TODAY'S NEWS

MPIBA Brings Sexy Back to Bookselling
By Edward Nawotka
At the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association regional trade show held this past weekend in Colorado Springs, the association's booth featured canvas messenger bags for sale bearing the motto "Reading Is Sexy." It was the latest product introduced as part of a fundraising and awareness campaign for the organization. The bags, which feature a woman's silhouette, stirred a minor frisson among some of the female attendees.

MPIBA president Andy Nettell, co-owner of Arches Book Company in Moab, Utah, told PW that he originally objected to the design, which was first printed on stickers. "I initially didn't think it was appropriate," he said, "Then we sold 250 stickers in a few months. I saw it was only women who were buying them – mostly librarians – who would pick them up by the stack. That sold me and I stopped worrying about the image." Jennie Shortridge, author of the novel Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe (NAL), was at the show to sign books. She told PW she felt "disappointed" when she saw it. "It strikes me as sexist and sends the wrong message," she said. Still, the bags seemed to be generally popular with booksellers. Read on »

Oprah Picks Edgar Sawtelle; Ecco Goes Back to Press for 750,000 Copies
By Lynn Andriani
Oprah Winfrey revealed her 62nd book club selection Friday: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Ecco's runaway summer bestseller. The debut novel by David Wroblewski hit stores in June, was an instant bestseller, and has 300,000 copies in print, said director of publicity Michael McKenzie. Following Winfrey's announcement, Ecco is going back to press for an additional 750,000 copies. Of her choice, Winfrey said, "I think this book is right up there with the greatest American novels ever written."

Wroblewski, who spent 10 years writing the novel, will participate in a live, one-time only interactive Q&A webcast session with Winfrey and book club members. A date has not yet been announced.

The book was a Barnes & Noble Discover pick and an IndieBound July #1 pick, and was included among Amazon's "Significant 7" books in June.

The UpSouth Book Festival Returns
by Calvin Reid
The third annual UpSouth International Book Festival, founded by Atria Books v-p and senior editor Malaika Adero, kicks off in Harlem the week of September 27 to October 4. This year's festival will use multiple venues around Harlem. Programming will feature a family day on September 27; a collaboration with Mosaic Literary Magazine on its 10th anniversary; and a "Look & Listen Party" on October 2, which will be a free preview event for Atria’s 21 Nights--a photo-book/CD compilation by Prince and photographer Randee St. Nichola-- that will offer attendees a sneak peek at the $50 book and at the exclusive live recording of a special Prince performance that comes with it. Read on »

PW's Review of Brinsingr
Christopher Paolini. Knopf, $27.50 (784p) ISBN 978-0-375-82672-6

The much-anticipated third book in Paolini's Inheritance Cycle continues to rely heavily on classic fantasy tropes. The novel launches with magician and Dragon Rider Eragon, his cousin Roran and the dragon Saphira on a quest to rescue Roran's betrothed. The cousins soon split up, and Roran undergoes his own series of heroic tests, culminating in a well-choreographed and intense fight against an Urgal (a ram-human hybrid). Eragon, at the same time, encounters treacherous dwarves, undergoes even more training with the elf Oromis and gains a magical sword suitable for a Dragon Rider. The silly revelations about Eragon's background in the previous book, Eldest, are given a new spin near the end, but the change is neither unexpected nor interesting. Predictably, the book concludes with even more character deaths and another battle, but those expecting a resolution will have to wait until the next novel. The cliched journey may appeal to younger readers of genre fiction. Older teens, even those who might have first cut their teeth on Paolini's writing years ago, are less likely to be impressed. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)

The Monday Interview: Will Shortz on KenKen
By Dick Donahue
An interview with Will Shortz, whose KenKen puzzle books will be published next month by St. Martin's

PW: Where did KenKen come from, and what's its appeal?

WS: It was invented by Tetsuya Miyamoto, a Japanese educator who runs a school in Japan. His philosophy of education is that you don't teach kids; you provide the tools for the kids to learn themselves, and if the tools you provide are so engaging and so good the kids will want to learn. One of the methods he invented for the school was KenKen. Kids love it and, if I'm any in-dication, so do adults. It has a lot of the appeal of sudoku; it appeals to people with logical minds and in some ways it's a richer puzzle than sudoku. It also involves numbers; in KenKen you actually use arithmetic. Kids start with the basic puzzles, which use just addition, then they move on to subtraction and all four arithmetic operations. There are different sizes and lev-els of difficulty to the puzzles; you keep advancing, you want to keep advancing and trying harder puzzles. According to Mi-yamoto, kids are solving KenKen in place of watching TV and video games.

PW: How did you discover these puzzles?

WS: A little over a year ago a toy and game agent who represents the Japanese puzzle—and who lives just a few miles from me—called and said he had something he'd like to show me. He brought it over and explained it to me; I tried one and thought, This is interesting, let me try another. And after I tried a couple I asked him to leave the book [of puzzles] with me, and I went right through it for the next week—out of 105 puzzles I solved 103. I really got addicted. Two of them stumped me at the time, but I'll go back to them eventually—a challenge that's still waiting. Read on »

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Web Exclusive Reviews
The Web this week: women in prison, an artist on the campaign trail, archeology in the deep sea, another foodie hitting the road, and another TV comedy writer casting broad laughs in convenient book form. Plus: Webster's greatest hits, a powerful novel about the Biblical Eve, and two gripping memoirs of tragedy, injustice and reconciliation in Africa. Read on »

The PW Morning Report
By Dermot McEvoy
Rowling Gets Political; Double Indemnity: Robert Wagner and Barbara Stanwyck; James Crumley Dead; Richard M. Sudhalter Dead; Annette Gordon-Reed Profile; Mark Twain's House; and The World's Most Rewarding Literary Prize Read on »

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: Candace Bushnell; Thom Filicia; Edgar Bronfman
This morning on Today: author Candace Bushnell, whose One Fifth Avenue (Voice, $25.95; Hyperion unabridged CD, $34.95) comes out today. From PW's review: "Sex in the City goes middle-aged, mordant and slapstick in Bushnell's chronicle of writers, actors and Wall Street whizzes clashing at One Fifth Avenue, a Greenwich Village art deco jewel crammed with regal rich, tarty upstarts and misguided lovers." Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

'Brinsingr' Unveiled
Christopher Paolini, reading from his just-published book Brisingr (Knopf), at Friday night's midnight party at Barnes & Noble's Union Square branch in New York City. Photo: Lisa Berg.
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