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BookBitchBlog
Breaking book news from the BookBitch
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Monday, July 28, 2003
Chick Lit Inc.By Alyson WardStar-Telegram Staff WriterTheir names are Bridget, Cannie and Jane, Jackie, Jemima and Mel. They live in rent-controlled urban apartments and buy Jimmy Choos on Nine West salaries. Their bosses are handsome, their mothers meddlesome. Single but looking, young but far from naive, these women have become the most recognizable, most successful -- and perhaps the most overexposed -- characters in modern fiction. They're the irrepressible (and unavoidable) women of chick lit."Chick lit," the shorthand term for breezy novels written by and about young women, has been a prominent, sometimes dominant part of publishing since the mid-'90s. The books are described as "perky," "witty" and "playful romps" -- and they have been romping up the bestseller charts on a routine basis.But the backlash has begun. Derided by serious scholars, declared passι by the British press, chick lit has been on shaky ground for at least a year. "The chick lit phenomenon is in decline," Britain's `The Independent' declared last August. And this month's `Book' magazine claims the genre has failed to live up to its potential and is damaging the market for stronger, more serious female writers.Not everyone agrees, though, about where chick lit is headed. In May, the `Philadelphia Inquirer' announced that the "sassy, kicky" genre is still the "hottest trend in publishing."So what gives? Is the frothy feminine fiction bound to gain a permanent place in publishing, or is it a five-year flash in the pan?The answer depends on where this much-debated genre goes next.First of all: No one needs to sound a death knell for chick lit just yet. Rumors of its demise have been exaggerated."From the sales numbers, it's doing really well," says Elizabeth Bewley, an assistant editor at St. Martin's Press, which has published such chick lit titles as `The Nanny Diaries' and `The Dirty Girls Social Club.' "These books are selling really strongly, in a book market that is kind of dragging at the moment."In fact, chick lit books are being pushed onto store shelves more quickly than ever."You used to go in the bookstore and you'd see one new chick-lit book," say Rian Montgomery of New Hampshire, an avid fan of the genre. "Now there are eight."In the past couple of years, publishers have rolled out new imprints to snag their share of the chick lit market. Pocket Books started up Downtown Press this spring, with a shopping-bag logo and a list of chick-friendly titles, including Cara Lockwood's `I Do (But I Don't)' and Elise Juska's `Getting Over Jack Wagner.' In late 2001, Harlequin emerged with Red Dress Ink, a subsidiary designed to attract young women who aren't reading romance novels. The first novel, `See Jane Date' by Melissa Senate, has become a TV movie starring `Buffy the Vampire Slayer's' Charisma Carpenter; it's scheduled to air on ABC in August."It's almost more like a mindset than a [literary] subgenre at this point," says chick lit and romance author Cathy Yardley.Indeed. On TV, there's `Sex and the City,' based on Candace Bushnell's 1996 novel, the Women's Entertainment reality series `Single in the City,' and the ABC sitcom `Less Than Perfect,' in which Sara Rue stars as a single girl in a big-city newsroom. At theaters, `Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde' is full of fashion, female bonding and plenty of pink.Academics, of course, tend to peer down their noses at chick lit. In 2001, British novelist Beryl Bainbridge famously called the genre "a froth sort of thing." Feminist writer Doris Lessing agreed, saying young women should write about their true lives, "and not these helpless girls, drunken, worrying about their weight and so on."But Julia MacDonnell, a professor who heads the creative writing program at New Jersey's Rowan University, is one academic who sees value in chick lit.The genre is full of "witty, ironic stories about idiosyncratic heroines," MacDonnell says. The stories, she claims, are "lightyears beyond your basic Harlequin romance, not merely entertaining but also offering insights into how we live now."Montgomery, who's 25, agrees."I kind of lead a chick-lit life myself," says Montgomery, who runs the Web site Chicklitbooks.com. "I'm in my mid-20s, I'm single -- I can identify with some of the stuff the characters go through."If you ask Montgomery, the only crucial element of a chick-lit story is a woman "trying to find her way in life." Of course, there's more to the stereotype than that.`Bridget Jones's Diary,' Helen Fielding's novel-turned-movie, was the book that made chick-lit trendy in America, says Bewley.The fictional Bridget, a thirtysomething British "singleton," is bent on self-improvement so she won't end up "dying fat and alone and being found three weeks later half eaten by Alsatians." Her diary recounts a year of bumbling career moves, disastrous romance and a full accounting of calorie, alcohol and cigarette consumption.`Bridget Jones' was a bestseller in Fielding's own Britain and in the United States. "It was a really funny, intelligent book, I think, and it set the precedent," Bewley says.Now there are hundreds of similar titles, and bookstores and chain discount stores all feature prominent shelves devoted to chick lit. (Target labels its section "`chic' lit."Women are snapping up books with Barbie-colored covers bearing titles such as `Running in Heels, Good in Bed,' and `Dating Without Novocaine.' Some of the novels, thanks to `Bridget Jones,' take the form of a diary. Others use emails to tell the story. Almost all are written in a self-deprecating, funny, first-person voice. Sometimes the book works, and sometimes it doesn't."There have been a lot of spinoffs, both good and bad," Bewley says. "There's plenty of chick lit that's pretty schlocky, but there is some out there that is smart."So is chick lit, then, the Harry Potter series of adult fiction? No matter the quality, do we simply shrug and say, "Well, at least people are reading"?MacDonnell thinks so."People who haven't read much `are' reading -- and finding that they really like it," she says. "It makes them a little more daring in their next choice of book, I think."MacDonnell is optimistic about the reading habits of her fellow chick-lit readers."What I think might happen is that these women who are reading what are, to me, very intelligent books. . . [will] then go back to other authors -- like Julia Alvarez, because her work can be approached from that angle." (Alvarez is the author of several books, including the acclaimed `How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.' )Of course, the popularity of chick lit has already led readers to some excellent authors. Good stories have been published, sold and embraced that, a few years ago, might have slipped through the cracks.Caren Lissner's `Carrie Pilby' is a novel that contains almost none of the chick-lit stereotypes. But it does have a quirky style of humor and a young female protagonist, and Lissner's book was published this year by Red Dress Ink. The book's cutesy pink-and-blue cover is a small price to pay for the kind of exposure a chick lit book receives, Lissner says."There are advantages to being published by Red Dress Ink," she says. "They published 50,000 copies of my book. If I'd gone to a more literary publisher with a more literary reputation, they would probably have put out 5,000 or 10,000 copies of it, and it wouldn't have gotten the attention it got.""It doesn't matter how good it is if nobody sees it," Lissner says; the frilly packaging helps her novel more than it hurts, so she doesn't mind being swept up in the chick-lit current.On the other hand, MacDonnell's first novel, `A Year of Favor,' was published in 1994 -- just a few years before the chick-lit craze emerged in America. The story of a young female reporter sent to investigate government corruption in a South American country, "it's a story that would have had more success in this [current] environment," MacDonnell says.Oh, to have written that story when Helen Fielding was climbing the bestseller lists.Lissner says her book made Amazon.com "wish lists" even before it was published, simply because it was classified as chick lit. Which proves one thing: Female readers are hooked. They can't get enough of breezy tales about single women's zany adventures in the city.But to keep the momentum going, the publishing industry needs to breathe fresh life into the now-predictable stories."I think there's a limit to how many chick lit books there can be," Lissner says. "The genre is going to have to go in different directions if it wants to stay viable."Many publishers, she says, are now rejecting manuscripts that are "about a woman getting dumped and having to go on dates with a lot of incompetent men."In its second year, Yardley says, Red Dress Ink has made "a very concerted effort to look for nontraditional, nonconventional chick lit."The imprint's Web site features guidelines for potential writers: "We're looking for novels that really set themselves apart from the average chick lit book. . . Predictability is not your friend. So shake it up. Put your heroine in some inspired and crazy circumstances. Give her quirky characteristics. (Maybe even a job that's not in publishing)."Despite all that encouragement, though, here's the description of one of Red Dress Ink's latest releases: "All Evelyn Mays wants is to be the perfect bride in a size 8 Vera Wang wedding dress."Diversification may not be easy.But while most chick lit today is written for and about the young, white, urban, upwardly mobile career woman, some in publishing are determined to encourage books about women of different races. And that means finding `authors' of different races."What I would like to see -- at St. Martin's and elsewhere -- is more books written by Latina authors," Bewley says.`The Dirty Girls Social Club,' a recent St. Martin's release by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, is the story of six Latina women who maintain a friendship over years, miles and life changes."`Dirty Girls' will set a precedent that will be really good," Bewley hopes. "It's an example that Latina writers will see, [and] they will write novels themselves."Meanwhile, Harlem Moon, a Random House imprint, is publishing a handful of chick-lit novels that feature African-American protagonists. `SilkyDreamGirl,' a novel by Cris Burks, is the story of a woman who escapes her romance and weight worries by creating a new identity on the Web. And the E. Lynn Harris novel `A Love of My Own' tells of the life and loves of Zola, the young editor of a magazine called `Bling Bling.' (This books diversifies in two ways; the author is a man.)Other trends show that chick lit is beginning to go in new directions. Here's what you can find today:Chick lit mysteries. Nancy Drew lives: Chick lit mysteries are popping up. Sarah Strohmeyer has written a series of books about an investigative journalist/sleuth named Bubbles Yablonsky; `Bubbles Ablaze' is new this summer. The silly sleuth comes complete with a Camaro and a boyfriend called Steve Stiletto, and she balances a life of crime-solving and raising an ornery teen-age daughter.Chick lit nonfiction. The chick-lit feel has even expanded beyond fiction. And we're not just talking about the breezy self-help books, `The Go-Girl Guide' and `How to Pee Standing Up.' Witness `Cooking for Mr. Latte,' an autobiographical story (and cookbook) by Amanda Hesser, a food writer for `The New York Times.' Hesser's book, published in May, chronicles a year in food and romance -- concluding with her marriage to a man who writes for `The New Yorker.' `The New York Times, The New Yorker. . . ' you might think it's literary nonfiction -- but then you see the hot-pink cover and the cartoonlike line drawings that portray the author and her romance.Chick lit for young adults. "A lot of young-adult fiction is starting to be packaged like chick lit," Bewley says.Consider the Louise Rennison series that started in 2000 with `Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging.' The British author has written a bestselling series about teen-ager Georgia Nicolson and her Bridget Jonesian crises."That series has an amazingly chick-lit feel, even though the protagonist is 14 years old," Yardley says. "She's got this sense of haplessness about her.""It's sort of like hooking fans in really early," Bewley says. "They'll grow up and start reading the twentysomething ones and the thirtysomething ones."Chick lit about older women. Until recently, chick lit has implied that the search for identity, romance, career satisfaction and Manolo Blahniks abruptly stops at age 39 -- and most protagonists were in their 20s. But now, Yardley says, a few of the candy-colored novels star older women.Jeanne Ray, for example, writes chick-lit romances -- such as `Step-Ball-Change' and `Eat Cake' -- that feature women in their 50s and 60s.They're calling it "lady lit," Yardley says.Mommy lit. In the past couple of years, some of the most popular chick-lit titles have featured the adventures of women with children. Allison Pearson's `I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother' was a bestseller in both Britain and America. `Babyville,' a new offering from chick lit favorite Jane Green, is making its way up the sales charts. Books of this ilk are doing for mothers, critics say, what chick lit has done for single women: They are helping women connect by exposing the secret insecurities and absurdities of motherhood.The fact that chick lit has developed so many tributaries is a sign that it's here to stay, MacDonnell says. And perhaps it's time to consider the books as more than mind candy and beach reads."I think, certainly, these will be studied in classrooms, although I'm not sure how many [books] will actually make the canon," MacDonnell says. "I don't know how lasting any of this will be, but I also don't know if it matters very much."If you look back to the glory days of the American novel, in the '20s, '30s and '40s, you're really looking at Guy Lit," MacDonnell claims. "Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and the rest of the old boys telling tales about themselves."This time around, women's lives are getting attention, she says, and that's a good thing.There are perennial complaints, of course, that the often inept, clothes- and man-obsessed heroines are reflecting pre-feminist ideals. Nevertheless, MacDonnell says, chick lit represents progress."I think what's now being called `chick lit' is a very natural outgrowth of the feminist movement," MacDonnell says -- "the fact that you have just hordes of well-educated women out there in the world" who want to read books about themselves.If authors and publishers successfully diversify the books and their readers, she says, "chick lit, in my opinion, is here to stay."
- BookBitch, 7/28/2003 01:53:19 PM
Saturday, July 26, 2003
Banned at Borders Borders bookstore, a treasure house of freedom of expression, bans a singer for her comments about the president's legs.Date published: 7/26/2003 IT SEEMS INCONGRUOUS that the words "ban" and "bookstore" should appear in the same sentence. But Borders Books & Music at Central Park apparently banished a singer at least in part because her commentary, including a remark about President Bush's legs, angered some customers.Borders suggests that Julia Rose is simply not the local clientele's cup of tea and that it had every right to terminate her contract. But Borders has a very scrawny leg to stand on itself if it is wielding such a quick ax on a performer who has been perfectly suitable at other Virginia stores in the chain. If there is any place in this country where freedom of expression should get the close calls, it has to be a general-interest bookstore.To recap: Julia Rose is a singer-songwriter from Baltimore. Places like Borders are just her sort of venue, with, one would have thought, just her sort of crowd. Indeed, she's a veteran of the Borders circuit from Northern Virginia to Richmond and was debuting at the Fredericksburg location on July 18, the fateful evening. She had been scheduled to play there next month, too. Not so now.How bizarre. On Borders' shelves and racks there are books, magazines, newspapers, and probably even CDs that upbraid the president over his policies and politics and poke fun at him and everyone else under the sun. Amy Korsun, the Borders marketing manager who cited Ms. Rose's comment "George Bush has chicken legs" in terminating her, surely wouldn't have it any other way. But one gets the feeling that when Ms. Rose sits before a mike and tweaks the president, free expression has taken the night off.Borders may not be a bistro with blasphemous beatniks banging bongos, but it is still a bookstore where speech should trump the overdelicate sensibilities of some customers.This episode naturally brings to mind the Texas-based Dixie Chicks, whose lead singer told concert-goers in London last March that "we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." The Chicks paid a price for the self-indulgent pop-off, uttered the same month U.S. troops went into Iraq. Radio stations (though not WFLS) stopped playing their songs. People destroyed their CDs. Fine. Freedom of expression works both ways.But Ms. Rose was giving aid and comfort to no one in her remarks with the possible exception of one or two Democratic presidential contenders who may look better than the president in a pair of cutoffs.Still, maybe those offended by Ms. Rose's chatter ought to buy some of her CDs so they can stomp on them in front of TV cameras. She probably wouldn't mind the publicity.The Free Lance Star, Fredericksburg, VA
- BookBitch, 7/26/2003 09:24:20 AM
Saturday, July 19, 2003
The winners of the 2003 Agatha Awards (presented in May 2003 at the Malice Domestic Conference) are as follows:Best Novel - You've Got Murder by Donna Andrews, Berkley Prime Crime Best First Novel - In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming, St, Martin's Minotaur Best Non-Fiction - They Died in Vain: Overlooked, Underappreciated, and Forgotten Mystery Novels, edited by Jim Huang, Crum Creek Press Best Short Story - TIE:"The Dog That Didn't Bark" by Margaret Maron, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (December 2002); and,"Too Many Cooks" by Marcia Talley, Much Ado About Murder, edited by Anne Perry, Berkley Prime Crime Best Children's/Young Adult - Red Card: A Zeke Armstrong Mystery (The Zeke Armstrong Mysteries, 1) by Daniel J. Hale & Matthew LaBrot, Top Publications The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Elizabeth Peters. Malice Domestic instituted a new award this year (not necessarily annual) for people (non-writers) and organizations who make a significant contribution to the field of mystery novels. The first Poirot Award was presented to David Suchet. Three people won Malice Domestic Writer's Grants: Mr. Thomas E. Bonsall, Baltimore, Maryland, for his work-in-progress, Lilac TimeMs. Martha Crites, Seattle, Washington, for her work-in-progress, She Who ListensMs. G. M. Malliet, Alexandria, Virginia, for her work-in-progress, Death of a Cozy Writer Malice XVI in 2004: Guest of Honor: Dorothy Cannel Toastmaster: Jan Burke Ghost of Honor: Erle Stanley Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Marian Babson Fan Guest of Honor: Linda PletzkeThanks to Linda Rutledge for the update.
- BookBitch, 7/19/2003 08:12:53 PM
Seeking nirvana in a dusty bookshelfThey may look sleepy, but many used-book stores are thriving. Plus, the best places to get lost in the stacks.By James VeriniJuly 17 2003"How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I have undertaken in the pursuit of books!" Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library"It should be said from the start that going to used-book stores is, at best, a useless pursuit. It is reversionary, unhealthy even. Used-book stores are filled with books, dusty, old, sinus-polluting books and, as if that weren't enough, with the kind of people you make a conscious effort to avoid during the day ne'er do-wells, layabouts, semi-employed dissertation candidates and self-proclaimed bibliophiles who consider writers such as Walter Benjamin, dead since 1940, their real friends.Used-book stores are not where you absorb relevant knowledge; they are not where you go to bone up on Steven Pinker's latest thoughts on cognitive theory, to peruse the newest campaign biographies or to sneak a cheaper copy of "The Da Vinci Code" so you can affordably keep up with cocktail conversation.If you like to make the most of your life, used-book stores can seem an absolute waste of time. That is precisely what makes spending time in them so worthwhile.For devotees of the used-book store, Los Angeles has quietly become one of the last bastions, for L.A. has become one of the last great American book towns. New York may be home to the publishing industry and Lewis Lapham's thesaurus, Chicago still has Saul Bellow, but in both those cities high rents and the Internet have driven many of the venerable used- and rare-book stores out of business.But here, the book business is thriving. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the greater Los Angeles area is the largest book market in the country now with 21.5% of the books sold by independent bookstores, the highest percentage in the country.In social as well as economic terms, L.A. is a wordy town as never before. Witness last year's "Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology," from stuffy Library of America, and last month's "The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles." The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books now is the largest event of its kind in the country. Look at the lineup of authors the West Hollywood store Book Soup attracts, and at the recent national syndication of the impossibly literate radio show "Bookworm," a KCRW-FM creation.For truly devoted book nuts, however, for those who know what they're doing is hopelessly archaic and love it, the used-books store still is the center of the universe. Because before you get too hopeful about the state of civilization books are, let's face it, on their deathbed. As an art and a business, they're obsolete. They have been for the better part of a century. They may continue to be for a century more. That is their charm.Borders and Barnes & Noble would want to deny this. But it is at the used-books store, the least sensible of all businesses, a place perpetually teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, where you can drink in the utter futility of books without a $4 latte chaser.Take, for instance, what probably is the best establishment in the greater Los Angeles area certainly the most voluminous Acres of Books, on Long Beach Boulevard in Long Beach.The name is not an exaggeration. Acres has, by a conservative estimate, 750,000 books on its bowed, rotting shelves (the number probably is closer to 1 million). "More books than anybody in their right mind needs," acknowledges Jackie Smith, who has worked in the store since 1976 and now owns it (her husband's grandfather opened it in the 1930s).You'll find everything from Kakfa to books on games to play with your cat, studies of Mesopotamian sexual practices to the early novels of Henry Fielding, and in every condition from mint first edition to dog-eared and ragged.You'll discover, as one reporter did, the first volume of Evelyn Waugh's very hard-to-find one-volume autobiography (he planned three, but then died), "A Little Learning." And for $5, hard-bound, no less.Disregard your claustrophobia and the justifiable fear of getting smothered beneath the Pisa-like spires of books, and have one of the helpful Sonic Youth clerks help you to the section on "Hackysack, Yo-Yo's and Juggling." Nearby, look over the three full shelves devoted to the history and study of prostitution. And don't forget the Frank Cotton Memorial Oddball shelves, named for the late head clerk of Acres, who until his death in 1988 functioned as the store's only computer. There, you find a volume titled "14,000 Things to Be Happy About," and another called "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics."Along with these testaments to the misguided history of human curiosity, there are any number of misguided, curious humans to be wondered at, shuffling along with that awkward sidelong gait particular to creatures used to over-tight bookstore aisles. Pale and near-sighted from years of 50-watt bulbs, they gaze up at titles mostly long forgotten, at authors mostly dead and buried, E.M. Forster's words from "Howards End" perhaps ringing in their ears: "Only connect....only connect."The proximity of the present to the past of life to death in used-book stores is electrifying. In a pre-digital electrical way.Take the Eclectic Collector, a dark, breezy hole in the wall just off the pier in Hermosa Beach. Presided over by Tom Allard, a Barnaby Rudge-type who can usually be found outside the shop in a Hawaiian shirt, smoking, the Collector is usually empty. A wholly different experience from Acres, it is the kind of place where you can sit down with a copy of, for example, "Legendary Yachts: The Great American Yachts from Crowningshield's Cleopatra's Barge to Today's Intrepid Bill Robinson" (1971, $8.50), and lose yourself for hours in nautical luxuries.Lose yourself in a book, off the pier in Hermosa? What exactly was being smoked on the pier beforehand, you ask?But Los Angeles has lately come to the forefront in keeping the tradition of bibliomaniacal uselessness alive. As the university libraries of Southern California strive to keep pace with mushrooming student populations, and as the rising cost of books drives students and parents to look for better values, the secondhand reading business is thriving along with the likes of Barnes & Noble and Amazon.A recent tally by The Times uncovered roughly 40 used- and rare-book stores in the greater L.A. area. Although they tend to occupy low-rent districts, they exist in virtually every corner Hollywood, Van Nuys, Thousand Oaks, Silver Lake, Westwood, Glendale and in dizzying variety.They cater to chefs (Cook's Library on 3rd Street in L.A.), photographers (Dawson's on Larchmont in L.A.), astrologers and soul-searchers (Bodhi Tree used book annex, on Melrose in West Hollywood).Looking for an obscure work of 18th century German philosophy? Try Angel City Bookstore in Santa Monica. Want to know how to decorate a set entirely in bed linen? Book City in Hollywood. Looking for an obscure erotic science-fiction novel signed by the author? Bookfellows in Glendale. Need an early word of Samuel Johnson's? Why, Sam: Johnson's Bookshop on Pico, of course, where the owner, Bob Klein, a literature professor and novelist, will even deign to discuss the Doctor with you.This being Los Angeles, of course, most stores abound in movie star biographies, self-help guides and Buddhism. Automobiles and art books often show up in force too.Still, some proprietors are not sanguine about the future. They say that, with as many used-book stores as there are, many have closed in the last 20 years. They say that the Internet, while it has helped them move inventory to far-flung customers, has also driven off-the-street business, and even regulars."Why should anyone go to a bookstore when they can order a book from the comfort of their desk and get it in a day?" asked Michael Thompson, who has owned Michael R. Thompson Bookseller, on 3rd Street in West Hollywood, for 30 years.Thompson said that the huge market for libraries in Southern California may help business in the short run, but it has taken a lot of books that would have been bought and sold repeatedly out of circulation permanently. But he added that the mega-bookstore trend has not affected his business adversely.But many experienced proprietors seem hopeful. Leonard Berstein's father opened Caravan Bookstore on Grand Avenue in 1954. Now Leonard owns it. "It's only been fifty years I'll tell you in 75," says Bernstein, when asked about the state of business. He says he sees room for everyone in the book business the Amazons, the Borders, the independent first-run stores and himself. "I'm not going out to buy a new Lexus every year," he says. "I'd rather spend it on books."An encouraging sign is the recent influx of youth into the business. Traditionally the province of antiquaries and literates of the pre-computer age that is to say, older people used-book stores are now increasingly owned by people in their 30s and 40s.Samantha Scully, 36, purchased Gene de Chene Booksellers on Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A. from its aging owner last year. Faced with the store's closing and the loss of her job, Scully didn't want to see this neighborhood mainstay with a political bent (an antiwar poster adorns the door and a nice section of books on nuclear war sits inside) disappear. She believes she can keep the store afloat by attracting younger customers. "I wanted the store to stay here," she said, adding that, as she spoke, three patrons in their early 20s were browsing in her shop.Brian Paepper, 39, a Dutch-born Angeleno, owns Alias Books, formerly West L.A. Book Center, on Sawtelle Boulevard. He sees a future in the used-book business, as long as it is treated as a business. The previous owner, Paepper said, would place high prices on books he felt especially attached to, and they wouldn't sell. He refused to utilize the Internet. To keep the store in business and relevant, Paepper has taken to selling textbooks and brought the store's inventory online."Used-book stores should cater to people who can't afford new books as they become more expensive," he says. Still, he adds, "it's a fool's profession."But it is the foolishness, like the uselessness, like the smell of life and death on those shelves, that makes the used-book store what it is. Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW-FM's literary talk show "Bookworm," says: "At a first-run bookstore, people don't necessarily like books. They like trends, or CDs, or coffee. But used-book stores are meeting places for people who like books, and not just books, but people who want to find bookishness, a substance in rare supply these days."Silverblatt is fond of Cambridge Bookshop on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood he likes to buy a book there and then go sit in Lulu's and drink coffee; but then who wouldn't? and Arnold M. Herr Bookseller on Fairfax Avenue in West Hollywood.The question, then, is not whether to get addicted to used-book stores your mental well-being and family and professional lives, happily, stand only to suffer but which used-book stores to get addicted to.
- BookBitch, 7/19/2003 12:29:19 PM
The Largest Book Deals Of 2002 Tomas Kellner, 07.18.03, 7:00 AM ET Brand-name authors still dominate bestseller lists, but the reign of Stephen is over. King's last two books, From Buick 8 and Everything is Eventual, were each off 40% in sales compared with Dreamcatcher, his 2001 release. Tom Clancy didn't fare much better. Sensing weakness, publishers are betting on new names and developing new brands. A fresh plot twist: Many of the writers lined up to take on Clancy, King, Michael Crichton and John Grisham are women. Tim Lahaye$42 millionRiding the surge in Christian-themed books, LaHaye signed a deal with Bantam Books to publish a new four-part Armageddon thriller. LaHaye is co-author of the doomsday series Left Behind, which sold 50 million copies. No surprise here. The religious books market hit $2.4 billion in 2001 and is projected to grow 3.7% annually through 2006. HarperCollins and Doubleday now have Christian book divisions. Patricia Cornwell$16 millionHer Portrait of the Killer purports to close the book on the Jack the Ripper case. Unlike her characters, the Cornwell brand is far from dead. The writer signed a two-book deal worth $16 million with PenguinPutnam last year. This fall she will deliver Blow Fly, a new installment in her Scarpetta series, chock-full with crime and corpses. Charles Frazier$11 millionThe Pulitzer-prize winning author of Cold Mountain, a peripatetic Civil War epic about a Confederate deserter, sold his next book to Random House for $8 million and film rights to Paramount Pictures for $3 million. Miramax's movie adaptation of Cold Mountain is in the works, starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law. Diana Gabaldon$10 millionOne of the hottest new brand names in publishing, Gabaldon sold a three-book historical romance series for $10 million to her publishers at Delacorte Press in the U.S. and Doubleday and Random House abroad. Her first book, Outlander, a time-travel romance whose heroine has a husband in one century and a lover in another, got picked up after she posted parts of it on a CompuServe bulletin board. She built it into a best-selling six-book saga over the following decade. Janet Evanovitch$10 millionThe creator of the Stephanie Plum series, about an intrepid New Jersey bounty hunter, sold the rights for her next two novels to HarperCollins for $10 million. Evanovich made an estimated $4 million for each Plum installment, of which there are nine now. She's branching out into romance, nonfiction and possibly even a TV series. Alice SeboldKeep an eye out for Alice Sebold. The Lovely Bones, her novel narrated by a murdered girl, has never been off the Publishers Weekly bestseller list since it came out in June 2002. To date it has sold more than 2.2 million copies. Sebold's publisher, Little, Brown, is postponing the book's paperback release until the strong hardcover sales fall off. Sebold is working on a second book for Little, Brown, and then she will be free to shop for a new contract, potentially worth tens of millions. Forbes.com
- BookBitch, 7/19/2003 12:07:04 PM
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Newton store sells well-traveled books: Kontoleon family's shop on Auburn Street holds a collection amassed over 30 By Sarah Andrews/CNC Staff Writer http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/local_regional/newt_store07162003.htmWednesday, July 16, 2003NEWTON -- It's an inventory that would make any literary historian drool.A French thesaurus from 1757, pages yellowed but still intact. A gold-leafed volume of poetry from 1845 with a personal inscription on the inside cover. Old Civil War letters and personal diaries. Even an original copy of the now out-of-print "Arnold's Bodyshaping for Women" by Arnold Schwarzenegger, circa 1979.But though the relatively new Auburndale shop, Old Books and Prints, doesn't profess to have every book ever written, its collection of rare and old books will impress even those with a fondness for crisp, white pages and high-gloss covers.Located on Auburn Street, Old Books and Prints has been open for business since January and is one of the only used-book stores in Newton. While it is technically owned by former technology professional Jon Kontoleon, it is staffed by two people who call themselves "a senior citizen volunteer advisory committee" -- his parents, Jim and Jeanne Kontoleon.The reason they work there? Well, it's their stuff.Almost 30 years ago, the Kontoleons, who have been married for 50 years, "were looking for something to do," according to Jeanne, a former high school librarian. So they began collecting books by frequenting book auctions and yard sales.It all started with one barn in New Hampshire. Jim, then a station manager at WGGB in Springfield, was feeling the stress of his job and its new responsibilities, which included giving on-air editorials. One weekend, the Kontoleons took a drive up to New Hampshire to get away and stumbled on a yard sale of sorts inside an old barn.Minutes later they emerged with a bag full of old children's books (Jeanne's favorite) and the rest was history -- literally -- as the Kontoleons began to amass a giant collection of old books which they kept in a spare bedroom.As Jim's job changed, the couple, who met at Syracuse University, moved from Massachusetts to Florida to Connecticut, each time hauling all their new collectibles. During one move from New England to Jacksonville, the load was so heavy and the streets so hot that the truck blew five tires on the way down."Each time we moved, it was always tremendous because we had all of our stuff and a book store," said Jeanne.During the couple's final move, to New London, Conn., where Jim was starting up a television station, the collection was already quite serious. About three years ago, Jonathan came to visit his parents who were no longer working and decided to move them up to their present home in Oxford. Their new house even has a barn -- just for the books.Jim and Jeanne's daughter, a Newton resident, found the Auburndale storefront recently and the Kontoleons decided to donate their collection to the store. They now not only sell their books, but also old original and hard-to-find prints and homemade greeting cards.The difference in Jim and Jeanne's taste and preference makes for a store with a variety of merchandise, from military and medicine books, to old Life magazines and newspapers, to old Louis Prang prints.And it's worth a visit if not just to meet the Kontoleons, who also refer to themselves as "the book gypsies." Maybe you will see Jeanne shyly roll her eyes when Jim calls her "lovely" in front of strangers. Or maybe Jim will tell you about how he was almost arrested in Medford when he threw pebbles at Jeanne's window before they were married."It was the kind of neighborhood where little short guys with suitcases couldn't peek in people's windows," he said.While the Kontoleons don't actively peruse auctions and yard sales much anymore, they say they are still open to buying rare items. Currently, they have about 1,100 books in the store, with 3,000 more at home.The store is a bit of a rarity these days, said Jon."The advent of book sales over the Internet and the increasing rents has forced many book stores of this type out of business," he said.
- BookBitch, 7/16/2003 11:21:13 PM
Author's lot not easy one at Costco gigBy Dick Kreckcolumnist for the Denver Post Wednesday, July 16, 2003 This authoring stuff is work. Write a column three days a week for 16 years and people barely blink. Write one best seller and, suddenly, you're an Author.Granted, an author who spent last Saturday at not one but two Costco stores, signing copies of "Murder at the Brown Palace," the runaway best seller about a 1911 shooting at the luxurious hotel. (Available at better bookstores everywhere.)Anyway, there I was at the Park Meadows store, seated at a table between men's striped dress shirts and washable suede jackets. Just down the aisle was a large stack of plums by the crate.I had some down time. Across the way was an endlessly repeating video for Oxi-Clean, a miracle if ever I saw one. Of course I watched. Scientists have proven that if there is a television turned on, a guy will watch it.Costco is a phenomenon you have to visit to believe. This is impulse buying taken to a new level. On any given Saturday, a Costco outlet can expect to turn $500,000 in sales. One of the managers told me he sold a $53,000 diamond the previous day.Products from lawn chairs to multi-packs of burritos tempt buyers-in-bulk. A woman strolled by (without buying a book, I might add), and in her cart were a giant bag of lemons, a smaller bag of giant mushrooms - and a 27-inch color TV. Did she go to get lemons, then decide she might as well get a new TV, too?Anyone who thinks books are a dying art form should take a look at Costco. Both stores had a huge table of books at discounted prices. John Fielder's "Colorado 1870-2000" still sells like crazy. Me, I settled for a four-pack of Oxi-Clean products and a couple of pairs of boxers.Good as goldBring us your tired, your poor, your 24-karat gold.Buyers, in conjunction with Hyde Park Jewelers, are standing by at the erstwhile Roy's Cherry Creek restaurant in the shopping center to take those family heirlooms off your hands."We'll buy it! Sell Us Your Valuables!" proclaimed an almost-full-page ad in the paper earlier this week. Jewelry, silver, watches, autographs, vintage photos - bring 'em on."Don't make the mistake of thinking your items aren't good enough for us," they soothe. Is a gold coin from the Clark & Gruber Mint worth anything? Buyers are there from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Thursday.End of the roadEnuf already. There must be more "classic" vehicles on the road than I thought.A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a mini-pickup with 400,000 miles on it. This, of course, led to a reader calling with a Subaru that logged 484,000.Chicken feed to Nancy Camp. She bought her Ford half-ton pickup new for $4,200 in 1972 and the odometer just zipped past 562,300 miles. She had the engine rebuilt at 400,000 and gets the rust treated every couple of years, but, she says, "it really looks good."I intend to keep it until I die but, then, I'm in my 70s," she says, quickly adding, "We're both in good health."Around DenverStill openings for the 162-mile Courage Classic bike ride taking place Saturday through Monday. The classic has raised $10 million for The Children's Hospital in its 13 years. Call 303-456-9704 for info. ... Oscar-winning documentary-film maker Donna Dewey slings drinks at the Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Place, from 6 to 7 tonight to help renovate the club. ... Quotable: "Being a sportswriter was the same as being a welfare recipient, but without any supervision." - Jimmy Breslin.Dick Kreck's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He may be reached at 303-820-1456 or |
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