Monday, December 08, 2003
READING COPIES!! NEW BOOKS!!
Ah, being a bookseller...low pay, strange hours, benefits(?).....getting to read books before everyone else. Getting to read books before everyone else...
the reading copies on my nightstand as of today:
A SPLENDOR OF LETTERS: THE PERMANENCE OF BOOKS IN AN IMPERMANENT WORLD by Nicholas Basbanes, ISBN: 0060082879, HarperCollins, Pub date: early december. Third book in the series he started with A Gentle Madness and Patience and Fortitude.
BOOK ROW: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador, ISBN: 0786713054, Carrol and Graf, Jan 2004. I'm reading this one straight through. Details the stores and booksellers of New York's famous "Book Row" during the twentieth century. Great book quotes, anecdotes, and book history. Fun to see the characteristics of used book dealers.
THE FOREST LOVER by Susan Vreeland, ISBN: 0670032670, Viking, Feb 2004.
Her earlier book, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue, became the breakout book for both her and her publisher, MacMurray and Beck (the house later merged with MacAdam/Cage, after its founding editors left to start the Blue Hen Imprint at Penguin). Vreeland is carving her niche with novels about famous artists. This one details Pacific Northwest painter Emily Carr and her life painting "the fading wilderness of an increasingly industrialized British Columbia as well as the indigenous villages."
ANY HUMAN HEART by William Boyd, ISBN: 1400031001, Vintage, Jan 2004.
The paperback release of Boyd's latest novel. Through diary entries of a young Englishman, we see the changing world as he moves from his overseas childhood in South America, to university in Oxford, and his Continental exploits in art and love. I'm a third of the way through this, so that's as much description as I can give you. This could be a great book club book for the spring.
American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips, ISBN: 0670032646, Viking, Jan 2004.
Explores the history of the Bush Family from the late 1800's to the current W presidency. Gives the connections between the Bushes and the Eastern aristocracy and the transplanted ivy leaguers who moved to the Texas oil fields.
Land Grant College Review Issue #1
A new literary journal featuring Stephen Dixon, Aimee Bender, an interview with Thisbe Nissen, and a host of young writers. This could be the time for a lot of post-McSweeney's literary journals to get noticed by the mainstream audience.
HarperCollins Makes History
An interesting experiment by the marketing department at HarperCollins (now including former-Book Sense guru Carl Lennertz). The publisher pulled sample chapters from seven or so forthcoming history titles and bound them together for booksellers. This makes it easier for us to get to know a bunch of new titles quickly. Already I'm excited about a book on the firebombing of Dresden, made famous by Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.
The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler, ISBN: 1400042070, Knopf, Jan 2004.
Latest Tyler novel starts with a young man falling in love on the same day he decides to leave his life in small-town New Jersey to join WWII.
Vintage Murakami by Haruki Murakami, ISBN: 1400033969, Vintage Books, Jan 2004.
Excerpts, chapters, and short stories from the work of Murakami. One of the lead titles in a new Vintage series to showcase well-regarded authors who could have a much larger fanbase.
|
Go to Top of Page
the reading copies on my nightstand as of today:
A SPLENDOR OF LETTERS: THE PERMANENCE OF BOOKS IN AN IMPERMANENT WORLD by Nicholas Basbanes, ISBN: 0060082879, HarperCollins, Pub date: early december. Third book in the series he started with A Gentle Madness and Patience and Fortitude.
BOOK ROW: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador, ISBN: 0786713054, Carrol and Graf, Jan 2004. I'm reading this one straight through. Details the stores and booksellers of New York's famous "Book Row" during the twentieth century. Great book quotes, anecdotes, and book history. Fun to see the characteristics of used book dealers.
THE FOREST LOVER by Susan Vreeland, ISBN: 0670032670, Viking, Feb 2004.
Her earlier book, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue, became the breakout book for both her and her publisher, MacMurray and Beck (the house later merged with MacAdam/Cage, after its founding editors left to start the Blue Hen Imprint at Penguin). Vreeland is carving her niche with novels about famous artists. This one details Pacific Northwest painter Emily Carr and her life painting "the fading wilderness of an increasingly industrialized British Columbia as well as the indigenous villages."
ANY HUMAN HEART by William Boyd, ISBN: 1400031001, Vintage, Jan 2004.
The paperback release of Boyd's latest novel. Through diary entries of a young Englishman, we see the changing world as he moves from his overseas childhood in South America, to university in Oxford, and his Continental exploits in art and love. I'm a third of the way through this, so that's as much description as I can give you. This could be a great book club book for the spring.
American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips, ISBN: 0670032646, Viking, Jan 2004.
Explores the history of the Bush Family from the late 1800's to the current W presidency. Gives the connections between the Bushes and the Eastern aristocracy and the transplanted ivy leaguers who moved to the Texas oil fields.
Land Grant College Review Issue #1
A new literary journal featuring Stephen Dixon, Aimee Bender, an interview with Thisbe Nissen, and a host of young writers. This could be the time for a lot of post-McSweeney's literary journals to get noticed by the mainstream audience.
HarperCollins Makes History
An interesting experiment by the marketing department at HarperCollins (now including former-Book Sense guru Carl Lennertz). The publisher pulled sample chapters from seven or so forthcoming history titles and bound them together for booksellers. This makes it easier for us to get to know a bunch of new titles quickly. Already I'm excited about a book on the firebombing of Dresden, made famous by Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.
The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler, ISBN: 1400042070, Knopf, Jan 2004.
Latest Tyler novel starts with a young man falling in love on the same day he decides to leave his life in small-town New Jersey to join WWII.
Vintage Murakami by Haruki Murakami, ISBN: 1400033969, Vintage Books, Jan 2004.
Excerpts, chapters, and short stories from the work of Murakami. One of the lead titles in a new Vintage series to showcase well-regarded authors who could have a much larger fanbase.
