Month: April 2005

I was away last weekend and couldn’t be at Wordstock, but Jeff Baker’s wrap-up of the book festival in the Oregonian gave me a flavor of what I’d missed. This part, though, made my jaw drop:

The consensus around the convention center was that Wordstock’s first year was a smashing success for the community and the community of writers that calls the Northwest home.

“I’m really, really glad Portland has a book fair again,” said Ursula K. Le Guin. “It’s something we really needed. Look at the turnout!”

Le Guin’s presentation demonstrated the challenges any first-ever event faces. A healthy crowd of about 80, including a dozen children, tried to listen to the 75-year-old Le Guin while a few feet away, almost 2,000 people laughed and applauded as Vowell read from her new book “Assassination Vacation.” The effect was somewhat jarring, but Le Guin shrugged it off.

Call your agent, Ursula. You need to get on NPR.

Samir El-Youssef has just won the Tucholsky Award, given by PEN to “writers, journalists and publishers who face persecution, threats or exile from their home countries.” Most recently, El-Youssef co-authored a collection of stories with Israeli author Etgar Keret, titled Gaza Blues.

Yet another indicator of the “winner take all” model in bookselling: grocery stores now account for a non-neglibible percentage of book sales, and those sales tend to be focused on “big books” that are already bestsellers.

Supermarkets, long the domain of paperback romances, pulp thrillers and astrology guides, are the new frontier of book selling. Chains like Wegmans, Kroger and Albertsons have greatly expanded their book sections, adapting the techniques that move large amounts of Velveeta and Count Chocula and applying them to Nora Roberts and John Grisham.

Grocery stores have gone beyond the traditional spinning racks of pocket-size paperbacks, adding mahogany fixtures, sitting areas and cafes, and often placing their book sections in the center of the store, where shoppers are likely to stroll. Eye-catching displays of new hardcovers are sprinkled throughout the stores, encouraging impulse purchases: a big display near the entrance, cookbooks near the spice aisle and, in summer, beach reading near the seasonal displays of sunscreen.

Read the rest here.

Chang-rae Lee, currently in Seoul to promote Aloft and A Gesture Life, says that his next novel will be about the “lingering tragedy” resulting from the Korean war.

“It will be about a refugee girl raised in America after the war, a soldier and an aid worker during the war,” Lee said during a media meeting held yesterday at the Press Center in central Seoul. He said the book will be published in about two years.

Looking forward to it.

Lauren Sanders and Bee Lavender will be reading from With or Without you and Lessons in Taxidermy, respectively, as part of their tag-team West Coast tour. Here are the details:

Fri. April, 29. 7 pm.
Reading Frenzy,
921 Southwest Oak Street

Three small publishing houses have formed an alliance with two corporate imprints in order to launch Reading The World, an initiative that will give works in translation a special promotional display in about 80 independent bookstores.

(Thanks to Janey for the link.)