Shelf Awareness: Friday, May 2, 2008

I can almost hear Willie Nelson reworking the lyrics of his classic cowboy song:

Mamas, do let your babies grow up to be readers.
Please let 'em write essays and read some great books . . .

Mother's Day is a bookseller's dream, as well as an absolute field day for greeting card sales. I flew my initial solo bookseller POS flight one week before Mother's Day in 1992, assuming full control of a cash register without a co-pilot for the first time. My UPC scanning and monitor watching skills were put to the ultimate test:

I think you rang that card in twice!
How can this card be $5?
I love your cards!
I think some of your cards are in very bad taste.
Don't you have Mother's Day cards for stay-at-home dads?

Okay, I made the last one up, but I emerged from the experience a better cashier with a new appreciation for this particular holiday. As a bookseller--and as a son, of course--I'm still a believer, in part because mothers play such a critical role in the development of children's reading lives, or lack thereof. And while it's easy as apple pie to criticize the commercialization of Mother's Day, bookstores still offer the best ways to acknowledge moms as parents, teachers and readers.

"I love my mama who, like many moms, is not interested in the traditional Mother's Day fare," advises Heather Gain in the e-newsletter from Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass. "Frankly, she wouldn't be impressed by a box of calorie-laden chocolates and a bouquet of soon-to-wilt carnations. Instead (spoiler alert, Mom!), I'm planning on giving her--you guessed it--the long-lasting and feel-good gift o' books."

In its special Mother's Day e-newsletter, Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt., highlights a "Green Moms" promotion, suggesting that, for "mothers especially looking for ways to help preserve the environment for future generations, Northshire has a sustainability section that includes books, home-cleaning kits, and recycled, reusable bags and accessories."

One of my favorite bits of advice comes from University Book Store, Seattle, Wash., whose website sagely advises, "Make a fuss over mom . . . You know how mom always says: 'Oh, honey. You don't have to make a fuss over me for Mother's Day. . . . ' Well, she's lying."

"Mothers, mothers, mothers," Paul Theriault exclaims in the b-mail newsletter from Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Mass. "I'm a father now, and now Mother's Day has taken on a whole new meaning. It means something like 'ignore at your own peril.' While the Booksmith can't serve up breakfast in bed and a foot massage, we've certainly got something for your moms, who nevertheless deserve soooo much more. Come on in to the store and you'll stumble right into the display up front overflowing with gift ideas . . . Or just grab one of us, that's what we're here for!"

Laura Ponticello of Creekside Books, Skaneateles, N.Y., offers a book list that "pays tribute to women who positively influence others through acts of kindness or words of wisdom. All of these women face moments of self-doubt. For some women it comes naturally to care for children with a compassionate heart, while other women struggle to emerge from self-imposed perceptions, and lastly some of us serve best by following our passions that potentially inspire others with hope."

There is a moving post at the staff blog for Nomad Bookhouse, Jackson, Mich., that includes the following testimony to the power of maternal storytelling: "For anyone that rallies claims that fiction is pure fantasy or lacks opportunity for application in our lives . . . well, they don't read fiction. This book [The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty] has taken me to a place that I had neither expected nor found anywhere else in recent years. I respect my mom more tonight for having read fiction. I want to live more fully with my daughter tonight for having read fiction."

Books Inc., Burlingame, Calif., which held a "Mothers' Night Out" earlier this week, also offers what might be considered an antidote to the sentimental approach with its Not Your Mother's Book Club.

And if you're one of the unlucky children whose mother "gets under your skin," don't despair. Head north immediately and you may still find the perfect gift, since "Indigo and Chapters bookstores are recalling 10,000 Mother's Day tote bags after tests revealed they could cause skin irritation," according to the Ottawa Citizen.

Oh, oh. There's that cynic again. Sorry, Mom.

 

Shelf Awareness: Friday, May 2, 2008

Comic books were the gateway drug that made me a lifelong reader; more on that later. Now, back to our story, already in progress:

Maybe you knew they were coming again for the seventh consecutive year, but they are closer than ever. They're on your planet! Soon, they will be in your country, your state, perhaps even your town. Just listen to the dramatic voiceover on this promotional video, and you'll begin to understand:

Saturday, May 3rd . . . heroes and villains . . . from across the universe . . . will unite for one goal . . . Free Comic Book Day.

Or travel to freecomicbookday.com for the graphic details, including a list of sponsors and a search tool for locating participating comic book stores near you.

There has been a wave of media coverage leading up to Saturday's festivities. I think columnist Drew Hendrickson at the Daily Aztec--San Diego State University's student newspaper--sums up the process nicely: "Here's how the day works: You show up to a participating comic book store, tell the nice clerk you're there for Free Comic Book Day, and he or she will give you a modest-size stack of comics (in varying genres) for free. That's it."

He also offers an intriguing long-range perspective on his own reading habits: "I tend to gravitate toward graphic novels because although they're essentially a giant comic book, they have the word 'novel' in them so I feel like I'm reading something important. Plus, if some poller came around looking into reading statistics, I'd look like a freaking genius with how many books I could claim."

Wired's blogger GeekDad notes that this weekend "we will descend en masse on our local specialty retailers, hopefully with our geeklings in tow, and emerge resplendent with swag."

And a piece in the Journal-Gazette, headlined "Drawing adults to comics stores," suggests comic book shops "these days cater as much as anything to adults who are still fond of reading stories of superheroes." Not breaking news to aficionados, perhaps, but Tracy Scott, owner of Books, Comics & Things, Fort Wayne, Ind., says the point of Free Comic Book Day is "largely to get people into comic book shops who don't know they exist."

Reading all the recent news items about FCBD made me recall, for the first time in many years, just how important a role comics played in my reading life. So I'll celebrate in a quiet, nostalgic way because a long time ago comics lured me into the magical world of words and images where I still work and play. 

As a teenager back in the late Paleolithic era--aka the 1960s--I was a comics fanatic, one of those kids who knew the day each month that new issues arrived at the store. i was also, without realizing it, a prescient collector. Since my obsession happened to coincide with the rising popularity of the Marvel line, I bought the first couple dozen issues of new releases like Spider-Man and The Mighty Thor, as well as less well known titles like Rawhide Kid and Sgt. Fury & His Howling Commandos.

All extremely valuable collectibles now, I'm sure.

Ka-ching!

Those comics might have made me a rich man, but I treated them casually, as if simply reading was the prime directive. Naive, I know. Then I dispensed the collection to younger brothers during a high school "put away childish things" phase.

FCBD reminds me of all that.

I've also observed the phenomenal growth of graphic novel sales as a bookseller, and seen this category transcend age, gender and genre barriers. The shelving of Art Spiegelman's Maus and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis in history or biography/memoir sections means something, as does this week's New Yorker article on the septuagenarian comic book artist and editor who turned the 9/11 Commission Report into a graphic bestseller.

Recently, in an English course I teach at a local college, we compared Kafka's "The Hunger Artist" to R. Crumb's graphic adaptation of the story. One of my younger students--not a recreational user of the reading drug--later said that he loved both versions and planned to look closer at this "graphic novel stuff."

Who knows why we become the readers we do?

So, to all those adults who told me to get my nose out of comics and go play in the sun, I offer two bits of advice: Use plenty of sunscreen and have a happy Free Comic Book Day!

 

 

Shelf Awareness: Friday, April 25, 2008

When you spend as much time searching for book industry news online as we do, you can't help but spot certain trends. One I've been obsessed with lately is the curious art of headline writing when the subject of an article happens to be the book business, and bookshops in particular. Here is the apparent rule: If an article is about a bookstore, the headline must contain a play on words involving books, pages or chapters.

I'm not complaining. I'm just sayin'.

Librarians have long dealt with their own version of editorial addiction. The library pattern often emerges in lead sentences or opening paragraphs rather than headlines. The inevitable message is that if you visit libraries today, you will not encounter your grandmother's librarians anymore. It seems impossible to write about libraries without a qualifier like the following one, snatched from a random Google News search:

"The second role conjures up the image of the stereotypical librarian, ready to 'shush' at the hint of sound, working in a mausoleum where dead writers repose; a closed, dark place where stuffy intellectuals find obscure facts and parents drag unwilling children to complete school reports."

In the next quotation, the reporter managed to "round up the usual suspects" by quoting a librarian directly: "But they no longer fit the stereotype of a stern-looking woman with glasses holding a finger to her lips signaling you to 'hush,' of a place with dusty rows of bookshelves, large tables and hard wooden chairs, where you have to sit straight up and maintain a Sunday morning church-like quiet."

Does anybody really still hang on to this image besides the media? Have they been in any libraries lately?

The bookstore news equivalent shows up in headlines written by deadline-pressed editors who find the temptation to insert book terms just plain irresistible. If book news generally doesn't inspire New York Post-style, pre-apocalyptic 72-point headlines, it does fuel the media's uncontrollable need for wordplay.

I'm not a collector by nature, but this year I found myself saving headlines about the book business. There are basic themes and variations. The common thread can be summed up, since it's still poetry month, with a headline haiku:

Turning the last page,
Another bookstore closing,
One more chapter ends.

All of the examples included here were "ripped from today's headlines," as they say.

The news in our industry isn't always bad:

• Broad Vocabulary starts new chapter
• Bookstore opens a new chapter
• Bookstore opens latest chapter
• Store opening another chapter
• New chapter for Vermont author

It often seems to be a page-turner:

• Schwartz turns a page
• Turning the page at the Valley Bookseller
• Borders ready to turn a new page
• Brian Baxter decides to turn the page
• It's time to turn a new page after favourite bookstores close
• Partnership turns new page for vacant Burke's Building

At times it can be international or even philosophical:

• Turning a page in downtown Jerusalem
• Books: A dying form or are we turning the page?

Inevitably, however, in a world where books and the reading life are at risk, chapters must come to an end:

• Yankee Paperback Exchange faces its final chapter
• The final chapter for Back Pages?
• After 50 years, bookstore closes chapter of history
• Chapter ending for local bookstore
• Acres may close last chapter

Shelf life expires:

• Dutton's shelf life finally runs out
• Bookstore nears end of shelf life

Or we reach dramatic conclusions:

• The End: Canada's oldest bookstore shuts down

Occasionally, the headline will be anything but a mystery solver, offering only fragmentary information that leaves us wanting more:

• The next chapter
• A new chapter?
• Turning the page

Is this good news or bad news?

One bookshop was fortunate enough to still have time for some economic revisions, which may avert a sad ending:

• Bookstore rewrites plot

And sometimes, bless those headline scribes, rampant creativity transcends the subject at hand, plumbing all new depths:

• Owner of trailblazing bookstore chain pulls the plug

Is this a manifesto for change in the way headline writers approach our industry? Absolutely not. We're all word people by definition, avocation and profession. We've turned a few pages ourselves, finished more chapters than we can recall and we're nowhere near ready to close the book. Though it would be nice, now and then, to read a few more happy beginnings.

 

Shelf Awareness: Friday, April 18, 2008

I was a devoted reader of Dennis Johnson's MobyLives, one of the first blogs to look at the publishing industry through an alternative lens; to open up the conversation a bit; to be, quite often, just so damned funny!

MobyLives had a motto: That Whale Is Out There, Man!

Last week, I visited Johnson, the co-publisher--with Valerie Merians--of Melville House Publishing, at the company's cool new office/bookshop/events space/gallery on Plymouth St. in Brooklyn's DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) neighborhood.

Describing the area as "the epicenter of indie publishing," Johnson said, "We moved not only because we were recruited, but because something is happening here." Earlier this year, Melville House relocated from Hoboken, N.J., and now occupies beautiful ground floor space in a building that also houses the offices of Verso and the London Review of Books.

My first impressions upon entering the new Melville House digs were of light, space and words. The storefront, corner location features two walls of windows. A third wall consists of bookshelves, which separate the retail space from the publishing offices. These bookcases swivel--like secret passages in a Gothic mansion library--allowing entry to the Melville House biblio-laboratory. During events, they can be reversed for striking visual effect, with the books displayed face-out through clouded plexiglass.

The revolving bookcases were conceived and designed by Jeri Coppola, a New York artist whose work is currently being shown here, including an amazing piece set against the fourth wall. According to Johnson, Coppola is "a photographer, but she does some interesting sculptural things with her photos--such as cutting them up into these great pieces of writing that she suspends over walls so the shadows kind of deepen what they have to say."

 

Display tables--some on wheels so they can be moved out of the way for events--are arranged with evident care and artistry. The bookshop showcases all of Melville House's titles as well as books from other independent presses, including Verso, Europa, New Press, Akashic, Haymarket and Soft Skull. Soon to join them will be Feminist Press and City Lights. Cutting edge literary journals and magazines are also sold.

"We think we've got the only bookstore that's selling only works by indie presses," said Johnson, adding with a wry smile, "I await correction. We thought it would be great to have a place where we could display our books. In some ways it's old-fashioned. Publishers like Charles Scribner used to have bookshops."

Johnson loves the fact that so many booklovers live in Brooklyn, but he also hopes to get "snooty Manhattanites to cross the bridge. On the weekend, it's very busy. The surprising thing is the tourists are finding this area."

One of the bookshop's more notable visitors was the band REM, which came in scouting for a photo shoot shortly after the store opened. "Michael Stipe apparently knew Jeri Coppola's work from having seen an earlier exhibit in a gallery downtown, and wanted the band's picture taken standing behind the one in our store." And yes, Stipe bought a book.

The potential for hosting events excites Johnson. "We wanted to do something to make it a gathering place," he said. Already C-Span has filmed here, most recently a discussion on "The Future of Independent Publishing," featuring Andre Schiffrin, Verso's Jacob Stevens and Anthony Arnove of Haymarket Books. In addition to panels and author readings, a new Lunchtime 10-Minute Lecture series is planned, beginning with Lewis Lapham on "What is the Value of Money?".

When I asked Johnson if he was concerned that other bookstores might be worried about his retail venture, he said, "Ha! We're no threat. Any good retailer, and most mediocre ones, would take one look at us and see that. Valerie and I were artists first, remember, and we've clearly set this place up as more of a gallery for books, showing off an artifact representing a concept, than as a space idealized for retail. But we do think by adding to the scene here we're all helping each other--we're part of the fact that this neighborhood, indeed Brooklyn in general, is becoming a destination for booklovers. That's good for all of us.

"Besides, nobody, and I mean nobody, has a stronger sense of common mission with indie booksellers than indie publishers, especially us. We share each other's pain, and joy for that matter; we see it as part of the same thing. Melville House is more about celebrating that very concept than anything else."

Publisher, bookstore, events space, gallery--That whale is out there, man!

"The motto will never change," said Johnson.

 

Shelf Awareness: Friday, April 11, 2008

"We go on to poetry; we go on to life. And life is, I am sure, made of poetry. Poetry is not alien--poetry is, as we shall see, lurking round the corner. It may spring on us at any moment."--Jorge Luis Borges, This Craft of Verse: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1967-1968.

Just listen to the voice of Borges, saying, "The central fact of my life has been the existence of words and the possibility of weaving those words into poetry . . . "  

Yes, it's National Poetry Month again; yes, I'm writing a column about it; and yes, I could write this column in November instead and claim presumably higher ground by not condemning poetry to a 30-day community service sentence every spring.

But I'll write about poetry anyway. Here's the deal. I'm not a poet. I'm a reader of poetry in November as well as April. I've been a reader of poetry for decades. One of the first books ever given to me was Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses; one of the first poems memorized: "The Land of Counterpane."

Later, John Berryman:

I give no rules. Write as short as you can,
in order, of what matters.

and Gary Snyder:

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.

and Jane Kenyon:

The things you might need in the next
life surrounded you--your comb and glasses,
water, a book and a pen.

So many more. Any such list is endless and idiosyncratic. If you read poetry, you have your own list. If you're a bookseller who reads poetry, you also know the pleasure of that kindred soul moment when someone opens the door to your bookshop and poses an at once simple and complex question: "Where's your poetry section?"

A leading question, as they say. On the way to the shelves, you might ask, "Are you looking for someone in particular?" The potential answers are limitless, but a few occur with some frequency:

• "Yes, I'm looking for love poems."
• "Yes, I need a gift for . . ."
• "Yes, I'm looking for Billy Collins."
• "No, I just want to see what you have."
• "No, what would you recommend?"

The last one is, of course, the utopian ideal response, and maybe not quite as common as the others. It does happen, however, and there is the potential for magic in that ensuing conversation.

I know--or I imagine--there are bookshops where such conversations about poets occur routinely, but if this were the rule rather than the exception, we wouldn't need Poetry Month to remind us that poetry is . . . still out here.

In April, bookstores across the country look for creative ways to expand the conversation. For example, Lauretta Nagel of Constellation Books, Reisterstown, Md., told me she is participating in an Academy of American Poets program: "April 17th is the first annual Poem in Your Pocket Day, so we are advertising it and inviting folks to come in and pick up a free copy of a poem to carry. It will be easy to copy some kids and adults poems of various kinds/genres. And it will get them in the bookstore."

Bookshops will celebrate Poetry Month with all sorts of variations on basic themes of events, readings and promotions. They will remind us again that there is still largely unexplored wilderness on the word planet, as poetry sales figures so often painfully show.

As a bookseller, I also love that those utopian conversations do happen in bookstores. Poetry may not be widely read, but it cannot be stopped because, one way or another, we readers will always have our way with words.

"We put shoes on the imagination," Homero Aridjis writes in his poem, "Borders, Cages and Walls," which concludes:

We put bolts on the eyes,
locks on the hands,
limits to the lightning.
But life keeps its distance,
love to its word,
and poetry comes up where it can.

I must leave the final observation to Mr. Borges, who said, "We know what poetry is. We know it so well that we cannot define it in other words, even as we cannot define the taste of coffee, the color red or yellow, or the meaning of anger, of love, of hatred, of the sunrise, of the sunset, or of our love for our country. These things are so deep in us that they can be expressed only by those common symbols that we share."