Talk of the Trade

Think back—who was your favorite Monkee? If the answer was Micky, you're in luck, because Micky Dolenz has a picture book coming from Putnam in May. It all started one evening in 2004, when Dolenz was having dinner at Elaine's, and Shadowmancer author G.P. Taylor was dining at a nearby table with his editor, Putnam's Nancy Paulsen. Taylor, who had once been a roadie, introduced himself to Dolenz, who mentioned that he'd always wanted to write a children's book. Paulsen then connected him with agent Nancy Gallt, who signed him (even though her favorite Monkee had actually been Peter). The book, called Gakky Two-Feet, is illustrated by David Clark and tells the story of a hominid who's the first of his clan to walk on two legs. Dolenz is also the author of I'm a Believer, an autobiography.

In a smart bit of outreach to book clubs, Penguin is sponsoring a new online Classics Book Club run by DearReader.com, a seven-year-old Web company that promotes reading by sending brief book excerpts to 300,000 subscribers at public libraries. In exchange for a fee and a passel of Penguin Classics titles, bags and mugs, Penguin is able to offer library subscribers an option to purchase the books directly from Penguin at a special discount. In the first two weeks, 650 readers signed up for the club, which is reading John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in January and Graham Greene's Travels with My Aunt in February.

Some publishers are tucking something extra into their advance reading copies. The ARC of Physical included a CD of author James McManus reading an excerpt. Said FSG's Jeff Seroy, "Jim is very funny, and we thought his presentation would be a really fun thing for people to hear." A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation, by up-and-coming historian Catherine Allgor, also includes an excerpt from the audiobook (read by Anne Twomey). According to Holt's Annsley Rosner, "History is a really strong category for audiobooks, so we did it in part to promote the audio."