More Summer Read Picks

Summer is a great time for reading and there are any number of places to go for good book recommendations. I will try to link to some of the more interesting lists as the summer progresses. Thanks to Shelf Awareness for this link:

NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook featured "Summer reads '09," with recommendations from Liesl Schillinger of the New York Times Book Review, Laurie Hertzel of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Jamil Zaidi, manager at the Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash.

Jamil's picks:

• The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larson
• The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball
• Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
• The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami
• The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
• Wonderful World by Javier Calvo
• The Housekeeper & The Professor by Yoko Ogawa
• The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith
• The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Drood by Dan Simmons
• Wanting by Richard Flanagan
• The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl

I am going to put a couple of these on my To Be Read list for the summer and I concur with his recommendation for several others -- Beat the Reaper, The Angel's Game, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for starters.

I Love the Recognition

This morning when I was groggily checking to see if I had any tweets, I was surprised to see a message referring to a mention of Paragraphs in Shelf Awareness, a bookselling industry on-line publication.

There was also a mention of our opening in the American Bookseller's Assn. online newletter Bookselling This Week.

I love getting the recognition for Paragraphs, but also appreciate the exposure it provides our little sandbar.

Someday, if my dream comes true, I would like to see Paragraphs become a destination, a place that people who love bookstores put on their list of places they must visit. Is it possible to imagine a Book People or Tattered Cover giving our little slice of paradise a place on the literary map?

Achieving some level of national attention, no matter how small, makes that goal seem like something I may eventually be able to accomplish.

Test Your Knowledge of Banned Books

The Guardian has a challenging quiz testing their readers knowledge of some of the most frequently challenged and banned books.

To take this quiz and find out if you have been exercising your freedom to read: go here

via: Shelf Awareness

If You Want To Know Why We Are In This Mess

With the news of bank failures, investment firm takeovers and government bailouts or rescue plans Shelf Awareness provided a list of books which bookstore owners and librarians are recommending to readers who want to understand how things could get this bad and are looking for ideas on how the mess can be cleaned up. While there are many who say they didn't recognize the signs which warned of the financial markets impending implosion, many of these authors anticipated the current crisis and their books offer a different perspective.

To understand what happened:

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (Picador, $16, 9780312427993/0312427999), which appeared in paperback in June. Glen Robbe of the Stanford Bookstore called this title "prescient" claims the hardcover book trailer is "so compelling that you can't not want to read the book after seeing it."

I.O.U.S.A.: One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt. by Addison Wiggin and Kate Incontrera (Wiley, $19.95, 9780470222775/0470222778), which has a pub date of September 29. Carol Hill, owner of Book Mine, Leadville, Colo., said that this book is "very readable, with the obvious advantage that it also provides a picture of where we are today. As the blurb on the back notes, it is 'defiantly nonpartisan,' including interviews with Warren Buffet, Alice Rivlin, Robert Rubin, Ron Paul, Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan and Paul O'Neill among others."

Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism by Kevin Phillips (Viking, $25.95, 9780670019076/0670019070), which appeared in April. By the author of American Theocracy and American Dynasty, Bad Money notes that 20% of the economy is based on finance and if it is in trouble, it will have a major effect on the rest of the economy. Oh yes.

The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do About It by Robert Shiller (Princeton University Press, $16.95, 780691139296/0691139296) is an August title. Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten of 800-CEO-READ, commented: "Shiller's work on housing values is well-known and originally established in Irrational Exuberance. This book describes pretty clearly the mortgage crisis we are in and offers some solutions to get out."

For information on the names we wish we could ignore or had never heard:

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan (Penguin, $17, 9780143114161/0143114166), published in paperback earlier this month. Robbe of the Stanford Bookstore said that the paperback edition with its new epilogue includes "more information" from the former Fed chairman and "has some important things to say."

Essays on the Great Depression by Ben Bernanke (Princeton University Press, $29.95, 9780691118208/0691118205), published in 2004, offers "insight into what the current Fed chairman is thinking" and "reading his perspective on the last event of this magnitude may help understand what he does in this one," Covert and Sattersten noted.

And it is good, I suppose, to realize we've been here before:

The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind (Portfolio, $16,9781591840534/1591840538), first published in 2003. In a review, Jack Covert of 800-CEO-BOOK wrote with foresight that Enron's failure could happen again "when you have hubris at the CEO level, sales peoples' compensation based on short term success, upper level people totally focused on growth to satisfy short term Wall Street success, an accounting system that supports this concept, and finally an accounting firm that doesn't do a good job of oversight. Add to this a deregulated industry and watch what happens."

It's not all about Wall Street:

The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by Steven Greenhouse (Knopf, $25.95, 9781400044894/1400044898), an April book. Aaron Curtis, quartermaster of the buying office at Books & Books in Florida, said the book, which includes suggestions and examples for improving the lot of working-class America, is "not Wall Street specific but very relevant."

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder (Bantam, $35, 9780553805093/0553805096), appears on Monday. A former insurance industry analyst and managing director at Morgan Stanley, Schroeder had full access to Buffett.

The complete list on Shelf Awareness

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Shelf Awareness Story

Last month I had a phone interview with Shannon McKenna from Shelf Awareness, an on-line newsletter that serves the book industry. I enjoyed our conversation, yet when I hung up I wasn't sure that I had made much sense. Anyway, when I went to my Google in-box on Thursday morning there was more mail than usual, and several were from publisher reps and other vendors. Since, I had not contacted any of these folks, yet - all were on my list of things to do and people to write - it seemed some calamitous event had occurred.

Sure enough, as I scrolled through the daily edition of Shelf Awareness, the following story caught my eye. Thanks Shannon, you did make some sense out of my babbling!

Future Store 2: Paragraphs on Padre Blvd.

Joni Montover won't open the doors of her South Padre Island, Tex., bookstore until the fall, but she's already garnering a following of readers--and potential customers--with the Paragraphs on Padre Blvd. blog. "It's a way to introduce myself to the community," said Montover. In addition to offering reading suggestions, commenting on local happenings and sharing publishing industry news, she's chronicling the creation of the store.

Not only will the newly-built edifice house the island's only bookstore, it will also be Montover's home. The u-shaped building will contain 1,700 square feet of retail space and a 1,400-sq.--ft. residence. The two parts will be connected by a storage room as well as a courtyard, which will be used for hosting store events. Combining business and home, explained Montover, made the venture more financially viable.

A long-time visitor to South Padre Island, Montover began several years ago to consider the idea of settling there permanently and opening a bookstore. The former CPA, who currently divides her time between Colorado and upstate New York, took early retirement from her job but envisions working for another decade--but only at a vocation she truly enjoys and one that will enable her to play a part in the island's community.

South Padre Island is home to 2,500 year-round residents. "Most of the people here are retired professionals with a fairly high educational level, and everybody I've talked to craves the idea of having a bookstore," she said. In addition, the island attracts one million visitors annually--retirees from the Midwest and elsewhere who winter there, followed by spring break crowds and beach-goers in the summer, the busiest season. "It fluctuates," said Montover. "Fall is the quietest season, but I hope there are enough full-timers to tide the business over."

The nearest bookstore is about 30 miles away on the University of Texas campus at Brownsville; Montover considers the local library and online retailers like Amazon her biggest competitors. Paragraphs on Padre Blvd. won't carry mass market titles or other books that can be purchased at a nearby Wal Mart, and instead the focus will be on literary fiction, current events, history, biography, classics and tomes by Texas authors.

Due to a growing environmental awareness movement on the island, which is home to a sea turtle rescue facility and a renowned bird-watching center, there will be a section devoted to nature and local interest travel. The store will also carry some used books, along with a small selection of collectible and antiquarian titles. Montover is planning to create a pre-opening survey to find out what residents are interested in reading, as well as to get an idea of their book-buying habits.

Montover intends to take up permanent residence on the island during the summer, and Paragraphs on Padre Blvd. is slated to open in September. Then South Padre Island residents will no longer have to go on treks in search of reading material. "Some people make a weekend of it and go to Austin and Houston and come back with a trunk full of books," said Montover. Instead they can browse the shelves of their neighborhood bookstore.--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

Joni Montover can be reached at joni.montover@gmail.com or 303-358-4464.

Best Seller List from Abe Books

The following is from Shelf Awareness:

"AbeBooks.com's February Faves

The following were the top 10 sellers on AbeBooks.com during February, including several titles that have been given Oprah boosts and Flat Belly Diet, given a Rachael Ray boost:

1. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
2. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
3. Flat Belly Diet by Liz Vaccariello
4. The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren
5. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
6. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
7. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
8. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
9. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
10. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

[Many thanks to AbeBooks.com!]"

and my thanks to Shelf-Awareness.com

In the Company of Good Books

I have a fundamental belief in the power of good books to change lives, communities, states, nations, and ultimately the world. It seems I have something in common with First Lady Laura Bush.

From Shelf Awareness:

"A nation that does not read for itself cannot think for itself. And a nation that cannot think for itself risks losing both its identity and its freedom. Ray Bradbury was right when he said, 'You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.'

'Both reading and a love of reading are learned behaviors that should be taught at home and in schools. Like many of you in this room, I've spent my life in the company of good books, because my mother taught me to love them, and my teachers taught me to read them, and my library let me take them home free. Those early experiences had a profound impact on my life, and on my career as a public school teacher and librarian, and on my present work in the U.S. and around the world.'--First Lady Laura Bush, speaking yesterday at the AAP annual meeting in New York City."