Between the Covers

Broadway releases Sarah Palin book jacket

Broadway Books has released the cover of Joe McGinness' upcoming biogrpahy of Sarah Palin, and here it is in its full noir glory.

Looks like a detective novel, doesn't it? I suppose it is, in a way. McGinness ticked off the former governor by moving next door to her to research the book. Brave man. I hear she's well armed.

McGinniss is best known for The Selling of the President 1968, about the marketing of Richard Nixon during the '68 campaign. He also wrote the true crime novels Fatal Vision, Blind Faith and Cruel Doubt.

The Rogue is due out in the fall.

 

 

Egan wins National Book Critics Circle award

The National Book Critics Circle Awards have been handed out, and BtC's beloved Jennifer Egan won the fiction award for her terrific novel A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Other winners include:

Autobiography: Darin Strauss, Half a Life (the memoir, about the author coming to terms with an accident in which a classmate was killed, beat out Patti Smith and Christopher Hitchens)

Nonfiction: Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.

Biography: Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question

Poetry: C.D. Wright, One With Others

Click here to see full list of winners.

 

New Stephen King novel will tackle Kennedy assassination

Stephen King's website has announced that the author's next book, entitled 11/22/63, is about a high school English teacher from (where else?) Maine who travels back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The book, to be published by Simon & Schuster, is due out in November 2011.

Bristol Palin gets a book deal

And you thought her stint on Dancing With the Stars was impressive/horrific/fill in your favorite descriptive word here.

Bristol Palin just signed a book deal with William Morrow for a memoir entitled Not Afraid of Life, which is allegedly "an inside look at her life" that will include bits on coming of age in the political household of her mom, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate; becoming a single mom; having a relationship with a knucklehead that broke up in public twice; and her DWTS appearances.

No word on what she'll get paid, according to the Associated Press, but the book is due out this summer.

Family maid sues author of "The Help"

A woman who once worked as a maid for a relative of Kathryn Stockett, author of the bestselling novel The Help, is suing the writer, saying that a black servant character in the book was based on her and showed her in a bad light.

The Associated Press reports that Ablene Cooper, who worked for Stockett's brother, filed suit in Hinds County Circuit Court in Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 9, seeking $75,000 in damages.

One of the offending passages cited, says the AP, includes a scene in which the character, named Aibileen, refers to a cockroach, saying, "He black. Blacker than me."

The Help, which was published in 2009 and sold 2.5 million hardcover copies in the U.S., is based on relationships between white families and black maids in the South of the 1960s. A film version, due out this summer, stars Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard, Viola Davis, Sissy Spacek and Octavia Spencer.

Borders files for bankruptcy; two Broward stores to close

Finally, the inevitable has happened: Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and plans to close about 200 of its stores, two of them in Broward County.

The Borders set for termination are in Plantation and Fort Lauderdale; the Aventura Borders closed last fall. Big stores were the big target: Most of the stores destined for closure are more than 20,000 square feet, according to Publisher's Weekly.

Meanwhile, Borders will continue to operate its online store and will honor gift cards, the Border Rewards program and other customer programs, according to another Publisher's Weekly story, which also quoted president Mike Edwards as saying in a statement: “It has become increasingly clear that in light of the environment of curtailed customer spending, our ongoing discussions with publishers and other vendor related parties, and the company’s lack of liquidity, Borders Group does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor and which are essential for it to move forward with its business strategy to reposition itself successfully for the long term.''

Click here to see the list of store closings.

The death knell for books on CD?

HarperCollins is making a big, bold move in the audiobook arena: Of the 150 titles on the publishing house's spring release list, only two will be released on CD. The rest will be available only via digital download, according to Publisher's Weekly.

Sales of CDs have dropped, PW goes on to say, although they still account for 65 percent of the market of audiobook sales. But CDs are more expensive to produce than digital downloads.

Harper says it' s not abandoning the CD format; PW reports that Christy Mirabal, associate director of HarperAudio, says that while the audience is leaning toward digital downloads, Harper will most likely publish a few more of its spring titles on CD and that “while we are selective in our CD publications, we have no plans to discontinue publishing in this format."

According to the story, other publishers like Random House and Simon & Schuster have no plans to discontinue CDs yet. But you have to wonder...

 

Hyperion to publish book by Jane Lynch

Hyperion has something to cheer about: The publishing house's Voice imprint is publishing a book by the awesome Jane Lynch, who plays sadistic cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on TV's Glee.

Publisher's Weekly reports that Happy Accidents will be published in September 2011 and will cover Lynch's time on the Fox hit (the high point - her version of Madonna's Vogue), her work with Second City and her roles in Christopher Guest's film (my personal favorite would have to be her reformed tramp from A Mighty Wind, though she's pretty great in Best in Show too). She'll also write about getting sober and coming out.

From Lynch: "If I could go back in time and have a conversation with my 18-year-old self, the first thing I'd say is 'Lose the perm.' Second, I would say, 'Relax. Really - just relax. Don't sweat it.' " 

You can check out Lynch after the Super Bowl on the post-game episode of Glee.

Snooki's book not selling well - surprise!

Maybe it's a sign that the apocalypse isn't as nigh as we thought. Or maybe it's just because even fans of Jersey Shore have enough sense to be wary of the literary asperations of the guidos and guidettes. Or maybe we all have realized there are just better things to do.

Whatever the cares, you can insert your own snotty comment after I tell you that the Hollywood Reporter reports that despite a massive media blitz by its "author," A Shore Thing - a "novel" that Snooki "wrote" - has sold just shy of 9,000 copies so far.

Honestly, the real surprise is it sold THAT many.

The HR speculates that one of the reasons the book has failed is that it's not a tell-all memoir but then undermines its own theory by pointing out that the nonfiction Here's the Situation by Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino has only sold 12,200 copies since last November. Guess Sorrentino didn't tell enough.

 

New Eric Carle book coming this fall

He's 81, but he's not done yet.

Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and many, many other illustrated kids' books, will publish The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse in October, according to Penguin Young Readers Group. The book, Carle's first in four years, was inspired by artist Franz Marc.