How to use this Page

We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending April 5, 2015–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #5 in Hardcover Fiction) At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen: “After disgracing themselves at a high society New Year’s Eve party in Philadelphia in 1944, Madeline Hyde and her husband, Ellis, are cut off financially by his father, a former army colonel who is already ashamed of his son’s inability to serve in the war. When Ellis and his best friend, Hank, decide that the only way to regain the Colonel’s favor is to succeed where the Colonel very publicly failed—by hunting down the famous Loch Ness monster—Maddie reluctantly follows them across the Atlantic, leaving her sheltered world behind. ” (March 2015)

(Debuted at #8 in Hardcover Nonfiction) Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris: “Mary Norris has spent more than three decades in The New Yorker‘s copy department, maintaining its celebrated high standards. Now she brings her vast experience, good cheer, and finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.” (April 2015)

(Debuted at #15 in Children’s Illustrated) The Bunny Rabbit Show! by Sandra Boynton: “You’ve got front-row seats to the cutest revue in town—hop on down to The Bunny Rabbit Show! The latest addition to Sandra Boynton’s phenomenal bestselling Boynton on Board series, this book stars a cast of high-kicking bunnies performing in perfect unison to a lively song all about…them.” (September 2014)

Peter Schneider and Elisabetta di Mambro, two producers, have picked up the worldwide rights to adapt Sara Gruen’s Water For Elephants into a musical. The production team hopes to have a Broadway run for this show.

Gruen will be involved with the creative process for this theatrical project. She originally wrote the book for National Novel Writing Month; Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill published it in May 2006.

Here’s more from The Hollywood Reporter: “The Depression-era novel, which has been published in 43 countries and has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, follows aspiring veterinarian Jacob Jankowski as he joins the staff of Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, working with the circus’ new elephant. He bonds with the show’s equestrian star, who is married to its charismatic but troubled animal superintendent. The love-triangle title was previously adapted into a 2011 film starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Christoph Waltz.”

Water For Elephants novelist Sara Gruen has penned a new book entitled At the Water’s Edge. The jacket was unveiled today—what do you think?

According to the Water For Elephants movie fan page, the story features “a privileged young woman’s moral and sexual awakening as she experiences the devastations of World War II in a Scottish Highland village.” Spiegel & Grau, an imprint at Penguin Random House, will release the book on June 02, 2015.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) relaunched its website as writers around the globe prepare to write a 50,000-word novel draft in November. The writing marathon organizers counted more than 90 published novels that began as NaNoWriMo projects.

The updated site added new new badges and upcoming pep talks from writers like Marissa Meyer and Nick Hornby. The site also added a wide range of NaNoWriMo merchandise, everything from clothing to thermoses to pencils to pre-sale winner shirts.

Here’s more from the release: “With NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program, that community crosses age boundaries into K-12 classrooms around the globe. The YWP allows kids and teens to set their own word-count goals, and offers educators high-quality free resources to get nearly 100,000 students writing original, creative works. Although the event emphasizes creativity and adventure over creating a literary masterpiece, more than 90 novels begun during NaNoWriMo have since been published, including Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and Cinder by Marissa Meyer, all #1 New York Times Best Sellers.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

One of my favourite poems by Shel Silverstein is “Invitation.” Take a look:

If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

Like Silverstein, Summer has an invitation all its own: To read our fantastical tales in the great outdoors. Take a page out of the Nature Conservancy of Canada‘s book and Take Time for Nature. And, why not? You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Do negative reviews stop people from reading your books? Over at her blog, novelist Shiloh Walker disputed that claim in a passionate essay.

Check it out: “That negative review isn’t going to kill your career. Will it stop a few people from buying your book? Possibly–because that book may not be right for them. And FYI, one of the rants lately was that negative reviews discouraged people from reading … readers aren’t discouraged by ‘bad’ reviews. And guess what–that negative review may be the very thing that entices another reader to buy your book.”

We were so inspired by her work that we checked negative reviews of ten authors at Amazon–counting the massive amount of one-star reviews received by bestselling authors. Twilight topped the list with 669 one-star reviews. Read this list before you complain about your next bad review.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Do negative reviews stop people from reading your books? Over at her blog, novelist Shiloh Walker disputed that claim in a passionate essay.

Check it out: “That negative review isn’t going to kill your career. Will it stop a few people from buying your book? Possibly–because that book may not be right for them. And FYI, one of the rants lately was that negative reviews discouraged people from reading … readers aren’t discouraged by ‘bad’ reviews. And guess what–that negative review may be the very thing that entices another reader to buy your book.”

We were so inspired by her work that we checked negative reviews of ten authors at Amazon–counting the massive amount of one-star reviews received by bestselling authors. Twilight topped the list with 669 one-star reviews. Read this list before you complain about your next bad review.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today Amazon opened the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, allowing Amazon Prime members to rent up to one digital book per month with no due date. The library includes 5,000 titles, ranging from three books by Michael Lewis to Suzanne Collins‘ The Hunger Games trilogy to Sara Gruen‘s Water for Elephants.

The library books can only be read on Amazon Kindle devices: the Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Keyboard or Kindle Fire–excluding readers on mobile devices and rival tablets. Customers can sign up for the $79-a-year Amazon Prime membership to access the library.

Amazon was frank about the terms of the deal with publishers: “Titles in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library come from a range of publishers under a variety of terms.  For the vast majority of titles, Amazon has reached agreement with publishers to include titles for a fixed fee.  In some cases, Amazon is purchasing a title each time it is borrowed by a reader under standard wholesale terms as a no-risk trial to demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and revenue opportunity that this new service presents.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Algonquin Books has launched the ‘Ask an Editor’ video series on their blog. Executive editor Chuck Adams stars in the video embedded above and answers the question: “How did you acquire Water for Elephants?”

Marketing director Michael Taeckens explained how it will work: “For this series, readers who have any questions about the publishing process can submit them on our blog or on our Facebook or Twitter accounts. Every two weeks a different Algonquin editor will select and answer one of the questions submitted.”

The next Algonquin Books Club will feature a conversation between Gruen and The Help author Kathryn Stockett on April 26th. Those interested can check out the website for a reader’s guide, essays by Gruen, and her recipe for oyster brie soup.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Algonquin Books has launched the ‘Ask an Editor’ video series on their blog. Executive editor Chuck Adams stars in the video embedded above and answers the question: “How did you acquire Water for Elephants?”

Marketing director Michael Taeckens explained how it will work: “For this series, readers who have any questions about the publishing process can submit them on our blog or on our Facebook or Twitter accounts. Every two weeks a different Algonquin editor will select and answer one of the questions submitted.”

The next Algonquin Books Club will feature a conversation between Gruen and The Help author Kathryn Stockett on April 26th. Those interested can check out the website for a reader’s guide, essays by Gruen, and her recipe for oyster brie soup.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Algonquin Books has launched the Algonquin Books Club. The publisher has chosen twenty-five paperback titles from its list, building a readers guide for each book.

Here’s more from the site: “We’ll be featuring four Algonquin Book Club selections a year for dynamic literary events held around the country and simultaneously webcast on our site. For each event, an Algonquin author will be interviewed by a notable writer.”

The first event (March 21st) will be held in Miami at Books & Books. Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I’m Dying, will interview Julia Alvarez on her masterpiece, In the Time of the Butterflies. Below we’ve listed the rest of Algonquin Book Club’s 2011 event offerings.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last week Amazon exclusively released a long Water for Elephants film trailer. We’ve embedded the trailer above.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon has only aired full-length trailers for one other movie: The Dark Knight. The film will hit theaters on April 22nd.

Sara Gruen wrote Flying Changes and Water for Elephants as National Novel Writing Month projects. Here’s an excerpt from an inspirational letter she wrote to NaNoWriMo writers: “I can do this. WE can do this. However far behind you are, take comfort in knowing that there is somebody else out there in the same boat, and look for that next fun scene. And then the next. And if that doesn’t work, set someone on fire. In your book, of course. See you in the winner’s circle.” (via Shelf Awareness)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Horn Book was particularly juicy this month. In addition to the acceptance speeches I gave you rundowns on yesterday, two other articles stand out in my mind.

Fueling the Dream Spirit by Elizabeth Partridge. In trying to describe how writers get their ideas, Partridge, a doctor of Oriental medicine and children's author, writes about concepts from Chinese medicine--Hun (dream spirit) and Po (animal spirit). I think she was saying that the Hun is the concept and the Po is the physical medium (word processor, musical instrument, crayon) used to interpret the concept. The fact that I'm vague about this doesn't lessen the fact this was a good article. My favorite line: "We've just trained ourselves to pay attention to what the Hun is whispering to us." I think that's very true. The more you work with ideas, the more come to you. Or perhaps the more you listen to the Hun, the more it will talk to you.

Finally, Why Gossip Girl Matters by Philip Charles Crawford is a plea to respect all student reading, not just that done by AP students. (I think you could carry this a step further and ask for respect for all reading, period.) One very interesting point: Crawford talks about a "low-level reader" who was a manga fan. According to one of his teachers, the boy's reading scores improved as a result of his librarian respecting his interest and helping him feed it.

You don't have to be reading the unabridged War and Peace to improve your life with books.

I returned home yesterday from my frolic/read/eat retreat. I noticed on the ride home that I was feeling very relaxed. I remembered feeling the same way when I got home from this thing last January. By February I'd forgotten what feeling relaxed felt like, and by December I didn't know anything remotely like relaxation existed.

I hope this mellowing out thing lasts more than a few weeks this year.

In the car yesterday I read a taekwondo magazine and the new issue of The Horn Book. I've read better taekwondo material, but there was some good stuff in The Horn Book.

First off, the issue included the acceptance speeches for the 2007 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards. I particularly liked Nicolas Debon's speech for The Strongest Man in the World: Louis Cyr. (Which I haven't read.) I know author talks about how I got my idea, how I did my research, how I decided to approach the work the way I did have been done before, but I love this stuff. Maybe it's because it's what I do.

M. T. Anderson's speech for Octavian Nothing was about Anderson's world view and, I think, why he writes historical fiction. It was elegant and beautiful, like Octavian Nothing (which I have read), but it seemed to me to have a tinge of nostalgia, of romanticizing the past, two attitudes I'm not particularly fond of. And, yet, I love Anderson's work.

I fond that a little disturbing. Fortunately, I think it's good to be disturbed.

Back in October, Roger Sutton over at Read Roger posted a link to what he called a "legendary battle" between Camille Paglia and Julie Burchill. One of his commenters asked, "What are the great literary feuds of our field?"

Well, I don't know if this is legendary, or even great, but thirty-five years ago, long before Roger had probably even heard of The Horn Book, a juicy mud-slinging match took place within the covers of that hallowed publication. As I mentioned yesterday, Eleanor Cameron wrote an article for The Horn Book back in 1972. It was a three-part article, actually, called McLuhan, Youth, and Literature Parts I, II, and III. In it, Cameron shreds McLuhan, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the YA lit of her day.

This woman wasn't crazy for Marshall McLuhan, and she felt writers for youth, seemed "to be incapable of complexity of characterization and meaning, but of subtlety and wit and individuality of style as well." But what she really, really didn't like was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

An Eleanor Cameron vs. Roald Dahl slugfest followed, complete with commentary from the audience, including a letter from Cameron supporter Ursula K. Le Guin. What with the publication of the first portion of the article and all the letters to the editor this went on for a year.

Back in the day they knew how to get down and ugly. It all makes what goes on in kidlit blogs now look tame.

Back in October, Roger Sutton over at Read Roger posted a link to what he called a "legendary battle" between Camille Paglia and Julie Burchill. One of his commenters asked, "What are the great literary feuds of our field?"

Well, I don't know if this is legendary, or even great, but thirty-five years ago, long before Roger had probably even heard of The Horn Book, a juicy mud-slinging match took place within the covers of that hallowed publication. As I mentioned yesterday, Eleanor Cameron wrote an article for The Horn Book back in 1972. It was a three-part article, actually, called McLuhan, Youth, and Literature Parts I, II, and III. In it, Cameron shreds McLuhan, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the YA lit of her day.

This woman wasn't crazy for Marshall McLuhan, and she felt writers for youth, seemed "to be incapable of complexity of characterization and meaning, but of subtlety and wit and individuality of style as well." But what she really, really didn't like was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

An Eleanor Cameron vs. Roald Dahl slugfest followed, complete with commentary from the audience, including a letter from Cameron supporter Ursula K. Le Guin. What with the publication of the first portion of the article and all the letters to the editor this went on for a year.

Back in the day they knew how to get down and ugly. It all makes what goes on in kidlit blogs now look tame.

My offspring have made it clear that as far as my work is concerned, they're not interested in anything less than a book. I find it very awkward telling my nonwriter friends (who outnumber my writer friends by quite a bit) that I've had something new published because they seem to feel the line between wanting to spread the joy and just plain bragging is very fine. The spouse, of course, doesn't count.

So I made a copy of my essay for the new issue of The Horn Book and gave it to my mother because who else is left? I was a little worried about how she would take it. I was afraid she'd think that I'd portrayed us as hillbillies or that she'd be offended by the news that I desperately wanted to leave town when I was a teenager.

As it turned out, she thought the piece was true to life. Perhaps the part about my wanting to leave home came as no surprise; I may not have been very subtle about it. At any rate, her question was "Who gets this magazine?" She was hoping a woman she'd known back in the hilltown would get a chance to see it.

I found this a little odd because I was under the impression they'd had a falling out thirty to thirty-five years ago and don't speak.

I would like to draw your attention to this Family Reading page on The Horn Book’s website – there are lots of ideas and shared experiences to hearten and encourage reading with and to our children. I especially love Martha Parravano’s article “Reading Three Ways“ about reading with her two daughters; and I laughed aloud at the end. It reminded me of a holiday when Son Number One was still toddling. Rapunzel had been the perpetually chosen audio tape on the day’s drive up to the North of Scotland. A few days later:

Daddy: Where’s Mummy?
Son (cackling): The bird has flown, my pretty!

…I wish I’d actually been there to hear it!

Thinking back to that time when books had to be repeated ad infinitum, here’s a list, in no particular order, of only some of our family favorites from the very early years:

All the Hairy Maclary books by Lynley Dodd – in fact, all her books!
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell, ill. Patrick Benson;
Can’t You sleep, Baby Bear? - and the rest of the series, again by Martin Waddell, but ill. Barbara Firth
Each Peach Pear Plum and Peepo! by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Mrs Armitage and the Big Wave by Quentin Blake
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, ill. Helen Oxenbury
Little Beaver and the Echo by Amy MacDonald, ill. Sarah Fox-Davies
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss
The Gruffalo and all the other books by Julia Donaldson, ill. Axel Scheffler
Mrs Goose’s Baby and Mr Davies and the Baby by Charlotte Voake

When I look at this list I realise that nearly all these books were given to us by friends whose own children had loved them – and we in turn have handed them on to our smaller friends…

So let me just leave you with a something the illustrator Howard Pyle once said:

“The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived.”

I just began reading the new The Horn Book yesterday and managed to get through Roger Sutton's editorial where I learned that Patty Campbell won't be writing her "Sand in the Oyster" column any more.

How much have I liked Campbell's columns? Quite a bit. I liked one in April, 2003 and another in September of that same year. Then she wrote a column in October, 2004 that must have been really good because I seem to have agreed with pretty much everything she said. In February, 2006 I was so taken with one of her columns that I started taking notes. In fact, I liked it so much that I mentioned it again three days later.

I haven't read Campbell's last column because it's at the back of the magazine, and I read The Horn Book in a very linear way. There's a very real possibility that I'll be mentioning it here at some point.

Wow. Campbell's leaving The Horn Book is kind of a personal loss for me. I'm feeling kind of shaken.

I knocked off the March/April Horn Book today. My favorite article was An Interview with George M. Nicholson by Leonard S. Marcus. I had never heard of George M. Nicholson, and the interview was all about the history of children's paperback book publishing. Doesn't sound riveting, does it? Well, it was.

Redefining the Young Adult Novel by Jonathan Hunt (a name Adbook listserv members will certainly recognize) was also interesting. He has a lot to say about crossover novels. He places The Book Thief and Octavian Nothing in that category, though I thought a book had to be published as an adult novel (as Book Thief was in Australia) in order to "cross over" to YA.

A few of this issue's interesting reviews:

Margo Rabb's Cures for Heartbreak.

Penni Russon's follow-up to Undine, Breathe.

Cynthia Leitch Smith's Tantalize.

Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness, which was published a couple of years ago in England and shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Prize and the Carnegie Medal. I was particularly interested in this title because McCaughrean wrote Peter Pan in Scarlet, which I loved. And, I just learned, she also wrote A Pack of Lies, a book I liked very much except for the ending. Perhaps I'm becoming a McCaughrean fan.