TODAY'S NEWS

ATL Begins Online Catalog Test
by Claire Kirch
Above the Treeline will roll out its newest initiative this weekend, an interactive online catalog, in collaboration with eight major houses and the endorsement of the American Booksellers Association. The online catalog, called Edelweiss, is designed to cut publishers’ printing costs and improve the effectiveness of their sales force, while providing booksellers with an alternative to handling unique paper catalogs from different publishers.

Publishers participating in ATL’s six-month test of the Edelweiss application include Chronicle Books, HarperCollins, John Wiley, Penguin Group, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson and Tyndale House. ATL will be working with these publishers for the next two months, loading data for the catalogs into a freestanding online module, and training reps to use the system. Select booksellers will start testing Edelweiss after the holidays. Read on »

Harlequin On Track
By Jim Milliot
Harlequin made it through the third quarter with revenue up 2.4%, to C$118.1 million ($97 million), although operating profit slipped 3.7%, to C$15.6 million ($13 million). Parent company Torstar said the decline in earnings was due to unfavorable exchange rates with “underlying” profits flat. Sales in the North America retail market were up, but revenue declined in the North American direct-to-consumer division as well as in its Overseas segment. Read on »

Rotman/UTP Publishing Launches New Imprint
By Lynn Andriani
The University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has partnered with the University of Toronto Press to create Rotman/UTP Publishing. The imprint’s first two titles pub this fall, and eight more will follow next year. The press hopes to double that number in 2010.

This week, Rotman/UTP Publishing launched its inaugural title, Bruce Little’s Fixing the Future: How Canada’s Usually Fractious Governments Worked Together to Rescue the Canada Pension Plan. Following that, in late November, the imprint will release The Finance Crisis and Rescue: What Went Wrong? Why? What Lessons Can be Learned?, a compilation by 10 Rotman faculty. Read on »

Skylight Books Founder Katseles Dies at 75
by Wendy Werris
Legendary acting teacher and director Milton Katseles, whose visionary idea about opening a bookstore in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles turned Skylight Books into a reality in 1996, died on October 24 at the age of 75. Katseles, who studied at the famed Actors Studio in New York with Lee Strasberg and went on to apprentice under fellow Greek and director Elia Kazan, taught actors such as Gene Hackman, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney during his long career. After opening the Beverly Hills Playhouse in 1978 Katseles branched out into the Los Feliz area with a second location for his school. The Skylight Theatre opened in the early 1980s, adjacent to Chatterton’s Books on Vermont Avenue. Read on »

Monday's Reviews Today: An Italian American Clan & Sexual Fetishes
In Adriana Trigiani's "frilly valentine" to the West Village, Very Valentine, the author paints a picture of a "boisterous" Italian-American family. Trigiani, a bestseller, "channels ambition and girl-power, but is surprisingly reserved—and retro—when it comes to romance." In Daniel Bergner's exploration of our sexual quirks, The Other Side of Desire, the author explores how we come to like what we like in the bedroom. The book has elements of "titillation, shock value and documentary" as Bregner questions "is a man who desires feet any less odd than the psychiatrist who treats him or the scientist who studies pedophilia or the journalist who describes a whipping session in precise detail or the reader who becomes voyeur?" Read on »

Blogs

MORE STORIES

Giroux, Harvey Memorials Set
Farrar, Straus and Giroux is organizing a memorial service for Robert Giroux. Jonathan Galassi, Paul Elie, Pat Strachan, Alice Quinn, Father Patrick Samway, and others, will speak and read. The event will take place on Wednesday, December 10 at 3 pm in St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University. If you are interested in attending, contact Madeleine.asher@fsgbooks.com.

A memorial service for Dan Harvey has also been scheduled. Friends, colleagues and family will remember Harvey at a service scheduled for Thursday, November 20 at 6 p.m. at the Bruno Walter Auditorium in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The entrance is at 111 Amsterdam Avenue at 65th Street.

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: Hitman; The Graveyard Book; Breathing the Fire
Today, Oprah chats with Grammy-winning David Foster, author of Hitman: Forty Years Making Music, Topping the Charts, and Winning Grammys (Pocket, 9781439103067, $26; Phoenix unabridged CD, $29.95). On a spookier note (for Halloween), on The Bob Edwards Show, Neil Gaiman digs up The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 978-0060530921, $17.99; unabridged HarperAudio, $29.95). Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Madge in Pictures
Last Friday, at the publication party for Guy Oseary’s Madonna Confessions, crowds descended on the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn to celebrate the just-published photography book. Pictured here (l. to r.) are: powerHouse Books publisher Daniel Power, Oseary, and powerHouse Arena director Susanne Konig.
Photo credit: Jenny Chen Submit your pictures here »