Archive: March 2010 (1-10 of 24)

Mar 31 2010 12:14 PM ET

How do you judge a book without a cover?

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Categories: E-Books, E-Readers, Publishing Biz, What I'm Reading

You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, and with e-books, that’s not a problem. There are no covers!

In today’s New York Times, there’s an interesting article about how, with the rise of Kindles, Nooks and — in a few days –iPads, it will be increasingly difficult to find out what people around you are reading. The days may soon disappear where you can lean over in an airplane, on the subway, or on the sidelines of your kid’s soccer practice, take a look at the book the guy or gal next to you is reading, and then quietly judge them.

For some, that’s a good thing. Many consumers of romance novels don’t appreciate getting disapproving looks because their book happens to have a shirtless man and scantily clad woman embracing on the front. Some don’t want to read the latest best-seller or buzzworthy work just to fit in. For others, though, examining the reading materials of strangers is part of the fabric of their day. They can see if multiple people are reading the same book, what authors have new releases out, and what just looks interesting because of its neon-hued or graphically clever cover.

A lot of magnificent works are hidden behind boring covers (go to Barnes and Noble’s website, type in “classics,” and be prepared to fall asleep while looking at the thumbnails of the results), so perhaps with e-readers, people will focus more on descriptions of books, rather than covers. My favorite covers are the bright, intricately designed ones from books I read as a child (Nancy Drew’s The Mystery of the Fire Dragon comes to mind), but I would still only actually purchase them if I liked the summary. Books are expensive, and just because the cover’s glitzy, I won’t be buying it if it’s going to cost me $20 and I’m not sold on the plot.

So while I am generally a pretty nosy person, I’m OK with the fact that I won’t be able to tell what you’re reading on your Nook. I’m just glad you’re reading something. Besides, when I’m on the subway, the last thing I care about is what someone’s reading. I’m more interested in when I’m going to get a seat and how soon I can use my hand sanitizer after holding onto the fingerprint smeared pole.

What do you think? Will you start asking strangers what’s on their e-reader? Come on, admit it, do you judge people based on the books they read?

Mar 30 2010 01:25 PM ET

Stephenie Meyer's novella, 'The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner,' and the Red Cross

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Categories: Eclipse, Edward and Bella, Stephenie Meyer, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, Twilight, Vampires

This morning Little, Brown announced a first printing of Meyer’s  novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. Bree figures prominently in the movie version of Eclipse, opening June 30 (and director David Slade was able to read an early copy of the novella). But as fans remember, she does not appear in the book until page 569, in a pivotal scene where Bella and the Cullens encounter some of Victoria’s wild vampires in the forest: “The girl was curled into a small ball beside the flames, her arms wrapped around her legs….Her eyes were focused on me, and the eyes were a shocking, brilliant red.” Of Meyer’s decision to donate money from the sale of each book to the Red Cross, Little, Brown deputy publisher Andrew Smith says,  ”The plight of folks in Haiti and now Chile has been so much in the media, and very much on Stephenie’s radar,” pointing out that Meyer has been talking about the subject on her website for some time. (On January 27, she wrote, “I’ve been very impressed with the world in general and the Twilight fansite in specific in the support and love everyone is giving to Haiti.”) The website dedicated to the new book, breetanner.com — which will feature the book beginning June 7 — will provide a Red Cross link tied specifically to the novella. “We’ll be able to track how much Twilight fans are giving,” Smith says.

Mar 29 2010 02:50 PM ET

Stephen King to publish surprise baseball novella, 'Blockade Billy'

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Categories: Baseball books, Fiction, Misc., Stephen King

Stephen-KingImage Credit: Lee Roth/RothStock/PR PhotosStephen King is a big fan of baseball, particularly the Boston Red Sox, as anyone who’s read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon can tell you, and now he’s ready to take us out to the ballpark again. In the lead-up to Opening Day, indie publisher Cemetery Dance has just announced the release of Blockade Billy, a new baseball-themed novella from King. The work is the tale of William Blakely, a player long erased from the history books, who harbored a deep, dark secret. Knowing the author, I suspect it’ll be something a lot creepier than steroids or pine tar.

“People have asked me for years when I was going to write a baseball story,” King said in the press release. “Ask no more; this is it.” According to Cemetery Dance, Blockade Billy will be available to ship in a few weeks, but you can order a copy now via the publisher’s online store. The first copies will also come with a baseball card of the protagonist. (And those who don’t order online may be out of luck. As the Cemetery Dance website notes, “We’ll be filling direct orders first and then distributors, online stores, and the chains if there are copies left available after we’ve taken care of our regular customers.”)

It’s interesting to see one of the biggest-name authors in popular literature publishing through a relatively small specialty house like Cemetery Dance. The company kept news of the book quiet so it would be a surprise just in time for the upcoming baseball season. What do you think? Surprised? Any fans of both King and baseball particularly excited for this?

Mar 26 2010 11:44 AM ET

Break out the butterbeer: Harry Potter site goes live

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Categories: Harry Potter

harry-potter-book-coversBetter start practicing your spells, the full official Harry Potter site is now live.  If you think you know your hippogriffs from your hinkypunks, you can put your feeble Muggle brain to the test with quizzes from each book, gloss over a glossary of magical, mostly Latinate terminology, and take part in Potter polls. It might just be enough of a fix to hold you over until June 18, when Universal Studios opens the gates to their theme park. But, until then, you’ll just have to make do with this and running around your house with a stick yelling Wingardium Leviosa at your cat.

Mar 25 2010 09:00 AM ET

Talking undeath with Steve Hockensmith, author of the 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' prequel

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Categories: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Quirk, Steve Hockensmith, Zombies

The work of Jane Austen has proved to be rather fertile soil from which to raise the dead. With Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith moving on from Plain Jane to Honest Abe, Quirk Books drafted Steve Hockensmith to pen the prequel to their unexpected mash-up hit, Dawn of the Dreadfuls. We spoke with Hockensmith about Austen, zombies, and why those two great tastes taste so great together.

Had you read the original before you got the job to write the prequel?

I had not, but I knew of it well. I am an Entertainment Weekly subscriber so I had been seeing mention of it coming down the pipe for quite some time. It was actually pretty funny because the day when I got the call from someone in my agent’s office to ask, “Have you heard of this thing call Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?” and I said of course, and she threw out that there might be an opportunity to write the prequel, I had to run out and buy a copy immediately, because I didn’t want to start talking about this until I had read it. Although the two books are very different, of course, I hasten to add. I ran to the local Borders, and they were sold out. So I ran up the street to the little independent corner bookstore that was a little further on. I go in and there was a lady behind the counter, a nice little grey-haired bookstore employee type, and I say to her I’m looking for this book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. And she just rolls her eyes and says, “Oh…that,” and she proceeds, rather begrudgingly, to lead me to this table where there is only a single copy left. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 24 2010 09:00 AM ET

EW Exclusive: First Look at Melissa de la Cruz's 'Misguided Angel' cover

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Categories: Book Covers, Interview, Melissa de la Cruz, Vampires

Melissa de la Cruz fans, here’s the exclusive first look at the cover of Misguided Angel, the fifth in the Blue Bloods series, which is slated for Oct. 5 publication. (Fans who can’t wait until fall for their Blue Bloods fix, fret not: de la Cruz has written an in-depth guidebook of sorts, Keys to the Repository, due out in June.) The author recently talked to EW.com about Misguided Angel’s cover art, her non-fiction past and being a self-proclaimed “sci-fi geek.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So, what do you think about the cover? Did you have any say in it?
MELISSA DE LA CRUZ: I had a huge say in it. I really wanted it to be otherworldly, very beautiful. I like it because the girl’s face — to me she could look Asian, or Latino, or Italian. I just thought it was kind of nice that she had this universal look where you couldn’t really tell what race she was. It’s great for an angel to look like that.

This is the fifth book in the series – how many do you plan on releasing? Did you think it would last this long?
I had a very ambitious program when I first outlined this; I definitely planned a big series. From the beginning five years ago, I said I had a plan for nine or 10 books and they said, ‘Whoa! OK! We’ll buy two and see how it does!’ And then they kind of took off. I had a plan if it didn’t work out how to end it on book three, but if it did work I definitely had this big overreaching arc that I wanted to explore. I dream big! (laughs)

Can you spill a little something about what happens in Misguided Angel?

It was a really fun book because my idea was as the books continued, there would be little arcs every three or four books. I feel like books one through four really dealt with Bliss and Lucifer, and then Schuyler and Jack kind of discover a new threat and they uncover things that happened in the past that is affecting the present: a deep, evil secret that the Blue Bloods have kept. In New York, Mimi kind of deals with this new thing, so there’s this evil that happens in several places in the world that they all have to deal with that all kind of ties to one thing, and they have to find the root of it. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 23 2010 05:38 PM ET

What's that smell? Why it's just a bit of 'Jersey Shore' in your bookcase!

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Categories: Celebrity, Enough Already!, Misc., Nonfiction

jersey-shoreImage Credit: Scott Gries/MTVSurprisingly, the first book to pop out of the greasy traffic accident that is the MTV reality series Jersey Shore is not a heart-wrenching introspective memoir entitled The Reality of The Situation. No, it’s Never Fall In Love At the Jersey Shore, a Guido guide on how to maintain that distinctive Jersey Shore look and attitude, brought to you by two of the show’s houseguests, J-WOWW and Ronnie. That’s right, folks! You too can be a lowest common denominator!

St. Martin’s Press has signed a deal with the two fair-weather Jerseyites to bring you all the best insight into GTL (Gym, Tanning, Laundry), MOITHT (Making Out In The Hot Tub) and GABTCAPSOOTB (Getting Arrested By The Cops After Punching Someone Out On The Boardwalk.) No doubt the advice will be as shallow as the Atlantic Ocean is deep, but perhaps they’ll be nice enough to include a free sample canister of Axe Body Spray along with some suggestions for dermatologists who specialize in melanoma.

What say you, Shelf-Lifers? Gross? Or awesome (and gross)?

Mar 23 2010 09:05 AM ET

EW Exclusive: Poetry reading by Cynthia Nixon and Catherine Zeta-Jones

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Categories: Audiobooks, Celebrity, Poetry, Sex and the City

Cynthia-Nixon-Zeta-JonesImage Credit: Bill Davila/Startraksphoto.com; Andy Fossum/StartrWho said poetry readings had to be stuffy, unglamorous affairs? Scores of celebrities, including Sex and the City‘s Cynthia Nixon (pictured, far left) and Catherine Zeta-Jones, are creating their own verse-case scenarios. On April 2, GPR Records will release Poetic License, a three-CD set that features 100 poems performed by 100 famous names. (The disc will be available on Amazon and iTunes.) Each star picked a favorite poem to read on the spoken-word compilation, which is arriving just in time for National Poetry Month. Selections include Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter” (Jason Alexander), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Day Is Done” (Florence Henderson), Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” (Kate Mulgrew), and Edward Field’s “New Yorkers” (veteran TLC host Paige Davis).

EW is pleased to share two advance tracks from Poetic License. First, it’s Cynthia Nixon reading A.A. Milne’s “Vespers,” the first work the author wrote featuring his son, Christopher Robin. (Milne went on to write a book of children’s poetry, When We Were Very Young, that included a verse about a then-unnamed teddy bear who “however hard he tries grows tubby without exercise.”) You can easily imagine Nixon reading “Vespers” at bed-side to her own children.

Cynthia Nixon reading “Vespers”

In our second audio clip from Poetic License, Catherine Zeta-Jones reads William Wordsworth’s springtime classic “Daffodils.” She intones the poem in classic fashion, with more of a trained stage voice (the actress is now appearing on Broadway, after all, in A Little Night Music) than the Welsh lilt of her childhood.


Catherine Zeta-Jones reading “Daffodils”

Mar 22 2010 01:39 PM ET

'The Lost Symbol' and 'Going Rogue' top 2009 best-seller list

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Categories: Best-seller List, Dan Brown, Fiction, Glenn Beck, James Patterson, John Grisham, Misc., Mitch Albom, Nonfiction, P.C. Cast, Publishing Biz, Sarah Palin, Stephen King, Stephenie Meyer

Though it didn’t sell as strongly as The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol moved more than 5.5 million copies to dominate Publishers Weekly‘s just-unveiled list of the best-selling hardcover books of 2009. A few other expected author names populate the Top 15, including John Grisham (No. 2 and No. 6), James Patterson (No. 5), and Patricia Cornwell (No. 12 and No. 14). Stephenie Meyer landed in the ninth spot with her 2008 sci-fi novel The Host, but the lack of a Twilight book was evident, particularly in the ascendancy of two entries from P.C. Cast’s Twi-lite House of Night series, which rose up to fill a vampire-shaped hole. The real surprise, though, is Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, which itself was helped by tremendous word of mouth to become the fourth best-selling fiction book of the year with 1.1 million copies sold. On the nonfiction side, it was politics, mainly conservative, that got the cash register ringing. Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue capped the list, but books by Glenn Beck, conservative radio host Mark Levin, and the late Edward Kennedy all made it into the top five.

Whereas sales of albums and movie tickets are tallied virtually in real-time, the figures for the publishing industry are often as closely guarded as the Colonel’s secret recipe, so PW’s yearly ranking offers one of the best snapshots of the literary marketplace. And while the top contenders on both the fiction and nonfiction lists sold millions of copies, the overall list reveals a far less rosy picture of book sales. The number of titles that sold at least 100,000 copies is down by significant double-digit percentages from 2008 in both fiction and nonfiction.

E-book sales figures weren’t included this year (they will be for 2010), but since digital editions rarely exceed 5 percent of a book’s total sales it’s unlikely that the 2009 sales list would have received a big boost from their inclusion. Here are the top selling books of 2009 (since some publishers did not provide PW exact sales figures, several titles’ rankings are based on estimates or sales figures provided in confidence for the purposes of ranking):

Hardcover Fiction

1. The Lost Symbol: A Novel, Dan Brown (5,543,643 copies)
2. The Associate: A Novel, John Grisham
3. Tempted, P.C. Cast (1,141,818)
4. The Help, Kathryn Stockett (1,104,617)
5. I, Alex Cross, James Patterson (1,040,976)
6. Ford County, John Grisham
7. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, Janet Evanovich (977,178)
8. Hunted, P.C. Cast (931,219)
9. The Host: A Novel, Stephenie Meyer (912,165)
10. Under the Dome, Stephen King
11. Pirate Latitudes, Michael Crichton (855,638)
12. Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell (800,00)
13. U Is for Undertow, Sue Grafton (706,154)
14. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell (705,000)
15. Shadowland, Alyson Noel (609,355)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin (2,674,684 copies)
2. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, Steve Harvey (1,735,219)
3. Arguing With Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Glenn Beck
4. Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, Mark R. Levin
5. True Compass: A Memoir, Edward M. Kennedy (870,402)
6. Have a Little Faith: A True Story, Mitch Albom (855,843)
7. It’s Your Time: Activate Your Faith, Achieve Your Dreams, and Increase in God’s Favor, Joel Osteen
8. The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (610,033)
9. Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books Not Bombs, Greg Mortenson (515,566)
10. Superfreakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (487,977).
11. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child (487,228)
12. Master Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones for a Hot and Healthy Body! Jillian Michaels (486,154)
13. The Yankee Years, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci (397,954)
14. Open, Andre Agassi (383,722)
15. Time of My Life, Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niem

Mar 22 2010 09:05 AM ET

New Shel Silverstein book slated for 2011 release: Which of his poems is your favorite?

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Categories: Children's Books, Poetry, Shel Silverstein

shel-silversteinImage Credit: Everett CollectionThe second posthumous collection of poetry and illustrations by beloved children’s author Shel Silverstein will be released next year by HarperCollins, Publisher’s Weekly reports. The currently untitled volume will include 120-130 previously unpublished works, which are being curated by the author’s longtime editor, Antonio Markiet. There is no shortage of material from Silverstein, who died in 1999 at the age of 67. His first posthumous collection, Runny Babbit, was published by HarperCollins in 2005.

Silverstein, whose body of work includes Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and Falling Up, depicted the innocence of youth in a unique and engaging way. He has remained immensely popular with children and adults due to his creative and eccentric observations about life, typically geared toward the kid in all of us.

My favorite poem has always been “Sick,” which related the elaborate lie one little girl tells her parents to avoid going to school. “I cannot go to school today, said Little Peggy Ann McKay,” she proclaims, only to discover that it is actually the weekend. “What’s that you say? You say today is…Saturday? G’bye, I’m going out to play!” Silverstein’s miniature hypochondriac captures the imagination we all had — and may still have — especially when it comes to those highly coveted chances to remain home, dodging any and all responsibilities (adults: substitute work for school?). Writing about issues of the kid world made Silverstein not only entertaining, but extremely relevant.

What about you ShelfLifers? What’s your favorite Shel Silverstein poem? Do you plan on purchasing his new collection?

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