Texas Bookselling, All Hail the Mighty State?

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 10/29/2007

The only U.S. state that was once its own country, Texas is massive, with a land area of 261,797 sq.-miles, second only in size to Alaska. With some 23 million people and three of the 10 most populous cities in the country—Houston (fourth with two million people), San Antonio (seventh, with 1.25 million), and Dallas (ninth with 1.21 million)—Texas has long made significant contributions to the national bookselling scene.

In the 1980s, the state capitol of Austin gave birth to Gary Hoover's BookStop bookstore chain, one of the pioneers of heavy discounting. BookStop quickly expanded to 22 stores in four states before it was sold to Barnes & Noble for $41 million in 1989 (a handful of B&N storefronts in Texas still retain the BookStop name).

Today, the state is home to two burgeoning bookselling chains: Half Price Books and Hastings Entertainment. The first Half Price was opened in a converted laundromat in Dallas in 1972 by Ken Gjemre and Pat Anderson, who stocked it with 2,000 titles from their personal libraries. The store expanded into a chain by selling remainders in a superstore environment. It remains family-owned and has since expanded to 14 states.

“We've signed leases on a total of 100 stores,” said Half Price executive v-p Kathy Doyle Thomas, with 38 of those stores located in Texas. “Texas is an attractive place to open bookstores because of the growing population and low cost of living, and consequently lower expenses,” she said. Rent in Texas is typically half of that in the Northeast or even the Midwest.

Hastings Entertainment, founded in 1968, offers a mix of books, music and video games in 153 locations. The chain is headquartered in Amarillo (in the Texas panhandle) and has 43 locations in Texas, most in small and medium-sized cities, such as Waxahachie, Sweetwater and Paris.

Matthew Gildea, Hastings's senior director of books, came to the company in 2006 after 13 years with Borders in Ann Arbor. He said Hastings's focus on smaller, often overlooked communities, proves there are indeed book buyers in rural areas. “It's telling what we sell—a mix of literary things and commercial things,” he said. Smaller markets, said Gildea, are “impossible to stereotype” because they are less influenced by book reviews and hype, opening opportunities to handsell. “When you bring an author to a small town, people aren't already jaded by having so many events, and you get a pretty good turn out.”

Of the three major bookselling chains, Books-A-Million has the least number of locations in Texas, with just nine stores. B&N operates 60 stores and Borders has 59.

The state's largest cities typically have just one or two independent stores fighting for market share against the chains. San Antonio for example, has The Twig Book Shop (and its children's offshoot, The Red Balloon). El Paso has the Cactus Café and Bookshop. Galveston boasts one fine independent—Midsummer Books.

The Brazos Bookstore in Houston nearly closed in 2006 and was only saved after a consortium of local book lovers banded together to save it. Manager Jane Moser reported steady sales and said that the store appears out of danger and sales are steady. “Everyday I get encouragement from people who still enjoy shopping at the bookstore,” she said.

Murder by the Book, which is just down the street from Brazos, has developed a strong following among Houstonians, particularly for its author events. Considered among the top two or three mystery specialty stores in the country, Murder by the Book was founded in 1980 and is having one of its best years, said assistant manager David Thompson. The staff is especially adept at converting older titles into bestsellers—this year, they've handsold 200 copies of Cara Black's 2000 novel Murder in the Marais and some 500 copies of Paul Levine's Solomon vs. Lord, published in 2005. Thompson has even started his own publishing company, Busted Flush Press, to do reprints.

In the Houston suburbs, Blue Willow Books and Katy Budget Books have managed to survive despite the competitive crunch. Stacy Morris, public relations officer for Katy Budget Books, said that at 8,000 sq.-ft., her store can compete with the chains and has the advantage of selling used books along with new titles, much like Half Price and Hastings.

Still, Alice Meloy, senior bookseller at Blue Willow, believes that ultimately Texans are not pre-disposed to shopping at independent stores. “It's the bigger is better mentality,” she said.

One place where that mentality has had a significant impact is in the Big D—Dallas. Twenty-five years ago there were 25 independent stores in Dallas. Today, there are none. In January, the last of Dallas's independent bookstores—Shakespeare, Beethoven and Black Images Book Bazaar—shuttered.

In all, the ABA lists 66 member stores in Texas—a deceptive number, since 38 of those are Half Price locations. The CBA is far stronger, with 142 locations; but the largest bookseller by far is Wal-Mart, which has 423 stores in Texas, nearly twice as many as any other state. Niche stores, such as the Marfa Book Company, which specializes in art and architecture titles and is open only four days a week, and BookWoman in Austin (a feminist bookstore) also hang on, though in fewer numbers than in the past.

Austin, the state capitol, continues to have the strongest literary reputation, much of it attributable to BookPeople Bookstore. The store, which was named PW's 2005 Bookseller of the Year, has become a destination store for authors visiting the state. Sales, driven in part by the local population of 40,000 college students from the University of Texas, continue to thrive. “We're having the best year in the history of the store and don't see any reason that our sales won't increase every year as they have for the past decade,” said owner Steve Bercu.

While some people may equate the big-box dominance with a sign of literary dullness, many believe the chains are doing a fine job in Texas. Among them is Valerie Walley, Random House retail field sales divisional director for the South. Walley, who moved to Austin from San Francisco in 2006, said that she's “been favorably impressed with both the national accounts and the independent stores,” but nevertheless still believes there's potential to be mined in Texas. “Texas is a microcosm of the country because it's so big,” said Walley. “There's a long literary heritage and people love to buy the printed word. That also means there's a lot less emphasis on buying books electronically, so bookstores can do well. With the fast-growing population, I would expect to see even more stores open in the future.”

Walley may well be right. In the past two years, a handful of new stores have popped up across the state, including The Bookworm in Frisco, Berkman Books in Fredericksburg, A Thirsty Mind in Lakeway and Intellectual Property—a Follett-branded store—in Austin.

Tennessee Bookselling

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 10/22/2007

Cambridge University Press sales rep Robert Barnett admits that there are only a handful of bookstores he sells to in Tennessee. “I think of it as dominated by chains and Christian bookstores,” he said. According to the numbers, Barnett is correct: overall, Tennessee has 39 chain stores (including 10 Barnes & Nobles, 14 Books-A-Millions and 13 Borders) and 17 ABA stores.

There are also 49 CBA stores, and Nashville is home to the headquarters of the Cokesbury bookstore chain operated by the United Methodist Publishing House. Cokesbury has 71 locations across the U.S., of which four are in Tennessee.

Nashville may have a reputation based on its musical pedigree, but it also has a strong literary life and boasts the headquarters of numerous publishing companies (including Christian publishing juggernaut Thomas Nelson); the Southern Festival of Books (which switches between Nashville and Memphis annually); and BookPage, the book review newsletter produced in Nashville since 1984, cofounded by Roger Bishop—a now-retired former bookseller at both the University of Vanderbilt Bookstore and the Nashville location of Davis-Kidd Booksellers.

A part of the Cincinnati-based Joseph-Beth Group, the Nashville location is one of two Davis-Kidd stores remaining in the state; the other is in Memphis. Founded in 1980 by two social workers, Karen Davis and Thelma Kidd, the chain once had four stores in Tennessee. A Knoxville branch closed in 2000, while the other, in Jackson, closed in 2005. In 2005, a trio of former booksellers from the defunct Davis-Kidd Knoxville store regrouped and opened the highly regarded Carpe Librum book store.

Joel Tomlin opened Landmark Booksellers in 2004 in Franklin, a wealthy suburb of Nashville. Initially, Tomlin stocked his store with some 60,000 antiquarian and rare books purchased from Nashville's now-defunct Dad's Old Book Store. Lately, though, about 30% of his sales are new books, fueled in part by customers learning that he can get special orders to them faster than Amazon.com. “One distinct advantage of being in Nashville is being close to Ingram,” said Tomlin. Ingram Book Group, the largest book distributor in the country, is located in nearby LaVergne. “So,” said Tomlin, “if I place a book order before 11 a.m., it's delivered the next morning. Customers love that.”

“One of my favorite accounts in Tennessee is Burke's Books in Memphis,” said Rebecca Roberts, sales rep for Houghton Mifflin. Opened in 1875, Burke's is one of the oldest bookstores in the country. “But,” said owner Corey Mesler, “the Internet, the decline in reading, the economy all combined to nearly sink us.” Mesler, who bought the store in 2000, sent out a plea for help.

Mesler said that the local Memphis newspaper Commercial Appeal added to his troubles when it cut most of its book coverage. “I'd like to say we're big readers, but without any book coverage in the local paper, it makes it difficult for us to get any publicity for our events.” (Mesler has experienced the neglect firsthand: his own novel, We Are Billion Year Old Carbon, published last year by Livingston Press, was never reviewed.)

In the end, well-wishers (including many authors) donated $20,000 to keep the store open. Now, ensconced in a new storefront in a bohemian neighborhood rife with foot traffic, Mesler said he's “feeling reinvigorated and optimistic for the first time in a long while.”

Just two years ago, Michelle Burcky, a former B&N bookseller, opened Cover to Cover Bookstore in the burgeoning Memphis suburb of Arlington. She said her 1,400-sq.-ft. store is “just big enough” and has thrived by catering to schools and to families. “It's important to have a niche,” she said. “We have four B&Ns and a Borders nearby, so it's not as if people don't have another place to shop.”

Texas Book Festivals adds a little pop

BOOKS: Austin event takes on a pop culture tone

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, October 28, 2007

By EDWARD NAWOTKA / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Now in its 12th year, the annual Texas Book Festival in Austin is evolving from an event for literary swells into something more populist.

In addition to the usual literary lineup of national prominence (Jane Hamilton, Diane Ackerman, Judith Thurman, Joseph Ellis) and notable Texans (Kinky Friedman, Rick Riordan, Dagoberto Gilb, Shelby Hearon), the organizers of next weekend's festival have injected a pop culture element.

The last two years, the opening speakers in the state Capitol's House Chamber (the festival's premier venue) have been politicians, specifically Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but this year it is the best-selling thriller writer Michael Connelly. Later, Tom Perrotta reads in the House from his new novel, The Abstinence Teacher, which depicts suburban turf war between Christian evangelists and liberals.

It marks a change in the otherwise self-serious festival from only a few years ago, when writers of such a, well, democratic (with a lowercase "d") sensibility would have been unlikely candidates to appear in such an august forum.

Noting the changes, Texas Book Festival literary director Clay Smith acknowledged that politics have always been important to the festival – it was originally championed by former first lady of Texas Laura Bush. But, he said, the festival remains "a mutable creature that's based on what's being published each year around the country."

Publishing, like much else in the culture, has been transformed by television, and increasingly publishers are producing books purely for entertainment rather than edification. Pop books such as Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) outsell any of the National Book Award finalists by a ratio of approximately 1,000-to-1.

Unsurprisingly, some of the events in Austin are looking more and more like television brought to life. One example is the "Cooking Tent," which this year features Padma Lakshmi, hostess of Bravo reality series Top Chef. A new "Lifestyle Tent" is offering sessions covering diverse topics, from parenting to Texas wineries.

Even children will find themselves faced with printed byproducts of the big and small screens: Longtime Sesame Street regular Roscoe Orman ("Gordon") and Oscar winner Marlee Matlin will present their children's books, as will Rob Kidd, who has written a series of books based on Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Does this all mean that literature – or, as Roy Blount Jr. (another 2007 festival attendee) calls it in Long Time Leaving, "stories that have no selling point" – is being edged out of the festival?

No. Numerous literary luminaries, such as George Saunders, Vendela Vida and Sherman Alexie will be there, but these are authors best known to fans of inside the book review sections, rather than those who simply glance over the best-seller lists.

Fans of literary fiction can take solace in that, starting next year, the Texas Book Festival is co-hosting a Spring Fiction Festival with the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. The first event is scheduled April 25-28.

And fans of politics will still find the politically connected likes of Jenna Bush, Kristin Gore, Lynne Cheney and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

There's a reason festivalgoers are more likely to get the likes of Ms. Lakshmi, Salman Rushdie's soon-to-be ex-wife, instead of Mr. Rushdie himself, who appeared in 2005: Many top-tier and even some midlist authors are demanding speaking fees to appear at large events. The most prestigious publisher in the land, Alfred A. Knopf, has even opened its own speaker's bureau to arrange such appearances.

The Texas Book Festival (one of the three or four largest in the country) operates as a nonprofit charity and does not pay honorariums, which often limits selections to authors with a new book and those who are still on tour. Increasingly, competition for authors may become even more intense, since booksellers from across the state, many of whom rely on author events to bring in customers, have begun complaining to publishers that the festival is absorbing much of the pool of authors touring Texas.

"We don't make an apology for having a lot of great talent. I do think that in many cases the festival is the engine for spreading authors around the state who would not otherwise make the trip," literary director Smith says.

Cyndi Hughes, who ran the festival from 1995 to 2004 and is now producing the Kansas Book Festival in Wichita, is glad to see the festival evolving.

"The purpose of the festival is to raise money for Texas public libraries," she said. "So the more people who come, more books get sold and more money gets raised. It's a win-win-win for everybody."

Another fan is Dallas novelist Will Clarke, who will be making the drive to Austin, where he'll be introducing Joshua Piven, creator of the best-selling series of The Worst-Case Scenario handbooks and author of Bad vs. Worse: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lose-Lose Decisions. "My favorite thing about the festival is meeting writers whose work I admire and getting them to sign my books," said Mr. Clarke. "I'm a book nerd and I always come back to Dallas with a trunk full of books."

That, ultimately, is the point.

'The Braindead Megaphone': Humorist offers an antidote to quick-fire journalism

ESSAYS: Humorist's elegant essays are an antidote to quick-fire journalism

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, September 23, 2007

By EDWARD NAWOTKA / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

"Humor," George Saunders explains in his new essay collection, "is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to." Anyone who has read Mr. Saunders' hilarious short stories, subtle spoofs of modern consumer culture and workplace ennui, knows he's a keen observer of the human condition.

Over the course of five books, including the short story collections CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996), Pastoralia (2000), and In Persuasion Nation (2006), Mr. Saunders has established a reputation as one of the most unique writers working today. And though you'll rarely hear him acknowledge it, he is a Texan: Born in Amarillo in 1958, he was trained as a petroleum engineer and worked as a knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse.

In 2005, Mr. Saunders published a novella-length anti-war fable titled The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, in which he depicted members of the media as "squat little men with detachable megaphones growing out of their clavicles." That image reappears in the title essay of The Braindead Megaphone, an elegant dissection of the modern media.

Perhaps because he is originally a Texan, Mr. Saunders has a finely tuned B.S. detector. "Our venture in Iraq was a literary failure, by which I mean a failure of imagination," he writes. The media, "has become bottom-dwelling, shrill, incurious, and agenda-driven," with its authority predicated on its "volume and omnipresence" rather than intelligence or informed worldview.

The rest of the volume serves as a kind of corrective to the type of quick-fire journalism he derides. Among the most memorable pieces are a trio of thoughtful travelogues covering a junket to Dubai, a trip to the Buddhist temples of Nepal and a drive along the U.S.-Mexico border in the midst of the immigration debate. In Del Rio, he spends a fruitless night with a group of feckless "Minutemen" (some of whom turn out to be, paradoxically, Houston Renaissance Festival devotees) patrolling "a few hundred yards of border, on one small ranch, in the huge state of Texas." They are, he kids, "a tiny patch of Catcher in a thousand miles of Rye."

Mr. Saunders' literary appreciations, covering writers such as Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain, are also noteworthy. And his explication of Houstonian Donald Barthelme's short story "The School" is one of the rare pieces of literary criticism that actually explains how good writing works.

In addition to being a superb fiction writer, Mr. Saunders has proven to be a surprisingly empathetic and able essayist as well.

Edward Nawotka is a Houston freelance writer.

Mixed Reviews for Revamped SIBA

By Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 10/3/2007 6:51:00 AM

Wanda Jewell, executive director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, gambled with the schedule of this year’s trade show, moving exhibition hours from daytime to 5 p.m.-10 p.m. Saturday evening, with an additional three hours on Sunday morning, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Thursday was taken up with bus tours to area bookstores; Friday featured bookseller education sessions; and Saturday morning and afternoon were consumed with rep picks and author panels.

Reaction to the revised show hours was mixed. Michael Persons, a bookseller at Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham, Ala., was especially pleased with the free beer and canapés that were proffered by tuxedoed staff. “Who knows, if the booksellers drink enough, it might just open up their pocketbooks,” quipped Persons. Booksellers like Tom Vail, owner of Corner Bookstore in Winder, Ga., said he was perfectly content to wander the aisles at night—that is until about 8 p.m., when the 12-hour day started catching up with Vail and nearly all the other booksellers, propelling them away from the exhibit hall and up to the restaurants or their rooms.

The majority of vendors surveyed by PW remained dubious about the hours change. Don Morrison, owner of the Morrison Sales Group, said that he was so doubtful aboutthe new arrangement that he reduced the number of his exhibition tables from 14 to three. Asked on Sunday whether he made the right decision, he said, “Yes, I believe I did.” Steven Wallace, director of sales for Unbridled Books, said that he admired SIBA’s effort to try new things, but added, “This particular experiment doesn’t need to be repeated. “ A few publishers were won over. One fan was Ginger Tucker, assistant marketing manager at University of Mississippi Press, who said she was “skeptical at first, but happy with the overall traffic.” Overall, SIBA reported nearly 1,300 people attended the show, including some 579 exhibitors, 532 booksellers, 105 authors.

On Friday, SIBA presented its annual book awards. Winners included Charles Frazier for his novel Thirteen Moons and Amy Sedaris for her party guide I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. Starting next year, the awards will no longer be presented at the conference but at the Decatur Book Festival—held over Labor Day weekend in the Atlanta suburb.

Initially, administrators announced that the winners would henceforth be selected by a jury of book critics and journalists and not SIBA members. After protests from SIBA members, booksellers were also added to the panel picking winners. Daren Wang, executive director of the Decatur Book Festival, said yesterday that the exact composition of the jury was still to be determined. Finalists will continue to be nominated exclusively by SIBA booksellers.

Booksellers Look To Syndicate Radio Show

Publishers Weekly, 9/24/2007

Since May 2006, booksellers Pat Grant and Elisabeth Grant-Gibson, owners of Windows A Bookshop in Monroe, La., have sunk more than $60,000 into The Book Report, a weekly radio book show that has been broadcast on their local AM station, KMLB 1440. Guests have included numerous notables, such as T.C. Boyle, James Lee Burke and Nancy Pearl. But despite attracting an unquantifiable number of live listeners plus 2,000 people who download archived podcasts from the site each month, finding deep-pocketed national sponsors has proved more of a challenge.

The booksellers pay just $150 per week to produce and broadcast the hour-long show, but three major Web site upgrades, as well as marketing materials that include sample CDs and glossy brochures, have put the booksellers tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket. The pair continues to hope to earn back their investment by selling half of the 12 minutes of available advertising time to national publishers.

To make the show more attractive to publishers, Grant and Grant-Gibson are trying to syndicate the show and are offering it free to any bookseller willing to pay a local radio station to broadcast it. “There is a second six-minute slot in each hour of radio that is typically dedicated to local advertisers,” said Grant-Gibson, “and by using that slot for advertising events for their store, they are able to localize content. It is, essentially, a marketing expense.”

So far, only Mary Gay Shipley, owner of That Bookstore in Blytheville in Blytheville, Ark., has brought the show to her market. For the past year, Shipley has paid $150 a week to KLCN 910 AM in Blytheville to run The Book Report. “I like that there's a Southern flavor to it and that it's affordable,” said Shipley, who goes to KLCN's studio each week to record six minutes promoting the bookstore and local author events. Shipley also said she's often been able to sell advertising space on the show to other Blytheville retailers—such as a local hairdresser—thus often covering the costs of the broadcast. “I don't understand why [booksellers] haven't signed on,” said Shipley. “If you can resell those six minutes you can really make some money.”

Grant-Gibson is in discussions with three additional bookstores—CoffeeTree Books in Morehead, Ky.; Lorelei Books in Vicksburg, Miss.; and Page and Palette in Fairhope, Ala.—to sponsor a broadcast of the show. While none has committed, Grant-Gibson remains hopeful.

The Southern Independent Bookstore Alliance is also giving the show a push at the forthcoming SIBA trade show, where Grant and Grant-Gibson will be staffing a booth, and where previous guests of the show, including novelists Will Clarke and Deborah Wiles, will sign CDs of their interviews. SIBA is also listing the show in the more than one million holiday catalogues that will be distributed to member stores.

“Every week we take off the headphones, look at each other and say, 'That was a great show,' ” said Grant-Gibson. “The authors are always telling us it's one of the best interviews they've had and we ask questions no one else asks. Now we need their publishers to get on board as advertisers.”

Oklahoma Bookstores

Oklahoma

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 9/10/2007

Oklahoma, formed as a state from Indian Territory on November 16, 1907, celebrates its centennial anniversary this year. The intervening 10 decades have taken the state from the dust bowl privation depicted in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath to a present-day state of prosperity.

In 2007, the 3.5 million Oklahomans enjoy a booming economy, largely funded by oil and gas, which has given them the third fastest-growing per capita income anywhere in the U.S. The annual per capita income of $32,210 per person may be well below the American average (Oklahoma ranks just 37th among the states), but the cost of living is also proportionally low. This means that while the state ranked 47th among states in per-student expenditures in 2006, it still took first place for early childhood and pre-kindergarten education. Oklahoma also had the highest percentage of high school graduates among the Southern states—suggesting the state should be rife with readers.

That said, Oklahoma is hardly saturated with bookstores. Among the national chain booksellers, Borders is most pervasive, with eight Waldenbooks locations and two superstores in the state. Barnes & Noble has five stores, while Books-a-Million has just one.

Gianna LaMorte, sales rep for Random House, said that among the chains in Oklahoma, Hastings has the most potential to grow. With 12 locations, many of them in out-of-the-way locales, “they have become destination stores for many shoppers,” said LaMorte. She added, “The long driving distances in Oklahoma mean that audio books are especially popular, both at Hastings and independent stores, like Full Circle in Oklahoma City.”

Full Circle Bookstore became familiar to many in the publishing community in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001, when booksellers there found themselves recommending books to cope with the trauma of a terrorist attack, knowledge they acquired helping locals deal with the aftermath of Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995.

At 7,500 square feet, it is the largest independent store in the state and the best known. Owner Jim Talbert says that the last five years of economic boom in Oklahoma City have helped stabilize bookselling in the area, with few stores opening or closing. “The biggest impact on our business in recent years,” said Talbert, “was when Barnes & Noble and Borders opened up in nearby Norman,” the state's third-largest city and home to the University of Oklahoma. “That drained away business that would drive in to buy books from us.”

To help differentiate his product mix, Talbert started publishing local-interest titles under the Full Circle Books imprint. One title, OKC: The Second Time Around by Steve Lackmeyer and Jack Money, a narrative and photographic history of Oklahoma City, has sold more than 2,000 copies.

In the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, Julie Hovis, owner of Best of Books Inc., said the real competition is online. “People who don't have a bookstore near them don't want to have to get into a car to get what they want,” said Hovis.

Elsewhere in Oklahoma, independent bookstores are spread thinly—from the Bookseller in Ardmore, down near the Texas border, to Brace Books & More in Ponca City up next to Kansas. In Tulsa, Oklahoma's second-largest city, Steve's Sundry Books & Magazines is the lone independent booksellers alongside two Barnes & Noble stores, two Borders outlets and a Waldenbooks.

Penguin children's book sales rep Jill Bailey makes just three stops in the state on her sales rounds. “There are so many smart book people in the state,” she said. “In some towns you get the sense that they're just not brave enough to try. They should: the book buyers are out there.”

Overall, the American Booksellers Association counts just eight member stores, while the Christian Booksellers Association has some two dozen members—no surprise in a state where nearly a third of the population identify themselves as members of the Southern Baptist Alliance.

The Last Action Hero

Lone Survivor reviewed in the New Statesman
Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson Little, Brown, 400pp, £17.99

Texan men take great pride in their bravery. The doomed defenders of the Alamo are immortalised as the first heroes of the Lone Star State. Audie Murphy, another Texan, came to symbolise heroism to the nation during the Second World War. After winning more than 30 medals, including the US's highest military Medal of Honor, Murphy went on, unsurprisingly, to have a Hollywood career. George H W Bush is another Texas war hero - having been shot down in the Pacific during the war, he went on to become president.

In the country's latest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the most recent "hero" to emerge is also Texan. His name is Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell and he has more modest ambitions: trained as a medic by the US navy, he merely wants to study med icine at Yale.

Luttrell has been propelled into the public gaze by his lengthily titled memoir Lone Survivor: the Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10. It recounts how, on 28 June 2005, he and three other Navy Seals were dropped on a mountainside in the rural Hindu Kush in eastern Afghanistan to carry out a reconnaissance mission and, if possible, assassinate the Tali ban warlord Ben Sharmak.

Shortly after landing, the men were surprised by a trio of unarmed Afghan goatherders. The team had to choose: kill them and face possible war crimes charges or free them and risk their telling the Taliban about the soldiers' position. The Seals took a vote and Luttrell, a native of Huntsville, Texas - home to the state's infamous Death Row - voted to offer the Afghans a stay of execution.

He now calls that "the stupidest, most southern-fried, lamebrained decision I ever made in my life". Perhaps, in a way, it was: before he was rescued nearly a week later, two of Luttrell's team members died in his arms, his best friend died as he called his name for help, and a further 16 Special Forces soldiers perished when their helicopter was shot down by an RPG while attempting a rescue. It became known as the most tragic day in the history of the US Special Forces.

Luttrell's story shot to the top of US bestseller lists. It's easy to see why - at a time when confidence in the "war on terror" is at an all-time low, Luttrell offers a feel-good, swashbuckling testament to the bravery of the men on the frontlines. He describes in detail how he, along with his teammates Matthew Axelson, Danny Dietz and Michael Murphy, killed perhaps half of the 100 to 150 Taliban who attacked the team before they themselves were shot apart piece by piece. Luttrell, his leg shredded by an RPG, with three cracked vertebrae in his back and a broken nose, is only saved by chance when he's found by an Afghan doctor who takes him in and, along with his fellow villagers, vows under the 2,000-year-old Pashtun tradition of tribal hospitality to protect him with their lives.

Lone Survivor is every bit as thrilling as Mark Bowden's 1999 bestseller Black Hawk Down - but it is also provides a disturbing insight into the physiology, psychology and politics of elite soldiers. Luttrell's world-view has been formed by peering through a sniper scope: he sees only friends and enemies. Texans - especially President George Bush - Christianity, bravery, loyalty and self-sacrifice are good; the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Geneva Convention are bad.

His political views are equally polarised. At the same time as Luttrell extols the virtues of his fellow Seals, he derogates those on the left, especially lawyers and the media, whom he blames for the death of his fellow soldiers. Describing his decision not to execute the Afghans, he writes: "I'd turned into a fucking liberal, a half-assed, no-logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgement of a jackrabbit." Luttrell's convictions may have endeared him to US conservatives, but they have made him few friends in the liberal media.

Edward Nawotka is a reporter for Bloomberg News

'The War I Always Wanted': A vet writes about Afghanistan and Iraq

Reality replaces myth for a gung-ho soldier in this battle-worn memoir

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, September 9, 2007

By EDWARD NAWOTKA / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

When the moment came for 24-year-old Brandon Friedman to lead his unit of the "Screaming Eagles" of the 101st Airborne Division into combat in Afghanistan in 2002, he was hungry for the experience.

"Massive bombing. Snipers. Mortars. And most of all, payback for September 11. It sounded great. It was everything I ever wanted as a kid," the Dallas resident writes in his new memoir, The War I Always Wanted.

Over the next two years in Iraq and Afghanistan, reality replaced myth for Mr. Friedman. War, it turned out, was a lot more like making movies than watching them, with long stretches of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by a few moments of action.

Then there were the two freak instances that should have killed him. First, a U.S. F-16 mistakenly dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on his platoon in Afghanistan; it didn't explode, a 1-in-50 occurrence. Later, out on patrol weeks before he was due to leave Iraq, an insurgent aimed a rocket-propelled grenade at Mr. Friedman's Humvee. It would have killed everyone inside had it launched, but, as his team discovered after gunning down the attacker, the rocket failed to ignite.

Later, while backpacking through Europe, he muses on how deeply the war affected him: "I always thought it would have been easier. The soul-crushing phenomenon of fear before combat had been unexpected. It had left me more afraid of dying than ever." It also left him with a seething, post-traumatic anger that prompts him to contemplate killing a Greek barmaid who tries to overcharge him for drinks.

Throughout this terse and emotionally honest memoir, Mr. Friedman, who now works as an editor-blogger for VoteVets.org, is equally introspective as he is descriptive. This allows readers to experience things alongside him, rather than merely gasp in awe at his heroics or sit clucking in judgment.

This intimacy differentiates his book from other fine, if partisan, war memoirs that have come before it this summer: the wry and cynical Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green by the pseudonymous Jonny Rico, and Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's flag-waving Lone Survivor.

No, Mr. Friedman's wartime experience wasn't worthy of winning him a Medal of Honor (he did earn two Bronze Stars) or even an option for a Hollywood screenplay, but it did endow him with a wisdom beyond his years. Surviving a war, it seems, takes a bit of luck; coping with the memory and aftermath of one takes maturity.

Edward Nawotka is a Houston freelance writer.

Julia Alvarez's 'Once Upon a Quinceañera' and Adrianna Lopez's 'Fifteen Candles'

La Quinceañera, American style: Two new books examine the shifting fortunes of a Latino tradition

By Edward Nawotka
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, August 05, 2007

A heavy velvet curtain parts and a 15-year-old Latina, festooned in a voluminous pink taffeta dress, is revealed. She sits on a throne and is holding a doll dressed much like herself. Her hair is piled high, topped by a glittering tiara. She smiles broadly as Julio Iglesias croons "De Nina a Mujer" over the sound system, while another 28 teens, 14 damas (girls) and 14 chambeláns (boys), artfully arrange at her side. Soon thereafter, the girl's father comes up, takes his daughter's feet in his hands and replaces her flat slippers with high-heeled shoes. 50 Cent's "In Da Club" starts thumping through the room: "It's your birthday/We gon' party like it's yo birthday ... "

No, you're not witnessing an over-the-top bat mitzvah, or a Sweet 16 run amok. This is a typical quinceañera.

A coming-of-age celebration for young Latinas that dates back to the Aztecs, "it's really a quasi beauty pageant crossed with a mini-wedding," writes Julia Alvarez in "Once Upon a Quinceañera," a meditation on the meaning of the popular ritual in America today.

"At first, I was a real doubting-Thomas gringa about the quinceañera," Alvarez says from her home in Vermont, where she teaches at Middlebury College. "Then I saw it was not merely about Latinos assimilating American consumer culture, but it was also a symptom of Latino culture itself coming of age in America."

Born in 1950 in the Dominican Republic, Alvarez immigrated to New York City at age 10. A prolific writer, she is best known for her lighthearted first novel, 1991's "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents," about wealthy Dominicans integrating into American society in the 1950s.

Here, Alvarez frames her examination of the "Quince" culture by documenting the preparations for a quinceañera party for the pseudonymous Monica, a Dominican girl who lives near Alvarez's childhood home in Queens. She tracks Monica through the day of her $5,000 Disney-themed quince, from the rushing around to collect various guests to the final moments when she cuts her cake and passes around the party favor of small Cinderella dolls.

A dutiful journalist, Alvarez also travels the country to interview the party planners, hairdressers, magazine editors and others who have helped make the quinceañera a multimillion-dollar business. "I wondered how these girls and their families, many of them poor, could spend so much money on a party," she says. "I always tried to slip in the suggestion that the money might better have been saved to spend on their education."

In San Antonio, she attends a "Quinceañera Expo" and observes "the femaleness of the next generation of Latinas is being manufactured, displayed and sold." She listens to stories of outrageous extravagance, such as the Miami father who threw a "Phantom of the Opera"-themed party for his daughter that cost $125,000. She also looks at the other side, such as Houstonian Gwen Zepeda's "Poor Girl's Quinceañera Project," an effort to host a party for girls who are too poor to have their own.

Despite its anthropological trappings, at its heart "Once Upon a Quinceañera" is a personal story about Alvarez's struggle to come to terms with the conflict between her Latina identity and her feminism, as well as the "entitlement" she fears will corrupt this generation of Latina girls.

When Alvarez was 15, she was a sophomore at the posh Abbott Academy and discovered her education "put me in conflict with my parents and mi cultura," she writes. "What models were there of Hispanic women doing this?" she wonders. Instead of celebrating her culture via a quinceañera, she struggled to find role models beyond the Chiquita Banana and Ricky Ricardo — the only Hispanics (and both, to her mind, embarrassments) she saw on television.

Today, Alvarez acknowledges, things are different for Latinos. "When a family comes to this country, the first generation is struggling," she says. "They want to be accepted and successful, so they assimilate. Now that the girls are second generation, they are totally Americanized, and yet yearn for something this country cannot give them: roots."

The trend has been dubbed "retroculturalization." Alvarez points out that 90 percent of the mothers she spoke to for the book didn't have their own "quince," while the trend now is so pervasive it's "even spreading to non-Latino girls."

Ultimately, Alvarez remains divided between the intellectual feminist who rejects the quinceañera as merely another indulgence of a patriarchal, materialistic society, and the romantic seduced by the idea that the ritual reconnects these vulnerable girls with their culture and reinforces their commitment to their families.

Another party perspective

Adriana Lopez's anthology "Fifteen Candles" is less cerebral and far more entertaining. Instead of musing over the meaning of the quince, this collection dwells on offbeat reminiscences of teenage years, such as Felicia Luna Lemus's essay about being a Goth who fantasized about wearing Dracula fangs to her quince, but declined a party to go see a Cure concert at Dodger Stadium – with her mom.

These stories are mostly set in the 1970s and 1980s (the title riffs on the 1984 film "Sixteen Candles"), when Latino culture was still viewed as alien by mainstream America. It offers a kind of bridge between Alvarez's youth in the '60s and Monica's today.

Two stories by Texans are standouts. The first, set in Uvalde, describes Nanette Guadiano-Campos' humiliation when her septuagenarian aunt arrived at her quinceañera in a skintight leopard print bodysuit. Then, in the story that closes the book, Erasmo Guerra pays homage to his older sister, murdered in the Rio Grande Valley at age 18, whose quinceañera provided lasting memories for his family.

Ultimately, while both books might be skeptical of the tradition, they manage to convey the good intentions of the quinceañera.

"Life is tough enough," says Alvarez at the end of our interview. "These 15-year-old girls face all kinds of problems, from the environment to economic struggle. So to see a whole room stand up and cheer for a tender, young girl, it's got to raise their self-esteem. I do love it. And I always cry."

Quinceañera books invite us to the party

By EDWARD NAWOTKA / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Julia Alvarez never had a Quinceañera, the traditional coming of age ceremony for Latina girls. She never donned a voluminous pink dress, held court over 14 damas (girls) and 14 chambeláns (boys), or experienced the moment of transformation when a father takes his daughter's feet in his hands and replaces a pair of flat slippers with high heeled shoes while Julio Iglesias croons "De Nina a Mujer" in the background.

Her new book, Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA , tries to explain what she missed and offers a penetrating look at the significance of the ceremony to present-day teens.

Initially, Ms. Alvarez is critical: "The incredible expense; a girl encouraged in the dubious fantasy of being a princess as if the news of feminism had never reached her mami; the marketing of a young lady as attractive, marriageable goods. Why not save the money for education?"

But as she spends more time with girls celebrating their Quince, in particular a 15-year-old Dominican from the same Queens, N.Y., neighborhood where she was reared, it prompts Ms. Alvarez to meditate on her own cultural and intellectual evolution.

A professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, she is the author of 17 books, including the acclaimed 1991 novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, about Dominican immigrants in the 1950s. As the daughter of 1950s Dominican immigrants herself, Ms. Alvarez explains how her evolution into an American intellectual through au upscale education and participation in the women's moment of the '60s and '70s threatened to separate her from her native culture.

In comparison, today's Latinas, many second- and third-generation immigrants, are born "entitled" to the American dream. Where 90 percent of their mothers never had a Quince, they want one to reconnect with their roots.

By the end, Ms. Alvarez is won over by the tradition of the Quinceañera, and she chooses to view it as an exercise in boosting young girl's self-esteem at a vulnerable age.

Sadly, though Ms. Alvarez attends numerous Quinceañera parties in the course of her book, including one in San Antonio besieged by folks fleeing Hurricane Rita, and has skills as a storyteller, this book is primarily anthropological. She leaves the curious reader who may have never been to a Quinceañera party craving more detail.

To satisfy that urge, a reader should turn to Adrianna Lopez's recent anthology Fifteen Candles: 15 Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles and other Quinceañera Stories. Many of these vastly entertaining essays are set in the '70s and '80s, and are modest affairs that contrast with the costly "super-sized" parties, often costing tens of thousands of dollars, that are currently in vogue.

Two of the tales are from Texas: Nanette Guadiano-Campos' "Uprooted" describes how her 71-year-old aunt, decked out in a leopard print bodysuit, stole the show at her Ulvalde Quince, while in the essay that closes the volume, Erasmo Guerra offers a moving homage to his older sister murdered in the Rio Grande Valley at age 18 and whose Quince celebration remains a touchstone for his whole family.

Edward Nawotka is a Houston freelance writer.

Once Upon a Quinceañera

Coming of Age in the USA

Julia Alvarez

(Viking, $23.95)

Fifteen Candles

15 Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles and other Quinceañera Stories

Edited by Adrianna Lopez

(Rayo, $14.95)

Justin Cronin Sinks Teeth into New Genre and $3.75 Million

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 7/13/2007 7:43:00 AM

Ballantine is taking a big bet on Justin Cronin—a writer best known for a pair of intense literary novels, including his PEN Hemingway Award-winning debut Mary and O’Neil (Dial, 2000). The publisher has just paid $3.75 million for Cronin’s new trilogy about a viral pandemic that turns humans into vampires. The first book, The Passage, will be published in the summer of 2009.

Mark Tavani, who has worked with such thriller writers as Steve Barry and Alex Berenson, will edit. He told PW the book combines the best of Steven King’s The Stand with Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain. "On top of fully introduced characters, great writing and a concept that could last for three books," said Tavani, "there was a real feeling of urgency there. You can tell Justin was burning to write this book."

The book portrays vampirism as the consequence of a viral pandemic that sends the immune system into hyperdrive, endowing victims with hardened skin, stronger vision and longer life. Of course, the virus is carried by a rare species of bat. The plot of the series revolves around the U.S. military’s attempts to harness these powers and a coterie of concerned citizens’ attempts to stop them.

Novels starring vampires, such as those by Anne Rice and more recently Elizabeth Kostova and Stephanie Meyer, have proven popular with readers. With Rice writing less frequently about the blood suckers and more about Jesus, there’s likely to be some pent-up demand in the market. From the sound of it, this one combines some of the best elements of gothic horror, medical thriller and paranoid polemic—a perfect recipe for these trying, uncertain times.

Cronin’s agent, Ellen Levine at Trident Media Group, initially submitted the book under a pen name, Jordan Ainsley. While early online reporting said the book would be published under the pseudonym, Random House spokesperson Carol Schneider said that the book would appear under Cronin’s own name when it is published.

New Bookstore for the Cayman Islands

Books & Books, Mitchell Kaplan’s Miami bookstore minichain, is opening a fourth location, this one in the Cayman Islands. The new 5,000-sq.-ft. store is part of Camana Bay, an upscale, one million-sq.-ft. retail and housing development on Grand Cayman, and a joint venture with the local developer, Dart Realty. The store is scheduled to open in the first weekend of November, just a few weeks after Books & Books celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Kaplan said he was initially approached by Dart Realty executive v-p Jackie Doak, who was been a regular customer of Books & Books in Miami. "She invited me down, I visited the site, and committed," said Kaplan.

The year-round population of the islands (which comprise Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman) is estimated to be approximately 45,000 people, though that number can easily double in the tourist season, while an equal number of visitors from cruise ships stop at the islands each year.

At present, Kaplan is still hiring staff and expects he and various managers will be making the one-hour flight from Miami to oversee construction and prepare for the opening. "The architecture is inspired by the Caribbean," said Kaplan. Café del Sol, a local coffeehouse, will adjoin the bookstore. The store will offer the same type of selection found in the Miami stores--literary fiction, art and architecture books, poetry, classics, bestsellers, children's books and cookbooks and travel guides.

In a press release, Doak said, "We are particularly excited to be included on their literary event circuit, which we hope will bring authors from all around the world to Cayman." So far, said Kaplan, publishers and writers, "have been very receptive" to the idea of extending their book tours to the Caribbean.

For his part, Kaplan said that the store wasn’t merely an experiment but "a long-term commitment."

"Our aim," he said, "is to bring a similar sense of community to Gran Cayman that we have in Miami," adding, "Eventually, I hope we will be able to organize mini book festivals, conferences and all kinds of cultural events."

Virginia Inn and SIBA to Build Ultimate Southern Library

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 7/10/2007 7:40:00 AM

Ian Lloyd, the owner of the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon, Va., has committed $20,000 to build "The Ultimate Southern Library" and invited Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance member stores to submit proposals for suitable titles. In return, he will purchase the titles from appropriate SIBA stores and the books will be showcased in the inn's recently renovated library. The deadline for proposals is this Friday, July 13. Click here for guidelines.

Originally built in 1832 as a home for Gen. Francis Preston, the stately building in the southwest corner of the state served as a Civil War hospital and a private college for women, before being turned into an inn in 1935. Wanda Jewell, executive director of SIBA, says she was initially approached by Lloyd, who wanted to build a book collection that would reflect the inn's Southern milieu and culture. Knowing that such stalwarts as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams would make the cut, Jewell suggested her member stores would be the best judge of the contemporary Southern classics. SIBA is maintaining a running list of titles on its Web site. The first 100 suggestions are posted and include titles by such contemporary authors as Ernest J. Gaines, Clyde Edgerton, John Berendt and Pat Conroy.

The list is sure to generate debate among aficionados, if not a bit of controversy. One anonymous bookseller has already suggested, The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter-the popular, fraudulent Native American "autobiography" written by a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Cape Town Book Fair Looks to Conquer Africa

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 7/9/2007

Nearly 50,000 people attended the second Cape Town Book Fair, held June 15–19, double the attendance in the inaugural year. This year's event attracted some 350 exhibitors, including local publishers, booksellers and cultural organizations.

Launched in 2005 in partnership with the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Cape Town Book Fair aims to “become the central meeting place for publishers on the African continent,” according to book fair managing director Vanessa Badroodien, taking over the role formerly filled by the Zimbabwe Book Fair; many international publishers had departed in protest over the policies of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe. Badroodien added, “The majority of exhibitors in Zimbabwe were subsidized by organizations like the World Bank. The only way for this to work is for us to be self-supporting. Combining a trade show and a public book fair makes this financially feasible.”

So far, Cape Town has struggled to attract significant numbers of African exhibitors—just eight were on the roster this year—though the Association of African Publishers held its general meeting at the fair. Next year, Badroodien plans to add an incentive for international publishers by making the first day of the fair exclusive to trade visitors. Among this year's international exhibitors were a dozen from the U.K.; numerous group exhibits from continental Europe; and just two American companies: World Bank Publications and Krishnamurti Publications.

South African publishing has traditionally been aligned with the British subsidiaries of the global publishing conglomerates. The country imports nearly 75% of its books from the U.K. Nevertheless, “there are opportunities for American publishers to enter the South African market through education publishing,” said Musa Shezi, managing director of Via Africa, South Africa's largest trade publishing conglomerate. “The key is for American publishers to partner here with black-owned publishers,” said Shezi, who praised the government for giving special subsidies to black-owned publishers under its Black Economic Empowerment program. “It is a big opportunity, but one which needs a local interpreter so it is not misunderstood.”

Shezi was not speaking allegorically. The greatest challenge to be met by South African publishers, who typically work in Afrikaans and English, is how to cater to a country of 45 million people with 11 official languages—all sanctioned for use in education.

Even local companies struggle to meet the needs of the linguistically diverse populace. Batya Green-Bricker, marketing manager for Exclusive Books, the country's largest bookstore chain with more than 40 stores, admitted the company has struggled to find an audience for books in languages other than English or Afrikaans. “It's a matter of distribution,” she said. “Many of our stores are in malls in urban areas, not out in the rural areas where the tribal languages are spoken. We're just now starting to open in the townships,” citing a new store opening in Soweto this fall, “and that should be an important step for us toward expanding our customer base.” Green-Bricker said imported books outsell local titles at the chain by a two-to-one margin, but that Exclusive's goal is to give more attention to South African writing. The chain sponsors an annual “Homebru” program, promoting 25 books in Afrikaans and English, and also sponsors a children's book award. “Local publishing has become more comfortable in its skin,” Green-Bricker said. “We are celebrating the varied experiences of living in South Africa without the angst of earlier years.”

A new report by the South African Book Development Council found that while the literacy rate in the country exceeds 90%, fewer than half the homes own books for leisure reading. “The South African market may look daunting,” said Dudley Schroeder, the executive director of the Publishers Association of South Africa, “but it is a market that is growing, especially as a large number of people move into the middle class.”

In 2006, total retail sales for trade books rose 12%, to 938 million rand ($135 million), as estimated by Nielsen BookScan. According to the Publishers Association of South Africa, book sales in 2005 totaled 2.2 billion rand ($302.5 million) in 2005, when 8,177 titles were published. With typical print runs of 1,000 to 3,000 copies, a book selling 5,000 copies is considered a bestseller. Last year, Penguin South Africa had a remarkable success, selling 80,000 copies of John van de Ruit's comic novel Spud, which became the fastest selling book in South Africa's history. “That makes him South Africa's J.K. Rowling,” gushed Penguin sales director Janine O'Connor. Spud will be published in the U.S. by Penguin's Razorbill imprint this October.

Donna Leon and Her Venitian Sleuth Share Aversion to Tourists

By EDWARD NAWOTKA
Originally published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

July 6, 2007

Donna Leon rarely gets writer's block - she's consistently produced a new Guido Brunetti mystery each year since 1992 - yet whenever she does, she merely steps out of her front door for inspiration . . . and finds herself inside the setting of one of her novels.

"Venice is one of those rare cities where you can walk everywhere you need to go," she says, noting that the exception is in July and August, when the tourists descend in hoards. "Then you just have to find a way through them or leave town."

Leon, who was born in New Jersey, left America more than 40 years ago for teaching stints in Iran, China and Saudi Arabia, eventually settling in Italy two decades ago. With her fine red cashmere sweater and her manner of emphasizing each point with a wave of her hands, she appears more genuinely Italian than any of the Sopranos clan.

Now 64, Leon has a well-edited life: She doesn't own a television (and thus, has no opinion of "The Sopranos"), says she'll stop writing as soon as it stops being fun, and travels whenever and wherever she wants - most often to see opera. Opera so consumes Leon that she helped found her own orchestra to perform rare Baroque compositions.

So, it comes as a shock to learn that whenever Leon needs a bit of rousing musical motivation, it's not Handel or Mozart or one of the great Italians she fires up on her iPod, but Thomas Arne's "Rule Britannia" (Rule Britannia! / Britannia rule the waves) and "God Save the King."

Leon's aversion to tourists is shared by her brooding sleuth, police commissioner Brunetti. Though Leon's 16 novels have been translated into 29 languages, she refuses to have them translated into Italian. "It's so I can maintain my privacy," she says.

In the U.S. the Brunetti books are gaining popularity among those who appreciate the compelling characters, romantic backdrop and bracing plots - often without tidy or happy endings.

Leon regularly tackles issues relevant to Italian society, as in her latest book "Suffer the Children," in which a trio of Carbinieri abduct an Armenian child from the apartment of its adoptive father.

"The Armenians who have come to Italy in recent years are for the most part the criminal element - drug dealers, pimps," Leon says. "So to make this child sympathetic was a bit of a twist."

Sensibly, Leon says that there are two topics she will not write about: local Venetian politicians or the mafia.

"The politicians and bureaucrats can make your life very difficult," she says. "As regards the mafia, well, there's just too much to know, it's too complicated. . . . They're involved in everything. Plus, at this point, it really is a cliché."

From Bama to Ohio: Birmingham's Menasha Ridge, at 25

by Ed Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 6/11/2007

According to the Economist magazine, the second bestselling travel book worldwide in 2006 didn't originate with Random House, HarperCollins or one of the other juggernauts, but with tiny Menasha Ridge Press of Birmingham, Ala. The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, which Menasha packages for publication by Wiley, has sold more than four million copies and has made big success out of the modest-sized publisher now celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Bob Sehlinger, who co-wrote The Unofficial Guide with Len Testa, formed Menasha Ridge Press in 1982 with the late E.D. Wallace (father of Algonquin Big Fish novelist Daniel Wallace), who'd purchased the assets of Thomas Press in Ann Arbor, Mich., where Sehlinger had been employed.

Sehlinger is still publisher and says any good fortune the press has had is the result of perseverance. “In the past 25 years, we've survived a mudslide, a fire and free-falling elevators,” said Sehlinger. “It's amazing we're still around.”

In addition to its bestselling Unofficial Guides series, which covers Las Vegas as well as Disney World, Menasha Ridge is known for its series of regional outdoor recreation guidebooks, including 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles and The Best in Tent Camping. Though the guidebook market can seem saturated, Sehlinger says that his introduction of “At-A-Glance” summaries in the guidebooks in the 1980s, a time when such summaries were not yet widespread, helped the books stand out and win users.

Stand-alone titles have also contributed to the company's coffers. Menasha's bestselling title under its own imprint is William Nealy's quirky, illustrated guide to kayaking, Kayak: The New Frontier, which has sold 80,000 copies since it was first published in 1986. A revised second edition has just been released.

“These kinds of niche titles have a smaller aggregate market,” Sehlinger said. “But the bottom line is that they are very viable. A New York publisher needs a minimum sale of 5,000–7,500 units for a title in the first year. In Birmingham, we're just fine selling 3,000 units.”

In January, Menasha Ridge Press merged with Clerisy Press of Cincinnati, a company founded by industry veteran Richard Hunt in May 2006 from the assets of Emmis Press, shuttered by its corporate namesake earlier that year.

Sehlinger met Hunt in the late 1990s on a USIA trip to educate publishers in eastern Europe. “We grew to respect one another,” said Hunt. Sehlinger echoed the sentiment.

The two publishers now operate under a single parent company, Keen Communications. The company's mission statement underscores its goal to help preserve the environment. It reads, in part, “We print our books on recycled paper. The only petroleum we burn is the midnight oil. Our every action aims to enlarge, not reduce; create, not consume; preserve, not pollute.... Join us in treading lightly and honoring the wonders of nature.” As an embodiment of its philosophy, the company is planting 25 pine trees at a campsite to mark its anniversary.

The publishers will continue to publish under their individual imprints—the names of which continue to evoke curiosity. “Menasha Ridge is fictional,” Sehlinger admitted. “It's not on a map.”

The name Clerisy was discovered by Hunt in a Robertson Davies passage: “The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness; who read for pastime but not to kill time; who love books, but do not live by books. As late as a century ago the clerisy had the power to decide the success or failure of a book, and it could do so now...”

While the sentiment was perfect, Hunt confesses it was one of a dozen possibilities and won out when it was discovered the Web domain name was still available.

In February, Hunt had his first bestseller under the Clerisy imprint: Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed a Nation by Rusty McClure, with David Stern and Michael A. Banks, which has some 45,000 copies in print. “A respectable start,” said Hunt said.”

Combined, the two presses employ 12 in Birmingham and four in Cincinnati, with Menasha concentrating on production and back-office operations and Clerisy handling marketing and sales.

The primary challenge in the future is to make the combined company function as a whole, with the books from each press complementing each other. Hunt reported that he's already commissioned an Ohio edition of the Best in Tent Camping series and said he'll help Menasha Ridge's signature series establish a greater coverage of the Midwest.

The other challenge—albeit one much more tangible—is how to bridge the geographic and psychological distance between Birmingham and Cincinnati.

Said Hunt, “We rely on conference calls, group e-mails—and Southwest's $44 one-way flights between Ohio and Alabama sure help.”

Mississippi Bookselling

By Edward Nawotka, Publishers Weekly, 6/11/2007

Though Mississippi ranks 50th in virtually every economic index you look at,” said Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books in Oxford, Miss., “I wouldn't want to be a bookseller anywhere else.”

The state, which has a population just shy of three million, has the lowest annual average household income—just $32,466 per year—in the United States.

As a consequence, the large national bookstore chains have not saturated the state: Barnes & Noble has just two stores, Borders has five and Books-A-Million has 11. Wal-Mart is the largest bookseller, with 72 locations.

When Howorth first opened his store in 1979, he calculated that there needed to be at least 12 families in town that wanted to buy books for the store to remain open. Howorth proved a popular resident—he's now in the middle of his second term as mayor—and his store thrived. Square Books has since added two more locations, Square Books Jr. (a children's store) and Off Square Books (an annex that sells remainders and is used for events).

Oxford has the national reputation—due in part to the presence of Faulkner's home, Rowan Oak, and the town's fostering of a variety of famous writers, among them John Grisham and Barry Hannah—but the true beating heart of Mississippi literary culture is Greenville, a city of 41,000 people in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, according to Hugh McCormick, owner of McCormick Book Inn, founded in 1965 and the oldest independent store in the state.

“Greenville has more writers per capita than anywhere else in the state,” said McCormick, citing Shelby Foote, Walker Percy, Julia Reed and Brooks Haxton as some of the dozens of writers with Greenville connections.

Still, McCormick admitted, “Demographics alone would not sustain a bookstore in Greenville,” adding, “We're only still here because we're obstinate.” McCormick's secret is to create local bestsellers. His most recent success has been with Greenville writer Gayden Metcalfe and co-writer Charlotte Hays's Official Southern Ladies Guides, Being Dead Is No Excuse and Somebody Is Going to Die if Lilly Beth Doesn't Catch That Bouquet , which together have sold more than 3,500 copies at the store.

Down in the capitol of Jackson, Lemuria Books owner John Evans also cited the need to “self-generate” buyers as a key to success. “If it's an Oprah book, I don't even buy it,” said Evans. “Let Books-a-Million and Wal-Mart sell that at a 50% discount. Our focus is on the reader that prioritizes their reading and wants help picking out their books.”

Evans, who grew up within walking distance of his store, opened Lemuria in 1975 and it, along with Square Books, has become one of the premier destinations for author readings in the country. That's why Lemuria and Square Books are both able to sell a deep selection of signed first editions.

Together, Evans and Howorth have influenced a generation of booksellers—most notably, Tim Huggins, who modeled his (recently sold) store, Newtonville Books on Lemuria, and Jamie Kornegay, a former events manager at Square Books, who opened TurnRow Book Company in August 2006 in Greenwood.

Greenwood (pop. 18,000) is the home of Viking Range Corporation. TurnRow was opened as part of a citywide revitalization program funded by Viking owner Fred Carl, in part to attract students to the Viking Cooking School.

“We didn't come because the market was begging for it; in a way, we're begging for the market,” said Kornegay. He added, “At least we have it virtually to ourselves: there's not a chain bookstore within an hour and a half drive.”

NBCC Demonstration Draws Book Fans, TV Cameras

By Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 5/3/2007 11:41:00 AM

About 50 protestors showed up outside the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today for a "read-in" organized by the National Book Critics Circle to protest the the dismissal of the newspaper's book editor Theresa Weaver. Protestors, who included area booksellers, novelist Joshilyn Jackson and the British essayist Alain de Botton, chalked "I’m a book lover, not a fighter" on the pavement in front of the paper’s offices. Emory University creative writing instructor Joseph Skibell read from his work; another protestor read a poem by Georgia poet-laureate David Bottoms, and others from Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.

WAGA-TV, Atlanta’s Fox 5, interviews Philip Rafshoon, owner of Outwrite Bookstore, located in Midtown Atlanta. Behind the reporter is Jeff McCord, owner of Bound to Be Read Bookstore, which is located in East Atlanta Village.

CNN, Fox News and C-Span filmed the event.

Vivian Lawand, former director of Marketing and Public Relations for Atlanta’s all-but-defunct Chapter 11 bookstore chain, was impressed. "The media attention this is getting is also very encouraging," she told PW.

NBCC president John Freeman met with Julia Wallace, the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and managing editor Burt Roughgon. He said he was told the paper remains committed to covering books and a features editor will be assigned responsibility for the section. "I’m not exactly sure how they plan to work it out without a book editor," Freeman told PW, "They also tell me they won’t have a traditional sports editor either, so it appears they’re doing some kind of editorial reorganization. At the very least, I think I convinced them to send an editor to BEA to talk to publishers."

For her part, Theresa Weaver told PW earlier this week that she has since applied for a writing position with the paper and will find out June 11 if she will get the job.

The campaign to save Weaver’s job began with an online petition, which has since attracted some 4,500 signatures, including more than 150 from writers such as Salman Rushdie and Richard Ford. It has since morphed into a larger "Campaign to Save Book Reviewing," supported by a series of essays posted on the NBCC blog, Critical Mass. Freeman has appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to discuss the campaign and is scheduled to appear on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate show next week.

Robert Miller, president of Hyperion Books, is supportive of the effort. "With hundreds of thousands of books published every year, book reviews provide readers with guidance that they sorely need, he said. "In a world without book reviewing, only the authors who are already established will continue to sell. We need book reviewers to help us introduce readers to the authors of tomorrow."

Authors Karen Abbott and Joshilyn Jackson reading each other’s books beside other protestors

Author George Saunders, who was an early signer of the petition to save the book editor’s job at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, contributed an essay which argued that the decision of newspapers to reduce book reviews is a symptom of a larger trend toward anti-intellectualism in the culture. "Somehow we've taken to distrusting literature and, for that matter, all things cerebral or difficult or seriously critical," he told PW. "I'd argue that part of the reason we rushed into Iraq, for example, was that as a culture we've forgotten how to have a good, articulate, no-holds-barred argument that is able to invoke all levels of discourse: religion and morality and the whole nine yards - and not just materialist pragmatism or jingoism or the ritual incantation of catchphrases."

Freeman said he understands the financial pressures newspapers face, but argued that it’s in the newspaper’s self-interest to keep book sections. "What book sections do more than anything is foster reading. If newspapers have any hope to maintain their own readership, they would do well to promote books in their pages."

"Read-in" to Save Atlanta Book Editor Job

Does hell have no fury like a book critic scorned?

Tomorrow at 10 a.m., the National Book Critics Circle has planned a “Save the Book Review" protest in front of the Atlanta newspaper’s head offices. The rally was prompted by the firing of Theresa Weaver as book editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution after nine years on the job.

So do the Atlanta police need to break out their riot gear? Probably not. “We’re asking protesters to bring a book and read silently or aloud, as they wish," said John Freeman, the president of the National Book Critics Circle. He anticipates more than one hundred people to participate in the “read-in.” The organization has already accumulated more than 4,500 signatures on a petition to save the book position of book editor at the paper; signatories include literary luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Richard Ford.

For its part, management at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution have promised not to cut books coverage -- which encompasses approximately two pages on Sunday as well as a single review during the week, though the editorial responsibilities for book review editing will be given to an editor with other duties. The paper will also continue as the principle sponsor of the Decatur Book Festival, which was inaugurated last year and attracted some 50,000 people to readings by more than 100 authors.

Weaver said has applied for a writing position at the paper and will hear on June 11 whether she has been given a new job.

The Atlanta “read-in” is the outgrowth of a larger “Campaign to Save Book Reviewing,” In the wake of the a series of editorial decisions at newspapers that have seen book sections shrink at papers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune.

The impact of reduced coverage of books in newspapers has the greatest impact on publishers, who rely on the book pages for what essentially amounts to free publicity. Michael Taeckens, publicity director of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a highly regarded publisher of mostly Southern literature, was especially aggrieved by Weaver’s firing. “Teresa has always been an advocate of new and undiscovered writers, which has been essential to awareness of Algonquin's authors.”

Robert Miller, president of Hyperion Books, a division of Disney, concurred. “With hundreds of thousands of books published every year, book reviews provide readers with guidance that they sorely need, he said. “In a world without book reviewing, only the authors who are already established will continue to sell. We need book reviewers to help us introduce readers to the authors of tomorrow.”

Author George Saunders, who was an early signer of the petition to save the book editor’s job at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, views the reduction of pages in newspapers to book reviews as a symptom of a larger trend toward anti-intellectualism in the culture. “Somehow we've taken to distrusting literature and, for that matter, all things cerebral or difficult or seriously critical. I'd argue that part of the reason we rushed into Iraq, for example, was that as a culture we've forgotten how to have a good, articulate, no-holds-barred argument that is able to invoke all levels of discourse: religion and morality and the whole nine yards - and not just materialist pragmatism or jingoism or the ritual incantation of catchphrases.

Ultimately, it’s all about the money. As advertising pages in newspapers dry up, editors are forced to look at which sections are profitable. Book review sections don’t generate nearly as much advertising as sections on real estate or automobiles.

Freeman says he understands the financial pressures newspapers face, but argues that it’s in the newspaper’s own self-interest to keep book sections. “What book sections do more than anything is foster reading, which, if newspapers have any hope to maintain their own readership, they would do well to promote books in their pages.”