Black and White and Read All Over

The Minneapolis StarTribune has posted a very nice article about our monthly book club "Books and Bars." They share some anecdotes about the meetings ("When the evening's deliberations centered on a Chuck Klosterman book that included a passage on Dave Pirner, who happened to be on-site bowling at the time, Kamin got the Soul Asylum singer to duck into the session and wave to the crowd.") and profile some regulars including "the Hater," "the Teachers," and even a guy called "Text."

Check out the article here, then stop by next month's meeting (details here). We'll be discussing Jonathan Ames' novel Wake Up, Sir!--David E

Free (Science) Fiction Friday

The blog Futurismic is back with its second "Free Friday Fiction," links to a bunch of free sci-fi books you can get just for clicking. See the latest list here.--David E

Y Tu Money Tambien

All the big books have promo videos now. But only a few can claim the pedigree that the video for Naomi Klein's new book Shock Doctrine has: Assisting Klein is none other than Alfonso Cuaron, director of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men.

Long a critic of globalization, Klein takes aim at "distaster capitalism" in her latest book, charging that today's finacial systems are too addicted to the turbulence caused by disasters to effectively prevent or mitigate them. You can hear Klein defend her idea in a recent BBC interview.--David E

Much Ado

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition--which aims to promote the idea that Shakespeare was not in fact the author of the plays attributed to him--got a shot in the arm recently when actor Derek Jacobi and the former artistic director of the Globe Theatre Mark Rylance signed their "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare."

You can read the details at the Coalition's website, www.doubtaboutwill.org--David E

Sitzmöbel

I don't know which I want more--the nifty little chair/wheelbarrow with the built-in storage and lamp or the groovy, empty loft space. Click on the pic for details, but only if you speak German.--David E

Darkmans to be Published in the US

Nicola Barker's Man Booker Prize-nominated novel Darkmans will be published in the US in January, Publishers Weekly announced today. That leaves Animal's People as the only shortlisted title not available to American readers; US rights for that novel are currently on the auction block, and we should know a publication date soon.--David E

Falling Up

James Frey's new novel will be published next summer by Harper Collins (WSJ). Unbroken by his hour-long scolding at the hands of Ms O a year and a half ago, Frey is back with Bright, Shiny Morning, a story set in today's Southern California, much like Frey's own life as a screenwriter.

I'm sure the critics are salivating over this news. To make it even better, Frey is already the author of How to Write a Damn Good Novel. Oh, the irony.--David E

Booker Prize Roundup: Bonus Edition

The Guardian has posted a quick overview of this year's Man Booker Prize shortlist nominees. The parodic summaries are distilled from the paper's ongoing feature, "The Digested Read," which--as I've mentioned earlier--is extremely useful for folks (like me) who want to be opinionated, but don't have the time to read everything coming down the pike.

The Guardian has also posted a very useful Booker Prize page with links to their own reviews, other papers' reviews, and author interviews.--David E

Last Chance

In the back of the store are two shelves of bargain books. They're not listed in our inventory, so you can't buy them online. You can only get these deals by coming into the store. These are titles that have been around too long or we have too many copies.

We often have some real gems on sale. Today on the same shelf I found

• Kids by Mario Testino
• Volunteer Slavery by Jill Nelson
• Rumpole a la Carte by John Mortimer, and
• Murder in the Central Committee by Manuel Vazquez Montalban

PS: I'm still trying to think of a jazzy name for this new--and I hope recurring--series. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted.--David E

In the Long Run

We have a couple copies of Nocturnes, the new collection of photographs by St Paul's Chris Faust. Thing is, they're still in their shrinkwrapping, so I can't flip through them. Would one of you customers please come in and ask to see the photos, so we have an excuse to open one of these books?

Here are a couple of Faust's photographs to whet your appetite.--David E

Wisconsin Is The Wackiest State, I Swear

It used to be a manure tank in central Wisconsin. Now, all cleaned up, it's a bookstore. And not just any bookstore, but a real castle, with a moat and everything.

Read the whole article here. It'll make you want to plan a trip to the Badger State.--David E

Booker Prize Roundup: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This one is the Post-9/11 South Asian Allegorical One.

The protaganist is Changez; his girlfriend is Erica. When, after September 11, America changes (ummm... Erica... Changez... get it?) our anti-hero becomes the reluctant fundamentalist of the title. The novel is a single evening's monologue, as Changez recounts his tale to a traveler visiting Pakistan.

Good review: The Village Voice: "brief, charming, and quietly furious"
Not so good review: The Guardian: "slightly abstracted, thin-blooded"

Booker Prize Roundup: Mister Pip

Shorthand for this one: The Favorite. (Alternative shorthand: The White-Man-Teaches-The-Unwashed- To-Love-Literature Book)

Mister Pip is set on the South Pacific island of Bougainville in the early 90s. As rebels approach and the white folks flee, only "Pop Eye" Watts remains to teach the local students using the only book he can find, Dickens' Great Expectations.

The knock on the book is that its theme is a bit too old-school British Empire. "Mister Pip contains a suspicious streak of paternalism throughout," says The Onion. "It invites sentiment yet gently mocks readers by exaggerating its own tropical colour," reassures The Australian.

Regardless, according to the UK gambling conglomerate William Hill, MP is the easy favorite to win this year's Man Booker Prize. It's listed at 2:1, ahead of Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, lagging behind at 5:2.--David E

Booker Prize Roundup: On Chesil Beach

Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach was the bookie's favorite when the longlist for the Booker Prize was announced, but with the release of the shortlist that honor has moved to Mister Pip.

On Chesil Beach is the Establishment Choice in this year's nominees. McEwan has been longlisted five times; he won 1998's prize for his novel Amsterdam. Only Peter Carey and JM Coetzee have won the Man Booker Prize twice.

The novel itself is the story of two virgins whose disappointing first night as husband and wife prompts much discussion about love, sex, and even social class. Critical response has been good from the book's publication.--David E

File Under "Geek"

In an effort to post something that's not Booker Prize-related, I'll point you towards this list of the "Top 25 Librarian Bloggers." It's got four metrics, an explanation methodology... there's probably more, but I dozed off at that point.

I have to wonder if there aren't only about 30 librarian bloggers out there. How else do you explain number nine, Fililipino Librarian. Their slogan is "For those interested in knowing more about the Philippines, Filipiniana, Philippine libraries and Filipino librarians." A worthy cause, no doubt, but it's the world's ninth most popular librarian blog?--David E

Booker Prize Roundup: The Gathering

Among this years Man Booker Prize shortlist, Anne Enright's novel The Gathering can be summed up as The Irish One. But hers is not a land filled with alcoholic fathers and penny whistles. "Anne Enright, born in Dublin in 1962, gives us an Irish fiction that leads out of tradition into something zestily new," says the Telegraph. That seems to mean sardonic observations such as this one: "Emily is a bit of a cat and cats, I always think, only jump into your lap to check if you are cold enough, yet, to eat."

The Gathering is the story of Veronica Hegarty, who is drawn back into her sprawling Dublin clan's orbit following the death of her brother Liam. Familiarity ensues.

As appears to be the case with Nicola Barker's Darkmans (see my posting here), the emphasis in Enright's novel is on the writing more than on the plot. The Independent called it "slight in storyline, perhaps, but prodigious in the telling." Or as the reviewer in the Guardian said more obliquely, "She has uncovered the truth that sometimes our great adventures are interior." (Personally, I found the Guardian's Booker Club blog entry to be more opinionated and therefore more useful.)--David E

Booker Prize Roundup: Darkmans

Nicola Barker's novel Darklands is set in the town of Ashford in Kent, where the town's citizens are beset by the apparition of John Scogin, Edward IV’s court jester. Over several days and 840 pages, Scogin prompts each of the main characters to his or her own special madness. One rolls in the muddy seashore; another builds a model cathedral out of matchsticks.

Reviewers agree that plot is not the draw in this book. "[H]undreds of pages pass with little or no dramatic incident," says the Independent. No, you read this book for its language. One character is "easy as a greased nipple (and pretty much as moral)." Another is "Jabba the Hut with a womb, chronic asthma and a council flat."

The Guardian loved "this wonderful contrary sprawl of a novel." The Times was less thrilled with the book, though even that reviewer calls it "inventive, witty and well staged." The Independent was somewhere in between, praising the novel's "fearsome energy."

An American edition of Darkmans hasn't been announced yet, so we won't be able to judge for ourselves for a while yet.--David E

Booker Prize Roundup: Animal's People

Of all the books on this year's Booker shortlist, the least familiar to me is Indra Sinha's Animal's People. It turns out to be a novel drawn from the author's own experiences in the aftermath of the Bhopal Union Carbide gas tragedy of 1984 (for information, click here).

Sindha founded the Bhopal Medical Appeal (bhopal.org) in 1994, and his novel is drawn from the stories of the people he met. The title's Animal is in fact a man, scarred and bent double since the events of "That Night." When the book opens Animal says, "I used to be human once." By its end, his people have helped him learn to find his humanity once again. The Indian Express called his story "a novel so honest that it leaves you gasping for breath."

There's been no announcement of an American edition of Animal's People as yet. Excerpts are available on Sinha's website.--David E

Man, Oh Man

The shortlist for this year's Man Booker Prize has been announced. Among the final six are some you'd expect to see and a few I've never heard of. I'll do some digging in the next few days and try to get some details on the lesser known titles.

• Darkmans by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate)
• The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
• Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
• Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)

Darkmans and Animal's People aren't available in this country yet, but that could well change in the coming weeks.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize will be announced on October 16.--David E

Book with a Beer Chaser

There's still time for you to get ready for next week's installment of our lubricated reading group Books & Bars. Join us Tuesday night (the 11th) at Bryant Lake Bowl (map) for conversation and a beverage with some very interesting folks. Doors open at 6:00pm for socializing; discussion begins in earnest at 7:00pm.

September's book is Theft by Peter Carey. It's the story of two brothers, one a painter and the other a childlike innocent, who are set about to steal paintings from the father-in-law of a beautiful stranger. John Updike said of the novel in The New Yorker, "Peter Carey is a superb writer, whose prose is always active, and who infuses his characters, however eccentric, with a warmth that lets them live in our minds."

Books & Bars is not your typical book club. We provide an atmosphere for lively discussion of interesting authors, good food and drinks. You're welcome to come even if you haven't read the book.

Mandatory Plaid Shirt

The San Francisco Chronicle has posted a brief interview with Steven Sparks, who works at the city's Green Apple Books, in my favorite part of SF--Clement Street. You can see the store's website here.--David E

Turning Japanese

Donald Richie has written an article about Boy, a book of three short stories by Japanese actor/director Kitano "Beat" Takeshi. You might know Takeshi as the host of the cult hit TV show Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, but he's also a serious actor. His most famous move is the great Hana-bi (Fireworks). Richie's article discusses not only that movie, but many others, drawing together themes from both the book and the movies, and giving a fascinating glimpse into Takeshi's filmmaking.--David E

The End

When Ian Rankin's best-known character, the crusty Edinburgh cop John Rebus, debuted in 1987's Knots and Crosses, he was forty years old. He's been aging in the novels right along with the rest of the world, and he's now sixty and approaching mandatory retirement. Seventeen books later, Rankin has announced that the next Rebus novel, Exit Music, will indeed be the last one.

You can read a review of the novel here, but that's all. No publication date has been announced yet for a US edition. If you're desperate for closure, you'll have to get it from across the pond.--David E

Among the Barbarians

Who would have thunk that New York magazine, home of the Model Manual and Party Lines, would also boast a great series of excerpts from graphic novels? But they do. Their Comics Page features some really interesting grown-up work--stuff you don't have to be embarrassed to read.

Right now they're showing Jake Myler's American manga Undertown. And if after that you accidentally read something about Leona Helmsley's dog, who can blame you?--David E

What Might Have Been

Author and renowned curmudgeon VS Naipaul is one of the most prolific writers around. But it wasn't a sure thing. Early in his career, Naipaul was looking at other options. He tells the Scotsman:

"I would have liked to work for a big company in India. I did apply, but didn't get it. To get those jobs you had to be well-connected locally. It was a giant corporation. They made matches."

So he kept on writing, and the fire-making industry's loss is literature's gain.--David E

Travails and (Ultimately)Triumphs

The Boston Phoenix has posted an investigative article on the increased visibility of pretty authors. Drawing attention to beauty may not be the most necessary bit of journalism, but the run-down of literary pulchritude is a fun read with some good gossip.

While the Phoenix ultimately decides that pretty doesn't hurt an author's chances of success, this reporter would like to point out that Malcolm Gladwell (author of the runaway hits Blink and The Tipping Point; pictured at right) has been doing just fine, thank you. Despite that hair.--David E

Oligarch Copies

Every once in a while, I come across a neologism that sings in my ears: "anger brigades" and "technicals", are good examples. Add the phrase "oligarch copies" to that list.

The term in refers to a diamond-encrusted edition of Dancing with the Bear: An Entrepreneur Goes East which is aimed, according to the BBC, at rich Russians, presumably those with more rubles than taste. With 600 diamonds, this book isn't for the shy. And with a price tag of over six million dollars, it's not for the poor, either.

Dancing with the Bear: An Entrepreneur Goes East is not yet available in the US, but that just gives you more time to save your pennies--David E

So Easy Even a Supermodel Can Do It

Men's Vogue magazine has posted a video/infomercial of supermodel Sophie Dahl (granddaughter of Roald Dahl) looking at rare books at Bauman's Rare Books in New York. Really.

The mind boggles with snarky comments, but instead I'll simply point out that we at Magers and Quinn welcome all rare book browsers, super and otherwise. Or if you're shy, browse our listings online.--David E

What Tossers Are Reading This Summer

This is why I love London's Guardian newspaper: they recently posted an entire article devoted to the ten most-often-thrown-away books in Britain's Travelodge hotels.

Topping the list is The Blair Years, the summer's hot tell-all memoir by the former Prime Minister's Karl Rove equivalent. The book was much talked about, but just as widely panned. If you don't want to bother wading through all 794 pages, you can just read the Guardian's Digested Read of the book, a wicked summation/parody and yet another reason to love those cheeky Brits.--David E

Calling All Artists

Constant readers will know that I'm a sucker for artists who use books as their medium. Cutting them, soaking them, building forts out of them--that sort of thing. If any of that inspires you, consider the Minneapolis Public Library's call for artists and submit your own altered books for an exhibition this spring.

Submissions are due October 15. Full details are posted at mnartists.org and at the MPL's site (.pdf).--David E

"Your monument shall be my gentle verse"

After tackling the subject of, well, everything, Bill Bryson will be back this fall with a book on a seemingly simpler subject: William Shakespeare. But it's not as easy a topic as you might think. Scholars know surprisingly little about the bard.

Bryson writes, "We don’t know exactly how many plays he wrote or in what order he wrote them. ... we have just 14 words in his own hand... we have no written description of him penned in his own lifetime... we are not sure how best to spell his name."

Shakespeare: The World as Stage will be published November 1. Meanwhile, you can read an excerpt here.--David E

What's Cooking

Bill Buford will be on Minnesota Public Radio's "Midmorning" show Monday morning at 10am Central time. You will be able to hear the show or find the archived broadcast on their website.

Buford, a one-time fiction editor a the New Yorker, quit his job to learn the cooking trade under various chefs, starting with Mario Batali. The result is his book Heat: An Amateur's Adventures As Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany.

The New York Times reviewer loved the book: "These first fast-paced chapters read almost like a thriller... The plot clips along, but I found myself reading slowly because there is so much information on every page."

Buford is also the author of the gripping and scary Amongt he Thugs, his account of his time spent with British soccer hooligans. I recommend that book, too.--David E

UPDATE: Buford must have had a schedule problem, since today's show wasn't anything to do with cooking. If and when MPR reschedules his appearance, I'll let you know.

You're Well Above Average

According to an AP/Ipsos poll released Wednesday, fully a quarter of Americans did not read a book last year. The Bible tops the list among admitted readers, with popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries high up as well. Almost every other category had a readership of under five percent of respondents.

You can read the results here (.pdf), if you are very curious.--David E

Weird and Wonderful and Available Now 5

Oh, the things on the shelves. In the hope of finding suitable homes for some of the hidden gems in the stacks, I continue this irregular feature dedicated to the strange and strangely interesting stuff we stock. (I promise these are all real books in our store.)

• The Colour Atlas of Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• File Your Own Divorce
• Revenge Tactics of the Master

Thought Crime

A few days ago, Ian Rankin told a reporter that his wife had seen JK Rowling hard at work in an Edinburgh cafe. Her subject matter? A crime novel, the sort of thing Rankin himself writes, and very well, I might add. (Check out his most recent John Rebus novel The Naming of the Dead, for example.) Potterites were alternately agog and aghast. Was it Professor Everard in the Quidditch stadium with the Liquorice Wand?

Sadly, no. It turns out Rankin was just pulling the scribe's leg. "This is a joke that got out of hand," Rankin told the Guardian. You can see the full confession here.--David E

Letting Go

Working in a bookstore, you have to learn to see great books come through the store and know that you can't take them all home with you. Case in point, this book I came across today in our inventory: The Complete Trailsmart Maps: National Parks of the USA. It's not actually a book, it's a collection of CDs with maps of all the national parks. You can trace out a route you think you might want to hike, and the software will tell you the distance, elevation gain, and so on.

It's sweet but it's Windows-only software, so you, gentle customer, are in luck. This gem is out on the shelves for half off list price. It's a bargain, even if you're only going to use it to daydream this winter.--David E

Looking Up

Recent weather in Minnesota--and we've had a lot of it lately--has us all watching the skies. And there's a book to help us make sense of it all: The Cloudspotter's Guide by the wonderfully named Gavin Pretor-pinney, explains the difference between cirrus and cummulonimbus and tells you when you can lie back and imagine bunnies and duckies floating overhead and when you need to run for cover.

For further information and a nifty embroidered patch, consider joining GP-P's Cloud Appreciation Society. "[W]e are fighting the banality of ‘blue-sky thinking’," says their website, cloudappreciationsociety.org.--David E

Going Back

I haven't been tempted to read a novel set in the dark, Paleolithic past since the thirteen-year-old me read The Clan of the Cave Bear. But now the Guardian is up to episode twelve in its podcast of Michelle Paver's Wolf Brother, and I'm a bit tempted to revert to an earlier time. To make it even more appealing, the audio version is voiced by Sir Ian McKellan.

You can find all the episodes here, along with an interview with the author, in which she discusses eating seal blubber as part of her research. I'm not going that far just for nostalgia, though.--David E

Toddle On Down

The library at the Chicago Botanic Garden is playing host to not one, but three first-edition books by Charles Darwin. Through October 28, you can see

• On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
• Narrative of the surveying voyages of his Majesty’s ships Adventure and Beagle, between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle’s circumnavigation of the globe (Robert Fitzroy, editor), and
• Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by HMS Beagle

There's also an exhibition on the publication of On the Origin of Species and its context. Details are here.--David E

I'm Gonna Live Forever

This is the cover of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. It's a Chinese language version from 2000, though it appears to be a photo of the cast of an off-Broadway production of Fame, circa 1983.

This is just one of the many great (and puzzling) foreign-language covers of the book posted here.--David E

Virtually Reading

Earlier this month, William Gibson held a reading for his latest book, the sci-fi thriller Spook Country. Don't feel bad if you didn't hear about it, though. The reading was held in the cyberspace community known as Second Life. Once the domain of Korean teenagers and Scandinavian bachelors, the virtual world of Second Life has become the new frontier for advertisers and marketers alike. Penguin's venture is one of the first book events there, but it will hardly be the last.


Those of us who are still perfecting our First Lives can watch video of the event:

Judge a Cover

The Book Design Review Blog has a nice posting on the recent "Great Loves" series from Penguin. There's also a nice posting on Penguin's blog from the cover designer, describing the process of making the art for the cover at right.--David E

Crank It Up

Salon.com has a good article today reviewing two books about crystal meth. Frank Owen's No Speed Limit: Meth Across America takes a reportorial look at the drug and its users. James Salant's memoir Leaving Dirty Jersey is an insider's view, which salon.com calls "a book with the terrifying energy and harsh, overlit violence of a Tarantino movie."--David E

Leer Es Clave

According to the Times of London, "A study by FGEE [the Spanish Federation of Publishers] found that 40 per cent of Spaniards never read anything. Spaniards also watch more television than any other Europeans--an average of 3.5 hours a day, compared with 2.5 hours in Britain."

How better to address this sloth than by hiring people to dress as Little Red Riding Hood, Mary Poppins, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and hand out swag including playing cards and a Frisbee to folks reading on the beach? That's just what's happening on the country's playas this summer. It's part of a campaign to encourage Spaniards to read. I'll watch to see how successful the scheme is and report back later.--David E

On the Road Again

Jack Kerouac's On the Road celebrates its fiftieth anniversary today. This is a book that caused the biggest argument in the history of a very combative book club I was in several years ago. Some of us loved it; some of us didn't. I'll just say that for OtR lovers, there's a plethora of web content out there for you.

Start at NPR. They've posted a story about the book and its writing, exceprts of the book (in case you don't have your copy handy), and even recordings of Kerouac and Cassady. Then move on the New York Times to read the paper's original review of the book and its current impact on everyone from bands to academics. And if you've got the stamina, The Nation has posted a long article comparing Kerouac and Jack London and their journeys around the US.--David E

Bad to Verse

I love a good pun. And I adore a bad one. So I was pleased to find this gem among the recently announced winners of the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:

I was in a back alley in Fiji, fighting desperately and silently for my life, fighting desperately for oxygen, clawing at the calm and almost gentle pressure of the fabric held over my face by implacable, ebony thighs when I realized -- he was killing me softly with his sarong. (Karl Scott, Brisbane, Australia)

The Bulwer-Lytton contest (named for the author who began his novel with "It was a dark and stormy night.") asks folks to submit their own truly terrible opening lines. You can read the best of the worst from this year's contest here.--David E

The Kindest Cut

We're not in the business of destroying books. In fact, we sell mylar covers if you want to give your books a little extra protection.

But even so, I really like how Scottish artist Georgia Russell takes a scalpel to books and turns them into incredible, spiky works of art. You can see much more of Russell's work here.--David E

Just Say Non

There's a great tradition of conversational bomb-throwing in France. This summer's ruckus concerns Corinne Maier's book No Kid: Forty Reasons Not to Have a Child . The author says her book is 50% serious, 50% humorous, but in a country with the highest birth rate in Western Europe, not everyone sees the joke.

There are interesting reviews in Times of London and the Telegraph. Or if your French is up to the task, click on the cover to read the great sales copy at amazon.fr. It begins, "Future parents, sympathetic natalists, fans of bonnet and bib..." and ends, "For the first time, someone dares write what most parents think deep down, when their kids are finally in bed."

Maier's book isn't yet available in English.--David E

It's the Reading Equivalent of Sweatpants

Here's a conundrum apparently facing our nation's laziest citizens: You want to read but darned if your arms just aren't up to the task of picking up that pesky book. Now, thanks to the good folks at Skymall, our long national nightmare of lifting is over. Behold the Levo Book Holder.

As the blogster at Geekologie so succinctly put it, "Who needs to read anyways when you can pass out under a magazine with your hands in your pants?"--David E

Book with a Beer Chaser

There's still time for you to get ready for next week's installment of our lubricated reading group Books & Bars. Join us Tuesday the 14th for conversation and a beverage with some very interesting folks. Doors open at 6:00pm for socializing; discussion begins in earnest at 7:00pm.

Unlike most months, August's meeting will be in our store. In September, Books & Bars will again be at Bryant Lake Bowl, 810 W Lake St, in Minneapolis.

Books & Bars is not your typical book club. We provide an atmosphere for lively discussion of interesting authors, good food and drinks. You're welcome to come even if you haven't read the book.

Not a Spoiler--Quite the Opposite

I've tried not to post about Harry Potter. That marketing blitz didn't need any help from me. But here's a story about the boy wizard that I will pass along.

In the UK, the huge chain of bookmakers William Hill let folks place bets on, among other things, Harry's ultimate fate. And what is that fate? Well, it depends who you ask.

"It was a fairly ambiguous ending, open to various interpretations, and so whatever way we settled the bets would have annoyed some people," said Rupert Adams, a William Hill spokesman. "So we paid out on all the bets."

The bets on the outcome of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were the first William Hill had ever taken on the ending of a book. Three employees at the bookmaker read the novel by J.K. Rowling and failed to agree on the ending of the novel, Adams said.

How's that for closure? Read the full story at bloomberg.com.--David E

Going to the Chapel... err, Bookstore

I was out of town, so I can only quote Publishers Weekly about recent events in our fair city:

Gary Shulze and Pat Frovarp, co-owners of Once Upon a Crime mystery bookstore in Minneapolis, were married before eight witnesses at their bookstore on August 1, the fifth anniversary of their purchase of the 20-year-old shop from previous owner Steve Stillwell. Their wedding festivities concluded with an in-store reading from author Gregg Hurwitz (The Crime Writer, Viking). Froavarp is holding her bouquet, while Shulze holds a statue of the Maltese Falcon.

.

Congratulations.

On Hiatus

Your ususally dutiful Magers & Quinn blogger is on vacation in Wyoming. I'll return on August 9. Until then, enjoy the scenery.--David E

This Book Isn't Going to Sell Itself

An editor at Publishers Weekly is shocked--shocked, I tell you--to discover that a publicist with whom he thought he was having a deep and meaningful epistolary relationship is in fact a pair of interns writing the same not-so-personalized note in preview copies of a new book. The editor takes his revenge by informing gawker.com of the publicist's epic insincerity. And thus is justice restored to the universe.

Click the pic for all the sordid details.--David E

Weird and Wonderful and Available Now 4

Oh, the things on the shelves. In the hope of finding suitable homes for some of the hidden gems in the stacks, I continue this irregular feature dedicated to the strange and strangely interesting stuff we stock. (I promise these are all real books in our store.)

• The Hunter's Prey : Erotic Tales of Texas Vampires
• Support and Seduction: A History of Corsets and Bras
  
• Imagination in Confinement : Women's Writings from French Prisons

When We Get Behind Closed Doors--Part 2

The Guardian has a very interesting article which pulls back the curtain a bit further. In it, we get a glimpse of life in today's Saudia Arabia: "In Rajaa Alsanea's Girls of Riyadh, sex in Saudi Arabia is sighs and tears, cruising, long telephone calls after midnight, instant messaging, arranged marriages, prayers to God, the verse of Nizar Qabbani, running from the religious police, unsatisfactory wedding nights, getting even and divorce."

See my earlier post about the impact of Alsanea's novel on Saudi publishing here.--David E

Up and Down the Dial

I don't always think it's useful to listen to a personality make suggestions about something totally outside their usual area of expertise. For example, I wouldn't let Rachel Ray tune up my car. But when the New York Times posts a playlist from Sarah Vowell, I'll pay it some heed. After all, before her success on This American Life and her bestselling book Assassination Vacation, Vowell cut her writing teeth in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine, talking music.

I don't know most of the songs she mentions, but I do love number seven: Richard Thompson's cover of "Oops... I Did It Again," so I trust the other recommendations are just as good.

If you want more, check out Vowell's book Radio On for even more music writing.

When We Get Behind Closed Doors

After its initial publication in Beirut, Rajaa Alsanea's novel Girls of Riyadh caused a great deal of protest in her native Saudia Arabia. It seems many didn't like her book's depiction of women's lives and loves behind the veil. But in the end the book was made available in the kingdom, and the result was not fire and brimstone, but instead more books.

Reports Reuters: "Saudi Arabia's literary output doubled in 2006, with half of the authors women, and publishing industry insiders suggest the growing interest is partly due to Alsanea's book, which centers on four women from affluent homes who must navigate a minefield of rules and taboos on sex, marriage and social caste to get and keep their men."

Granted, only 50 books were published in the whole of Saudia Arabia last year. Most of the country's authors publish abroad, rather than face the government's censorship machinery.--David E

Back to School

The University of Texas has posted the reading list for its "Freshman Reading Roundup." New students can choose from any of about forty titles to read this summer before classes begin.

For those of us not going to school this fall, the list is still a good source of inspiration for your summer reading. Titles range from An Inconvenient Truth and Black Like Me to Yevgeny Zamatin's Soviet-era sci-fi novel We.

Faking It--Part 2

The Encyclopedia Britannica continues its thumbnail guide to 20th century literary movements. This week it's E through I. My favorite:

Inklings, 1940s. English authors with strong Christian beliefs and a preference for pre-19th-century poetry and myth: C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (1943); J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954); Charles Walter Stansby Williams, All Hallows’ Eve (1945).

The Inklings met at a pub named the Eagle and Child (pictured above), but more commonly known as the Bird and Baby.--David E

I Propose... Never Mind

Are you staying late sweating over your pitch for your Great American Novel, trying to get your proposal just right, hoping to woo potential publishers into giving you a huge advance? Don't bother.

Amazon.com has posted William Gibson's proposal (.pdf) for the book which eventually became his forthcoming novel Spook Country, to be released August 7. The proposal sketches a story about two readers of a blog called "Warchalker" who are drawn into the blogger's search for a shipping container of hundred dollar bills liberated from the American occupying forces in Iraq and now lost in transit somewhere in the world. Trouble is, unnamed bad guys also want the millions. A novel ensues.

And how much of this actually made it into Gibson's eventual book? I've read Spook Country, and I can say with authority, not much at all. There's a shipping container, and there are bad guys, and that's about it. As Gibson says:

Amazon.com: ...I'm curious how you progress from one group of characters into another group as you're planning the book or writing it.

Gibson: Well, I think the key thing there is that I never really believe in the proposal.

Amazon.com: Does your publisher believe in it?

Gibson: I don't know--it seems to be a sort of ritual object and I've actually been afraid to find out whether or not I could get a contract without one....

Read the entire interview here.--David E

With My Little Eye

As an inveterate reader of the "Missed Connections" type of personal ads, I was tickled pink to stumble upon Julie Wilson's blog Seen Reading. Julie is a master spy in Toronto who is putting her powers to good use, promoting reading--and literary voyeurism.

Her methodology is simple:

1. I see you reading.
   
2. I guesstimate where you are in the book.
   
3. I trip on over to the bookstore and make a note of the text.
   
4. I let my imagination rip.

Her observations and subsequent flights of fancy are well worth reading.--David E