Destinations Booksellers

The Meta-blog

2008-08-27T18:08:00.000-04:00

I've transitioned all of my blogging - show-related, political, books, and other - over to a new site. If you want to, check it out and add it to your favorites and blogrolls.

It is http://newalbanist.wordpress.com/

I'll cross-post here, too, but you can get it all, including more than three years of archived material, at the meta-blog.

Blog Passes On

2005-12-16T01:11:00.000-05:00

If you have by some coincidence found this site, please follow the link to our primary site, www.destinationsbooksellers.com. Thanks.

Business as Usual

2005-09-26T10:34:00.000-04:00

Destinations Booksellers is open and doing business as usual. For some of you, we won't be able to identify a book as being one you ordered. New books arrive daily, so if you are expecting a call from us, make a call to us instead and we'll be able to deliver it promptly.

Live From Spring Street

2005-08-30T12:32:00.000-04:00

We'll make this a permanent link to our Web site, but let the archives continue here for now. For news from Destinations Booksellers, please click here and make it one of your favorites:

www.destinationsbooksellers.com

Eyes Wide Open

2005-08-21T12:15:00.000-04:00

Be watching your mail. Our "hard-copy" newsletter is due this week. Our Web site at www.destinationsbooksellers.com is rounding into shape. Rewards notices and Booksense Gift Cards are on their way for the period ending June 30. And we have a major book launch party set for Monday, Aug. 29.

Join Us For a Monday Concert

2005-08-12T10:22:00.000-04:00

Join us Monday for a pre- or post- supper concert by Irvin "Woody" Mueller and his band.

Woody will be debuting the band's CD. This will be our first purely musical live performance at the store. If you like that idea, please come and show your support.

It starts at 6 p.m.

Woody will be signing copies of the CD and his volumes of song lyrics during the event.

Only For the Brave of Heart

2005-08-09T19:26:00.000-04:00

Do you really want to be an insider at Destinations Booksellers?

Take a virtual drive by our Web site, now under construction. I really don't mind you peeking in the "windows," be be warned, it's still very much a work in progress.

We haven't decided whether to continue this blog...we can blog on our own site, so to speak, although there won't be a place for direct comments. Mainly, you folks have never been much for sharing your own thoughts, so we'll probably just make this one a placeholder for all of you early adopters.

Watch this space for the "official" announcement for the launch of our Web site.

I wanted to be live by now, so I'll go ahead and give you the Web-only special, just for being a loyal reader. Mention this special when you're in the store. For Patron Passport members, until the offer ends, buy any magazine and get 25% off a book. Some minor limits apply, but if you buy 4 magazines, you can take 25% off four books.

I know, it sounds nuts, but we want to get you in the habit of browsing the magazine racks.

Oh, yeah. The "beta" Web site, still under construction is:

http://destinationsbooksellers.haloapplications.com

soon to be destinationsbooksellers.com!

The Wisdom of Strangers

2005-08-06T20:51:00.000-04:00

The last visitor to my store this evening parted with this gem:

There's no idea that is as dangerous as ignorance.

Have a stimulating and rewarding day, folks.

No Duds, So Far

2005-08-03T08:54:00.000-04:00

Our third quarterly public affairs symposium, this one featuring New Albany's chief executive, continued our run of outstanding such events. While not every store patron is passionate about public affairs, we remain committed to making Destinations Booksellers a place where ideas can flourish.

I believe everyone in attendance last evening would agree that it was a worthwhile endeavor. Thank you for coming.

Now to get the store back in shape for the back-to-school season. Our Web site is rounding into shape, thanks to the sterling efforts of Halo Applications, and we'll soon be diverting you from this URL to our site at www.destinationsbooksellers.com.

Look for Web special announcements when you see that notice. And if you haven't been to the store lately, drop by. Our ability to serve your needs will be dictated by how much we sell during this last lap heading toward our one-year anniversary. That's "paper," right? Wish I had a book that told me the answer to that one...

Mayor to Speak at PAS Tuesday

2005-08-02T12:50:00.000-04:00

The public, but especially our regular patrons, are invited to come hear Mayor James Garner address the issues facing New Albany at our Summer Public Affairs Symposium on Tuesday evening, Aug. 2, 2005, at 7:30.

This 90-minute moderated question-and-answer session will give the public a chance to get answers about economic development, city services, Scribner Place, upcoming changes in user fees, the restructuring of the sanitation department, and more.

Please join us. It should be enlightening.

Eggs Hatching

2005-07-26T11:46:00.000-04:00

Sorry to be so lax with updating the site. I can reveal that we are edging closer to making this a traditional Web site. Watch for announcements here and in your e-mail newsletters.

If you read this blog and are not on our e-mail list, drop me a line at ops@destinationsbooksellers.com and I'll "subscribe" you.

For the Word

2005-07-19T09:20:00.000-04:00

With today's editions, The Evening News launches what will become at least a biweekly books column. I encourage you to pick up a copy of Tuesday's paper and check out some tips on hot summer reads.

No word yet on whether The Tribune will also be running it.

We All Got Pottered!

2005-07-16T09:31:00.000-04:00

As I look at these pictures, none of them does justice to the party we had last evening. If anyone has pictures, particularly of our outstanding volunteer face painters, I'd love to share them with the rest of our patrons and make a permanent online record of the night.

Here are pics from the night. On a muggy and muggle-y night, everything was cool at Destinations Booksellers. We sold all of our copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and by now I expect a few patrons can tell you how the 600-plus-page book ends.

Everyone seemed to have a great time...all told, I'd guess 200 people dropped in during the night, with perhaps as many as 80 in the store at any given moment. Anne Miller, our potions mistress, kept the festivities going, and our face painters, captained by ball-of-fire Shelby Lewis, added immeasurably to the evening. Thanks must also go out to Terry Kendall, Greg and Glenda Mills, and countless others for making this a tremendous party.

And now your slide show:

Hogwarts house colors rule. That's Ann "Missionary for Imagination" Miller holding a previous Potter volume.

Ann took a rare night "off" from her job and finished the evening exhausted but happy.

Readings from the last chapter of the last book kept a crowd enthralled.

Only wizards and witches were able to see the "Muggle" designation on my forehead. The "snitch," you'll notice, bears my own Tennessee Vols colors.

The potions mistress takes a break, accompanied by a couple of messenger owls and a slithery friend.

Even early in the evening there were dozens wrapped up in the stories.

That's Half-Blood Punch bubbling in the background.

These stalwarts stayed for the whole night!

See the fabric stretched over the history and politics section? That was our little chamber of secrets. Those boxes of Harry Potter books were decoys.

We shut down the store...and here's why

2005-07-09T09:30:00.000-04:00

Your local independent bookseller attended the New Albany City Council meeting on Thursday evening. If you were inconvenienced by the store's closing, I extend my sincere apologies.

You may be interested to know that the council approved a bond issue for the downtown redevelopment project known as Scribner Place. If you have the chance, congratulate those council members who voted for the resolution: Jack Messer, Donnie Blevins, Beverly Crump, Jeff Gahan, Larry Kochert, and Mark Seabrook.

A unanimous council also approved funding for a full-time ordinance enforcement officer that evening. This is just the beginning, folks. As our friends at Develop New Albany say, The Renaissance Begins!

We're Open, and We're Reading...

2005-07-02T19:23:00.000-04:00

Hi, folks. Just in case you didn't know it, the store is open now and will continue to maintain normal business hours through the holiday. That means we're open Sunday from noon to 5, and Monday, July 4, from 9 to 9, just as usual. You know you're not working, so swing by during your holiday jaunts. I won't force you to buy anything, and I'll even accept a cup of potato salad or a burger. If I don't see you, have a fantastic Independence Day with friends and family. Or even if I do.

I'm particularly excited about a new book I'm reading. It's Divided by God, by Noah Feldman. Subtitled America's Church-State Problem and What We Should Do About It, this new book offers a wonderful mix of the scholarly and the accessible. As history, it is sound in outlining the various movements of the pendulum across the American centuries. More importantly, it offers a somewhat neutral view as it surveys the history.

With chapter titles like "The Birth of American Secularism" and "The Fundamentals, the Fundamentalists, and the Monkey Trial," you can imagine it's the kind of book that will stir all kinds of considerations and debate.

I'm told that Feldman was called on to help draft the interim constitution for post-Saddam Iraq, although I understand he was dismissed when he strayed from the administration line. Still, the book doesn't seem to be political in a way that would offend either side of the debate.

I can count about 30 of you who will want to read this, so I've ordered extra copies. Since everyone doesn't read the blog, tell your friends. Mention you read about it on the blog and we'll give you a $10 Booksense Gift Card with the purchase. You can't beat that, now can you?

Featured Book for Friday, July 1, 2005

2005-07-01T09:35:00.000-04:00

NONFICTION

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by Dava Sobel (Penguin, ISBN 0140258795, $11.95)

It's usually not all that necessary to draw attention to backlist titles, and Sobel's book made a tremendous splash when it was published in 1995 by Walker Publishing.

Now it's time for you to familiarize yourself with her previous work, in anticipation of her upcoming book, The Planets. Sobel, who also wrote Galileo's Daughter, is a true talent when it comes to making science and discovery accessible and easy to understand. But this is not a science book.

Longitude is more of an adventure tale as it tracks the trials of John Harrison, the man who made transoceanic navigation safer and cartography accurate. Personally, I can't wait to read The Planets later this year. We met Dava Sobel in New York, and we have serious hopes that New Albany will be part of her book tour this fall. Stay tuned.

Featured Book for Thursday, June 30, 2005

2005-06-30T09:36:00.000-04:00

NONFICTION/FUNERAL CUSTOMS/COOKING

Death Warmed Over: Funeral Food, Rituals, and Customs from Around the World
by Lisa Rogak (Ten Speed Press, ISBN 1580085636, $19.95)

Not as intentionally funny as the recent Being Dead is No Excuse, this book provides its own delights by surveying funeral customs across the planet. Here's one example from the book:

To foreigners, funerals in Jamaica must look like outright celebrations, in part because the natives are deathly afraid of ghosts. I'll explain: Many Jamaicans believe that the good soul of a deceased person automatically travels to Africa immediately after death, while a bad soul tends to stick around, languishing around cotton trees on the island and generally bringing negative energy to those still alive. Therefore, not only is a raucous, celebratory wake supposed to celebrate the life of the deceased, but if the bad soul is inclined to hang around, the good cheer will essentially disable the evil, creating a relatively passive ghost...Some Jamaicans also place several johnnycakes - the original term was journey cake - in the casket with the deceased just before burial to make sure the soul has enough food for the journey.

Rogak then provides a recipe for Johnnycake to complete the cultural picture with a food item you can make for your own delights (or funerals). The french flaps on this paperback make it a great gift, whether seriously or for fun, and the alphabetical listings include over 75 cultures, past and present.

Featured Book for Wednesday, June 29, 2005

2005-06-29T09:35:00.000-04:00

PSYCHOLOGY/SELF-HELP/RELATIONSHIPS

Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence
by David Kiersey (Prometheus Nemesis Books, ISBN 1885705026, $15.95)

I can't tell you just how highly I recommend this book. Over the last 25 years, I've probably given away more than 30 copies (and that's long before I could buy them wholesale).

Expanding on Jungian themes, the Kiersey Temperament Sorter uses the incredible Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test as a jumping-off point. Take the test, or give the test to your spouse or co-worker, and you'll be amazed at how accurate it is in describing "personality types."

As I read it, the premise of PUMII is that you can't change another person. Their preferences are pretty much locked in. But you can understand them and find a way to relate to them in a way that draws on those preferences.

That's a little rough, but once you've tried this manual for life, I know you'll agree that it is a tool for building stronger relationships at home, in school, and at work.

I'm an INTJ, by the way. Feel free to skim the book to find out what that means.

Featured Book for Tuesday, June 28, 2005

2005-06-28T09:35:00.000-04:00

FICTION

The Blue Bistro
by Elin Hilderbrand (St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312319533, $24.95)

A fellow bookseller put me on to this one, so let me share her and her patrons' reactions to this perfect summer read.

Elin Hilderbrand’s fourth novel, published by St. Martin's Press, debuted at the Nantucket Wine Festival in May and has been flying out of our store ever since. Set against the backdrop of a bustling and stylish Nantucket beach restaurant, The Blue Bistro is an absorbing, fast-paced tale of romance and island life. It is a must-read for the summer of 2005!

James Patterson raves, "The Blue Bistro is a wonderful, wonderful love story, the kind that you read, then recommend to many, many friends - and so, I recommend it to you. Highly."
Elin is a great friend of mine and a wonderful author.

------------------------ Wendy Hudson, Nantucket Bookworks

Featured Book for Monday, June 27, 2005

2005-06-27T09:37:00.000-04:00

COOKING

Totally Garlic Cookbook
by Helene Siegel & Karen Gillingham, Illustrations by Ani Rucki (Celestial Arts, ISBN 0890877254, $5.95)

Since the day we opened, this compact, die-cut manual of cooking with garlic has been a regular seller. The publisher offers a large line of similar items (Totally Chocolate Cookbook is popular, too) that are great gift items, stocking stuffers, or handy ways to add a little something to a daily meal.

As a garlic freak myself, I love this little cookbook. It's definitely one to add to your collection.

Strain Your Brain, Win a Giftcard

2005-06-25T18:50:00.000-04:00

Friend and loyal patron Bill Kenney, proprietor of the fascinating Web log The Egglestonian Creed, is running a contest that he, at least, believes is eminently winnable. And the prize is a Booksense Giftcard, redeemable at Destinations Booksellers and hundreds of independent booksellers across the country.

Give it a look and try to work it out for yourself. Bill added a new clue just today.

You should know Bill was one of two winners in a previous online contest referenced here earlier this year. And check out some of his earlier postings. His is a truly different type of blog.

Patron Review

2005-06-25T16:13:00.000-04:00

Back in the winter, I asked one of our patrons to give us a review of a book we were considering. Most of you have seen one or more of our advance reader copies. Those are the books provided to us so we can evaluate them.

Ann and I like this book, but we're both pretty far removed from our days as teens, or even as the parents of teens. The book is out and growing daily in popularity among our younger patrons, not to mention aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas.

Nastybook
by Barry Yourgrau (HarperCollins, ISBN 0060579781, $11.99)

Dear Destinations Bookstore

I would really like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to read the Nastybook! I thought it was a great book that kids like me will really like. Nastybook was pretty easy to read; every chapter was a totally different story. So this book is always exciting because each chapter is different with new characters and situations. It was really funny and clever. And at the same time each story has a moral or lesson. Overall it was a great book. I really liked it and would recommend it for kids of all ages.

Thanks,
Josh Lewis (age 12)

Yourgrau is already hard at work on his next book for HarperCollins children's and young adult book division.

Weekend Look Ahead

2005-06-25T12:59:00.000-04:00

No book recommendations this weekend, but I thought I'd share with you some titles set for release over the next few months.

Cameron Judd, author of Crockett of Tennessee, brings us Boone: A Novel of an American Legend. No less a literary light than Sharyn McCrumb (St. Dale) calls Judd "the voice of the Appalachian frontier."

From the jacket copy comes this description of Rick Moody's The Diviners, due in September: Rick Moody's first novel in seven years gives us a generous, hilarious, and brilliant look at contemporary America, from coast to coast. It's the back story of a "rollicking and intricately woven story" of the studio battles to control the mini-series saga of all time, "the sure-to-please-everyone multigenerational mini-series about diviners, those miracle workers who bring water to perpetually thirsty (and hungry and love-starved) humankind." From the Huns to the Mormon desert, this looks like F-U-N.

In November, watch out for Don't Know Much About Mythology, by popular historian Kenneth C. Davis. The irreverent but factual surveys he has given us over the years in the Don't Know Much About... series comes to the classic world of myth.

After Labor Day, you'll be able to take a look at The Truth Book: Secrets of a Jehovah's Witness Family, a memoir from Joy Castro. She's now a professor at Wabash College, but grew up in an abusive and hypocritical environment. With this telling, she reveals little-known facts about the secretive assembly.

Using the novel to illuminate historical personages has a long tradition, and Mrs. Freud seems to be carrying the mantle well. Nicolle Rosen creates a correspondence between the wife of th seminal psychiatrist (nothing Freudian intended) and a fictional friend. It will be released in October.

BONUS: I've just been looking over a manuscript, which is rare, raw copy pre-editing. It's called War & Peace & War: The Life Cycle of Imperial Nations. Peter Turchin is the author and if it's any good, I'll let you know. It comes out in September.

On the weekends, I'll be sharing with you some of the advance reading I've done trying to predict what you'll want in the coming months. Any feedback will be appreciated.

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e-mail ops@destinationsbooksellers.com

Road Trip for You Literacy Fans

2005-06-24T14:21:00.000-04:00

Sunday evening, a gang of us will be crossing the Ohio River to hear J.P. "The Mad Bastard" Lebangood and Carl "The Plain Brown Rapper" Brown duke it out in a storytelling soiree at Molly Malone's.

J.P. joined us last Sunday for our reading series and is hot on the idea of expanding Art Sanctuary events to our side of the river. The event is at 8 p.m. and we'll probably caravan from the store a little before that. Call if you want to meet up, or just meet us there. For more information, go to www.art-sanctuary.org.

Mood Enhancer for the Weekend

2005-06-24T14:15:00.000-04:00

I have the world's largest collection of sea shells.

I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen some of it...

------------------ Steven Wright

Featured Book for Friday, June 24, 2005

2005-06-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

NONFICTION/LETTERS/HISTORY

Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children
by Dorie McCullough Lawson (Doubleday, ISBN 038550330X, $24.95)

.

Lawson, the daughter of popular historian David McCullough (1776), has compiled these letters from personages from history, politics, literature, commerce, the military, and entertainment in an elegant edition. Vestiges of a time before e-mail and cheap long distance calling, the letter survives in a way we can share with posterity. These are not just lectures, but highly personal documents between parent and child that illuminate the individuals and how they related to the world around them.

This would make a wonderful gift, if you can bear to part with it yourself.

Big Weekend for Authors

2005-06-23T12:18:00.000-04:00

Do you have a son, daughter, sister, grandchild, or spouse who just can't seem to deal with money matters?

This weekend Destinations Booksellers will offer one solution. Yes, it's a book. But we've arranged for a whole financial seminar to go along with it as Brian Miller, who speaks from experience, lays out the theory behind his Jelly Jar Finance: Power Over Your Money.

Miller's book explains how to get out of your personal financial mess in simple terms and includes clear guidelines for gaining control over your household's spending and saving for a secure financial future.

This one-day-only seminar starts at 4 p.m. (face it, by then you'll be looking for any air-conditioned place to park) on Saturday, June 25, and appropriate refreshments will be provided. We hope to have more such seminars as time passes, and this will be a good measure of your interest.

On Sunday, Alleen Scanlon will join us at noon for a reception honoring the publication of her fifth book of stories and poetry, The Mirror Was Pleased. Alleen will read from the book several times during this two-hour reception, designed to make it easy for you to stop in after church. Join us anytime between noon and 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 26.

And afterward, you'll have an opportunity to wander over to The Culbertson Mansion on East Main Street, where Robyn Davis Sekula and David C. Barksdale will be signing copies of New Albany in Vintage Postcards at the Mansion starting at 4 p.m. I doubt anyone would mind you getting your book signed if you already bought it here, but if you haven't yet purchased the book, all the proceeds from sales at The Culbertson go to finance its interior restoration. Our own supply is running down, so the fact that they are available at The Culbertson Mansion, too, is a plus for the whole community.

LFBC Meets Thursday

2005-06-21T20:48:00.000-04:00

Join us at 7 p.m. on Thursday as we launch the Literary Fiction Book Club at the store. For the time being, Ann is leading the group, but we expect the dynamic will bring another patron to the fore in due time.

The group is reading The Solace of Leaving Early, by Indiana's own Haven Kimmel. If you haven't read any of Haven's work, you're missing out on a stellar experience. Membership (heck, even the date and time) is still up in the air - you can join anytime. Why not come out Thursday and see if it's something you'd like?

Featured Book for Thursday, June 23, 2005

2005-06-21T20:46:00.000-04:00

NONFICTION/LANGUAGE/READING

The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life
How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life From Your Books
by Steve Leveen (Levenger Press, ISBN 1929154178, $17.50)

.

Steve Leveen is the man who created Levenger, which sells "tools for serious readers." It's pricey stuff, but high-quality (bookmarks, reading lights, bookcases, etc.). In this elegant tome, Leveen shares all the techniques he has gathered over the years from fellow book-lovers with a thirst for more time to read. I recommend it to you on this fine summer day.

Featured Book for Wednesday, June 22, 2005

2005-06-21T20:24:00.000-04:00

FICTION

Adored
by Tilly Bagshawe (Warner Books, ISBN 0446576883, $23.95)

.

From the dust jacket:
To the outside world, Siena McMahon has a fairy-tale life. Born into a great Hollywood dynasty-granddaughter of movie legend Duke McMahon, daughter of billionaire producer Pete McMahon-she is blessed with beauty, brains, and wealth…a proverbial princess.

This debut novel from a high-achieving freelance journalist is a cut above most books in the genre. The influence of Bagshawe's time in England is evident and the writing is sophisticated if the subject is not. It's escapist to the extreme and the perfect novel to clear your head. My guilty pleasure was reading Olivia Goldsmith's empowering novels and Tilly Bagshawe is a worthy successor. The hot Sophie Kinsella provided a cover blurb. Here is your summer read for clearing the cobwebs and taking a trip to new...Destinations!

And for those of you into such, I had to add this sizzling author photo:

.

Featured Book for Tuesday, June 21, 2005

2005-06-20T19:45:00.000-04:00

BIOGRAPHY

Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper
by Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin, USMC, and Capt. Casey Kuhlman, USMCR, with Donald A. Davis (St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312336853, $24.95)

.

"I'm just glad he's on our side."

That's the smiling response war correspondent Peter Maas got from Jack Coughlin's commander when he asked for an evaluation of his skills.

Here's an excerpt:

Sometimes, the hardest job of a sniper is not to pull the trigger. In an urban environment, the battlefield is a 360-degree place, with a potential threat around every corner, in every doorway and window, on every rooftop. During a pitched battle in a city, everybody is considered a possible enemy until proven otherwise, and great care must be taken to determine that a target is legitimate. You cannot, as the old dark joke claims, kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. Professionals don't work that way, but neither are we in the business of dispensing compassion. So the scariest moments come not when someone is shooting at you but when you have to make a life-or-death decision about a person who may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Snipers walk that thin line of taking or preserving life every time they put a scope on a target, and some people will never know just how close I have come to shooting them dead.

Honestly, I wondered about bringing this one in. Only a few of you have shown an interest in contemporary warfare memoirs. Military history - yes. Recent wars - not so much. But as I examined the book, I found myself drawn into the psychology and the passion to perform. This is the perfect book for Dad to use that Destinations Booksellers Gift Card on.

Featured Book for Monday, June 20, 2005

2005-06-19T23:30:00.000-04:00

BUSINESS

Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
by Sam Calagione (John Wiley, ISBN 0471708682, $24.95)

.

We're blessed with our own craft brewery here in New Albany and I'm working hard to get Roger Baylor to compile the lessons he's learned so we can publish it here at the store sometime next year. In the meantime, read how the author, starting with a home brewing kit, turned his dream into a "foamy reality and built the country's fastest growing brewery.

Who knows? If we sell enough copies of this one, we might just donate a copy to our local home-brewing club.

Featured Book for Sunday, June 19, 2005

2005-06-18T23:29:00.000-04:00

FICTION
The Starter Wife
by Gigi Levangie Grazer (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0743265025, $24)

.

Gigi Grazer has made her mark in Hollywood as more than just the wife of one of its biggest moguls. Brian Grazer and his partner, Ron Howard, head up Imagine Entertainment, the folks who brought you A Beautiful Mind. Gigi skewers the "mores - and the morons - of Hollywood" in this sparkling second novel. The premise is that under California law, a spouse who has been married for at least ten years is entitled to major assets in a split. Grazer's heroine quickly finds herself transformed from the less-than-satisfying "Wife of..." to the scorned "Starter Wife" of the title. If you loved the late Olivia Goldsmith's novels of Hollywood, you'll delight in Grazer's insider's take on Tinseltown.

Perk Up Your Ears

2005-06-18T16:21:00.000-04:00

Ever wish you could just listen to a professional read your book to you?

It's not for everybody, but audio books are the fastest growing segment of the publishing industry. But it can be expensive. No worries, though. Destinations Booksellers has your solution.

You all know we don't keep shelves filled with audio books. But just because we don't stock them doesn't mean you have to suffer. Many popular titles are available on tape, CD, or even MP3. And most can be in your hands right away.

Often a new book selling for $25 might be available in audio for $40. We're committed to driving that cost down for you. So you can expect most audio books to be discounted 25%, 30%...even 35% as our service to you.

If listening is your choice, if a malady is making it hard for you to read, or if you're a real road warrior when you commute or travel, Destinations Booksellers has your answer at great prices.

Call or e-mail the store and we'll get your audio book on the way.

This isn't a new program. We announced it months ago. We invite patrons who've used this service to share your experiences in the comments section below.

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e-mail ops@destinationsbooksellers.com

Play Booktastic Through June 30

2005-06-18T16:16:00.000-04:00

Dozens of patrons are enjoying the chance to win discounts by playing Booktastic this month.

Booktastic, The Modern Fiction Edition, is the trivia game for book lovers. It's a board game where players collect rare first editions from a board filled with bookstores - there's even a book exchange. But we've simplified it. Instead of earning play money, you choose the level of difficulty to earn 2.5%, 10%, or 20% off your trade books purchases.

Although most people are choosing the 10% "Avid reader" multiple-choice or true-false level, 3 out 5 who try the 20% "Collector" level have been winning.

We'll be playing the game all month and those who've played are loving it.

Featured Book for Saturday, June 18, 2005

2005-06-18T09:28:00.000-04:00

CHILDREN'S

The Ring Bear
by N.L. Sharp, illustrated by Michael T. Hassler Jr. (Dageforde Publishing, ISBN 1886225915, $17.95)

.

Robert loves bears, so when he is asked to be the ring bearer for his aunt's wedding, he misunderstands. He practices hard for his duties, though, by eating berries (they're really grapes) and drinking honey (it's really apple juice), and when he learns the truth, the fun really starts.

Ann and I adored this children's picture book and we know you and your little ones will, too.

Featured Book for Friday, June 17, 2005

2005-06-17T08:27:00.000-04:00

MEMOIR

Playground: A Childhood Lost Inside the Playboy Mansion
by Jennifer Saginor (HarperCollins, ISBN 0060761563, $24.95)

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From the dust jacket copy:

You are six years old. Every day after school your father takes you to a sprawling castle filled with exotic animals, bowls of candy, and half-naked women catering to your every need.

You have your own room. You have new friends. You have an Uncle Hef who's always there for you.

Welcome to the world of Playground, the true story of a young girl who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion. By the time she was fourteen, she'd done countless drugs, had a secret affair with Hef's girlfriend, and was already losing her grip on reality.

Featured Book for Thursday, June 16, 2005

2005-06-16T00:28:00.000-04:00

CHILDREN'S

Once Upon a Time, The End: Asleep in 60 Seconds
by Geoffrey Kloske and Barry Blitt (Atheneum, ISBN 0689866194, $15.95)

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Every daddy (and mommy) knows that story time can sometimes be a struggle. When it's bed time, no parent wants to scrimp on the "quality" time, especially with something as important as reading to a child. This is the book for that harried parent. Filled with digested fairy tales, every story reminds the child "it's time to sleep."

My favorites include "The Two Little Pigs" and "Goldilocks and the Bears."

Here's a sample of the latter:

"There were some bears;
It doesn't really matter how many.
There was a bunch.
Let's get to the point:
While they were out, a blond girl
Ate a bear's porridge,
Broke a bear's chair,
And fell asleep in a bear's bed.
When the bears came back,
They found her asleep.
She woke up, screamed, and ran home
So she could sleep in her own bed.
Just like you.
THE END."

Victory! Freedom to Read Amendment Passes by 238 - 187 Vote

2005-06-15T20:11:00.000-04:00

In a vote that sends a clear message to the Bush administration that Section 215 of the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act needs to be amended to protect Americans' right to privacy, the House today passed Rep. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) Freedom to Read Amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State (CJS) Appropriations Bill by a vote of 238 - 187.

The Sanders amendment cuts Justice Department funds for bookstore and library searches under Section 215 of the U.S.A.P.AT.R.I.O.T. Act. On Tuesday, the Bush Administration had warned that it would veto the House Appropriations Bill if it included any amendments that would weaken the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, as reported by the Washington Post.

Featured Book for Wednesday, June 15, 2005

2005-06-14T10:34:00.000-04:00

FICTION

Act of War
by Dale Brown (William Morrow, ISBN 0060752998, $25.95)

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Dale Brown (Flight of the Old Dog) has long been one of my favorite writers. He's best known for his action-packed tales about the Air Force's super-secret advanced weapons labs and the pilots and scientists who avert or win extremely-plausible wars and terrorist actions. In Act of War, he takes on a new genre, sort of. Here, he introduces a "top-secret high-tech military unit code-named Task Force TALON, a special joint military and FBI unit set up by the national security advisor to track down and defeat terrorists around the world."

Take my recommendation: You can't go wrong with Dale Brown and his cast of characters. This is a perfect summer read.

Featured Book for Tuesday, June 14, 2005

2005-06-13T15:03:00.000-04:00

NONFICTION

Ghosts of Old Louisville: True Stories of Hauntings in America's Largest Victorian
Neighborhood
by David Domine (McClanahan Publishing House, ISBN 0913383910, $21.95)

Those of us who read Kathleen McConnell's Don't Call Them Ghosts: The Spirit Children of Fontaine Manse know all about the subject and I, for one, await the definitive story of the ghosts of New Albany.

In the meantime, here's a wonderful stroll "through picturesque streets and alleyways" from a man who lives right there in the neighborhood. David will be reading from his Ghosts... at Destinations Booksellers at noon on Saturday, July 16, so get started reading it now. It's brand new and we only were able to bring in a half-dozen copies to begin with, so call the store if you want one set aside for you.

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Featured Book for Monday, June 13, 2005

2005-06-13T12:37:00.000-04:00

FICTION

Hairstyles of the Damned
by Joe Meno (Akashic Books, ISBN 188845170X, $13.95)

Brian Oswald and his best friend, Gretchen, get involved in the punk scene on Chicago's south side, experimenting with drugs, drinking and relationships and aligning themselves with various outcast groups in order to fit in. Meno will be our guest on Sunday, June 19, at 2 p.m. to do a reading from Hairstyles...along with two other authors whose national tour culminates here at Destinations Booksellers. We have an ample supply on hand of the book if you want to read it in advance and Meno will be pleased to autograph your copy on Sunday.

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Featured Book for Sunday, June 12, 2005

2005-06-11T09:06:00.000-04:00

FICTION

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
by Umberto Eco (Harcourt, ISBN 0151011400, $27)

Eco is Back
The acclaimed author of Foucalt's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose is back with what is being touted as his finest work of fiction. This illustrated novel tells the story of a Milanese rare-book dealer who loses his "autobiographical memory," as the writer called it last weekend in New York. He recalls the plot of every book he has ever read, every film he's ever seen, but doesn't recognize his family or remember his childhood. (Sneak preview: Pair this with the upcoming Until I Find You from John Irving).

If you want to see a presentation by both authors at this year's BookExpo America, click this link:

BookTV at BookExpo America: Sunday Authors Breakfast: Eco, Ehrenreich, Irving, and Herbert

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Featured Book for Saturday, June 11, 2005

2005-06-11T09:03:00.000-04:00

FICTION

Locked Rooms
by Laurie R. King (Bantam Books, ISBN 055380197X, $24)

A Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes Mystery
Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are back in Laurie R. King's highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling mystery series. And this time, the first couple of detection pair up to unlock the buried memory of a shocking crime with the power to kill again - lost somewhere in Russell's own past.

This is the summer of Sherlock Holmes, with Caleb Carr's authorized continuation of the series in The Italian Secretary and Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind. Bookending these (now) three big Holmes fiction releases are the Annotated Complete Short Stories and the Annotated Complete Novels. The first came out before Christmas last, and the latter comes out this Christmas season. Locked Rooms is King's eighth Mary Russell novel.

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Showdown Over Section 215

2005-06-10T14:44:00.000-04:00

It's happening a little sooner than we expected, but the showdown over Section 215 is coming up next week. Lord knows we can't count on Sodrel to buck the administration, but at least he won't be able to say he never heard anything from his constituents.

On Tuesday, June 14, or Wednesday, June 15, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is expected to try again to pass his Freedom to Read Amendment, when the House of Representatives is due to consider the House Commerce, Justice, State (CJS) Appropriations Bill, which funds the Justice Department. The Sanders amendment would cut off funds for bookstore and library searches under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.

There's no time to waste: The American Booksellers Association urges you to contact your representative immediately. Speak out strongly in support of the Freedom to Read Amendment. Please e-mail, fax, or call your member of Congress now! Tell them that Section 215 threatens free speech for all Americans. Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act eliminates several important safeguards that prevent law enforcement officials in foreign intelligence investigations from engaging in fishing expeditions in bookstore and library records.

FBI agents can search the bookstore or library records of anyone who they believe may have information relevant to a terrorism or espionage investigation, including people who are not suspected of committing a crime.

ABA strongly recommends that you make calls to your representative's Washington and district offices. Contact information is easily available through the House of Representatives website, http://www.house.gov.

In 2004, when Rep. Sanders joined Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in introducing the Freedom to Read Amendment to the CSJ Appropriations Bill, the House voted in favor of the bill; however, House leadership succeeded in forcing enough members to switch their votes to create a tie, thereby killing the measure.

This year, ABA believes there is a good chance to win the vote. There are 126 co-sponsors of Sanders' Freedom to Read Protection Act, which restores the safeguards for bookstore and library records that were eliminated by the Patriot Act.

Once again, many members of Congress who are not co-sponsors are expected to support Sanders. ABA hopes that the widespread criticism that was directed against the House leadership's tactics last year will act as a restraining force this year and members will vote their conscience.

Act now! Your help in this fight has brought us this far, and now victory is within sight. E-mail, fax, and call your rep today!

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e-mail ops@destinationsbooksellers.com

Featured Book for Friday, June 10, 2005

2005-06-10T09:17:00.000-04:00

HUMOR/COOKING/SOUTHERN CULTURE

Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral
by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays (Miramax Books, ISBN 1401359345, $19.95)

Hosting the Perfect Funeral

We loved this book the minute we saw it, but even we underestimated just how popular this book would be. Within a day or two of acquiring it, at least one local book club adopted it as an immediate discussion book, and this is a club that selects its books months in advance. I don't know if they're discussing it out of order, but we can hardly keep up with the demand.

Here's an excerpt that truly shows what this title is all about:

Buddy Gilliam was buried in the "Old Miss (cemetery)," but his daughter was so distressed that she almost forgot to make good on a death-bed promise: Mr. Buddy refused to die until she agreed to pin a note on his lapel that said "Hell, no, I don't look nachell." Making somebody promise to pin a "Hell, no, I don't look natchell." note on your dead body is the Delta version of a living will - it tells you how we want to be disposed of and must be obliged. Old ladies are inclined to chat endlessly about what they want to wear in their coffins and threaten to return and haunt their friends if their instructions aren't carried out to the letter. "Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck in the clothes you're buried in?" asked one of our more vain little old ladies. Of course, no matter what you end up wearing, we will say, "Doesn't she look natural?" - even if you've been got up to look like Barbie in a coffin.

And then there's this, which is probably the coda to the book:

(For funerals) The smaller the town, the more food you will get. They say it's more fattening to lose a relative in Alligator or Hushpuckena than it is in Jackson or Vicksburg.

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BookExpo Tales

2005-06-09T20:54:00.000-04:00

Booksellers Spell Fun at B-E-A!

So rather than tell the tale myself, I invite you to read this objective account of this first American Booksellers Association championship. Enjoy.

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e-mail ops@destinationsbooksellers.com

Even I Haven't Scanned Them All

2005-06-09T17:23:00.000-04:00

Ran across this recommended reading list Web site for summer and thought you might enjoy making your own lists.

rebecca's pocket

Sun Valley Writers' Conference 2005 Suggested Summer Reading List

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's summer reading recommendations

Associated Press: bookseller recommendations

NPR Best in Spy Fiction

Dolph Tillotson's (Galveston County Daily News) summer reading list

Jean Peerenboom's (Green Bay Press-Gazette) summer reading list

Ellen Goodman's summer reading list

ALA's Recommended Reading for all ages

UC Berkeley's 2005 Freshman Summer Reading List: Great Discoveries, Voyages, and Adventures (press release)

UC Berkeley Past Summer Reading Lists: 2004: Now That's Funny, 2002: Banned Books, and 1989: Selected by the Chairs of Various Departments

Media and Democracy Summer Reading List

The Washington Post's

New York Daily News' 10 books people will be talking about this summer

San Francisco Chronicle's books to be published this summer

USA Today's 10 cool reads, 5 sleepers, and 5 books with movies coming out this summer.

Books on Investing

JPMorgan Private Bank Sixth Annual Summer Reading List

For un-adults:

NPR's Adventures to Read All Through the Summer

The Association of Library Service to Children's All-Time Classics parents and children can read together

The ALSC's list of reading lists

YALSA's 2005 Alex Awards for ten adult books that will appeal to teen readers (all years)

Plus:

the canonical list of Alternate Histories

Syllabi and Other Course Materials for Literature Courses

Whichbook book recommender

Book Adventure will generate a list of book recommendations for grades K - 8.

Amazon's lists of Award winning books, from the Booker and the Pulitzer to the Bram Stoker and the Nebula to the Newbery and the Printz

The San Francisco Chronicle's 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century written in English about -- or by an author from -- the Western United States (1999)

and of course, Marylaine's list of Books Too Good to Put Down

Featured Book for Thursday, June 9, 2005

2005-06-09T09:13:00.000-04:00

NONFICTION

The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House
by John F. Harris (Random House, ISBN 0375508473, $29.95)

Bill Clinton's White House

Harris is the national correspondent for The Washington Post and this presidential history is really the first look back with proper reflection on the "constant succession of remarkable achievements and maddening failures" of the first Clinton presidency. Brit Hume of Fox News Channel says "It's all here, with fascinating fresh detail" even though it "reaches a generally favorable verdict" on Bill Clinton.

Split Decision

2005-06-08T10:19:00.000-04:00

It's a "wraparound" Sunday coming up for the store and a great opportunity to make a day of it in downtown New Albany.

Ann and I are splitting up that day so we can participate in the renewal of the Mansion Row Garden Stroll, an event the Main Street Preservation Association intends to be an annual one.

We had already scheduled an event for June 12, but were delighted when asked to add a vendor component to our neighbors' fundraiser. Tickets are $7 in advance, $10 on the day of the stroll. For information and advance tickets, call 981-8000. The tour is self-guided and credentials and information can be picked up at the Admiral Bicknell Inn. It lasts from 1 to 5 p.m. Tour participants can enter a drawing to win a door prize valued at $35 at the Destinations Booksellers tent at 513 East Main Street.

We, as usual, open at noon and will be starting our big BookExpo America giveaway for Patron Passport members. Drop by and see some of the new books coming out this summer and fall and stake your claim to one of the many autographed books, advanced reading editions, and galley proofs I gathered during my New York sojourn. Park here and walk over to 600 E. Main for the stroll guidebook, and we'll keep the store open for a little while after the MSPA event for late shopping.

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e-mail to ops@destinationsbooksellers.com

Featured Book for Wednesday, June 8, 2005

2005-06-08T09:17:00.000-04:00

FICTION

Specimen Days
by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0374299625, $25)

From the author of "The Hours"

This book was the hottest "get" at the entire BookExpo America gathering in New York (with the possible exception of Kim Cattrall's autographed poster of herself in the nude) and created quite a stir. Cunningham, whose The Hours was made into a movie that used Virginia Woolf as a thematic binder, makes use of Walt Whitman to the same effect in this brand-new title.

Coming off a Pulitzer Prize, this weaves a spell and wanders from the turn of the century out into the future, and so far as literary novels go, this is destined to be the summer's most prestigious offering. Available now.

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Play Booktastic!

2005-06-07T11:02:00.000-04:00

Beginning now and through the end of June, patrons can earn immediate discounts on their in-store purchases by playing Booktastic!

It's a pretty simple concept. Answer a trivia question about modern best-selling fiction and we'll discount your purchases on all trade titles. These can't be combined with any other discounts, however.

There are three levels of discounts, but the higher discounts require you to take on a higher risk question.

Level 1 is the Casual Reader level. In playing the board game, answering one of these questions earns you $25 toward your book collection. In the store, you'll earn a 2.5% discount. Casual Reader questions are open-ended and have no wrong answers, so it's an automatic discount if you choose to play and answer.

Level 2 is the Avid Reader level. In the board game, a correct answer earns you $50 in play money. We're going to boost the in-store reward to 10% off if you answer a multiple-choice question. They're not that hard, but you do run the risk of missing and passing up the "freebie" discounts at Level 1.

Level 3 is a tougher test, called the Collector level. You really need to know your stuff to answer these, but the payoff is a full 20% off your purchase (it's $75 in the board game).

Let's have some fun as you choose your summer reading. Don't be afraid to take on some of the tougher questions. The payoff is immediate and we'll all learn a little something.

We'll ask you at checkout if you want to play Booktastic for a discount. Don't miss it.

Featured Book for Tuesday, June 7, 2005

2005-06-07T09:25:00.000-04:00

We're going to try this for awhile and see how it goes. I'll give you one book tip per day, and sometimes two or three, and try to spread it around the various categories and genres. Let me know what you think about it.

NONFICTION
Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution

Great Discoveries

This is part of the Atlas Books (W.W. Norton) series "Great Discoveries," and this one is by Madison Smartt Bell. It's $22.95.

Tells the story of "how Antoine Laurent Lavoisier set the course of modern chemistry - and lost his life in the Jacobin terror - Roald Hoffman, Nobel Laureate in chemistry.

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e-mail to ops@destinationsbooksellers.com

Unwinding from BookExpo

2005-06-06T12:40:00.000-04:00

You know that slight mental adjustment you make when your surroundings change suddenly?

I'm still in the middle of that today. The first (and best) adjustment was being back with my beloved. I slept alone for 18 years before I married Ann, and I'll take having her beside me at night over any other pleasure.

BookExpo America is scheduled for May 19-21 next year in Washington, D.C., so there won't be quite the same alternatives available for our evenings, but one thing is sure - I won't be leaving Ann behind when I go.

My brother Larry, who, among other things, is a publisher, joined me this year in New York. BookExpo did not start well for us. Refused entry to the first official event, a Billy Crystal performance tied to an upcoming book, Larry and I headed for Times Square to seek out cheap tickets to a Broadway play. We succeeded in grabbing up tickets for Glengarry Glen Ross, the revival of the David Mamet play. Alan Alda reprises the role played by Jack Lemmon in the movie version, and does a great job with the part, although in the opening moments he seemed to be channelling Jack instead of interpreting the role. It was a great experience watching Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Tambor, Tom Wopat, Frederick Weller, and Gordon Clapp tread the boards.

Frankly, however, I would have thought the cast would have, by now, managed to integrate the dense Mamet dialogue. Maybe it was just a bad night for the play that won last night's Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. My vote for best performance? Tom Wopat, as the weak-willed stranger in the Chinese restaurant who falls victim to Schreiber's aggressive, never-take-no sales pitch. While each performance was on point, the whole thing didn't hold together. Weller, in particular, chose an interpretation that was more passive than passive-aggressive, and did not live up to my expectations in a role Alec Baldwin owned.

All this week I'll be giving you snippets like this from my New York trip, so come back for more later.

Book Show Adventures

2005-06-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

As most of our loyal patrons and loyal readers know Randy is in New York attending Book Expo America.

He spent yesterday (Friday) meeting authors and getting books signed. Each time he called he rattled off the names of authors that you would recognize. I should have been taking notes so that I could better share the excitement with you.

Children's author/illustrator Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) was one of the authors signing books. Randy got to meet him and is bringing back a signed copy!

I know that many of you have read Krakatoa by Simon Winchester on Randy's recommendation and won't be surprised to hear that Randy was looking forward to meeting him.

The Fox News O'Reilly Factor was taping comments from the show attendees and Randy thinks his has about a 50/50 chance of being aired. I think given the nature of his comment the chance is much less than 50%. What can we say? We love publicity.

Saturday is shopping day. No, not the Macys and Bloomingdales kind of shopping that New York is famous for. He is visiting the vendor booths at the show and shopping for new books for the store. And, he is probably racking up more freebies.

Don't Tell Randy

2005-06-02T20:18:00.000-04:00

There is a secret at Destinations Booksellers. From now through Sunday, June 5th, I have several secret deals to help you stock up for your summer reading needs. Please, don’t tell Randy about this. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Some of you have discovered the great prices that we are able to pass along to you on our bargain books. We don’t have room to display all of these value-priced books at the same time so we try to rotate them frequently. Right now we have an entire table of trade paperbacks for only $3 each. Or buy 5 for the special price of $12.

I am also offering randomly selected mass market paperbacks for 30% off the list price. Stop by and take a look. The book you are planning to read this summer just might be one of the ones that I have discounted.

Keep the kids busy this summer. Look for the blue stickers on children’s special purchase paperbacks. We have something for toddlers through teens. Buy any of these for $2.

Remember, these great deals are only good through Sunday and you can’t tell Randy how little you paid.

Mea Culpa

2005-05-31T16:10:00.000-04:00

or, My Fault

It's incredibly frustrating for me to have so much news to share and so little time to do it. Whether you know it or not (and this Web log hasn't been much help), the new books are pouring in the door.

Biographies and histories of Teddy Roosevelt, J. Robert Oppenheimer, George Washington, and Frank Sinatra lead the way, but the most compelling book I've seen this week is The Pirate Coast, the tale of President Thomas Jefferson and the first U.S. Marine secret mission.

Harlen Coben has been out for a couple of weeks with his fourth bestselling novel; David Sedaris' latest unspools in paperback this week; and Larry McMurtry tells a tale of Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley.

I'm packing frantically for a four-day jaunt to New York, but it's a working trip. BookExpo America returns to Manhattan this weekend, and you can catch a lot of it this weekend on BookTV, your C-SPAN2 channel. Tens of thousands of booksellers join with the entire publishing world in a frenzy of deal-making, author appearances, and swag!

That's right, swag!

When I return, I'll be loaded down with good stuff, including advance copies of many of this year's fall books. And the following Sunday, Patron Passport members can stake their claim to some of the best galleys, proofs, and other advance reading copies across the spectrum of publishing. They're made available to us to help us make our selections for the fall season, but there's no way we can evaluate them all. Help us make our picks and pick up one of your rewards.

We'll also be calculating your earned rebates this summer. We've decided that this will be the time to reward you for your loyalty each year.

Mark Sunday, June 12, on your calendar now. As an added bonus, the Main Street Preservation Association will be holding their inaugural Mansion Row Garden Stroll that afternoon just two blocks from the store. Park here, come in for presentations on the hour, then explore Main Street's architectural, arborial, and heirloom gardens. We'll keep the store open long enough for you to do a little extra shopping after your stroll, or you can stop by our tent in the 500 block of East Main.

Finally, I keep hearing a rumor that while I'm away, Ann has something big planned, but when I ask her, she just says "What you don't know won't hurt you." Hmmm.

A Room With a View

2005-05-22T16:35:00.000-04:00

It's not quite the silver screen, but the "main stage" of the store will become a theater on Monday evening with two showings of the documentary, Blue Vinyl.

The City of New Albany's Historic Preservation Commission (President, Ted Fulmore) and the Historic Landmarks Foundation (Director, Greg Sekula) are joining us as we wrap up our direct participation in Preservation Month. Thanks to the folks at Circuit City in Clarksville, we'll be able to show the film on a 52" screen.

In response to frequent and ongoing requests, we've scheduled two showings. The 5 p.m. show is for those of you who have been avoiding events at the store because they end too late. A second show will follow shortly after 7 p.m. Hot beverage service is available at our coffee and tea bar - bring your own cold drinks and popcorn.

This independent film examines the PVC industry with humor and solid research to spotlight a blight on civilization - polyvinyl chloride, the stuff they make vinyl siding out of. The environmental and occupational hazards, not to mention the danger to neighbors and emergency workers, far outweigh the aesthetic objections to vinyl. Besides, we'll have experts on hand to show how the application of vinyl siding to your home can actually degrade and devalue the underlying character of your exteriors.

Everyone is invited to these free showings.

Honored to Host

2005-05-19T00:39:00.000-04:00

This has been an incredible two weeks for the store and for Ann and I personally.

Last Wednesday's Spring Public Affairs Symposium, "A Preservation Conversation," was a tremendous demonstration of public support for preserving our neighborhoods. Earlier in the day, I was privileged to receive the "Hoosier Hospitality Award" from Lt. Gov. Becky Skilling in the rotunda of the state capitol.

Sunday's booksigning with David C. Barksdale and Robyn Davis Sekula exceeded all expectations and the sales of their new book, New Albany in Vintage Postcards, have been phenomenal.

This Friday at 6 p.m., we are honored to host author Alan McPherson for a book-signing for his Temples of Knowledge: Andrew Carnegie's Gift to Indiana. This will immediately follow the dedication of a historical marker at New Albany's Carnegie Center.

This is a one-time event and we encourage you all to come out and honor this singular achievement in documentary history. After the book-signing, many of the attendees will share a dinner presentation at The Parthenon, but dinner isn't a requirement to meet and talk with this eminent historian of Indiana.

Join us at 6, or wander down to the Carnegie for the marker dedication and reception at 4:30.

Preserving History

2005-05-16T19:08:00.000-04:00

We're in full historical roar at the store heading into week three of Preservation Month.

Our book-signing with authors David C. Barksdale and Robyn Davis Sekula was a tremendous success, and I'm projecting we'll run out of New Albany in Vintage Postcards before week's end.

Speaking of week's end, we'll be hosting historian Alan McPherson for a book-signing on Friday at 6. His book, Temples of Knowledge: Andrew Carnegie's Gift to Indiana, features many of the state's Carnegie libraries. After a reception at our own Carnegie Center and the dedication of a historic marker, McPherson will greet patrons and autograph copies of the book. A dinner will follow at The Parthenon.

National Exposure

2005-05-08T11:16:00.000-04:00

New Albany High School's drama program literally takes over the New York Times Arts & Leisure section today. Did you know Destinations Booksellers is the only retail location in Southern Indiana where you can purchase a copy of this long-form illustrated article?

We're open today just to sell the Sunday New York Times, but if you stop by, you'll also want to pick up your copies of New Albany in Vintage Postcards, by David Barksdale and Robyn Sekula. It came in Friday afternoon and is simply flying off the shelves. Get one for yourself and several as gifts for your out-of-town family and friends.

And finally, New Albany's Scribner House is featured in this month's American Spirit magazine. The May-June edition of this national heritage publication includes a sidebar on New Albany's preservation mindset, perfectly appropriate for Preservation Month.

Schedule of Events

2005-05-05T20:43:00.000-04:00

Through May — On exhibit: Zalewa Image Designers’ photographic retrospective of Southern Indiana.

Sunday, May 8 — The store will be closed to celebrate Mother’s Day. A special New York Times feature on NAHS' drama program is expected that day and the store will open on a limited basis to meet the anticipated demand.

Monday, May 9 — The Serge Storms Historical Research & Debating Society (Tim Dorsey book club) meets at
7 pm to discuss Hammerhead Ranch Motel.

Tuesday, May 10 — First meeting of the literary fiction book club at 7 pm. There will be a discussion of
The Solace of Leaving Early, by Haven Kimmel.

Wednesday, May 11 — Quarterly Public Affairs Symposium. Preserve New Albany’s Older and Historic
Neighborhoods: A Forum for Discussion and Action, 7 pm. Destinations Booksellers partners with Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana to provide a forum to discuss preservation activities in New Albany.

Saturday, May 14 — Rhyme and Reason Blow-Out at 6 pm. Writers, try out your work on an audience.
Readers, come find out what exciting things our talented local authors are working on.

Sunday, May 15 — Author reception and book signing for New Albany in Vintage Postcards,
by David Barksdale and Robyn Sekula, noon until 3 pm.

Friday, May 20 — Book signing for Temples of Knowledge: Andrew Carnegie’s Gift to Indiana,
by Alan McPherson, 6 pm.

Monday, May 23 — Showing of the film, Blue Vinyl, at 5 and 7 pm., in cooperation with Historic Landmarks
Foundation of Indiana. While vinyl siding may seem like a quick and cost-effective way to spruce up a house this documentary film reveals the hidden costs.

June 2-5 — BookExpo America. Randy will be in New York for the largest book industry event in the world. He’ll be bringing back all kinds of goodies, including the fall book lists.

June 6-30 — Come in and answer Booktastic trivia questions to win book discounts.

June 10 — Destinations Booksellers will be at the Carnegie Center for Art & History from 6 to 8 pm to host a book-signing during the opening of “Preserving Place: Reflections of Indiana.” Featured photographers Christopher Jordan and Ron Leonetti will sign copies of Unexpected Indiana.

June 12, 2005 — Book Preview party for Patron Passport members, noon until 3 pm. If you are not a Patron Passport member, join now! You won’t want to miss this celebration of new books. There will be lots of
giveaways and goodies for Passport patrons.

June 25, 2005 — Personal finance seminar and program by Brian Miller, author of Jelly Jar Finance: Power Over Your Money.

Another Book of the Year winner

2005-04-29T09:49:00.000-04:00

From Bookselling This Week:

On April 12, the American Booksellers Association announced that Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of WWII by Robert Kurson (Random House) was the winner of the 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Adult Nonfiction category. The award honors independent booksellers' handselling favorite during the past year, as voted by the owners and staff of ABA member bookstores.

With all the drama and tension of a battle story, journalist Kurson dissects the discovery and identification of a German Type IX U-boat, which lay 230 feet underwater, 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Long thought to have been sunk in waters off Gibralter in 1945, U-869 was found by two recreational scuba divers, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, who were mentored by washed-up former diver Bill Nagle. After a perilous six-year search, which resulted in the deaths of three other divers, the two former rivals became allied in their search for the wreck's provenance, as well as in their desire to contact survivors of the victims. The identification of U-869 forced alterations in the historical record of World War II. Considered in league with Sebastian Unger's Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, Shadow Divers combines in-depth research, military history, science, and mystery with heart-thumping adventure.

Classic Unearthed at Canny Lad

2005-04-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

"Dr. Ernest Drake is the author of the rediscovered DRAGONOLOGY: THE COMPLETE BOOK OF DRAGONS, first published in a very limited run in 1895."

Said to be a noted dragonologist and founder of the Secret & Ancient Society of Dragonologists in London, Dr. Ernest Drake was determined to bring the subject of dragons under the burgeoning umbrella of the nineteenth-century natural sciences."

The spectacular popularity of his book DRAGONOLOGY has sparked a great deal of interest in the study of dragons and spurred much rummaging in antiquarian bookshops and attics in search of new Drake material. Happily, this earlier volume created for students, THE DRAGONOLOGY HANDBOOK: A PRACTICAL COURSE IN DRAGONS, turned up recently in an old public house called the Canny Lad in Edinburgh."

From the Author's Notes
Dragonology Handbook: A Practical Course in Dragons (ISBN 076362814X) Candlewick Press.

$12.99, releases in May 2005.

Delights & Shadows

2005-04-28T05:49:00.000-04:00

This has been the hardest book for us to get and keep in the store after Ted Kooser was named the Pulitzer Prize winner for this book of poems.

Recently named Poet Laureate of the United States, Kooser is known for his unique correspondence in poetry with Jim Harrison, among other things. This Copper Canyon Press title is at the store now, in paperback at $15.

Here is a sample from Delights & Shadows, Student, one poem in this collection:

The green shell of his backpack makes him lean
into wave after wave of responsibility
and he swings his stiff arms and cupped hands,

paddling ahead. He has extended his neck
to its full length, and his chin, hard as a beak,
breaks the cold surf. He's got his baseball cap on

backward as up he crawls, out of the froth
of a hangover and onto the sand of the future,
and lumbers, heavy with hope, into the library.

"Heavy with hope..." quite a nice turn of phrase, don't you think?

For Those in the Know

2005-04-25T21:32:00.000-04:00

If you haven't been in the store for a few weeks, you won't have noticed the dramatic expansion of our complement of Manga titles. Although I have some appreciation of the genre, there's no substitute for a fresh eye on things. That's why we've arranged for young Adam Booth to work with us in crafting our selection.

Here is Adam's first contribution.

Manga Blog
courtesy of Adam Booth, store consultant

Hey all you Manga patrons out there, I've got some exciting news!

Destinations Booksellers
604 East Spring Street

In the historic district of downtown New Albany, Destinations Booksellers is expanding their Manga selection in order to fit the needs of local enthusiasts. We already have a few mainstream titles: Rurouni Kenshin, DragonBall Z, DragonBall, DN-Angel, Yu Yu Hakusho, Full Metal Alchemist, Ranma 1/2, FLCL, and this is just to name a few from a plethora of wonderful titles. However, we need your help in order to tailor the selection to the individual's needs. This can range from picking even more titles that appeal to the general majority of fans (utilizing your suggestions) or discussing it at our club meeting on Friday at 7:00 P.M.

I'm really excited to see such a wonderful passion appreciated. I wish to expand that feeling for Manga to the public. I believe it can be achieved! For all those who don't know what Manga is let me fill you in. It's a graphic novel from Japan that possesses deep plots, character conflicts, and all the other literary elements that you can find in a novel. However, this novel comes alive and takes you into a world that fits your fantasy whether it be horror, action, drama, adventure, or love. If you would like to know more come check Destinations Booksellers out.

Every month I will be writing reviews of Manga titles and this should let people know more about it before they purchase the title. Anyway, I'm really pumped to expand my love of Manga to the community and I'm also looking forward to your support. If anyone would wish to have an inquiry on a specific title before they purchase it, I would be more than happy to answer questions. Just e-mail the store and I'll get back with you..

Thanks a bunch :)

Adam Booth

We've set up a separate blog where you can comment on Adam's work and opinions, or just discuss the latest issues of your favorite Manga, at DB's Manga Log.

National Magazine Showcases New Albany, Preservation

2005-04-25T15:40:00.000-04:00

I have in my ink-stained hands the first copies of the May-June issue of American Spirit, the delightful magazine published by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Joy of joys, this issue is jam-packed with items on our own little burg, with a cover feature on Kentucky's horse country and a spotlight on New Albany and the Scribner House in full color.

Here's a snippet from Reclaiming New Albany:

"In 1850, a prosperous New Albany reigned as Indiana's largest city. In recent years, however, the city of 40,000, like many other small communities across the country, has struggled to pump life back into its business districts hit hard by disinvestment and urban sprawl."

Develop New Albany's Jane Alcorn is quoted in a liftout as saying, "There's something constantly being restored or preserved. We're committed to preservation, and we have our own historic review board to ensure appropriate work is one on historic structures.

With a six-page color spread on the Scribner House and the sidebar seventh page quoted above, this is a must-have for all New Albany collectors. Race down and get your copy before they're gone. We arranged to get extra copies this month, but these will disappear fast.

What to Give

2005-04-18T18:45:00.000-04:00

Spring seems to bring a lot of gift-giving occasions and at Destinations Booksellers we are happy to help you solve all of your gift-giving dilemmas.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and we have several recommendations. If you are looking for something humorous Ilene Beckman has learned that there is more to happiness than finding the right hairstyle. She shares her wisdom in Makeovers at the Beauty Counter of Happiness.

Ya-Ya’s In Bloom celebrates the friendship of women and continues the tale of the four friends of the Ya-Ya sisterhood. Author Rebecca Wells’ Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood became the blockbuster movie of the same name.

And for the mother who refuses to “run with the herd” try Mustang Sallies. Fawn Germer celebrates the secrets of more than seventy-five successful women. The book includes interviews with Hilary Clinton, Susan Sarandon, Ann Richards, Erin Brockovich, and others.

If you are bored with receiving blankets and sleepers The One-
Armed Cook is a more original baby shower gift. This cookbook is designed specifically for new parents with advice for cooking and entertaining while coping with the demands of caring for an infant. It includes recipes and plans for entertainment ranging from a dinner party to baby’s first birthday.

And once the baby is born you will be looking for the perfect gift. When You Were Born is a poem by Dianna Hutts Aston which celebrates the joy of a new baby. Designed as a gift book for a new baby, this book features interesting illustrations from the baby’s point-of-view by award-winning illustrator E. B. Lewis.

For newlyweds consider an addition to the home reference library such as Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-To. This invaluable resource includes concise, easy-to-use instructions for hundreds of home repairs and projects from fixing a light switch to building a patio.

Whether the couple will cook a lot or a little a good all-purpose cookbook will come in handy. Joy of Cooking is a classic that could be either the only cookbook they will ever need or the foundation for an entire library of cookbooks.

If you are looking for something for the graduate Furry Logic may be just the book. It pairs watercolor paintings of animals with updated versions of some old adages for just the right mix of inspiration and humor.

The good stuff

2005-04-14T19:21:00.000-04:00

We're being rather prolific today, but I wanted to add just one more piece to the information puzzle. This has been a dramatic week for new arrivals, so you might want to think about making today your "bookstore" day.

New in the store:

The new travel memoir You Can't Get There From Here by Gayle Forman.

A new biography of Augustine by James J. O'Donnell.

Kazuo Ishiguro just released Never Let Me Go, and was called one of the finest prose stylists of our time by Michael Ondaatje.

Bob Dole sends us One Soldier's Story.

Alicia Erian launches her career with Towelhead.

The estate of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle commissioned a new Sherlock Holmes mystery by Caleb Carr: The Italian Secretary.

The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong by Donald Kroodsma is back in stock after a big rush. It includes a CD of birdsong.

There's so much more that's new at the store. I haven't even mentioned Richard Florida's The Flight of the Creative Class and the much-anticipated Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

Come on down to Spring Street, sidle up to the bar, order a German Chocolate Cake gourmet coffee or a chai tea, and browse to your heart's content.

It's all relative

2005-04-14T18:32:00.000-04:00

Just got alerted to a story in today's papers that I had missed.

My cousin, Hector "Cito" Cervantes and his contemporary Christian music group, Casting Crowns , were triple winners at last night's Dove Awards.

Congratulations to Cito and all the guys in the band.

Cousin Cito fronting the band

Here's an excerpt from the wire story as it appeared in The Daytona Beach News-Journal Online, the news site named top Web site in Florida. In fact, winning that honor was one of my last official acts as an employee of that newspaper.

Casting Crowns won three awards - group of the year, pop/contemporary recorded song ("Who Am I"), and inspirational recorded song ("Voice of Truth") - while lead singer and songwriter Mark Hall won individual honors for song of the year and songwriter of the year.

"This is such an encouragement," Hall said. "There are so many people in the world who need hope and it's so cool to be a tiny part of that."

Hall said the idea for "Who Am I" came to him as he was driving home late one night with his wife and children asleep in the car.

"In the midst of my own little worship time, I stopped and wondered, 'Who am I to think I can just call up to God whenever I want, from the middle of nowhere, and expect Him to hear me.'

... That's where it started," Hall said.

It was the second consecutive year that the 35-year-old youth minister won the top songwriting honor at the Dove Awards.

Switchfoot, Crabb family top Dove Awards

Dove Award winners

Is Someone Reading Over Your Shoulder?

2005-04-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

One of the (unintended?) consequences of the rush to pass the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001 received a smattering of attention last year when the librarians, independent booksellers, and various other groups rallied support for the Freedom to Read Protection Act.

You may recall that in July, a majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted to cut off funds for bookstore and library searches under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately, that result was wiped out when extraordinary political pressure was used to force enough members of Congress to change their votes.

Destinations Booksellers is proud to join the effort to restore the privacy safeguards stripped from our civil liberties by the hasty inclusion of this provision in the act and the failure to exempt library and bookstore records from its effects. The Freedom to Read Protection Act restores the requirement that federal law enforcement agencies demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe the individual whose (library and bookstore) records being sought (under Section 215) is involved in espionage or terrorism-related activities.

Section 215 significantly expanded the government's power to seize business records, even the records of individuals not suspected of terrorism or any other crime, by using orders from a secret foreign intelligence court; a bookstore or library receiving such an order has no legal avenue to challenge the seizures and is barred by a gag order from informing anyone that the records have been searched.

We invite you to join our patrons in signing a petition that seeks changes in the law to prohibit bookstore and library searches under Section 215. If you like, you may sign the petition online at
http://www.readerprivacy.org/.

---------------------------------------------------

DID YOU KNOW: Although it's a clever, evocative shorthand designation that most people think of as a patriotic "Patriot" Act, the entire law is actually the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and it is scheduled to expire under the terms of its emergency passage in 2001. Although we're not offering you a petition to join us, we lean toward letting the act expire and replacing it with a law that gives adequate protection to our civil liberties.

Oh yeah, here's what the acronym really stands for:

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

Cute, huh?

Independent Booksellers Pick Their Favorites

2005-04-12T13:41:00.000-04:00

The American Booksellers Association is pleased to announce the winners of the 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards. The winners in both adult and children's categories are those titles independent booksellers most enjoyed handselling during the past year, as voted by the owners and staff of ABA member bookstores.

The 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year winners are:

Adult Fiction -- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)

Adult Nonfiction -- Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson (Random House)

Children's Literature -- Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist (Scholastic Press)

Children's Illustrated -- Duck for President, by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

The winners will be feted at ABA's annual Celebration of Bookselling at BookExpo America on Friday, June 3, in New York City. The gala event is open to all badged trade show attendees.

"We are looking forward to presenting the Book Sense Book of the Year Awards to these outstanding authors at the Celebration of Bookselling," said ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz.

"These books are representative of what independent booksellers do best -- recommend and handsell wonderful books to their customers."

Now in its sixth year, the Book Sense Book of the Year Awards include, for the first time this year, four Book Sense Honor Books in each category. These are:

Adult Fiction: Eventide by Kent Haruf (Knopf); The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant (Random House); The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin); and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin Press).

Adult Nonfiction: Candyfreak by Steve Almond (Algonquin and Harcourt); The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, Robert Mankoff (Ed.) (Black Dog & Leventhal); Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin's); Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins).

Children's Illustrated: Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henke (Greenwillow/HarperCollins); Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Young Readers); Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle (Philomel/Penguin USA); and Wild About Books by Judy Sierra, illustrated by Marc Brown (Knopf Books for Young Readers).

Children's Literature: Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan (Scholastic); Ida B ... and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World by Katherine Hannigan (Greenwillow/HarperCollins); Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (Disney Editions); and The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer (Richard Jackson/Antheneum/Simon & Schuster).

The Book Sense Book of the Year winners and honor books were selected by booksellers from titles most often nominated for the Book Sense Picks recommendation lists in 2004. Booksellers were also able to write-in titles on the ballot. Only books published in 2004 were eligible.

Winners will receive a plaque, as well as a gift from Book Sense partner Levenger, Inc., a catalog and Internet seller of high-quality tools for reading and writing. The Celebration of Bookselling brings together independent booksellers, publishers, and the media to toast the spirit of independent bookselling in America.

Many of the honor book recipients will be among the dozens of authors being recognized at ABA's Book Sense Picks Author Luncheon on Friday, June 3, at BEA. This year's event, sponsored by The Quills Literacy Foundation, is being emceed by bookseller and Book Sense Picks author Betsy Burton of The King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah.

What's That Smell

2005-04-10T14:32:00.000-04:00

It's true. We've opened our Browser's Bar at Destinations Booksellers.

A selection of coffees and teas are now available, fresh-brewed a cup at a time. We use the "Cadillac" of single-cup brewers to bring you what you've been asking for. Combined with our Browser's Bar, the new reading area, and the expanded book and magazine selection, we're edging closer to the store S.E. Indiana demands.

We're offering infused and bag teas, herbal teas, hot cider, light/medium/dark roast coffees, and a large array of flavored coffees. For now, we're pricing it all a $1 including tax. So come in, throw a buck into the Ball jar, and enjoy a cup brewed fresh for you. With the selection listed below, just about every taste can be satisfied.

Be adventurous and try one of the gourmet or flavored coffees with a biscotti and a fine magazine like Other, The Futurist, or any of the 5 newspapers and 250 magazines we sell here at the store.

And check out the expanded manga section and the vastly larger gardening books inventory we've added in the past few weeks.

Here's the menu at Destinations Booksellers' Browser's Bar:

Van Houtte Gourmet Coffees
100 % Colombian (Medium Roast)
French Roast (Dark Roast)
Midnight Express (Dark Roast)
Costa Rican Tarrazu (Light Roast)
Kenyan Kilimandjaro (Dark Roast)
Decaffeinated (Medium Roast)

Van Houtte Flavored Coffees
French Vanilla (Medium Roast)
Chocolate Almond (Medium Roast)
Irish Cream (Medium Roast)
Pecan Praline (Medium Roast)
Macadamia Nut (Medium Roast)
Hazelnut (Medium Roast)
Hazelnut Decaffeinated (Medium Roast)

Timothy’s World Flavored Coffees
German Chocolate Cake

Gloria Jean’s Flavored Coffees
Cappucino

Heath & Heather Herbal Teas (bag)
Raspberry Leaf
Lemon & Lime
Mango & Apple
Apple & Cinnamon
Morning Time
Camomile
Wild Blackcurrant

Bigelow Teas (infuser)
Earl Gray
English Breakfast
Mint Medley Herb Tea
I Love Lemon Herb Tea
Orange & Spice Herb Tea

Celestial Seasonings Teas (infuser)
Green Tea

Gloria Jean’s Teas (infuser)
Chai Tea

plus a variety of bite- and full-sized biscottis

In the news

2005-04-10T13:25:00.000-04:00

Last week, booksellers throughout the area were bombarded by requests for Under the Heaven Tree, a memoir by William Bridges.

The only problem (for all of us) was that the book is a "print-on-demand" (POD) book. With no warning that the book would be splashed across the pages of the metropolitan daily, none of the local booksellers, chain or independent, was able to fill the demand.

Fortunately, we were able to get the book in a matter of days (Thursday), and have filled our customer back orders. But books by micro-publishers and POD books aren't marketed or promoted in a way that puts them on our radars.

That's scant excuse; we'd like to be able to anticipate your needs in advance, but we aren't mind-readers, tycoons, or partakers in a leisurely life of the mind. We're retailers.

I would be interested to know if any of the other local stores had the book in stock last Sunday morning when the C-J reviewed the book. FYI, we still have copies in stock. If you don't remember or didn't see the review, read it here for a limited time.

Judging it a fair use, I have saved the review in our store archives if the link expires.

Also last week, Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, was interviewed. Her future appearance with our friends at the Speed Art Museum hasn't had a noticeable impact on demand, but only because the book is a regular top seller here at Destinations. We almost always have the book on hand, but we recommend you call to have us put one aside for you if you want to pick this one up.

Read the C-J interview here.

Today's top review is of Jon Lee Anderson's The Fall of Baghdad. We have this book in stock, too. Read the review here.

Charles Barkley, Jane Fonda, and the late poet Donald Justice have received mention today and last week in the C-J's various book pages and we have those books available this week, too.

On NPR this morning:
A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin. This imagining of a 93-year-old Sherlock Holmes in retirement is creating a real stir among Holmes-o-philes and other lovers of creative mystery. We'll have it here on its release date of April 21.

In the New York Times Book Review today:
No Place to Hide by Robert O'Harrow Jr. (due Tuesday)
Chatter: Dispatches From the Secret World of Eavesdropping by Patrick Radden Keefe (in stock)
Towelhead by Alicia Erian
Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan
I Got Somebody in Staunton: Stories by William Henry Lewis
Alibi by Joseph Kanon
The Position by Meg Wolitzer
Highway 61 Resurfaced by Bill Fitzhugh
No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark
The Serpent on the Crown by Elizabeth Peters
Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry
Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio by Jeffrey Kluger
Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika by Giles Foden
Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game by David Block
Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan
Charlotte: Being a True Account of an Actress's Flamboyant Adventures in Eighteenth-Century London's Wild and Wicked Theatrical World by Kathryn Shrevelow
Ponzi's Scheme by Mitchell Zuckoff (previously reviewed here)
A Land of Ghosts: The Braided Lives of People and the Forest in Far Western Amazonia by David G. Campbell
The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in 1948: Learning the Secrets of Power by Lance Morrow

Children's books:
Jungle Gym Jitters by Chuck Richards
Paisley by Maggie Smith
La La Rose by Satomi Ichikawa
The Perfect Wizard: Hans Christian Andersen by Jane Yolen
Gifts by Ursula K. LeGuin
Shlemiel Crooks by Anna Olswanger
The Secret Seder by Doreen Rappaport
The Matzo Ball Boy by Lisa Shulman
Luna by Julia Anne Peters
Betsy and the Emperor by Staton Rabin
The Bremen Town Musicians: And Other Animal Tales From Grimm by Doris Orgel

_________________________

The Book Review alone is reason enough to buy the Sunday New York Times. The list of reviews above is just a fraction of what is offered each Sunday in the NYTBR. Add the New York Times Magazine, and the Sunday Times is indispensable reading. But call ahead if you want one. Supply is limited and we are the only outlet in Southern Indiana where you can get The New York Times, daily and Sunday. We always sell out.

Waving the Flag

2005-04-08T13:54:00.000-04:00

The official flag of the City of New Albany, Indiana

If you have an interest in displaying this flag at your home or business, please let me know by e-mail or by posting a comment below. A number of us have talked about doing this and I think it's time to start waving the flag.

Worth another look

2005-04-07T01:22:00.000-04:00

From Wednesday, January 19, 2005

University press spotlight

All editors and most reporters know the invaluable contributions made by The Poynter Institute with its seminars, education materials, and Web sites. Now, the University Press of Florida has produced a compendium of essays from the institute, as edited by Roy Peter Clark and Cole Campbell. The Values and Craft of American Journalism (0813028477) releases in May and serves as an idealistic, yet practical guide for journalism scholars, analysts, students, and professionals. To make it available to as many folks as possible, UPF has published it in paperback at $24.95.

Also available from this fine university press from their spring list:

Big Dish: Building America's Deep Space Connection to the Planets (0813028051)

Before and After Jamestown: Virginia's Powhatans and Their Predecessors (0813028175)

Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002 (0813027985)

Unlocking the Past: Celebrating Historical Archaeology in North America (0813027969) For

Patron Passport members, we invite you to join us during this time of year when we are receiving our publishers' lists. Come in, sit down, and preview the books coming out in February, March, and later and help us as we craft the inventory for a new season.

A Spring Street Reviewer Chimes In

2005-04-05T15:41:00.000-04:00

With only brief edits, I wanted to share this review from a woman many of you know, but whom I have yet to meet. On the occasion of an outside appearance by yours truly, I distributed advance reading copies to the luncheon party (great food, by the way).

Some of those books found their way to our reviewer, who shared the following by e-mail:

Hi Randy,

[My mother-in-law] shared two books with me. I'm also in a book club with some Children's Lit professors from IUS, but we generally read adult works:)!

Everything She Thought She Wanted was an enjoyable easy read - and quick read. It put me in mind of Ann Tyler's Ladder of Years and a more recent novel -How Does She Do It?

The actual quality of the writing wasn't truly fantastic, but as a working woman who has struggled with marriage, relationships, and the question of raising a family is very easy to identify with the younger woman's story.

I've encouraged [my mother-in-law] to read the book so that we can compare Barbara and Sienna's stories to what we know of "real life." I think any book club would enjoy debating the comparisons made between the so-called freedoms of today's modern woman versus the repressed woman of yesterday.

The other novel loaned was Berti and Hedwig. I could not even give it a fair chance. I got to page 30 and stopped. I've got too many other great books to read.

If you need any other advance reads let me know. I've always got my nose in a book!

Thanks,

Lea Marlow, M.D.

Patron Passport members are eligible to receive advance reader copies of books we are evaluating for the store. In return, all we ask is that you share a brief review, even a paragraph, with our other patrons.

Look to the Sky

2005-04-02T02:03:00.000-05:00

From the metropolis that is Los Angeles arises a new wordsmith. Some of you have had the opportunity to read her work before; for others, this would be your first opportunity.

Is she a novelist? A journalist? A broadcaster?

Maybe all three, but first she was my daughter.

Read Schuyler's latest blog posting, now online at http://www.trojansasha.blogspot.com/

No fooling

2005-04-01T13:54:00.000-05:00

Just a few quick notes for those of you who check in regularly. I'm going into hibernation this weekend in the back office, so Ann will be charging $5.63 per minute for anyone who wants to talk with me on Saturday or Sunday.

We have the "Cadillac of single-cup coffee brewers" on an evaluation basis through the weekend as we try to determine whether this is the way to go. Come by and have a free cup of coffee...we have a large assortment, including decaf, and will have herbal and regular teas, too, if we decide to purchase this equipment. Let us know what you would pay for a fresh cup and how important that would be to you, too.

The second installment of Pat Holt's story about the making of the movie based on her partner's book/memoir of childhood, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio," came in this morning and it reminded me of my Dad.

"Tuff's" mom, the eponymous prize winner, had a special talent for spotting four-leaf clovers, Once on a family drive, she remarked that there was a beautiful specimen in the field they just passed. Unbelieving, Tuff's dad circled the block and challenged her. Walking deep into the field, she returned with the talisman.

My Dad has much the same talent. He could sit on our porch and point 20, 30, 40 feet away to a four-leaf clover, year after year, and amazed us all. Dad's living in a hotel right now after a house fire, and going a little stir-crazy waiting for contractors to get to work, so remember him in your prayers this weekend.

Oh, yeah. We have the book in-store, so come on down and talk to Ann about joining our new fiction book discussion group. And it's still not too late to join the Shredders, who've decided to meet here at the store on Monday nights, 7 p.m. The next meeting is May 9.

If you are going to Florida, or just returned, scavenge any Sunshine State kitsch to add to our Serge Storms collage. Serge, Tim Dorsey's outrageous anti-hero, is an ardent collector of all things Floridian (which he keeps in an intricately-compartmented tackle box), so we're building a shrine to our favorite fictional character.

Twizzle sticks, NASA patches, coasters, matchbooks, alligator keychains...anything you would like to add will be welcomed.

What are you reading? March 26, 2005

2005-03-26T21:16:00.000-05:00

I've invited patron/subscribers to the store's e-mail newsletter (sent out today) to give us their recent reading suggestions (or warnings). Adding your own comment to the list below is easy and painless and I'd like to see just how many of you will participate. If you so desire, you can remain essentially anonymous.

I'd love to make this a monthly feature.

I'm reading John Paul II: A Tribute in Words and Pictures, by Monsignor Virgilio Levi and Christine Allison. A timely read as the pontiff suffers, this book is filled with facts that I (not a Roman Catholic) never knew.

We're told, for example, that the Il Papa, an orphan by the age of 20, considers family to be at the core of the "civilization of love." As if we didn't already suspect that.

What are you reading?

The Story Behind the Book Behind the Movie

2005-03-22T19:18:00.000-05:00

One great general book-industry Web site I can recommend to you is Pat Holt's Holt Uncensored. She's a former San Francisco newspaper book reviewer, an independent book editor and a much-in-demand book doctor who stays on top of trends in the publishing world and the political environment surrounding bookselling.

She's a fierce advocate for authors and for independent bookselling, and offers a monthly e-newsletter column that's packed with fascinating tidbits.

Today, I wanted to share with you the lead of her latest column: the story of the making of a feature film from the book The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, by Terry Ryan.

So let me tell this story of one book's incredible interlude with Hollywood and the sudden tragedy that befell us by describing the latest adventures of my partner Terry Ryan and her memoir, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less." It's going to take three columns to tell it, but boy, what a story.

As many readers know, I've had a lot of fun writing about Terry (see http://holtuncensored.c.topica.com/maadjPEabfkFCb7UDGjb/ ) because "Tuff" (her childhood nickname) came to represent that Great Hope of U.S. Literature today - the chance that unknown and untried writers can successfully negotiate their way through an indifferent publishing system that has increasingly placed authors at the bottom of the pile.

Terry is not a best-selling writer - she is an old-fashioned *and typical* "backlist author," meaning that her book (originally published in hardcover in 2001) sells steadily if slowly (in its 2002 paperback edition) without benefit of advertising or continued publicity. The audience keeps spreading the word in its own quietly imploding way, and booksellers - most of them independent - continue to sense the need to keep it in stock.

So what a thrill it was going to be, I thought, to describe the migration last October of Terry, her nine siblings and their families to Toronto, where they not only visited the set of the movie adaptation of "Prize Winner"; they also took part in their own scene (and Terry had yet another scene).

YOU CAN SCROLL THROUGH THIS IF YOU'RE TIRED OF MY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE BOOK

Terry's memoir is about the contest era of the '50s and '60s, when Madison Avenue invited consumers to send in boxtops and coupons with jingles, poems and limericks extolling the wonders of advertised products.

Evelyn Ryan, Terry's mother, had a knack for filling out lines such as "I wonder where the yellow went" for Pepsodent toothpaste ("The yellow battled/As it went,/But it didn't make/A PepsoDENT)" or writing such hope-chest jingles for soap as "Dial is wonderful:/Sweet young things/Declare that Dialing/Gets those rings."

While her 10 kids were growing up and her alcoholic husband was drinking away a third of his paycheck, Evelyn began to win big - cars, jewelry, trips to Europe, bicycles, color TVs, a washer-dryer, full-sized jukebox. And she won small: dozens of clock radios, baseball gloves, toys, phonographs, watches, silverware, picture frames, accordion lessons and (Terry always gets a big laugh out of this one), three pairs of Arthur Murray shoes.

(Arthur Murray was a ballroom-dancing teacher who became famous during the early days of television.)

More than a jingle-writer, Evelyn had the gift of a poet like Ogden Nash and the sense of humor of housewife columnists like Peg Bracken or Erma Bombeck:

Poison Ivy
Victims share a symptom,
Which is:
Everyone who has it
Itches

If there is a single, visual memory that the Ryan kids took from their childhood (and that Tuff makes unforgettable in the book), it's the picture of Mom Ryan standing at her ironing board, a pile of pre-sprinkled clothes on one side and her "contesting" notebooks on the other. There she worked out the kind of sparkling wordplay that make her entries distinctive even today, including this entry in a 25-words-or-less contest for that great segmented candy bar, Tootsie Roll.

For wholesome, toothsome, chewy goodness, Tootsie Rolls are right.
Lots of nibbling for a nickel,
And they show me where to bite.

In the book, Evelyn's originality as a "contester" saves the day time after time as she stands up against bill collectors, the Catholic Church and antiquated ideas about housewives.

But the big story in "Prize Winner" is the miraculous timing of Evelyn's biggest wins. When the family faced eviction from its rental home, Evelyn won a huge cash prize against 60,000 other entries that covered the down payment on a new house. Twelve years later, after her husband Kelly secretly took out a second mortgage on the house and drank away the payments, Evelyn stopped foreclosure proceedings when her entry won a Dr. Pepper contest over 240,000 competing entries.

-----

START READING AGAIN ALL YOU LAYABOUTS WHO SKIPPED THE ABOVE

What a great idea for a movie, yes? So thought Robert Zemeckis, the director of "Forrest Gump," "Back to the Future," "Castaway" and "Polar Express," who optioned the book and gave the adaptation job to screenwriter Jane Anderson ("How to Make an American Quilt," "It Could Happen to You").

Jane had just turned her own stage play, "Normal," into an HBO movie that she also directed starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson. Nominated for two Golden Globes (no mean feat in the year of "Angels in America"), "Normal" is set in the very cornfields of the Midwest that "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio," would inhabit, and just like any reader of Terry's book, Jane fell in love with Evelyn Ryan.

FORGET ALL YOU'VE HEARD ABOUT HOLLYWOOD

Terry's first lesson of filmdom was to disregard all those stories everyone has heard about Hollywood's disinterest in, and dismissal of, authors of books.

True, books have long been sold to the movies for their titles only and gutted to the bone so yet another run-of-the-mill love/war/adventure/assisted-suicide story can be retold. Authors have routinely been given notice never to request taking a look at the script, let alone have an opinion, or be allowed to set foot on a sound stage.

For Terry, however, the reverse was true right from the beginning. Jane Anderson flew to San Francisco to visit Tuff and see for herself what the family had discovered after Evelyn's death - the contents of seven dressers and a huge cedar chest that Terry had loaded into a rented van in her home town of Defiance, Ohio, and hauled to San Francisco.

This was a treasure trove for Jane. She would open a drawer or lid and find original contest entry blanks in their fading newsprint clippings; perfectly preserved letters from sponsors ("Dear Mrs. Ryan: Congratulations on your new Motorola color TV set. Signed, Ed Sullivan"), the dozen now-famous ironing-board notebooks; press photos of "The Winning Mom and Her Family" (one of which appears on the cover of Terry's book); tickets to the football game where eldest son Dick received his First Prize bicycle along with $5,000 cash that saved the Ryans from eviction; and uncountable poems and jingles that never went anywhere but are a joy to read today.

There are moms who can cook,
And moms who can sew,
And moms who will come
When they're beckoned.
But give me that pearl,
Of a mom-type girl ...
A mom who can slide
Into second.

The respect that Jane brought to everything Tuff had saved after Evelyn's death, and her delight at the way Terry told her mother's story in the book, were to set the tone for all that would happen during the writing and - because Zemeckis eventually turned over the directing job to Jane as well - the filming of "Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" (the only change is that the "The" has been dropped).

Terry and her youngest sister Betsy (who wrote the epilogue for the book) not only took Jane to Defiance to see the house their mother won, the Catholic school they attended, the parks, the library (a Carnegie classic) and what Tuff calls "the slow collision" of the Maumee and Auglaize rivers in front of Fort Defiance. They also drove Jane through the cornfields that surround the town and brought her to nearby Payne, Ohio, where she met Dortha Schaefer, their mother's best friend and president of the contesting club called The Affadaisies (so named for the affidavit that would come in the mail requiring winners to prove their identity).

Jane absorbed it all like a sponge. She wrote a script that made Evelyn's love for the quiet hilarity of life as boldly cinematic as it was in real life. Here we see "Narrator Evelyn," who speaks directly to the camera to explain how contests work, and "Character Evelyn," who tries to create a semblance of order with 10 boisterous children and one boozy Dad.

And while the pastoral, verdant, river-steamed Defiance, Ohio, was the kind of Small Town USA that itself acts as a character in the book, and everyone including Jane hoped it would be the setting for a movie shot on location, here is the great book-to-movie lesson we all needed to learn: The difference in cost to shoot this film in Canada as opposed to Defiance was so dramatic (in the millions of dollars) that Jane had no choice but to take the crew to Toronto with its nearby towns of leafy streets and sleepy downtowns bearing a 1950s look.

Toronto, in fact, was famous at the time as a magnet for Hollywood. Its tax breaks for film productions and state-of-the-art sound stages had already saved the day for many a low-to-medium-budget movie. The analogy we heard quoted by veteran wags was that barely a minute in the movie, "A New York Minute," had been shot in New York - the rest of it was filmed in Toronto.

Then there was the conventional wisdom in filmdom that says when you have a movie about a big family, you don't have the time to single out every child as a character because you're too busy telling the story. Look at "The Sound of Music," people said. Viewers are lucky that even two of the kids' characters are developed enough to be recognizable, let alone remembered.

Even while writing the book, Terry had been advised against creating a distinctive personality for each of the 10 Ryan children - let alone for the chicken, cats, bird and mouse that Evelyn Ryan seemed to be raising at the same time.

But the Ryans, as the world would soon learn, are an all or nothing family - no one is singled out; so, once you get to know 'em, everyone is singled out. And if Mom Ryan decided that Charlie the Chicken would be part of that family (at least in his impressionable years when the family cat adopted him and he later acted like a confused attack dog), that's the way Terry would write the book.

Jane wanted the same depth of character for each individual in the movie, so she cast not one but at least two and sometimes three child actors for every Ryan sibling, because the movie covers a 20-year period and the kids grow up fast.

She found former "Cheers" actor Woody Harrelson to play Terry's father with all his seeming contradictions - drunken outrage, inner decency, resentment and redemptive love - and Laura Dern to play the key supporting role of Dortha Schaefer.

Best of all, Jane found another young mother, an actress who had already been nominated (four times) for an Academy Award, to play Evelyn Ryan's role, and this was the astounding Julianne Moore.

Prolific Science Fiction Author Andre Norton Dies

2005-03-22T15:10:00.000-05:00

Andre Norton Dies at 93, An Unusual Last Wish Fulfilled

by Kevin Howell, PW Daily -- 3/22/2005

Prolific science fiction/fantasy author Andre Norton, 93, died Thursday of congestive heart failure--not long after her publisher fulfilled her wish to hold a copy of her final novel in her hands.

Tor Books president and publisher Tom Doherty did this by pushing the printing and binding date of Three Hands for Scorpio ahead by two weeks. "We did the entire print run of her book early," said Jim Frenkel, who edited Norton's books at Tor for the last two decades.

The company got a copy "straight from the bindery," Frenkel continued. "We Fed-Ex overnighted her a first copy. I heard secondhand that she held it and said she was pleased by the cobalt blue color of the jacket. She was very specific that when she died she wanted her first and last novels to be cremated with her."

During the past few years, the author had severe health problems, although her publishing output remained strong. She survived cancer in her 80s but broke a hip, which made it hard for her to move around in her home. "Last year she moved in with Sue Stewart and her husband and they had a special room built onto their house specifically equipped to make Andre comfortable," Frenkel said. "Recently she'd had little strokes and a larger stroke about a week ago."

During a writing career that spanned more than 70 years, Norton wrote more than 160 novels, anthologies and collections. She started writing in her teens and after finding resistance from publishers because of her gender, she adopted an androgynous literary pseudonym to get published. In 1934, when she published her first novel, The Prince Commands, at the age of 22, she legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton.

"She was one of the very early pioneer female authors in the male dominated genre of science fiction/fantasy writing," Larry Woods, owner of Bookman/Bookwoman Rare and Used Books in Nashville, Tenn., told PW Daily. Norton moved to Murfreesboro, a Nashville suburb, in the early 1990s. "Her early novels were highly successful from the very beginning. She was always very well thought of and respected by everyone who knew her."

"She broke ground in science-fiction/fantasy not only as a woman writing in that genre but for having non-standard protagonists, like women and Native-Americans," Frenkel told PW Daily.

"She was a remarkable storyteller and marvelous adventure writer. She was one of the bestselling authors in fantasy, period. She was so generous with her time and unselfish about helping other writers."

"Alice Mary Norton was the very first professional writer to ever extend to me a helping hand," Hugo Award-winning author Harlan Ellison told PW Daily. "I was still in high school, and we both lived in Cleveland. I remember taking a streetcar to visit her. At the time she was probably in her 30s, which seemed ancient for me. We sat for several hours in her parlor talking, and she fed me milk and cookies. She gave me a great piece of advice--make sure the word 'star' or 'space' is in the title." Norton and Ellison were founding members of the Cleveland Science Fiction Society.

Arguably her most popular books were the titles of her Witch World series, which began in 1963. The first novel, Witch World, was nominated for the World Science Fiction Society's HUGO award as best novel of the year. The Beastmaster was made into a film starring Marc Singer in 1982. It was followed by two sequels (Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time in 1991 and the TV movie Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Braxus). It also spawned a syndicated TV series that ran from 1999 to 2002.

Her novels were always "YA friendly with no explicit violence, sexuality or language," Frenkel commented. "But her novels were not delicate; there was always lots of real action in her books." Ellison agreed, noting, "Andre went on to become one of the two germinal sources to drawing young readers to the genre of imaginative fiction. She and the juvenile novels of Robert Heinlein were the two major writers to inveigle readers to look further into the genres. People would graduate from Andre's straightforward adventure novels to more complex novels."

In later years, the prolific Norton co-authored novels with many of science-fiction/fantasy's top female writers, including Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey, A.C. Crispen and Sherwood Smith. (She even collaborated with her mother, Bertha Stemm Norton, co-authoring the semi-autobiographical 1969 novel, Bertie and May, about two little girls living in rural Ohio in the 1880s.)

Just nine months ago, Frenkel was working with Norton on her final novel, Three Hands for Scorpio (due in April). "It was a marvelous experience," said Frenkel. "She was very responsive to my suggestions. She wrote her books in longhand and had someone transcribe them onto a computer. Her handwriting wasn't great, but it was no worse than mine. She'd planned this novel as the first book in a trilogy, but unlike many multi-part books, Scorpio stands on its own."
Besides the forthcoming Three Hands for Scorpio, Tor Books is releasing four Norton hardcovers in 2005. The Duke's Ballad (Jan.) is co-authored with Lyn McConchie. Beast Master's Planet (May) is an omnibus of two previously published novels in the Hosteen Storm series. Dragon Blade (Aug.) is the fourth book in the Cycle of Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan series and co-authored with Sasha Miller. And Masks of the Outcasts (Sept.) is an omnibus of two previously published novels, Catseye and Night of Masks.

This year, just a few days after her 93rd birthday on February 17, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America created the Andre Norton Award, a new literary award to recognize outstanding science fiction and fantasy novels written for the young adult market. Norton was the first woman to win SFWA's Grand Master of Fantasy Award in 1977. She also won the Nebula Grand Master Award in 1984.

"She was unfailingly open and generous," remembered Ellison. "A fine, kind, and decent woman. She was not a reclusive woman, but a very private and quiet lady. She was also one of the least quirky people I've ever met."

Guest Review: Jonathan Safran Foer's Latest

2005-03-22T13:29:00.000-05:00

We're always happy to offer advance reading copies to our Patron Passport members. In some cases, we're so spot-on in picking the patron that we run the risk of giving away a copy to the only patron who will ever want to read the book.

That's not the case with today's reviewed book. Jon Faith has put a lot of effort into this review, but all we ask of you when we give you a galley, proof, or advance reader copy is that you give us a quick one-paragraph review of the book.

Jonathan Safran Foer soars with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Without further ado, here is patron Jon Faith's take on this new novel:

The events of September 11, 2001 have been avoided by and large by literary fiction. How would one represent that sense of panic, that desperate heroism that colored that sunny Tuesday? Somehow Pete Hamill’s maudlin, Gumpish depiction at the conclusion of his novel Forever resonated with an insulting thud. The tragic nature of that day’s events both undermined our national hubris and fatally punctured the patina of security which had previously reminded us to be wary of pit bulls, genetically modified food and internet chat rooms. Suddenly no one is safe and literature has been slow to approach this untimely dilemma. Jonathan Safran Foer has warily climbed to the task, with a move that many might find fraught with the confidence of youth. He burst upon the literary stage in 2002 with Everything Is Illuminated, smoldering tale of love, memory and the Holocaust.

His second novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close personalizes the tragedy through the use of a precocious child protagonist, named Oskar, who spends the days after the attacks on the World Trade Center in a near autistic torrent of information, slowly coming to terms with his father’s death and his mother’s apparent distance. Foer unrolls Oskar’s investigation of his father’s last days alongside a parallel narrative which explains that Oskar’s grandparents survived the firebombing of Dresden during the Second World War and attempted to explain and codify that “survival” with varying success ever since.

Foer’s characters are an odd ensemble: the protagonist is reminiscent of Mark Haddon’s autistic detective and the grandfather is but a ghost and struck me as being similar to Edward Wallant’s Pawnbroker. The text is laden with photographs and different colored passages, effects sagely employed and worthy of a tradition from Lawrence Sterne to W.G. Sebald. Foer’s prose is bereft of jingoistic admonishment; its terrain is only populated with the affected. The novel is masterful in depoliticizing tragedy and fermenting a mixture of history’s atrocity within the unlimited basin of the imagination.

Welcome California's Coffee House

2005-03-19T01:45:00.000-05:00

What a treat it was to try out New Albany's newest independent business tonight, California's Coffee House at 1515 East Market Street.

That's the elegant building just west of Tommy Lancaster's and, coincidentally, a building Ann and I considered for our bookstore way back in 2004.

At 10:30, I had a double-shot cappucino and a chicken-pork tamale and I'm sure to be going back often. Call ahead if you're in a hurry and Rey and Valeria Espinosa will have your order waiting. They offer sweet rolls, muffins, specialty coffees and espresso, salads, cold beverages and tamales. By the way, my 12 oz. cappu and mouthwatering tamale cost $4.50.

R & V will soon be joining the growing contingent of business owners who work, but don't live, in the East Spring Street Historic District and support the ESS Neighborhood Association.

Stop by early and often and let them know how welcome they are to our community. I'm sure you'll show them the same support you currently show for New Albany's other fine independent businesses.

What's the best way to welcome them? BUY SOMETHING!

Bull***t Points

2005-03-18T21:41:00.000-05:00

Today, I'm going to give you a little project, but you'll be well rewarded and entertained in the end.

I was curious about a hot selling book by Harry G. Frankfurt, put out by Princeton University Press. It's nothing more than an essay by the Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. His books include The Reasons of Love (Princeton), Necessity, Volition, and Love, and The Importance of What We Care About.

This endorsement says it all:

"A gem of psychological insight, social commentary, philosophical analysis, and good humor. This is the work of an extraordinarily acute, attentive, and versatile philosopher who has succeeded in addressing an audience comprised of both other philosophers and the general public on a topic of considerable human interest in a characteristically wry and engaging way. It is one of the most enjoyable and humanly illuminating short pieces of philosophy produced in the past fifty years."--Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge

What's the book, you ask?

Check out the link at http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/video/frankfurt/. Then give me a call. I believe it will make a great gift book, and you can always read it before you give it.

Book Group to Discuss Dorsey Novels

2005-03-12T16:10:00.000-05:00

The first meeting of the Serge Storms Historical Research & Debating Society will be Tuesday, March 29, 2005 at Destinations Booksellers.

What is SSHR&DS? The Shredders is book discussion group for fans, and soon-to-be fans, of author Tim Dorsey and his manic anti-hero, Serge Storms. If you’ve never found yourself rooting for a serial killer, then you’ve never met Serge Storms. An encyclopedic knowledge of Old Florida history and a visceral revulsion toward anyone out to make a quick buck off of it makes Serge just a little bit dangerous.

Join us as at 7 pm as we discuss “Florida Roadkill”, the first of the 7-book series. Enjoy coffee and dessert while Serge cuts a swath of destruction across the landscape of a land God never intended for people to live on. Dorsey’s character brings swift, if extra-legal justice to the ne’er-do-wells, looters, and polluters that make Florida so weird.

Start a great friendship

2005-03-12T12:40:00.000-05:00

Frank Delaney is the author of the popular new saga, Ireland, a former judge for the Booker Prize, and a true Irishman now living in the United States.

This morning on NPR, during an interview about the book, Delaney remarked that some of his greatest friendships began when someone asked "Have you read...?"

One of our secret aspirations for the store is that it become a place where great friendships begin. That has been true for us and for many of you already.

But isn't Delaney right? Haven't you formed lasting friendships in the sharing of a favorite book or author or genre?

Try it this week. When you meet a new person or run into an acquaintance, why don't you try that question?

"Have you read...?"

And I invite (nay, implore) you to use the comments section below to begin the process. Let us know what your "go-to" book is and let's see who joins us.

I'll start. You've all heard me ramble about the joys of Tim Dorsey and his Serge Storms novels, so let's try something a little different.

In the coming weeks, BookSense will be coming out with its list of book group favorites, and one of my choices has been selected for inclusion in the national list. It's not your usual book group pick, but here's what I offered to the other independent booksellers in America:

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, has, in its nearly 30 years of existence, become a story everyone thinks they know, whether they have read the book or not. It is the perfect book for introducing a fascinating genre to those friends who say "I don't read science fiction."

The plot stands on its own, but these years later the enjoyment is heightened by the knowledge that there are many more episodes to come in the lives of these children.

Ender Wiggin is the original Harry Potter - a juvenile protagonist who captures adult hearts and minds. As groups seek alternatives to the Potter phenomenon, Ender's Game offers good fiction while stimulating discussions of three hot-button cultural issues...how our culture treats its children, how society as a whole can support war and empire when it is safely at a remove, and how we as a people respond to the assertion of government infallibility.

Author Fawn Germer at Destinations Booksellers

2005-03-07T15:48:00.000-05:00

Fawn Germer, author of “Mustang Sallies: Success Secrets of Women Who Refuse to Run with the Herd” and “Hard Won Wisdom” will be at Destinations Booksellers for an author appearance on Tue., March 8, 2005, from 7-9 pm.

Germer, who will be the keynote speaker at the Regional Minority and Women Business Owners Conference on Wed., explains how trailblazing women achieve success. “Mustang Sallies” includes interviews with Ann Richards, Erin Brokovich, Mary Higgins Clark, Hilary Clinton, among others.

Haunts and ghosts

2005-02-28T18:24:00.000-05:00

The incredible success of local author Kathleen McConnell with her book, Don't Call Them Ghosts: The Spirit Children of Fontaine Manse, has been in no small measure a reflection of the tastes of our patrons. Through in-store promotion and word-of-mouth, the winter book-signing she did here at the store remains one of our best-attended events. And, the book continues to sell wildly.

For such fans, we've brought in a special allotment of two key books at a bargain price. Michael Norman and Beth Scott have written guides to Haunted America and Historic Haunted America.

We have a limited supply of these right now, but I wanted to let the readers of this Web log know about it first. I'm trying to get Haunted Heritage and Haunted Heartland in as quickly as possible, too. These are all legendary and/or eyewitness accounts of haunted places in America, and I know many of you will want to add these to your collections.

Patrons, take notice

2005-02-28T02:20:00.000-05:00

For the first time since we opened in October, Destinations Booksellers will be suspending its operating hours. You've grown accustomed to our extended operating hours over the last four months, but it's important to alert you to the special circumstances surrounding this suspension.

On Wednesday, we will close the store at 3 p.m. In extreme circumstances, we can make delivery of pending special orders, but browsing and shopping in the store will not be available. We expect a strong turnout for Wednesday night's Public Afffairs Symposium, which begins at 7 p.m., so we will close the store to prepare for same.

We will reopen at 9 a.m. on Thursday. We thank you for your patronage during these first four months of operation, months which have exceeded our projections for sales and vastly exceeded our expectations in terms of the affection and appreciation you, our loyal patrons, have shown to us and the concept of a full-service general bookstore in Southeast Indiana. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

New Albany in Vintage Postcards

2005-02-26T03:38:00.000-05:00

We have news about the much-anticipated new book by David Barksdale and Robyn Sekula, New Albany in Vintage Postcards.

This is the first new book about New Albany since the store opened, and is effectively the only one still in print. Arcadia Publishing is known for these local history books filled with vintage photographs and they've recently launched this line featuring collections of postcards.

David and Robyn have already given us a preview during an event earlier this year, and the excitement is building for readily accessible book about historic New Albany. Jeffersonville and Clarksville had each been featured in Arcadia's Images of America series, and we'd like to help get those two books back in print, too.

But the big news is we've come closer to a confirming release date for New Albany in Vintage Postcards, and it looks like it will be available in May (which coincidentally is Preservation Month in Southern Indiana).

Arcadia does limited print runs and then the books disappear from the shelves. It's my impression that Floyd Countians will snatch up all the copies by the end of May and we'll just have to cross our fingers about a reprint for all those Christmas giving plans. Reserve your copy now by coming by the store or dropping us a line. We'll be turning the sign-up sheet into a confirm and reserve sheet, so be sure to let us know how many copies you want for yourself and how many you want to give as gifts. We'll fill orders until we run out. It sells for $19.99, so order several now.

Don't get caught out on this book the way many of us were on the last several books about New Albany.

Busy day, busy week

2005-02-25T12:32:00.000-05:00

Running the shop and staying on top of everything is beginning to run me a little ragged, so today I'd like to refer you to one of my favorite Web haunts, The Egglestonian Creed.

We're preparing for Sunday's art exhibition and Wednesday's symposium while maintaining our Friday Third Space Night, our Saturday Rhyme & Reason event, and Monday's Sound Off, so enjoy this Destinations Booksellers patron's erudite musings while I get some work done.

Gramer lessins

2005-02-24T14:15:00.000-05:00

Just yesterday I was talking with a store patron about WHY careful editing is so important. We were talking about our proof copies of upcoming books. These advance editions clearly state that they are not final, but are only proofs provided to us for evaluation purposes. Accordingly, they can often be quite a pain to read if you are sensitive to a) facts, b) spelling, c) grammar, and/or d) story continuity.

Recently, my wife was reading an advance copy of one novel. Suddenly, I heard a scream from our living room and rushed in to see what was wrong. It seems that about one-third of the way through the book the author had decided to change the name of a central character. Who the heck was “Susan” and why was she sleeping with “Mary’s” husband?

Anyway, I told my patron my feelings on typos, particularly in professional writing. We learn to spell from reading. When we read a new word in what we believe to be an authoritative document (newspaper, book, encyclopedia), we internalize it. Some time after that, we are likely to write it…or say it aloud. When the “authoritative document” gets it wrong, it’s just like sneezing in someone’s face. Those germs will infect and are likely to go on and infect others.

Which brings me to today’s feeble rant.

In The Tribune’s front page story (and I still think I saw Amany Ali's byline on the article I read - my apologies if I've grown accustomed to her style and misidentified the writer, but I'd swear I saw her name on the story) on the county’s plan commission request to Sammy O’s owner Sam Oskin, she quotes commission member Paul Riggs as saying “What we’re looking for is assurity from someone trained in the safety field, as far as having an adequate fence that would preclude someone from falling or rocks that would potentially fall.”

Even if Mr. Riggs said those words – “assurity?” – don’t spread such hogwash. Before you know it, someone else will be using that word, thinking it’s a real word because they saw it in the paper. Maybe Mr. Riggs was seeking a “surety” or just mangled the word “assurance,” but the newspaper doesn’t need to be propagating mythical words.

New Visions for Downtown New Albany

2005-02-24T03:10:00.000-05:00

As you know, we've created a special site just for the upcoming Public Affairs Symposium at the Volunteer Hoosier Web log. Click the link for more details, including the discussion panel for Wednesday's event. It starts at 7 p.m., March 2.

Patron Passport review

2005-02-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

As you know, we are often privy to advance reader copies, galleys, and proofs of upcoming books. Obviously, we don't have the resources or the time to read all of these books in the way we'd like.

That's why we count on our Patron Passport members to evaluate books for us. Here is a review of Jeannette Walls memoir, The Glass Castle.

THE GLASS CASTLE, by Jeannette Walls

Three of my family have read this book within the last week and we all agree: READ THIS BOOK!

Ms. Walls writes of her childhood in a way that you ARE her. You feel everything she goes through. You laugh with her and cry for her.

Her family is made up of the most unusual parents possible. Her father can be very loving and then when drunk the most hurtful. Her mother is in her own world, but can draw some of the most unusual answers to their problems you ever heard.

You cannot put the book down wanting to know what will happen to Jeannette and her siblings next. It astounds you how they cope. It even astounds you more how they survive, let alone become normal, productive human beings.

Excellent reading.

Patron Passport member Betty Atkins takes home a review copy of The Glass Castle with our gratitude for sharing her thoughts on this book. We hope you enjoyed it.

On the horizon

2005-02-23T12:19:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, you just know a book will be good and can't wait to give it a read and add it to your collection. It's even better when you know that a select group of friends and acquaintances will be reading it, too.

A publisher I trust is Farrar, Straus and Giroux. FSG brings out some of the finest writing each year, although its titles rarely become the blockbusters you would read about in People magazine.

One book I'm looking forward to is American Purgatorio, by John Haskell. It paints a picture of one man's condition of bewildered grief after the mysterious disappearance of his wife. The pilgrimage that follows promises much in the way of philosophy as the wrapping for a classic "quest" tale. Benjamin Kunkel, writing in The Nation, says this:

American Purgatorio ostensibly tracks the seven deadly sins rather than the four noble truths. Still, it seems to me the most Buddhist English-language novel I have read. It's difficult to follow Haskell's narrator from Brooklyn, through Boulder (capital, if anywhere is, of Buddhist America), and finally to beachside nirvana in San Diego, without thining of the precepts of nonattachment, overcoming desire and the unreality of self.

What I'm reading, and more

2005-02-21T23:35:00.000-05:00

I'm previewing a May release called Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and I'm convinced that everyone will be talking about this one.

Levitt is the winner of the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the most promising economist under the age of 40, but he's anything but dry. His forte is asking the right questions. Here's a sample:

If drug dealers are so rich, why do so many of them live with their moms?

What do Ku Klux Klan members and real estate agents have in common?

With the writing help of a New York Times reporter, Levitt takes us on a journey of the mind that will rival Blink, and I never thought I'd say that this year.

We'll have the book on its May 1 on-sale date, but you may want to get your name on a copy right away.

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Tuesday is Dessert Night.

Thursday we're thrilled to have world travelers Andy and Chandy Schanie regale us with their trip to "Europe on a Budget." The event will feature DVD slides from the trip and some tips on how to get around without spending a load. Key information in a year when the dollar won't go so far across the pond.

Friday last was a kicker of a time for Third Space Night and Saturday was an equally enjoyable Rhyme & Reason. Why don't you join us this week - Friday at 8, Saturday at 6.

And the big show starts at noon on Sunday when we're honored to present a showing of the watercolors and oil paintings of Candace Bonn. The reception runs for three hours (drop in at your convenience and meet the artist) and we hope to persuade Candy to leave a few pieces on exhibit throughout March.

And oh, yeah. There's some kind of public affairs thing happening next Wednesday, March 2, starting at 7. If you aren't aware of that yet, you ain't been payin' attention. More later...

THANK YOU!

2005-02-20T19:28:00.000-05:00

Our patrons responded winningly to last week's promotion for elementary school libraries. Seven local schools (all in Floyd County) will be receiving 58 books valued at over $600 in the coming week, just as soon as we can get out and to the schools with the books.

If any of you who helped with these donations wish to pick up the books, we'd be happy to let you make the delivery!

A serious contribution to community

2005-02-14T01:47:00.000-05:00

One of the things that shocked me when I moved to Indiana was the woeful contribution made from tax dollars to the elementary school library system. I can imagine no more eloquent and dismal statement than the fact that the collection of communal books in the elementary schools system is primarily dependent on voluntary contributions. By all appearances, this is equally true of the parochial schools.

This evening, I'm reading an engrossing essay in The New York Times Book Review. In the essay, A.J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, relates his reaction to a recent NYTBR review. Jacobs' essay is titled "I Am Not a Jackass," and here is how it begins...

I experienced plenty of strange things in the weeks following the publication of my book. I got to meet my one and only rabid fan - a man who took off his sweater to reveal passages of my book scrawled on his T-shirt in Magic Marker. I got to see firsthand the alarmingly high average age of the American reader - at one event, there were no fewer than three women with oxygen tanks in the front row (reminder to self: write more books...fast!)...

I've noted the same phenomenon myself (absent the oxygen masks). We're here now, and don't plan to retire for another 25 years. And while we have some dear friends of school age that we consider to be "our" kids, if current trends continue we'll be selling more reading glasses than children's books as the years pass.

It may be that our local kids have lost the habit of reading, and that's the fault of all of us. That reading has become less popular may have something to do with the fact that New Albany has been without a full-service, general new bookstore for, by one account, the last 57 years.

So, let's see what we can do about it, starting right now.

Come in and buy a book appropriate for an elementary school library. Tell us which school you want the book to go to. For every two dollars spent by you, we'll add another dollar in book credit for that school's library. Another way to put it: for every two books purchased, we'll donate the value of one book to the school of your choice in Floyd, Harrison, Washington, Scott, or Clark counties.

Choose from among the many books we've selected for this program all this week. On Saturday, I'll report back to you the results of this effort. If you can't make it into the store, call and we'll make a selection for you. Just tell us which elementary school you want to be the beneficiary.

Taking a cue...

2005-02-12T12:22:00.000-05:00

...from a friendly fellow blogger who, by the way, has shamed me with his perspicacity and timeliness, the time has come to see just how large and literate this community on the Web has become.

Accordingly, we launch "What Are You Reading?" with today's posting.

I'd like you to post your answer in the comments section below, but if that's not your style, drop me a line at ops@destinationsbooksellers.com and I will endeavor to repost it here online for everyone to ponder. If you wish, just give us an alias or a set of initials to identify yourself.

You can post briefly ("I'm reading 'Knuffle Bunny.') or at length. You can review the book or make no comments at all. You can even tell us what you wish you were reading.

Here's mine:

I'm Randy Smith, director of operations at Destinations Booksellers. I'm reading American Empire: The Victorious Opposition, by Harry Turtledove (ISBN 0345444248, $7.99).

That's a work of alternate history fiction that envisions an North American continent divided by a different outcome to several wars between the states. The U.S.A. now occupies Canada and the C.S.A. has granted statehood to Guadalajara, giving them a Pacific port. U.S. troops also occupy the Mormon territory of Deseret and continue to brutally suppress the LDS church after a treasonous insurrection. Abraham Lincoln (whose birthdate is assumed to be today), became the most despised man in America after losing the war in the 1860s, and lived long afterward, only to found the U.S. Socialist Party, the opposition party to the Democrats. In the South, the Freedom Party is ascendant and determined to reverse all gains made by the now-freed slaves.

Again, all I'm asking from you, at a minimum, is to answer this question: What are you reading?