lots of for an Oprah seal?

-Andrew Karre

Do not miss Howard Zinn's TV documentary coming in December. With Matt Damon and others as the voices!! Harper and Seven Stories Press have the tie-in books.

Raise your hand if you love Roald Dahl's books! Oh yeah! He's awesome! Matilda, The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and The BFG are my favorites, but he's written a bunch more too. A few have been made into movies, the most recent one being Fantastic Mr. Fox (rated PG) which comes out in theaters November 25.

Fantastic Mr Fox is about Mr. and Mrs. Fox who live an idyllic home life with their son Ash and visiting nephew Kristofferson. But, once a fox, always a fox, and after twelve years of quiet domesticity, Mr. Fox slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief. He gets himself and his family in trouble with the evil Farmers - Boggis, Bunce and Bean - who are determined to capture the audacious, fantastic Mr. Fox at any cost. In the end, he uses his natural instincts to save his family and friends.

Lucky Kid Reporters on both coasts got the scoop. Kid Reporter Grace was at the New York red carpet premiere, and Miranda was at the press day in Los Angeles where she met Lucy Dahl, Roald Dahl's daughter! They each got some really cool behind-the-scenes details about the movie, and Grace even got a compliment from actress, Meryl Streep.

Jason Schwartzman plays the voice of Ash, and our STACKS reporter Gerri got to ask him what he likes most about the movie. Let's hear what he has to say . . . 

I love how the moral of the story is to be cool with who you are. Being yourself is awesome! That seems to be a common thread in a lot of Roald Dahl's books - people who are a little bit quirky or different end up being really cool and interesting. What do you think? Do you have a favorite Roald Dahl book? Let me know in the Comments.

Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox
Video by Gerri Miller for THE STACKS

California Librarians: mark your calendars! Shen's Books will be at the annual California School Library Association conference again this year. The conference will be held November 19-21 at the Ontario Convention Center. We'll have copies of all our books for sale, at special conference prices. See you then!

Shen's Books at CSLA Conference
November 19-21, 2009
Ontario Convention Center
Ontario, CA

This fall, the Press published two books on the current state of the American university. Gaye Tuchman's Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University is an eye-opening exposé of the modern university that argues that higher education's misguided pursuit of success fails us all. James C. Garland's Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America's Public Universities, on the other hand, argues that a new compact between state government and public universities is needed to make schools more affordable and financially secure.

We asked these scholars debate the current state and future of American universities. Tuchman and Garland don't agree on much, but their conversation sheds new light on the many problems and promises of the higher education system in this country. Yesterday, Tuchman began by responding to Garland's review of her book. Today, Garland picks back up the debate on the subject of funding.

From: James C. Garland

To: Gaye Tuchman

The trouble with talking about markets is that the word itself has become so loaded. To conservatives, "markets" are the way to fight socialism and Big Government, while to liberals, they symbolize income inequality and runaway corporate malfeasance. Of course, markets are intrinsically neither good nor bad, nor are they embodied with any particular ideology. However, because market forces are very powerful they have to be structured carefully, lest they have bad unintended consequences, a recent example being Wall Street excesses.

In public higher education, market financing is usually juxtaposed against public financing. Back in the days when you and I were in college, there was no public university "market." A year's tuition for a state university was easily affordable (for example, $213 at the University of Minnesota in 1961), and the state paid for the rest. Today, as you know, tuition has grown to about $10,000 and state support has declined to about 25% of the costs.

Many people see this evolution as a de facto philosophical shift from higher education being a "public good" to its being a "private good," the former meaning that all of society benefits (from universal access to college) and the latter meaning that only individuals benefit.

For two reasons, I have long thought this to be a facile and somewhat artificial division. First, it seems to ignore the obvious truth that higher education provides both public and private benefits. There is no clean dividing line between a public and private good.

But my bigger problem with the division it that it links public and private goods to the funding source. By this reasoning, if the taxpayers pay, it is a public good, whereas if the individual pays it is a private good. Again, I see this as an artificial distinction. To me, the more relevant consideration is affordability. I don't really care if the beneficiaries "copay" for their education, so long as they can afford to do so. Unfortunately, as tuition has climbed and state support has dwindled, there is a growing segment of people who cannot make the payments.
"What will it take," you ask "to make policy makers realize that we must find a way to fund universal higher education rather than to place the burden of paying for education on the very people who are most in need?" That is indeed the key question.

But I fear we part company on how to answer it. You would redirect public funds back to universities, pass universal health care to ease campus spending on benefits, free up money by liberalizing drug laws and reducing state prison expenses, and change the public mindset that relegates higher education to a low priority in state budgets.

I would like those things too. In fact, I would like to return to the days when a year's college tuition was $213, when legislatures footed most of the expenses, and when classes were taught by full-time professors on well-maintained campuses. But those days are gone forever. There are just too many other growing demands on public treasuries to expect a return to the past.

So to me, the solution is to make the optimal use of public dollars, and that's where markets come in. Not free markets, but markets regulated to ensure the desired outcome. Since you've read my book you know that I'm recommending using public funds to give grants to needy students, rather than giving it directly to universities. There are two reasons for doing that.

First, it places the money where it will do the most good. When public money is given as an appropriation, it indirectly subsidizes all students. Today, Warren Buffet's grandchildren receive the same financial benefit as the children of young single mothers on welfare, and that just isn't right. Treating all people equally isn't the same thing as treating them fairly. And second, it creates desirable incentives for universities to respond to the needs of their grant-holding students.

Consider, for example, the federal food stamp program. This is a worthy social program in which the federal government spends public funds so needy individuals can purchase food. But now imagine a different kind of food subsidy program, in which the money would be appropriated to supermarket chains instead of needy people, the idea being for supermarkets to pass the savings on to all their customers. That would clearly be a terrible idea, because (a) it would dilute public dollars by underwriting the food expenses of those who didn't need help, and (b) it would give supermarkets an incentive to cater to wealthy customers by stocking their shelves with expensive specialty foods. Under this "revised" food subsidy program, the needy would lose purchasing power they formerly had, while the wealthy would gain it. But that’s exactly the way public higher education is now funded. The money goes to the universities, which pass along the savings to all students, whether they need it or not. And then universities build climbing walls and luxury dorms to attract even more wealthy students, since the needy students can't afford high tuition payments.

My proposal would change this system by giving needy students more purchasing power. Universities would now have incentives to be more responsive to their needs. In fact, the universities that would benefit most by my proposal are the regional, non-selective campuses that enroll large numbers of low- and middle-income students. The new system would benefit such schools, because their students would be armed with need-based grants that would more than reimburse their campuses for the loss of public subsidy. Thus "market forces," would decrease educational inequities by empowering precisely those people who cannot now afford the high price of college. The full picture is more complicated (which is why I wrote a book on the subject), but basically, my proposal would reshape incentives to accomplish the end goals that I believe both of us consider worthy.

So how do you think Wannabe U would react if it faced the prospects of losing its state subsidy (over, say, a six-year period) and knew that the only way it could make up the loss was by making itself more desirable to low- and middle-income students? (Keep in mind that the same total dollars would be going to public universities in the state, but the universities couldn't count automatically on receiving the money.)

How do you believe Wannabe U would respond to this challenge? How would the faculty respond if the university started recruiting more low- and middle-income students? How would the change impact classes and the campus environment? Would Wannabe U stop being a "conformist" university by trying to compete with the Berkeleys of the country, which cater to well-prepared upper income students? What do you think the reaction of the University Senate would be?

Is to a book with photographer Mike Brodie. The photo above is from an exhibition of his work in San Francisco.

Here’s a bit from the Utata article on him (which has more photos):

[…]

Around that same time period Brodie and his girlfriend, both of whom lived near tracks utilized by freight trains, began to fantasize about hopping trains. A year later he was out of high school and had a job, but he hadn't abandoned the dream of riding the rails. His girlfriend, however, was still in school. One day, according to Brodie, "I said 'Fuck this, man, I want to ride trains!' So I quit my job and waited around for a while and she still wasn't ready so I hopped a train to Jacksonville from Pensacola. I didn't know what I was doing, and ever since then it's been a learning process, learning how to ride trains correctly." He's been riding the lines ever since.

Brodie took along his SX-70 [a Polaroid camera] and photographed the people he met and the things he saw. He discovered—and became part of—a subculture of young vagabonds who'd had similar dreams, people who also rode the rails for the adventure of it. Not surprisingly, this community of travelers was fairly tight. "Half the people in my photographs know each other," Brodie says. "[T]hey all are in a similar age range and they’re all traveling and hanging out in the same areas, most of them, same groups. So if they don’t already know one another, they will down the road. Or they’re MySpace friends. All those traveling kids all are on MySpace, all have cell phones and all keep in touch with one another."

-Greg Fallis

Michael Moritz's Return to the Little Kingdom is included in the list of the "Six Apple Books You Really, Really Must Own: "Just published last week, this book has been heavily revised, being an updated version of the book (The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer) Moritz wrote 25-years ago. In conjunction with the others on this list the original title has been a tried and tested essential reference work that’s helped build and inform our understanding of the development of the computer company.

Why we like it? It’s factual, it lacks spin, and was written way back in 1984 by Moritz, then at Time Magazine. It does a great job explaining the origins and quirks of Apple's first decade, giving some clue as to how the company turned out the way it did. Later titles all cite this one, partly because of its accuracy and partially for the on the button job Moritz managed in capturing the essences of the personalities of the founders of the company and the challenges it faced. What do other people think? Andy Hertzfeld quite simply calls it, “One of the best books about Apple ever written”. We say, “buy this book”. - Johnny Evans, 9to5Mac

A newborn wolf pup with a twisted leg is abandoned in the wilderness beyond Ga'Hoole. Miraculously, he survives and grows up to change the Wolves of Beyond forever. If you loved the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky, then this Sneak Peek of her newest series is for you.

Lone Wolf, Book 1 of the brand new Wolves of the Beyond series is not coming out until December 29, but you, dear Ink Splot 26 readers, can be the first to read Chapter 1 right here (PDF).

In other news, the Guardians of Ga'Hoole movie is coming out in September 2010, which feels like an awfully long time, so it's a good thing we have this new series to read while we're waiting!

This fall, the Press published two books on the current state of the American university. Gaye Tuchman's Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University is an eye-opening exposé of the modern university that argues that higher education's misguided pursuit of success fails us all. James C. Garland's Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America's Public Universities, on the other hand, argues that a new compact between state government and public universities is needed to make schools more affordable and financially secure.

Last month, Garland reviewed Tuchman's book on his blog. We asked Tuchman to respond to Garland, and what follows is a long conversation about the current state and future of American universities. Tuchman and Garland don't agree on much, but their debate sheds new light on the many problems and promises of the higher education system in this country. What follows is the first half of the exchange. The conclusion will be posted tomorrow.

From: Gaye Tuchman
To: James C. Garland

I read your comments on my book with amusement and despair. Sometimes the same passage prompted both feelings. So, I wind up amused that a bright fellow like you did not understand that I was not condemning—or even criticizing—individual administrators or even the Wannabe U administrators. And I despair when a physicist, who presumably studies patterns, cannot understand that social scientists study patterns too.

I'm merely trying to describe the patterns that I've seen at Wannabe University and to say what I think they mean. The quote from C. Wright Mills (on the page across from the Table of Contents) captures how sociologists think: "Caught in the limited milieu of their everyday lives, ordinary men [and women] often cannot reason about the great social structures—rational and irrational—of which their lives are a subordinate part. Accordingly, they often carry out series of apparently rational actions without any idea of the ends they serve." My job is to study patterns and figure out what they mean. I also teach students about patterns, including how in recent years an exaltation of market forces seems to have meant that the rich have been increasing their share of the wealth and the poor have indeed been getting poorer.

Your blog post suggests that you do not accept that sociologists study patterns. As you put it, "Sociologists see the world differently from most folks. They see patterns everywhere. A friendly pat on the shoulder establishes dominance; the celery sticks on an hors d'oeuvres tray mark the lowly status of the retiree. Who speaks first, who interrupts whom, who sits where, who has a wood desk and an office on the second floor—all of these are 'tells' about power and status, who's up and who's down, and what's in and what's out."

My guess is that the patterns that physicists study are harder to see. (I've never seen a photon collide with anything, and I haven't studied physics since an awesome course in high school.) But at least the photons don't talk back, deny that their behavior is patterned or alter their behavior because they've read what you've written and want to prove you wrong. All of us engage in patterned behavior. If what we said and did was genuinely idiosyncratic, our well-meaning family and friends would have mumbled about our egocentricities and sent us off for medical care. So, the penthouse overlooking the East River costs more than an apartment that is just as large, but on the third floor. The office of the dean is larger and furnished much better than the assistant professor's office, and the university president probably has a more expensive desk than the executive assistant who reports to him [or her]. And sometimes men pat one another on the shoulder when they enter a room; women rarely do that.

When a sociologist uses ethnography to find out how a phenomenon or a process works, one key is selecting a good case. Although the exception does tell us something about the rule, it's often easier to locate patterns that matter by examining a typical case. As best as I can tell, Wannabe University is pretty typical. Our administrators seem pretty typical and our professors do too. Trying to transform complicated variables into simple measures seems pretty typical. Even the food court in the Student Union and the increasing percentage of courses taught by the contingent labor force seem pretty typical.

What I can't understand is: Why do all these administrators think it's great to ape the flaws of corporations and to transform complicated issues into simplistic and often phony metrics and also to objectify students as products? I had always wanted to think that administrators are smarter than that. Why do universities try so hard to be just like everyone else? Suppose that all of the chemistry departments are measuring themselves against the Berkeley department and all of the economics departments are measuring themselves against either Chicago or MIT. If all those departments are striving to be the same—only much better than average—how is anyone ever going to find out something genuinely new?

While we might take for granted the notion that animal species can become extinct—and that, occasionally, humans are the direct cause—among the early pioneers of natural science, the idea that any link in the great chain of being could be broken took a while to sink in. As the Washington Times' Claire Hopley notes in a recent review of Mark V. Barrow Jr.'s Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction From the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology:

18th- and early-19th-century scientists and thinkers believed that the world was created with a complete inventory of humans, animals, birds and vegetation, forming a chain of being.

The idea that a link in this chain could disappear undermined this fundamental concept. As Jefferson wrote, "Such is the economy of nature, that no instance can be produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken." He put the mammoth first in his list of American mammals because he expected that a living example would be discovered as explorers moved westward and encountered wildlife unknown in the east.

The existence of uncharted territories, not only in America but also in Africa and the South Pacific, fostered resistance to the idea of extinction. But as distant countries were explored it became clear that species were being wiped out.…

But as Barrow's new book demonstrates, as the idea of extinction gained credence so too did the idea of conservation, at first, among natural scientists who wished to preserve specimens for study, and later, among members of the public interested in preserving the beauty of the North American wildlife.

Delivering a sweeping, beautifully illustrated historical narrative of these efforts to preserve the natural world, Barrow's Nature's Ghosts takes readers on a journey from the early scientific discoveries that revealed the threat of extinction, to the pioneering conservation efforts of early naturalists like John James Audubon and John Muir.

With Nature's Ghosts Barrow offers an unprecedented view of what we've lost—and a stark reminder of the hard work of preservation still ahead.

Read an excerpt.

Dr. Irene Levine, author of Best Friends Forever, offers her take on "unfriend," recently named by Oxford American Dictionary as the 2009 "Word of the Year:

"The New Oxford American Dictionary chose the verb "unfriend" as its 2009 Word of the Year (WOTY) and defined it this way: "to remove someone as a ‘friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook." The word "has both currency and potential longevity," explained Christine Lindberg, Oxford's senior lexicographer on the OUP Blog. The choice of this year's word is telling because the act of unfriending (or defriending) is part of the pruning process of maintaining a presence on social media, like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. It's easy to collect more friends than you want or need, including many contacts that may turn out not to be "friends" by any reasonable definition of the word. Fortunately, if someone posts too often, bores you, lurks without posting, has questionable politics or ethics, says something caustic or insensitive, acts unpredictably, or even uses too many exclamation points, it's relatively easy to get rid of them electronically---with no more than a few keystrokes. But dumping a true friend-online or off-isn't as easy because it raises the risk of collateral damage. When two people are really "friends," they're likely to have numerous connections. They may have common friends, live in the same neighborhood, share a workplace or livelihood, belong to the same community or organizations, or have exchanged information (including secrets and confidences) with one another. So a word of caution: Even though a new verb has entered the common parlance, think twice before you unfriend. Doing it carries some of the same risks of dumping someone offline."

Tip of the Week: Always read all of the directions, and then follow them.

Now before all of the people who entered the contest worry that I'm talking about them, calm down. I'm not. In fact every single person who entered my contest had a perfect entry -- just the way I wanted it.

However, I thought of this tip because I've been reading submissions for The Bloom Award over at Blooming Tree Press, and there people have not always been as successful. Remember when it says double-spaced, it means double-spaced. Not 1 1/2 spaced, not triple spaced. Double spaced.

© Copyright 2006-2009 Madeline Smoot. All rights reserved. May be excerpted and duplicated for educational purposes.

Thanks to all the fans of The 39 Clues, and congratulations on being top-level Clue-hunters! World domination doesn't come easy, does it? That's one of the first lessons Amy and Dan learn.

You may not have all 39 Clues yet, but you can still showcase your Clue-hunting prowess by designing your very own agent card on www.the39Clues.com. Check out my card right here.

First you have to create a Cahill alias. That's me – Desert Squall1. Then it's time to show off your skills.

There are tons of cool images to add to your card – background designs, animals, weapons, characters from the series, etc. And of course, a little bragging never hurts. You get to display all your Clue-hunting accomplishments. But the coolest part is this: your card will have a unique code. So when you send the code to your friends (and rivals?!) your card will be added to their card galleries. My code is P2DTMN4WXP.

Risky? Perhaps. There's no guarantee that your card won't fall into Madrigal hands. But let's face it – no guts, no glory. The Clue hunt is no place for wimps.

So when you create your agent card, rest assured I'll be watching. The bigger question is: Who else will be?

See you on the hunt! And if you haven't joined the hunt for the Clues yet, it's never too late to join!

— The 39 Clues Author, Gordon Korman (aka Desert Squall1, Card Code: P2DTMN4WXP)

Join Kevin Rafferty, award-winning filmmaker and author of Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, on Saturday November 21 at Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut, for the launch of his new book.
Joining Kevin for a discussion of the documentary film and companion book will be Vic Gatto, Brian Dowling & Gary Trudeau.

Signing starts at 10am at the Yale Bookstore tent near the concession stands. Kickoff is at noon.

On November 23, 1968, for the first time since 1909, the football teams of Harvard and Yale are undefeated as they meet for their final game. Yale, led by captain and quarterback Brian Dowling (later satirized as B.D. in classmate Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip) is heavily favored. The underdog team from Harvard includes lineman Tommy Lee Jones—Al Gore’s roommate and future Hollywood star. What follows is widely regarded as among the best games of all time.

First came Rafferty’s documentary of the game, which Newsday called “A nail-biting sports story,” and Time Out New York deemed “close to perfect.” Now, in this compelling and unique new book, Rafferty inter-cuts photos of the game and Trudeau’s original drawings with the hilarious and suspenseful recollections of the fifty players to create a stunning account of one of the most famous games of all time."

Not since Gutenberg has literacy and the written word gotten so much press. An academy in Massachusetts is throwing out 200,000 books, and replacing them with a coffee shop. A church in North Carolina is burning books, most of them Bibles. The country’s two largest retail chains are waged in a price war over hardcovers. Not electronics, not Tickle-me-Elmo, but books! More digital readers are suddenly on the market. Rupert Murdoch is proposing setting up paywalls to keep Google from “ripping off” his news agency’s content. And Brett Favre is quarterbacking for the Vikings! I know, that last one has nothing to do with publishing, but it’s too cool not to mention. And what’s with all the apocalyptic movies lately? Is this one mass, subconscious metaphor for the revolution that’s taking place in front of our Lasik-reengineered eyeballs? The old world is making way for the new? Burn the Library of Alexandria so we can implant a microchip in your head and thereby save all that real estate for more important things like football stadiums! The point is that the media, like a ship caught in a whirlpool, is circling around the future of print. What will become of books? What will we be reading? Who will be reading?

We are all caught up in the conversation. Here at Stone Arch Books the digital challenge stuck us like a thunderbolt. Which is a good thing. What if -- we wondered -- we put a brand new book, focused on a timely topic, on the web, free of charge? Would this help it get to our readers faster? Beth mentioned yesterday our new Finn Reader, Flu Fighter, a hilarious story told in journal format about a teenager swept up in the H1N1 epidemic. We know kids would love this story. And we know they are curious about H1N1. Running this book through the usual printing channels would take time. Kids want to know now!

What do you think? As lovers of literature, as experts in children’s books, as librarians and media specialists, do you think this is a good method for reaching readers quickly? Have you ever downloaded a free book off the web? Did it give you the same reading experience as reading a bound manuscript? Did it matter? Did you love the story so much that you went back and purchased a hardcopy version to put on your shelves?

As an omnivorous bibliophile myself, I would love to hear what people think. A few times a week I gaze longingly at Amazon’s ads for Kindle, but I still haven’t hit the Buy Now button. My finger is itching. I can’t help it. I love to read, and anything that gets a story into my hands faster can’t be a bad thing. Can it?