Message on the eve of Book Expo America, 2008

As we head into the Book Expo America convention in Los Angeles this week, recent press reports about the possible acquisition of Borders Group, Inc. by Barnes and Noble has fueled fires of speculation. If federal authorities allow the sale to go through, and if shareholders of both companies agree to it, the bookstore landscape in the United States could be forever altered. Is this ultimately a bad thing? It would not be as bad if BGI were to declare bankruptcy and effectively go out of business. In that event many publishers across the country would be inundated with returns from them, and BGI’s ability to return books is legion. So if there were to be a merger of B&N and BGI that would create one colossal account, and while this would be awkward, it would simply be another blip in the big box retail landscape, with bookstores joining hardware stores, drug stores, pet stores and grocery stores in having huge national retail brands.

This occurrence would actually be a good opportunity for smaller regional chains and independent store owners across the country. Big box retailers cannot be all things to all people, and the establishment of one giant bookstore chain across the country will have wide-ranging cultural repercussions. Given the idea that having a bookstore is the ultimate form of self-expression for people, bookstores of all kinds would be able to continue concentrating on customer service, reach out to local readers, and become important destinations in their communities. They could strengthen their core businesses while the two behemoths struggle with their acquisition and with pleasing their stock holders. The rising price of gasoline may be another factor for people to shop closer to where they live, and not getting into the car to motor to free-standing shopping centers, where many big box retailers have their locations.

The various fortunes of super-sized bookstores in the marketplace is always a fascinating thing to watch, but too much of a good thing can be counterproductive. A B&N-BGI amalgamation could easily backfire and cancel itself out. Meanwhile, the market for books in the United States would proceed abated.

Kentucky Press to publish Hollywood Under Seige

University Press of Kentucky is taking an interesting turn with its distinguished film studies list with the August 08 publication of Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right and the Culture Wars, by Thomas R. Lindlof, a professor of journalism at University of Kentucky. Lindlof explores the major controversy surrounding the release of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988, and how the Christian right in America galvanized itself around the issue of a single sex scene in the movie between Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdelene. Lindlof sees the moral outrage and publicity uproar surrounding the release of the film as a tipping point in the American culture wars.

The film was directed by Martin Scorsese, from a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. In 1988 there were protests outside theaters where the film showed, and the film was actually banned in some countries. In Chicago the film played at the famous Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue, and my wife and I actually crossed a picket line to see the movie. The picket line had a young girl dressed up as a nun among the protestors, and this was so striking that this girl was featured on the from page of the Chicago Tribune the next day. The Jesus character was played by Wilhem Defoe and Mary Magdelene’s character was portrayed by Barbara Hershey. Everything was quiet during the performance, but when the sex scene between Jesus and Mary came on screen, you could hear the crowd on the street chanting “no, no, no!” The interplay between the film and the street crowd’s timed reaction to events on the screen made for a genuine surreal experience for moviegoers.

The ironic thing about this hullabaloo was that this film was a deeply religious, very personal interpretation of the Kazantzakis novel by director Martin Scorsese. Author Lindlof interviews all the key players involved with the film – Scorsese. Dafoe, screenwriter Paul Schrader, producers Jeffery Katzenberg and Michael Orvitz – and chronicles their many setbacks, from the production problems to the uproar over the release of the film, to the studio’s crisis control plan. Lindlof makes a very strong case that the controlled protests across the country by the Christian right over the release of this movie was the thing that solidified their political efforts, and has far-reaching consequences for today’s political landscape.

NAIPR Economic Message for 2008

“That-that don’t kill me, can only make me stronger ….”
-- Kayne West

Independent reps are the wave of the past, present and future. It’s possible to lose sight of this natural fact in times of economic chaos and the age-old Chinese curse about living in interesting times. There is a slippery slope which self-governing sales agencies can slide down, and more often-than-not they have to work harder just to get back to ground zero. The adversity creates tension and a degree of hopelessness, and I’m here to tell you that acute hardships always create hidden opportunities and build character, and while we may lose money in the short term and be required to cut-back, business can still be viewed as thriving in spite of harsh conditions. Reps are in a unique position to make things happen for themselves, and they need to realize how lucky they are because they control their own destiny and choices. Experience counts for the essential qualities here, and members of our organization know how to weather a storm, and even take special advantage of happenstance and apparent disorder.

Take a look at the history of our profession. We reps go way back to before the American Revolution, and our roots hark back to Europe in the 18th century where a complicated network of book peddlers was established, and the sale of books, maps, clocks, calico, and printed cloths were controlled by entire towns (see the excellent book on the subject: History of Pedlars in Europe by Laurence Fontaine, Durham: Duke University Press, 1996). Understand that we as independent reps have made ourselves indispensable in the world of publishing, and our contacts and ability to make deals is what makes commerce churn in the volatile world of publishing today. We have created NAIPR, an association that speaks with one voice, and yet is unique in and of itself because it is made up maverick characters and specialist human beings who know their own markets intimately and bring various strengths and talents to the big table. Furthermore, our members level the playing field for publishers large and small, for profit and nonprofit book producing organizations, who use our services as their sales and marketing arm. We have something tangible to contribute not only to commerce and the act of selling books to retailers and distributors of every stripe, but also to the broader culture as well. Our role as independent sales agents is time-tested and rock solid, and we are not going to let our publishers, booksellers, families and fellow travelers down as we carry on our core activities.

As President of NAIPR it is my job to try and bring members together and get them to see beyond fierce competition and bitter rivalries, and that we can all benefit from coming together as an organization to prosper. Our web site is a clearinghouse of information about the practicalities of selling on commission; our organization exhibits at Book Expo America and sponsors events and supports regional bookseller associations; we are revising the program of Frontlist-on-Floppy (FROF) to become available on CD ROM and be web-based to offer the most up-to-date information about new and forthcoming titles, that is edited by reps on the ground and is not available from any other source. We are open-minded and open-ended, and we request the honor of hearing from you about what your major concerns are. I have always been preoccupied by history and think we need to honor the key reps who came before us with an Independent Publishers Rep Hall of Fame at the New York Public Library. That is a dream of mine that probably won’t come true during my tenure as association President, but I want to make it clear that NAIPR fills an important place in the book business today, and it is crucial to realize that NAIPR can and will perform a critical functions in the book business of the future.

Eric Miller
President, NAIPR

Paperback verison of a masterful retelling of Icelandic Sagas

Saga: A Novel of Medieval Iceland
By Jeff Janoda

"As focused as Jane Austen, as macabre as Stephen King, Jeff Janoda traces out the hidden springs of power in the micro-society of an Icelandic fjord. He tells a tale of complex feud with all the fullness and detail of a modern novel, but leaves its violent and treacherous heroes as enigmatic as before. A brilliant blend of scholarship and insight."
-- Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle-Earth

“Debut novelist Janoda paints a richly textured portrait of Icelandic culture … a gripping recreation of an ancient genre.”
-- Kirkus Reviews


“This detail-rich novel is a retelling of a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga … does what good historical fiction is supposed to do: put a face on history that is recognizable to all.”
-- Brad Hopper, Booklist

Jeff Janoda brings us a masterful retelling of the ancient Saga of the People of Eyri, set in feudal Iceland “the Free State” of 965 AD. Saga tells the story of the savage rituals of feud and sacrifice brought by settlers from Norway, and their new competing beliefs in a democratic legal assembly and a code of restraint.

When Thorolf the Viking trades away his valuable lands to spite his son, Arnkel, the ruthless Norse chieftain vows to regain the land at all costs. Robbed of his rightful inheritance, Arnkel begins a venomous feud with his neighbors and with rival chieftain Snorri – a lawless dispute destined to end in betrayal and death.

Janoda’s characters are eloquently wrought, their passions and pagan beliefs brought to life in a tale over a thousand years old. He renders fantastical elements like spirits and elves as vividly as their human counterparts, illuminating the harshness of life in a society on the brink of modernity, yet isolated in the farthest reaches of the planet.

Medieval expert Tom Shippey says of this book, “Sagas look like novels superficially, in their size and layout and plain language, but making their narratives into novels is a trick which has proved beyond most who have tried it. Janoda’s Saga provides a model of how to do it: pick out the hidden currents, imagine how they would seem to peripheral characters, and as with all historical novels, load the narrative with period detail drawn from the scholars. No better saga adaptation has been yet written.”

June 08 Fiction/Fantasy Paperback $17.95 360 pp 5 ½ x 8 ½ ISBN 13: 978-0-89733-568-3 ISBN 10: 0-89733-568-6 Academy Chicago Publishers

Aacdemy Chicago to publish history of the Jews in Chicago

Avengers and Defenders
Glimpses of Chicago’s Jewish Past

By Walter Roth

The presence of Jews in Chicago goes back to 1841 with the arrival of four Jewish pioneers. Within five years the first synagogue in the city was a reality. Walter Roth, a scholar of Jewish history in the city, looks at the more colorful and little-known aspects of the rich history of Jews and their involvement in all aspects of city life.

In this compelling new collection of essays, Roth looks at trouble in the city – Jewish connections to the Haymarket Bomb tragedy, to the Peoria Street Riots of November 1949, to the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937, to the Iroquois Theater fire, and to the murder of Jake Lingle. In a section called Business in the City, Roth discusses Albert Lasker, the father of modern advertising, Ernest Byfield, founder of the Pump Room, William Paley, the head of CBS, Benjamin Rosenthal and the Chicago Mail Order Company, and the demise of the Foreman State Bank. There are sections on culture in the city (Meyer Levin and Isaac Rosenfeld), and science in the city (Leo Strauss, Martin D Kamen and Gunther Stent). Further sections deal with such subjects as the Mexican adventure of Paul Rothenberg, Shalom Schwartzbard, Julian Marx, and the Lovers of Zion.

“Walter Roth’s meticulous research brings alive in equal measure some of the best-known and least remembered, but fascinating, episodes in Chicago Jewish history. Roth clearly loves Chicago and its Jewish community.”
-- Michael Feldberg, Executive Director, American Jewish Historical Society

Walter Roth is an attorney and President of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society, and author of The Accidental Anarchist and the critically acclaimed Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago’s Jewish Past, both available from Academy Chicago Publishers.

Academy Chicago to Publish Oral History of Belgium in WWII

Lost in the Fog
Memoir of a Bastard

By Rachel Van Meers as told to Daniel Chase

In 1943, shortly after her 13th birthday, Rachel Van Meers stood on a railway platform in German occupied Belgium waiting for a train that would take her and twenty other girls to a “State Camp for Rehabilitation and Labor” in Wertach, Germany.

I remember my Grandmother wore a black shawl. She told me, “I don’t think I’ll see you back in a month. You never know with the Germans. It can take you two weeks. It can take you three weeks. It can take maybe a year.”

Lost in the Fog is the courageous story of Van Meers, born in a home for unwed mothers in the city of Ghent, Belgium in 1930. Raised in a Flemish working-class district by her strict grandmother, two aunts, and three uncles, Van Meers recounts her struggles growing up “a bastard” in Belgium during the Great Depression. When the war breaks out, Belgium, abandoned by its king, was quickly swallowed up by Germany, and the people were left to fend for themselves against the overwhelming occupying forces, and shattering Allied air strikes. Van Meers was torn between her family’s continuing allegiance to Belgium and her mother, a radical social outcast, who became alienated from the family after she joined the S.S. When a violent argument erupts between Van Meers and her Nazi-sympathizing stepfather, she was sent to a child labor camp in Germany and later returned to witness Belgium turned on its head after the war. Now a strong spirited young woman, she refused to go the way of her mother, or give in to the brutal attacks of her ex-Nazi stepfather. She was eventually able to sustain her independence from her family and emigrate to America in 1961.

This is a rare and personal look at Belgium during one of its most significant periods of history. Van Meers tells her story in plain language with humor and honesty, and is based on hundreds of hours of taped interviews with Daniel Chase, a writer based in Oregon. Van Meers’s unique view of “a family not quite normal” in extraordinary times, her strong faith and refusal to back down in spite of abusive and degrading treatment, being labeled as a bastard at a time when this amounted to complete societal isolation, and her upbeat attitude and singular forms of expression are a joy and inspiration to read.

Rachel Van Meers achieved many milestones in her life. She’s been a maid, a hat check girl, an electronics assembler, and an assistant apartment manager in Belgium, Amsterdam, and in the United States. Now retired, she resides in Oregon and is the matriarch of her family. This is her first book.

Daniel Chase is a freelance writer and editor living in Oregon. He spent most of his youth writing stories with his sister. This is his first book.

IPM Adds Five New Publishers to its Distribution List

International Publishers Marketing (IPM – www.internationalpubmarket.com) out of Sterling, VA has bulked up its distribution offerings for Fall 2008. Dicmar Publishing is from Washington, D.C. and is known locally as the publisher of the lavish book, The Willard Hotel: An Illustrated History, by Richard Wallace Carr and Marie Pinak Carr, a husband and wife team. The Carr’s new project is Prepared Parent’s Operational Manuel: Sending Your Kids to College, where Marie writes this book with her three children, Katherine, Ann and Elizabeth. The book provides comprehensive information for parents getting ready to send their kids off to college. The series is going to expand with college-specific guides in a standardized format: -- guides to Boston University, Texas A&M University, Emory University, and Georgetown University. It’s my understanding that the Carr’s have first-hand experience sending their own kids to these schools.

Garnet Publishing is from England and they specialize in books about the Arab world. They are new to the US market, and they have a surprising depth of offerings. They have two books on Iran: -- Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations, edited by Malu Halasa and Mazier Bahari serves as an introduction to the vibrant artistic and cultural scene in the city: -- the anthology includes fiction, essays, journalism, photography, and rap lyrics. An Eye for Iran is by Kazem Hakimi, a photographer from Shiraz who relocated to London in 1974. This book of photographs is based on a visit he made to the cities of Isfahan, Shiraz, and Mashad in 2004. He documents the immediacy of movements from an Iranian way of life that could be lost forever.

Strokes International is a publisher of language study set that includes DVDs, audio CDs and CD ROMs, all in a high-quality slipcase package. The languages are German, Italian, Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic. The product were developed by international language experts and are made for self-learners.

Double Storey is a South African publisher that is new to the US market. They have a beautiful book called African Trees: A Photographic Exploration, by Charles Bryant and Brita Lomba. The book is oversize and features gorgeous color photographs that feature trees not as disembodied objects but as living, breathing organisms located in exotic environments and locations throughout Africa. Another book that looks interesting is Spit or Swallow: A Guide for the Wine Virgin, by Jenny Ratciffe-Wright. This is an offbeat look at the mystique of wine and a guide to drinking and appreciating it for fun and pleasure. Wright-Ratcliffe was born into the wine industry, and her mother, Norma Ratcliffe, has the distinction of being South Africa’s first female wine maker.

30 ˚ South Publishers is also from South Africa and they publish a wide variety of books on South African culture, history, memoirs and travel. Manzovo: Place of the Elephants is by Gary Albyn and Craig Bone, a noted wildlife artist. There is a 110 verse poem that is illustrated with Bone’s breathtaking paintings, and it also includes a DVD of the recited poem by John Whiteley, a South African Shakespearean actor. This looks like quite a beautiful package. There are guidebooks to Swaziland, by David Fleminger and The Whale Trial, by Allan Davie, a guide to whale watching in South Africa. Both these books are 4 x 7 with color photographs, and 176 pages, and appear to be solid travel books.

IPM always seems to have intriguing books from its staple of client publishers. There is an early novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz, published by the American University Press in Cairo. AUC Press is Mahfouz’s primary publisher, and this book, Khan Al-Khalili, is translated from the Arabic by Tony Allen, It is billed as a modern Arabic novel, and it is set during the Second World War in Cairo’s bustling, historic KhanAl-Khalili neighborhood. A middle-class family, the Akifs, seek refuge from the ravages of war in the crowded alleyways, busy cafes, and ancient mosques of the Khan, feeling sure the German forces will never bomb such a famously religious part of the city. The story is a family saga played out against a deeply textured portrait of sights, sounds, smells and flavors of the city. This is an engaging and sensitive portrayal of a family at the crossroads of the old world and the new, as only Mafhouz could write it. .

Twilight Visions in Egypt’s Nile Delta, by Ann Parker is a collection of haunting duotone photographs of rural village in Egypt, all taken from the same vantage point. This is Parker’s second book on Egypt; the first one was an award-winning book from Smithsonian Institution Press in 1997, Hajj Paintings: Folk Art of the Great Pilgrimage. In the same way that Parker documented paintings from the Hajj that were painted on outside walls that were ultimately temporary and soon to be lost forever, she captures everyday events in a Nile Delta village crossroads where she patiently sits and waits for what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson has called “the decisive moment” on the road in front of her, framed by two trees and curtained by hanging branches at sunset. Parker has succeeded in documenting the remains of a rich traditional village lifestyle, and the result is an extraordinary collection of one hundred sepia-toned images filled with the comings and goings of a procession of the village’s people, animals and vehicles.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my friend Jean Riescher Westcott’s new book she is publishing with her husband Sean Westcott, called Digitally Daunted: The Consumer’s Guide to Taking Control of the Technology in Your Life. Capitol Books in Washington, D.C. is the publisher here, and Jean is on staff at IPM. The book is a consumer’s guide par excellence, and is filled with practical information to help educate everyday folks about choosing, using, and maintaining a whole host of gadgets and gizmos. For those of us who are “daunted by specs,” this is a stress-free way to get the most out of technology ranging from computers, phone systems, televisions, cameras, and more.

One Trippy Book from Johns Hopkins University Press

Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD from Clinic to Campus is by Erika Dyck, an associate professor of history at University of Saskatchewan. She traces the history of medical experiments with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) from the 1950s, and explains that by the1960s medical researchers were just starting to learn more about it as a good clinical tool when it was criminalized. In the early days of LSD research two Canadian scientists, Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer, claimed incredible advances in treating alcoholism, understanding schizophrenia, and achieving empathy with their patients using LSD as medicine. Some patients were helped only taking one dose. Dyck recounts it was the drug counter-culture of the 1960s, the “Timothy Learyism” of LSD, led to its almost complete prohibition.

Not so any more. Reporter Benedict Carey reports in the New York Times this week ('A Psychedelic ‘Problem Child’ Comes Full Circle') that Albert Hoffman, the chemist who invented LSD in 1943, “spent the latter part of his life consulting with scientists around the world to bring his ‘problem child,’ as he called the drug, back into the lab to study as a therapeutic agent.” Hoffman died last week, but now, according to Carey, “several trials testing psychedelics are in the works, thanks in part to the steady example set by Dr. Hoffman.”

Dyck outlines the history of LSD as an experimental substance, a medical treatment, and a tool for exploring psychotic perspectives – as well a recreational drug. It is interesting to note that while big drug companies and the medical establishment have embraced anti-depressants and anti-psychotics and marketed them aggressively to unwitting millions of people, LSD has been branded as belonging to a radical counter-culture and was criminalized despite having proven in some clinical trials to offer people help with their psychiatric problems. This is a fascinating book about LSD, a book in the history of medicine that shows the rise and fall of psychedelic psychiatry, and offers a corrective to the medical community to show through its history that LSD is a legitimate substance that warrants serious re-consideration and study.

It’s important to point out at this juncture that all Johns Hopkins books are printed on acid-free paper.

University of Michigan Press has some Hot Books for Fall 2008

A book being published in November, in time for the national elections, is Politics in the Pews: The Political Mobilization of Black Churches, by Eric L. McDaniel, an assistant professor of Government at University of Texas at Austin. McDaniel offers insights into how these churches have made politics part of their mission, and he gauges their various successes and failures. It seems very timely to have a cogent analysis of this phenomenon, especially with the ascendancy of Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. As the ex-minister where Senator Barack Obama goes to church, Wright has used national exposure he has gotten as a result of his association with Obama to drive home fiery points of black liberation theology. Normally militant rhetoric of this kind would not be so prominent in the news media, but the runoff between Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary race has shifted it to the front page. Some people would view Wright’s message, forged in the legacy of slavery and continued fight for equal rights, as being essentially political rather than religious. Books like the new one from Professor McDaniel will help readers understand the forces that motivate black churches and their leaders to engage in politics.

An unusual futurist approach is taken in the new Herbert J. Gans book, Imagining America in 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together after Bush, A Utopian Narrative. Gans discusses seven different election cycles, 2008 – 2032, and outlines how politics will change and go into a more progressive direction. Gans is a renowned social scientist, now in his eighties, and he writes with clarity and has an innovative vision for a whole range of pertinent policy questions that will no doubt be looked at seriously by law and policy-makers.

Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror and Sovereignty, by Paul W Kahn, a professor at Yale Law School, is a book that is much less optimistic about the future than the Gans, Where there is terrorism, Kahn posits, there will be torture. In a provocative argument and almost conversational style, Kahn comes across with rare honesty in saying that torture happens in this day and age and there is little anyone can do about it. Kahn, according to Sanford Levinson at University of Texas Law School, “…forces the reader to grapple with troubling questions that we would prefer to ignore.”

Sometimes it works to a publisher’s advantage to be more focused and have the ability to make big decisions quickly. Harper Collins was the publisher of the first two editions of Betty Jean Lifton, Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience, and Lifton was not happy for whatever reason with the marketing efforts Harper made for her book, so for the third expanded and updated edition, she turned to Michigan. It’s safe to say this book is a classic. Publishers Weekly called it “an articulate and convincing account.” Kirkus Reviews said it was “a provocative, comprehensive survey.” Psychology Today dubbed it “important and powerful.” For thirty years this book topped the “Recommended Reading” lists for those who seek to understand the effects of adoption. Lifton, the author of fourteen books on the subject, is a writer and psychotherapist by trade and here she provides new material on the controversies concerning adoption and new reproductive technologies. She has been a leading advocate for adoption reform, and she continues to add to the discussion on this important topic. There is an expanded list of resources, including those on the Internet. This is a valuable book for both adopted children, parents, caregivers, and anyone who goes through the foster care system.

Academy Chicago to Publish Guide to Overcoming Binge-Eating

Breaking the Spell of Binge-Eating
A Road to Balance in Your Life

by Joanna Kortink
Translated from the Dutch by Anita Miller and Valerie Thompson

“Joanna is my European soul sister.”
- Peggy Claude-Pierre, author of The Secret Language of Eating Disorders

Joanna Kortink is a spiritual psychotherapist from the Netherlands, and this book is a runaway bestseller in Holland. Kortink fashions a truly different approach in treating an array of eating disorders, including stress-induced eating, compulsive eating and bulimia. Her unique approach combines psychotherapy with creative expression, body training and natural medicine. Kortink has spent many years in support of people with eating disorders, and she knows first-hand the acute struggles her clients face since she actually suffered from bulimia herself. Bringing an intimate knowledge of what readers and her clients confront with eating disorders, Kortink has written a multifaceted and inspiring book that shows another side to eating patterns and includes many practical examples, tips and clear step-by-step guidelines for recovery and self-acceptance, and to making appropriate food choices.

Kortink says that eating differently starts with thinking differently. She inspires readers to start a journey to recovery by profiling compulsive eaters and the role that food plays in their lives. She looks at the causes of compulsive eating, and she notes that compulsive eaters are “rarely themselves, invariably they are playing a role.” She profiles some of her clients and conducts a dialogue between clients and what she calls “their inner saboteur.” Along the journey to physical and emotional detoxification, Kortink describes ways to increase vitality, feed the spirit, get back to basics, and listen to the signals of your body. This leads to greater energy and a comforting sense of self-forgiveness. There are tips for taking immediate self-action, and vital information for partners and friends of binge-eaters. Kortink sensitively describes difficult moments along the way, and combines compassion with a deeper understanding of what she calls the ‘biopsychsocial” aspects of eating disorders.

Kortink lives in the Netherlands and runs Artiva Food and Vitality Coaching.

Up, Up and Away with Johns Hopkins University Press

For serious steam-heads and rail fans, there is A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946, Volume 3: Indiana, Lower Michigan and Ohio, by Richard C. Carpenter. This is a continuation of a monumental project to create a comprehensive atlas of the rail system as it existed in 1946. The previous two volumes were Volume 1: The Mid-Atlantic States, published in 2003, and Volume 2: New York & New England, published in 2005. The New Yorker Magazine called this “surely one of the most appealingly eccentric projects of the year.” Carpenter, a retired railroad executive, hand-colored 276 individual maps for this edition, and it depicts major rail centers such as Indianapolis, Gary, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, and Chicago. The critics have been astounded by the accuracy and rapt attention to detail for the first two volumes. There have been absolutely no mistakes!

We have a new publication from renowned psycho-historian Michael Burlingame, a massive oversize two-volume set, 1,952 pages in all, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Each volume is self-contained: -- volume 1 covers his early childhood, his experience as a farm boy in Indiana and Illinois, his legal training, and the political ambition that led to a term in Congress in the 1840s. Volume 2 covers his presidency and the civil war years. There is a particularly harsh view of Mary Todd Lincoln, and Burlingame offers new interpretations of Lincoln’s private life and the untimely death of his two sons.

This book was originally signed to Random House, but they gave up on the project as each book neared 1,000 pages. This is destined to be a landmark publication, and is published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. With this amazing book, Burlingame has established himself as the 21st century’s premier Lincoln historian.

To commemorate the upcoming 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (November 2009), Johns Hopkins is publishing Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man, by Tim Berra. This book offers a complete life story of Darwin, well-written with 60 halftone and 20 color illustrations. Berra is a Fulbright scholar and professor emeritus at Ohio State University. His lecture, "Darwin and Man," fetches up to $2,500. A few hours with Berra’s book will give readers a real sense of what Darwin was really like – his personality as a scientist, father, husband, friend and a great intellect. Johns Hopkins is modeling this book on the Penquin Lives series, and it will be appropriate for all readers, including young adults.

Another cool short biography from Johns Hopkins is Saladin: The Sultan and His Times, 1138 – 1193, by Hannes Möhring, translated from the German by David S. Bachrach. What is different about this book is it is the only account in English written from Saladin’s point of view. The great Muslim emperor led Arab forces in the re-conquest of Crusader kingdoms, and captured Jerusalem in 1187. He was the great enemy of King Richard the Lionhearted of England, and was a central figure in uniting Arab lands in the Middle East. One of his big military accomplishments was his triumph over the Franks. Möhring uses Christian and Muslim sources to tell the story, and scholar Thomas F. Madden says, “This book provides a lively introduction to Saladin, a medieval sultan whose deeds and legend still loom large today.”

Paradigm Publishers Looks at Presidency with a Jaundiced Eye

Paradigm’s lead title for Fall 08 is Ambushed! A Cartoon History of the Bush Administration, by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jim Morin. This book, according to marketing and sales people, is not so funny, and is actually a serious indictment of the missteps taken by Bush and his 7 + years in office. It discusses issues in detail, from Enron to Katrina, the budget deficit to the “global war on terror” that lost America many friends and inspired enemies worldwide. Morin, a political cartoonist for the Miami Herald, draws his caricatures of Bush, Cheney and their cronies in a whimsical style. Pat Oliphant, legendary editorial cartoonist, says of Morin’s work, “he has all the attributes of a first-rate cartoonist, including a fine design, and drafting sense and a cunning eye for the unusual.”

Another interesting new book from Paradigm is Spinner-in-Chief: How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves, by Stephen J. Farnsworth, a communications professor at George Mason University. A journalist by trade, Farnsworth lays out a well-written history of how presidents frame the issues to their advantage, and attempt to limit the amount of public debate over important policies to favor themselves. It includes a primer on the 2008 election and how candidates use or misuse the media. With this book readers can learn to be smart consumers of government and the media.

A book that Paradigm was successful with in Fall 2007 was Barack Obama: The Improbable Quest, by John K. Wilson. That book laid out Obama’s essential ideas and his viability as a presidential candidate in a pretty favorable light. Wilson worked with Obama on his early campaigns from his home base at University of Chicago. Now Paradigm is coming out with a much more nuanced work, Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, by Paul Street, a former director of the Chicago Urban League. This is a critical and unfiltered look at Obama’s career, his connections, and his remarkable campaign for the White House. Street worked with Obama in various primary campaigns, and witnessed first-hand the rise of the Obama phenomenon in American political culture. While Obama is aggressively touted as the agent of change in the 2008 election, Street dissects his financial profile and his connection to specific corporate and financial interests. He shows that Obama progressive persona is marketed by campaign strategists, filtered through the media, and that in fact Obama is no magical exception to the narrow-spectrum political culture that has prevailed for so long in American political tradition. He is in fact more of the same.

Broadview Press Starts Freehand Books

Broadview Press has shored up their literary list with the creation of a new imprint, Freehand Books. The first four books in the series are Good to a Fault, the second novel by Marina Endicott, a renowned Canadian writer; It’s Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems, by Jeanette Lynes, an up and coming poet in Canada; Pathologies: Essays by Susan Olding, an award-winning writer; Mother Superior: Stories, by Saleema Nawaz, a Montreal writer who writes stories that are steeped in sexuality.

In addition to Freehand Books, Broadview continues to publish classics and lesser known literature in attractive, comprehensive editions. Notable this season is Nightwalkers: Prostitute Narratives from the Eighteenth Century, edited by Laura J. Rosenthal, a professor of English at University of Maryland, College Park. This provocative anthology includes fiction and nonfiction, some written by prostitutes themselves. There are high and low courtesans represented here, from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. “Offering a range of narratives from the conservative and reformist to the unabashedly libertine, this book provides a fascinating alternative look into eighteenth-century culture.”

From 1752 we have what is called an “it-narrative,” written in this case from the perspective of a lap-dog. The History of Pompey the Little, by Francis Coventry, who was a British novelist. There are no competing editions of this book. The appendices include material from Samuel Johnson, poems by the author, and essays on animal rights.

Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798 and 1800, is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Both editions are represented here in their entirety, and the 1800 expanded edition has no competition. Wordsworth’s “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” are both included, and this was the book that helped launch the Romantic era. The appendices has reviews, including a piece by William Hazlitt, correspondence, and poems Coleridge originally intended for Lyrical Ballads. This is a ground-breaking collection by two of Britsih literature’s greatest poets.

Another book with no competing edition is A Sunless Heart, by Edith Johnstone. From 1895, this is a proto-lesbian novel about a “romantic friendship” between two women. Called “a startling re-discovery from the late-Victorian era,” it explores issues of race, sexuality, and class in melodramatic, compelling prose. The appendices explore early notions of lesbianism and homosexuality, including A. Hamilton, Civil Responsibility of Sexual Perverts, American Journal of Insanity (1896), and Havelock Ellis, Sexual Inversion (1901).

We also have an autobiography of an early feminist and her militant struggle to gain the vote for women. Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences(1914), by Constance Lytton. Lytton was the granddaughter of the famous Lytton, and when she was imprisoned as a suffragette they let her go because of her aristocratic background. Next time she was arrested she pretended to be a commoner, and she chronicles being forcibly fed while on hunger strike, an act that permanently damaged her health. However, Lytton became the pioneer of a singular movement in the history of women’s and prisoner’s rights. The appendices include further writing by Lytton, and primary documents from the suffragette women’s movement.