Powell’s has posted this great conversation between Gil Adamson, David Wroblewski, and Dave Weich. I’m on record for having loved both Adamson’s Outlander and Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Sawtelle made me cry in fact. It’s the kind of book that makes you irritate your friends when you won’t shut up about it. I’m looking forward to David Wroblewski’s appearance at my store on Monday June 23rd–he’s extremely nice.

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.

• Here’s the Summer issue of the Threepenny Review.
• Bookforum’s June/July issue is now available.
• The Nation has put out their Spring Books issue.

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.

• I’m jealous of Alberto Manguel’s 30,000 volume library.
  

  I have dozens of very bad books that I don’t throw away in case I ever need an example of a book I think is bad. The only book I ever banished from my library was Bret Easton Ellis’s “American Psycho,” which I felt infected the shelves with its prurient descriptions of deliberately inflicted pain. I put it in the garbage; I didn’t give it to anyone because I wouldn’t give away a book I wasn’t fond of.

• Look at this hilarious makeover of the bible. It’s girly! (Thanks VQR for the link!)
• Why are British book jackets often so much better than the North American? They’ve created a centenary set of the entire James Bond collection. I’m not sure if they’re available here in the states. We just get these pulp covers for now.

I referred last week to two books I had read that involved dragons and the Greek gods. The book with the dragons was the new Naomi Novik, due out in July, called Victory of Eagles. It’s the fifth in the Temeraire series. I love this series which marries the Napoleonic wars with dragons. This new entry in the series picks up with the disgrace of Temeraire and Will Laurence after they gave the cure that had been decimating the dragon population worldwide to the French. It adds a surprising level of gravitas to the story. Napoleon has landed in England and everyone is needed for the fight, including the two “traitors”. Another rich adventure which comes out in July, unfortunately in hardcover now. Personally I find it silly that they’re taking a series which has done quite well as paperback originals and now putting them in hardcover. It didn’t stop me from devouring the galley, but I’m lucky. I wonder how many fans will be put off by this.
The Greek gods were in the fourth book of the Percy Jackson series The Battle of the Labyrinth. If you’re unfamiliar with these books, imagine that the Greek gods are real. And Percy Jackson is the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman. He’s one of many half-bloods and as soon as he finds out his heritage, Percy is thrust into a war amongst the gods. The series is funny and exciting. A great read for those who want something after Harry Potter. The fourth one doesn’t disappoint either. This time they have to find a way to prevent Kronos’ army from invading Camp Half-Blood. Percy and his friends set out on a quest through the Labyrinth, built by Daedalus himself. Riordan’s wry humor and gripping plot make this book as good as the last one.

• I am a fan of Anthony Bourdain. I’m still pissed that missed meeting him at BEA three years ago at a dinner thrown by Bloomsbury. Good for him that Ecco, one of my favorite publishers, have picked up his next three books:
  

  The first book, Cooks, is a follow up to Kitchen Confidential, in which Bourdain explores how the industry he loves – and the people in it – have changed (if they’ve changed) since his years in the kitchen, and tracks the bizarre changes in his own life, along with more frank observations on dining, cuisine and the grim/glamorous business of cooking. “More about WHO is cooking in America than WHAT’S cooking,” says Bourdain.

• *Yawn* The NBCC has announced their Spring Good Reads list. The best part of the list is the discussion in the comments about how their list really does echo the mainstream. I’m not trying to bash the NBCC—it’s great that they’re trying something different. It’s just disappointing that 825 people came up with this list. I’m sure there is some sort of mathematical probability thing that explains it all.
• Vote for the best of the Booker, “a one-off celebratory award to mark the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize”. I voted for JG Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur. Truly an awesome book about Anglo-Indian relations in the 19th century.
• David Sedaris’s take on the truth of memoirs brouhaha:
  

  “What’s interesting to me,” he says, “is that we live in a time when our government is telling us some pretty profound lies. And then James Frey writes a book and it turns out some of it’s not true. No one asked for their vote back, but everyone wanted back the money they’d spent on that book. We’re in the shadow of huge lies and getting angry about the small ones.”

  Of course his publisher is smart, putting a disclaimer in his forthcoming book. With Sedaris, I doubt people will care. We sold out of premium tickets in the first hour for his upcoming event at my store on June 6th.

• I didn’t know that the Believer had a book award. It’s a good list, lots of books that I don’t remember seeing anywhere else.
• Now I have to go to a very late meeting.

The  most exciting things always happen when I’m out of town. Watch this video about a grad student who lost his Amazon order to a thief. Harvard Book Store manages to save the day and gain a new loyal customer. I’d embed the video, but my skills don’t go that far. Don’t worry, it’s only a few minutes long and has a happy ending.