Author Archives: bookdwarf

Linkarama

Many things got posted while I was away. Here’s some of it:

  • There were many articles about Harvard Book Store being for sale, including The Crimson, The New York Times, The Cambridge Chronicle and The Globe. Nothing has happened yet. Frank Kramer wants to find the right person/people to run the store.
  • Here is the new Boldtype: Issue 56 Creatures.
  • Alan Cheuse, whom I met at a dinner in LA, has listed some a good summer reading list for fiction. Here is the entire list from the NPR series for cooking, debut novels, etc.
  • Dzanc Books has announced a short story contest. They plan on publishing 21 short story collections between now and 2010, a heady plan. Full details can be found on the website.
  • Open Letter has posted their June issue, full of arts essays and reviews.
  • Have you seen the New Yorker this week? The Summer Fiction issue features a cover by Adrian Tomine called Book Lovers. A man is unlocking the front door to a bookstore next door to someone receiving a package from Amazon. It’s brilliant. You don’t know how many times we hear people say, I love your store and hope it thrives but I buy all of my books from Amazon. We try to explain the value of having a local independent bookstore, but mostly I want to punch them.

Back from LA

I managed to get rid of my pasty New England skin by spending a little time outdoors in LA. I It was a good trip overall. I didn’t get back until very late last night so I’m trying to get through all the many emails.

LA was more mellow than I expected. The only crazy thing I heard about was the Prince party. It was a party thrown by Simon & Schuster at Prince’s house. He performed for about 120 book people. Life changing, is what I heard from the lucky people who attended. Danielle from Powell’s had the most memorable quote of the conference: “I could count the buttons on Prince’s tunic.” I didn’t get to go, or so I thought. Turns out I was invited, I just didn’t get the invitation. No life changing experiences for me!

One of my other favorite quotes I overheard while talking with Kelly Link at the Small Beer Press booth. It was an author describing her book to Gavin saying, “I wrote it as fiction because I didn’t think anybody would believe me.” I couldn’t hear the rest unfortunately. Originally I thought that the Fall would be pretty weak, but after wandering the show floor for 3 days, I see that there are a lot of good books coming. Some of the highlights are Home by Marilynne Robinson from FSG, Anathem by Neal Stephenson from Harper Collins, The Crow Road by Iain Banks from MacAdam Cage, A Mercy by Toni Morrison from Knopf, Good-Bye by Yoshihiro Tatsumi from Drawn & Quarterly, and Alinea by Grant Achatz from Ten Speed Press.

I’ll have more once I’ve decompressed. There are so many ARCs on my desk right now. I must organize!

Here in Sunny LA

Heather, Carole and I arrived yesterday. We’re staying in Hollywood right near the Kodak Theater. I’ve never been to LA before. It’s sunny with wide boulevards. Last night Heather and I went to a cocktail party at this neat bar called The Woods. It’s full of wood paneling and antlers. We were there as part of the Emerging Leaders, an organization for younger booksellers. We met lots of great booksellers from around the country as well as a whole bunch from Skylight Books here in LA.

Today is the day of education here at the hotel. We’ll learn about finance, how to have great events (not that we need that help in my opinion), how to green the store, etc. And of course we hope to spend some time at the wonderful looking poll on the fifth floor!

Miscellaneous Reads

I spent most of the long weekend outside reading. I’ve been meaning to write something about all the books I’ve finished, but I’ve got approximately 18 hours before my plane leaves for LA and a million things to finish before then. I thought at least I can write a sentence or two or three:

  • The Legal Limit by Martin Clark–I was nervous about reading this, like I was nervous about reading Mark Sarvas’s book. Clark reads this blog you see, but it turns out there is nothing to worry about. I blew through the book, enjoying every minute of it.
  • All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison–Yowza, I thought, reading the back of this book. A sensitive vegetarian growing up in a family of body builders. What should have been weird book turned out to be have a wistful and insightful storyline. Really, it’s a charming book.
  • Little Brother by Cory Doctorow–I wish I had the guts and know-how to overthrow a crappy regime. In Doctorow’s world, San Francisco becomes a police state after a terrorist attack. Marcus and his friends decide to bring down the this Orwellian nightmare after being apprehended by Homeland Security.
  • The Broken Shore by Peter Temple–The author has won a whole bunch of awards in Australia and the book was on my table. Those were my criteria this weekend. Melbourne homicide detective Joe Cashin has been temporarily assigned to his hometown, dinky Port Monro and exciting mysteries abound in this backwoods area.
  • The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson–My friend Genevieve who is really into Scandinavian mysteries recommended this one to me. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but I got into it. It’s set in a small Swedish town where a priest is murdered.

Now I have to figure out what books to bring on the plane to LA!

Big Bookstore News!

Frank Kramer, who has owned Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., since 1962, is putting the store up for sale. In an announcement, Kramer, who is 66, said that he would like to move “into a new phase of his life” and plans “to stay connected to Harvard Square and books.” He hopes to find a buyer “of like mind who loves books, who appreciates the iconic institution that he and two generations of dedicated staff members have built and who will continue the traditions and values that HBS represents to its many thousands of committed customers.”

Kramer has no urgency about selling, saying, “It’s all about finding the right person.” The store is “healthy and vibrant,” he emphasized, and is mainly run by general manager Carole Horne.

Some 46 years ago, Kramer took over the store in his senior year at college, when his father, Mark Kramer, who had founded the store in 1932, died. Kramer decided to take the helm, he remembered, for “at least for a few years until I figured out what to do with my life.” As co-founder and co-chair of Cambridge Local First, he will continue to spend at least some time helping locally owned businesses grow and help Cambridge become a greener city.
What does this mean for me? Not much for now. Frank is committed to finding the best possible person to take over the store. We haven’t seen that person on the horizon yet, but they’re out there. I’m leaving for Book Expo tomorrow morning and anticipate answering a billion questions about this. I say with pride that the Harvard Book Store is one of the best bookstores in the country. With customer support, we’ll be around for a long long time.

Red Mars Redux

Who knew we were so close to science fiction? Okay, I’m sure a lot of people did. Reading this article on the Phoenix Lander, I couldn’t help but wonder how close we are to Kim Stanley Robinson’s vision. After a nine month journey, the Lander is set to land on Mars sometime Sunday and perform a few lab experiments.

But first, it must survive what its developers call the final “seven minutes of terror” to reach the surface.“There are many, many risks and uncertainties,” said Dr. Edward Weiler, associate administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration science division. Since the start of planetary exploration, 55 percent of spacecraft sent to land on Mars have failed, he said.

I don’t know. Maybe if we spent more money on the space program than on say, unnecessary wars, we’d have landed on Mars by now? Just a thought.

Daughters of the North by Sarah Hall

I’m going in record saying that Sarah Hall is one of the most talented writers around today. Her first two novels, The Electric Michelangelo, shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2004, and Haweswater, were both set in her native area of Cumbria. Her third novel Daughters of the North is a bit of a departure, a dystopian novel, with echoes of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Global warming has caused massive flooding in the UK. Fuel is scarce and drug use is rampant as people try to cope with their bleak lives. Women’s reproductive rights are strictly controlled; the government fits every woman of childbearing age with a contraceptive coil. The narrator, Sister, has fled her city to a utopian all-female commune called Carhullan. Yet the farm is no paradise. The women work hard, under the tight control of the enigmatic Jackie. Sister comes to love her life after undergoing a complete transformation. But soon the outside world breaks into their scraggy Eden forcing a brutal fight. Hall’s book ask how individuals respond when things get out of control and governments overstep their bounds. What does it take to make someone react? It’s a haunting question as you read about pharmacists who won’t fill prescriptions for birth control and states trying to ban abortion. I was happy to see Hall’s lovely book win the Tiptree award this year.

Book Expo Invitation

Each year the booksellers and publishers gather in a city for Book Expo America, aka BEA. This year we’ll be meeting in LA starting on May 29th. One of the projects I’m involved with is the Emerging Leaders, which is for young or new booksellers who want to make a career out of bookselling. Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, the Written Nerd, is also involved and you can read more about what this is all about on her blog. We’re having a party this year, so if you work in a bookstore, post this somewhere if you think anyone might want to attend. Here are the details:

THE SECOND ANNUAL BEA EMERGING LEADERS PARTY!
Who: Young Booksellers
What: BEA Emerging Leaders Party
Where: The Woods – 1533 N. La Brea Hollywood CA – 323.876.6612 phone / website: http://www.vintagebargroup.com
When: Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 7:00pm – 9:00pm (open bar from 7:00pm – 8:00pm)
RSVP: Space is limited, must RSVP no later than Wednesday, May 21st at www.bookexpoamerica.com/EmergingLeadersRSVP

Enjoy cocktails and mix & mingle with authors for the young and hip:

– Scott McCloud, author of Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987-1991 (HarperCollins, July)
– Cylin Busby , author of The Year We Disappeared: A Father – Daughter Memoir (Bloomsbury, August)
– Curtis Sittenfeld, author of American Wife (Random House, September)
– Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire (HarperCollins, September)
– Tony O’Neill, author of Down and Out on Murder Mile (HarperCollins, October)
– Jonathan Evison, author of All About Lulu (Soft Skull, July)

TO RSVP TO THIS EVENT GO TO: www.bookexpoamerica.com/EmergingLeadersRSVP – YOU MUST RSVP BY MAY21st.