ALA 2010: Fall Books Preview
By Barbara Hoffert, LJ Jun 27, 2010BEA has had a Book Buzz panel forever; why not ALA? Fortunately, that oversight has been corrected. On the afternoon of Friday, June 25, the Trade Libraries Committee of the Association of American Publishers offered the inaugural (and packed) Fall Books Preview, with Nancy Pearl as moderator. The books presented were "not just the big and important books," insisted Pearl, "but the books the editors loved." Here's a rundown of the books presented by editors from five leading publishing houses.
Jamie Raab, Executive Vice President & Publisher, Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group):
Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty. Raab kicked off her discussion by proclaiming that she didn't know many renaissance men except Steve Martin and further stated that his new novel is his most ambitious yet. His protagonist, too, is truly ambitious, a determined and charismatic young woman trying to make it in the New York City art world today. Who It's For Joyce Carol Oates said that this book reads like The Age of Innocence, so anyone who would enjoy seeing Wharton's social acuity translated to the contemporary world should love what Raab calls a "mesmerizing" work.
Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty. Raab kicked off her discussion by proclaiming that she didn't know many renaissance men except Steve Martin and further stated that his new novel is his most ambitious yet. His protagonist, too, is truly ambitious, a determined and charismatic young woman trying to make it in the New York City art world today. Who It's For Joyce Carol Oates said that this book reads like The Age of Innocence, so anyone who would enjoy seeing Wharton's social acuity translated to the contemporary world should love what Raab calls a "mesmerizing" work.
Larry Levin's Oogy. As Raab noted, Marley and Me ushered in mania for animal books, but except for Vicki Myron's Dewey, Grand Central resisted the urge to join in-"and then Oogy came knocking." Horribly mauled (he lost an ear and part of his face) and then left for dead when as a mere pup he was used as bait to train fighting dogs, the Oogy was rescued and taken to an animal hospital. There he spotted Levin and his adopted twin sons and promptly ran up to adopt them. Who It's For "Heartbreaking and heartwarming," says Raab, this tale of the gentle and loving Oogy was passionately embraced by the sales reps and subsequently by bookstores and will appeal to animal lovers and "anyone who has a heart." Go, Oogy!
Carrie Kania, Publisher of HarperPerennial and It Books (HarperCollins Publishers):
Detmar Blow & Tom Sykes's Blow by Blow. Style maven Isabella Blow led an outrageous life, "using herself as a canvas," explained Kania, and making her greatest impact in the world of fashion. (Yes, it was she who discovered Alexander McQueen.) She also battled ongoing depression, attempting suicide many times before finally succeeding in May 2007, and claims a cast of remarkably unsettling ancestors that makes this memoir by her husband all the richer. Who It's For It's "The Bell Jar as memoir via pages of O magazine," said Kania, who as publisher of It Books (and four other imprints) has an eye for cultural iconography. Kania added that if you are interested in everything from the Mitfords and Brideshead Revisited to Sylvia Plath and Virginia Wolf, you'll want this book.
Ben Greenman's Celebrity Chekhov. The ever edgy and intriguing Greenman (A Circle Is a Balloon) takes Chekhov's stories and reimagines them for modern times-with today's hottest names as protagonists. There's Eminem, for instance, struggling with his art and Lindsay Lohan facing her limitations as an actress. (Ahem.) A literary stunt? No, insisted Kania, these stories really work. Who It's For Anyone who loves classical literature and has a sense of adventure. Note to librarians: Greenman is great at public appearances.
Ina Stern, Associate Publisher, Algonquin Books (Workman):
Jonathan Evison's West of Here. Evison won lots of attention when Soft Skull Press published All About Lulu, a book Algonquin has passed on. When Evison went looking for a new editor, as his had left Soft Skull, Algonquin was thrilled to enter the auction-and won. No, it wasn't the highest bidder, but a great story on Algonquin senior editor Chuck Adams in Poets & Writers may have helped. The novel is an epic adventure about building a town in Washington shortly after it became a state, with a parallel story examining the builders' descendants in 2006. Who It's For The author says it's not a historical novel but a mythical novel about history, and Stern says it has "wonder, adventure, and an incomparable sense of place." There should be lots of readers for that.
Brock Clarke's Exley. Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, a big Booksense pick and a New York Times Editors' Choice, delighted in skewering literary genres. Clarke keeps up his well-applied wit in Exley, a novel that examines the theme of truth vs. nonfiction with the help of two of "entirely unreliable narrators," noted Stern: a ten-year-old boy named Miller who is convinced that he has found his vanished father lying comatose in a VA hospital, a victim of the Iraq war, and Miller's unstable psychologist. Miller decides he can save his father only by finding Fred Exley, real-life author of A Fan's Notes, who happens to be dead; the author said that he wanted to create a character as obsessed as he was at the time he read that book. Who It's For Anyone who likes books that are, said Stern, "serious in intent but immensely fun to read."
Susan Kamil, Senior Vice President, Editor in Chief, Random House and Editorial Director, Dial Press (Random House):
Gail Caldwell's Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship. After she finished writing Drinking: A Love Story, Caroline Knapp got a puppy. Her dog trainer introduced her to noted book critic Gail Caldwell, who also had a dog, and the rest is the history of a remarkable friendship cut short when Knapp was diagnosed with lung cancer and died seven weeks later. They were two solitary, demanding souls who found true communion, so this memoir of their friendship, interrupted, must be scalding to read. Kamil, who edited Drinking: A Love Story, says its "pitch perfectly true." Who It's For "Anyone who has a best friend, so it is for everyone you know," said Kamil. She sees it as an especially good book club offering because it addresses human relationships and grief in such a rich and varied ways.
Salman Rushie's Luka and the Fire of Life. "Enchanting, witty, magical, and dazzling," said Kamil, Rushdie's latest is a fable for all ages. It features a young boy named Luka who must enter a magical world to retrieve the Fire of Life so that he can rescue his ailing father. In that regard, it is a companion piece, though not a sequel, to Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, whose protagonist must save his father's storytelling abilities. Who It's For Kids will love the story, and adults will get the sly asides about life, death, and culture. In other words, it's for everyone.
Bob Weil, Executive Editor and Vice President, W.W. Norton:
Charles Fried & Gregory Fried's Because It is Wrong: Torture, Privacy, and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror. Honored to be at his first ALA, Weil spoke passionately about the value of the work done by librarians for literary culture, particularly with the ongoing disappearance of print reviews. (In a private aside, he likened librarians to town criers.) Then he marveled that his first choice for a buzz panel was a book on torture. Leading Republican Charles Fried and his son, Gregory Fried, a Democrat, have joined forces to explore how America has come to sanction the use of torture and how its use defines us today; they challenge the notion of "enhanced interrogation" as morally repugnant. Who It's For Not everyone will want to read this book, but everyone should. It is "one of the most urgent books to emerge since 9/11," said Weil, and a book that provides "a moral compass and a cracked mirrored to what America could become."
Yunte Huang's Charlie Chan: The Life and Times of a Chinese Detective. Huang learned English by listening to the Voice of America on a beat-up transistor radio and was the top English student at Beijing University before he was forced to flee after the Tiananmen Square incident. He started out here as a pizza delivery boy and is now a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While at a Buffalo yard sale, he discovered some old Charlie Chan novels and was immediately intrigued; later he learned that Chan was based on a real-life person, the first Asian on the Honolulu police force. His book tells the story of the real detective while also exploring the entire Asian American experience through the phenomenon of Charlie Chan, who has been seen alternately as funny and beloved or a cruel example of racist stereotyping. Who It's For Anyone interested in American and Asian American history and literature-and anyone interested in a remarkable read. "This is lyrical, gorgeous writing," offered Weil. If Stephen Greenblatt can thank him for sending this book his way, so will you.
Detmar Blow & Tom Sykes's Blow by Blow. Style maven Isabella Blow led an outrageous life, "using herself as a canvas," explained Kania, and making her greatest impact in the world of fashion. (Yes, it was she who discovered Alexander McQueen.) She also battled ongoing depression, attempting suicide many times before finally succeeding in May 2007, and claims a cast of remarkably unsettling ancestors that makes this memoir by her husband all the richer. Who It's For It's "The Bell Jar as memoir via pages of O magazine," said Kania, who as publisher of It Books (and four other imprints) has an eye for cultural iconography. Kania added that if you are interested in everything from the Mitfords and Brideshead Revisited to Sylvia Plath and Virginia Wolf, you'll want this book.
Ben Greenman's Celebrity Chekhov. The ever edgy and intriguing Greenman (A Circle Is a Balloon) takes Chekhov's stories and reimagines them for modern times-with today's hottest names as protagonists. There's Eminem, for instance, struggling with his art and Lindsay Lohan facing her limitations as an actress. (Ahem.) A literary stunt? No, insisted Kania, these stories really work. Who It's For Anyone who loves classical literature and has a sense of adventure. Note to librarians: Greenman is great at public appearances.
Ina Stern, Associate Publisher, Algonquin Books (Workman):
Jonathan Evison's West of Here. Evison won lots of attention when Soft Skull Press published All About Lulu, a book Algonquin has passed on. When Evison went looking for a new editor, as his had left Soft Skull, Algonquin was thrilled to enter the auction-and won. No, it wasn't the highest bidder, but a great story on Algonquin senior editor Chuck Adams in Poets & Writers may have helped. The novel is an epic adventure about building a town in Washington shortly after it became a state, with a parallel story examining the builders' descendants in 2006. Who It's For The author says it's not a historical novel but a mythical novel about history, and Stern says it has "wonder, adventure, and an incomparable sense of place." There should be lots of readers for that.
Brock Clarke's Exley. Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, a big Booksense pick and a New York Times Editors' Choice, delighted in skewering literary genres. Clarke keeps up his well-applied wit in Exley, a novel that examines the theme of truth vs. nonfiction with the help of two of "entirely unreliable narrators," noted Stern: a ten-year-old boy named Miller who is convinced that he has found his vanished father lying comatose in a VA hospital, a victim of the Iraq war, and Miller's unstable psychologist. Miller decides he can save his father only by finding Fred Exley, real-life author of A Fan's Notes, who happens to be dead; the author said that he wanted to create a character as obsessed as he was at the time he read that book. Who It's For Anyone who likes books that are, said Stern, "serious in intent but immensely fun to read."
Susan Kamil, Senior Vice President, Editor in Chief, Random House and Editorial Director, Dial Press (Random House):
Gail Caldwell's Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship. After she finished writing Drinking: A Love Story, Caroline Knapp got a puppy. Her dog trainer introduced her to noted book critic Gail Caldwell, who also had a dog, and the rest is the history of a remarkable friendship cut short when Knapp was diagnosed with lung cancer and died seven weeks later. They were two solitary, demanding souls who found true communion, so this memoir of their friendship, interrupted, must be scalding to read. Kamil, who edited Drinking: A Love Story, says its "pitch perfectly true." Who It's For "Anyone who has a best friend, so it is for everyone you know," said Kamil. She sees it as an especially good book club offering because it addresses human relationships and grief in such a rich and varied ways.
Salman Rushie's Luka and the Fire of Life. "Enchanting, witty, magical, and dazzling," said Kamil, Rushdie's latest is a fable for all ages. It features a young boy named Luka who must enter a magical world to retrieve the Fire of Life so that he can rescue his ailing father. In that regard, it is a companion piece, though not a sequel, to Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, whose protagonist must save his father's storytelling abilities. Who It's For Kids will love the story, and adults will get the sly asides about life, death, and culture. In other words, it's for everyone.
Bob Weil, Executive Editor and Vice President, W.W. Norton:
Charles Fried & Gregory Fried's Because It is Wrong: Torture, Privacy, and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror. Honored to be at his first ALA, Weil spoke passionately about the value of the work done by librarians for literary culture, particularly with the ongoing disappearance of print reviews. (In a private aside, he likened librarians to town criers.) Then he marveled that his first choice for a buzz panel was a book on torture. Leading Republican Charles Fried and his son, Gregory Fried, a Democrat, have joined forces to explore how America has come to sanction the use of torture and how its use defines us today; they challenge the notion of "enhanced interrogation" as morally repugnant. Who It's For Not everyone will want to read this book, but everyone should. It is "one of the most urgent books to emerge since 9/11," said Weil, and a book that provides "a moral compass and a cracked mirrored to what America could become."
Yunte Huang's Charlie Chan: The Life and Times of a Chinese Detective. Huang learned English by listening to the Voice of America on a beat-up transistor radio and was the top English student at Beijing University before he was forced to flee after the Tiananmen Square incident. He started out here as a pizza delivery boy and is now a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While at a Buffalo yard sale, he discovered some old Charlie Chan novels and was immediately intrigued; later he learned that Chan was based on a real-life person, the first Asian on the Honolulu police force. His book tells the story of the real detective while also exploring the entire Asian American experience through the phenomenon of Charlie Chan, who has been seen alternately as funny and beloved or a cruel example of racist stereotyping. Who It's For Anyone interested in American and Asian American history and literature-and anyone interested in a remarkable read. "This is lyrical, gorgeous writing," offered Weil. If Stephen Greenblatt can thank him for sending this book his way, so will you.
Visit ALA Annual Conference News for ongoing coverage of the conference by the editors of Library Journal and School Library Journal, and see LJ's Flickr page for pictures of various show events.
