Shelf Life has learned that a quote from Pres. Barack Obama has been removed from the book jacket of Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court, a memoir by University of North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams that will be published by Algonquin in November.
Here’s the quote: “What makes Coach Williams one of the great coaches isn’t just his extraordinary record, but his dedication to his players. He’s just as serious about making these guys into men and into leaders as he is into making them champions.” Obama, who made the statement when he stopped to shoot hoops with the Tar Heels team during his campaign last year, clearly intended to extol Williams the man and not to blurb the legendary coach’s book (which has been getting rave advance notices). According to a publicist for Algonquin, the company has deleted the statement from the jacket after consulting with its legal team, which determined that sitting presidents cannot make commercial endorsements. A staffer at the The White House press office confirms this: “As a general matter, the White House does not authorize the use of the President’s likeness or words for commercial purposes.”
Interestingly, though, recent printings of the paperback edition of Joseph O’Neill’s 2008 novel Netherland include a sticker with this blurb (a quote pulled from an Obama interview published last spring): “‘Fascinating…A wonderful book.’ President Barack Obama, Newsweek.” Vintage, the book’s publisher, did not check with the White House before issuing the stickered edition. (with reporting by Keith Staskiewicz)
It’s fair to say that the Australian renaissance man Nick Cave has a working knowledge of the dark side. In fact, Cave seems to pretty much live there — ask anyone who has read his 1989 debut novel And The Ass Saw The Angel, seen the 2005 movie The Proposition (for which he wrote the script), or heard pretty much any of his albums. Technically, however, Cave dwells on the south coast of England. That is also the setting for his second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, in which a sex-obsessed traveling salesman is forced to take his young son on the road with him following the suicide of his wife. We’re delighted to offer you an exclusive excerpt from what is undoubtedly one of Cave’s darkest, most hilarious works to date. (Be forewarned: Though we’ve dashed out obscenities, this is still most definitely not suitable for kids). The book goes on sale next week.
So I just finished My Journey with Farrah: A Story of Life, Love, and Friendship. Published yesterday, it’s being marketed as Alana Stewart’s tribute to 
Here’s a first look at the cover of Tempted, the sixth installment in the best-selling House of Night series by mother-daughter writing team P.C. and Kristin Cast. The novel will hit bookstores on October 27, and publisher St. Martin’s already plans to print over a million copies (a number that will likely go up). We talked to both the Casts yesterday, who offered some exclusive tidbits about what fans can expect in this latest installment.![twilight-manga_l[1]](http://ewshelflife.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/twilight-manga_l11.jpg "twilight-manga_l[1]")
For those of you who can’t get enough Edward and Bella, EW can announce — exclusively — that Yen Press will be publishing Twilight in graphic-novel form, publication date still to be determined. Though Korean artist Young Kim is creating the art, Meyer herself is deeply immersed in the project, reviewing every panel.![sea-monsters_l[1]](http://ewshelflife.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/sea-monsters_l1.jpg "sea-monsters_l[1]")
At midnight, the folks at Quirk — who brought you the best-selling Jane Austen mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — announced that they’re back with the next book in the series, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, which goes on sale Sept. 15 (complete with 15 illustrations — we’ve brought you two of them — and a readers’ discussion guide). Quirk editor Jason Rekulak, the creator of the series (“I just thought it would be really funny to desecrate a classic work of literature”) recently said that he didn’t want to go out there “with the one-millionth vampire novel that’s going to be published this year.” P&P&Z’s Seth Grahame Smith did not write this sequel, since he recently left the franchise and signed a hefty contract with Grand Central for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I talked to the series’ new author, Ben H. Winters, last week.
