Working Titlez

An interesting way to raise awareness of books. Would this work in your town? Would be really funny to see it in Las Vegas casinos. Stacey Fott, Publishing Coordinator, Stephens Press

 ”So, let’s create a few hundred Flash Mobs all over the country with people spontaneously reciting opening lines to their favorite books in a continual wave across the center of America’s shopping malls. We can even put them to music and include synchronized moves. Synchronization managed to make swimming seem more entertaining and people can do this without getting wet or nose plugs.”

-Columnist Martha Randolph Carr in the New Bern, N.C. Sun Journal.

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Reading Las Vegas to offer few frills but many thrills

By MAGGIE LILLIS
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Author Carolyn Schneider will be sharing memories of her Uncle Bing on April 28th.

 The month of April will make you laugh all the way to the library, if Reading Las Vegas: A Sure Bet organizers get their way.

The ninth annual adult reading incentive program will include authors known to spin a phrase while tickling the funny bone, program co-chairwoman Leah Ciminelli said.

The monthlong program also will include writing workshops, a murder mystery event and a book festival. Absent from this year’s festivities will be prizes, giveaways and the popular Reading Las Vegas tote bag due to budget cuts within the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.

Jennifer Schember, adult services coordinator, said this year’s theme, For the Love of Reading, emphasizes getting back to the basics of reading, without the frills of prizes and other incentives.

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By Stacey Fott

Stephens Press donates books to a variety of charities throughout the year. However our largest yearly donation in terms of books, advertising, and author involvement is Library Tree Lane which benefits the Friends of the Henderson Libraries. Stephens Press has been a partner since the event began in 2005. Held each December at the Paseo Verde Library, guests mix, mingle, bid on auction items and meet SP authors. Over the years, many authors from our own R-J family have participated, including Jorge Betancourt, Norm Clarke, Heidi Knapp Rinella, Geoff Schumacher, and Joan Whitley. We just learned that the 2009 event raised a total of $21,000. Funds will go towards the purchase of books for the early-reader collection of the Henderson Libraries. Thirty-five of the books purchased will have a special label recognizing Stephens Press, LLC. I have had the honor of working with the event committee for the past five years and it is really a wonderful event for a very worthwhile cause.

By Guest Blogger Beth Schwartz

I have recently taken up a new hobby. Well, not exactly new, I am just pursuing it in a different way. Always an extremely avid reader, I have joined, or more like was recruited into, a book club. My mother loves to tell the story that I was so consumed with reading as a child that she would ask me to set the table for dinner and I would try to do it while devouring every word of a Nancy Drew mystery. She would watch in distress wondering, “How did I manage to raise such a little nerd?”

As for my newest bibliophilic pursuit, I belong to a very young book club having only just completed our third book. We started out with extremely high aspirations and read the textbook-like Twelve Caesars – about what else but the twelve Caesars – which was not a favorite of the book clubbers and was universally panned if even nary a cover was ever opened. Next there was the self indulgent opus The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch that is at 730 pages as thick as a phonebook. It was an improvement over our first book, and offered much insight into the Dutch culture, but still was not dearly loved.

This month we finally went for a more mainstream choice that was more manageable in size as well as an Oprah pick – Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was a pretty good read but it wasn’t exactly a page turner. But as I have found in my limited book club experience, that’s really not the point. The idea is that because someone different picks the book each month, we are introduced to reading material and, in turn, ideas we would have never taken the time to pursue on our own.

But even better than opening up our minds to new cultures, reading genres and stories we might have ordinarily dismissed, is the camaraderie created by a group of women who come together each month. Gathering with my fellow book clubbers and discussing the month’s reading material to glean their opinions, comments and interpretations has been a very gratifying experience.

Although at first resistant to joining the book club as I love the solitary aspect of reading, I have found it still allows me to find my escape while at the same time delve into and explore the book at another level. It has even led me to the conclusion that I probably would have enjoyed many a book a lot more had I incorporated group discussions.

But that’s not where the learning ends for this ambitious group of book lovers. We have been called high maintenance because we also insist on broadening our culinary horizons. Based on our chosen book, we also bring a dish along that relates to it. For instance, this month because Eat, Pray, Love takes place in Italy, India and Indonesia, a dish from any of these cultures could have been in the offing. I made an Indian dish that I would have never even considered making before, if not for this activity.

As the dog days of summer ensue, spend some time with yourself. Broaden your world and take up a new hobby or put a twist on one you already enjoy.

Beth Schwartz is the editor of Luxury Las Vegas magazine, also part of the Stephens Media family. She blogs at www.luxurylv.com/truly-scrumptious.

Book production is up . . . and down. Bowker, the international agency that issues ISBNs and tracks publishing statistics reports in Publishers Weekly that traditionally published book production fell 3% in 2008, down to 275,232 titles. Meanwhile, on-demand and short run digital production is up a whopping 132% to 285,394 titles. On-demand and short run printing is the production method of choice for self-publishers. Thus publishing growth is attributed primarily to authors publishing their own works, mostly through publishing services companies like Xlibris, AuthorHouse etc. These books, which are rarely stocked in bookstores sell, on average, less than 99 copies total. Although the growth in the production method is substantial, the growth in book sales is not. With major New York houses cutting or eliminating acquisitions of new titles in the past six months, and national chains like Borders and B&N putting moratoriums on new inventory purchases, book publishing has been turned upside down. I’m not sure this is necessarily a bad thing. In the past five years, the growth of new titles published in the United States has exploded. Sadly, the number of readers buying new books has not, resulting in massive numbers of unsold books ending their short unread lives in landfills or recycling centers. Perhaps a better balance between books published and buyers ready to buy them will be an odd beneficial result of the economic meltdown.

Some years back, puttering around a used bookstore, I came across a first reader, Many Surprises. Picking it up and leafing through the pages, a growing sense of familiarity overtook me. Monte Vista Elementary School. Miss Bird. First grade. I suppose we must have worked first on the alphabet and the sounds of the letters. I don’t really recall that. What I do remember is the day the teacher put us in a circle on the floor and passed out a copy of Many Surprises to each child. We preceeded to “read” about Jane and Billy, Miss Bird helping us sound out the words. All at once, I “got” it. It made sense. I could decode these collections of letters and spaces into words. I was in awe. I was R E A D I N G. Reading! What a gift this new skill would be for my entire life. I discovered the magical world of the book. To be transported to another time, another place, merely by opening a book. I became a bookworm. I would rather read than nearly anything. My mother was a regular library patron and as soon as I started reading, checking out books for me became part of the weekend regime as well. The Ontario Library on Euclid Avenue was a Carnegie-funded edifice (talk about a philanthropist who made a difference!) of speckled gray granite. The children’s department was in the basement (in Southern California, a basement was a novelty in itself). It was cool and dark with the musty smell of old and well-used books. I thought it was heaven. Since these books had to last me a whole week, I’d select an armful, and the librarian would make me put half of them back. There was a limit, after all, something like three or four. After a while, the librarian would overlook the limit requirement and let me take home five or six. Eventually, I’d read the entire young children’s collection, several times over. I’ll never forget the day the children’s librarian took me by the hand and led me upstairs to find my mom. A discussion ensued concerning letting me check out books from the adult section. It was agreed that the adult librarian would have to approve anything I took, but I was granted this very special exemption. The librarian, who was initially very disapproving of this notion of a CHILD reading these books, took it upon herself to make selections for me. Now I was reading REAL books — you know, the big thick kind with pages of words and no pictures. I was happier than ever when I discovered the simple world of kid’s books was now this deliciously complex place of plots and characters and story arcs and subplots in the “big” books. If I was hooked on books before, I became an addict. Besides the library, I was able to build a small book collection of my own. We’d often go to the Goodwill or Salvation Army, and I’d be allowed to select one used book (they sold for five cents each). The pickings were somewhat slim. Mary Poppins, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, Elsie Dinsmore, Litte Women (my favorite!), Trixie Belden, Tom Sawyer — I still have them all. Christmas or a birthday usually brought a coveted and brand-new Nancy Drew. Nancy, who always drove a convertible, had a boyfriend Ned and a BFF George, seemed to live a life of impossible adventure and independence. When I was nine, my Aunt Evelyn gave me a copy of Lamb’s Shakespeare for Children. I still have it. I read that book over and over and over. The Tempest. A Mid-Summer’s Night. The Taming of the Shrew. All dumbed down a bit to a suitable level for children, but curious and a bit incomprehensible to me. Years later, when we read Shakespeare in high school, I felt like I was visiting an old friend. I can’t possibly define the difference reading books has made in my life. Here I am, all grown up and a grandma, no less, and I still marvel at the joy and magic that is reading.

Books about books are a category I didn’t even know existed until my colleague Geoff Schumacher, a true bibliophile, introduced me. Currently I’m reading Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry, of Lonesome Dove fame. His life in the book world is fascinating and who knew he has owned Booked Up one of the biggest used and rare bookstores in the country (300,000 books) in the unlikely location of Archer City, Texas for thirty years. A rare interview with McMurtry in the Houston Chronicle reveals his concerns for readers in a world of technological gadgets taking the place of a good book.

When I was a child, we began every school day with not only the Pledge of Allegiance, but also a patriotic song. My Country Tis of Thee was my favorite. Later, as a grown up Kiwanian of many years, we began each meeting with a patriotic song — a charming custom that ought to be practiced throughout the nation. My Country Tis of Thee is still my favorite, and sometimes, while pretending to hit the high notes by using my internal mute button and letting the beautiful soprano voice of my friend Rebecca Bennett take over, I’d think about the words. My country. Our country. Tis of Thee. We. Isn’t that what it is all about? ALL of us.  Today, we celebrate what we’re all about — freedom. Today, we embrace change and find new reservoirs of hope and expectation as our country starts the first day of a new administration. My dear friend Monty Blackwell (who, come to think of it, I met in 7th grade Glee Club) sent me this photo and it seems fitting to share it today. As an aside, think about getting 18,000 individuals to the right field, in the right position, with no GPS, no Twitter, no cells, no PDAs. Wow! And God Bless America.

This incredible picture was taken in 1918. It is 18,000 men preparing for war in a training camp at Camp Dodge in Iowa. EIGHTEEN THOUSAND MEN! What a priceless gift from our grandfathers!

FACTS:

Base to Shoulder: 150 feet
Right Arm: 340 feet
Widest part of arm holding torch: 12 1/2 feet
Right thumb: 35 feet
Thickest part of body: 29 feet
Left hand length: 30 feet
Face: 60 feet
Nose: 21 feet
Longest spike of head piece: 70 feet
Torch and flame combined: 980 feet
Number of men in flame of torch: 12,000
Number of men in torch: 2,800
Number of men in right arm: 1,200
Number of men in body, head and balance of figure only: 2,000
Total men: 18,000

When I was seven, I asked Santa Claus for a typewriter. A REAL typewriter, not a toy — on that point, I was very specific.

I remember feeling sure I needed a typewriter. I had no plan as to what I’d do with it. Oh, I’d “play secretary” and type letters or maybe write stories. Somehow, I had the notion, if I had a typewriter, that the words would just flow, unlike the laborious process of penciling block letters on lined newsprint or the faux-cursive I was experimenting with (real handwriting was not in the curriculum until the third grade).

My parents repeatedly asked me if a typewriter was what I REALLY wanted? I matter-of-factly assured them a typewriter was EXACTLY what I wanted and while Santa more commonly brought toys to good little boys and girls, I was confident he’d deliver on my request and was pretty sure I was on the “good” list.

Christmas morning, I awakened first. Tiptoeing down the hallway, my excitement bursting, I rounded the corner and there, under the tree, it sat. Atop its own black leather case was a REAL typewriter. Years later, I would learn that it was a military surplus training typewriter. The keys were different colors to teach learning typists which fingers to use. It also typed only capital letters. My dad paid $5 for it. He’d had quite a challenge finding an affordable real typewriter, just days before Christmas.

I sank to my knees and ran my fingers over the machine, holding my breath. A sheet of paper protruded. MERRY CHRISTMAS, CAROLYN. ENJOY YOUR TYPEWRITER. LOVE, SANTA. This was more than I could keep to myself. Rushing back down the hall, I shouted out, “Santa brought me a typewriter AND HE WROTE ME A LETTER!”

Later that morning, after presents had been opened, pictures taken and breakfast eaten, Mom showed me how to roll a fresh sheet in my beloved typewriter and I was ready to begin. I stared at the white sheet of paper. Frozen. I could not think of a single thing to type.

Writer’s block at seven.