Politics creeps into the blog...

The Post's Lloyd Grove notices a new drink offered by the Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe in D.C: The "Trent Lotte." The $3.25 item consists of "separate but equal parts of coffee and milk." Customers are encouraged to mix them together.

and this...

Nine Things Strom Thurmond Is Older Than, from Maxim Magazine

1. AM/FM radio
2. Human flight
3. The Panama Canal
4. Wristwatches
5. Tea bags
6. Ice cream cones
7. The World Series
8. The states of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii
9. Dick Clark

Granta's grotto
Every decade Granta's list of Britain's best young novelists causes a literary sensation. Here The Observer presents an exclusive preview of the winners for 2003

Geraldine Bedell
Sunday January 5, 2003
The Observer

Granta's list is a marketing exercise on behalf of contemporary literature, and was the brainchild of Desmond Clarke, who ran the Book Marketing Council in the early 1980s, before literary novelists acquired their present status as minor celebrities. The first list, published in 1983, included Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Graham Swift. It was, in other words, a particularly fortunate time to have embarked on such an exercise, and Bill Buford, then editor of Granta, who devoted an issue to the list, decided to repeat the process himself in 1993.

The second list was, by general agreement, rather less starry, but nevertheless included Iain Banks, Louis de Bernières, Ishiguro (again), Hanif Kureishi, Ben Okri, Will Self, Helen Simpson and Jeanette Winterson. Both lists promoted the odd author who scarcely wrote another word (Ursula Bentley, Adam Lively); but, on the whole, the selections provided a telling snapshot of talent as it surfaced. Granta's list, like all literary prizes, is an attempt to bypass market imperfections, and is loved and loathed by publishers, who are inclined to dismiss it as irrelevant when they aren't included, and to applaud its detachment and authority when they are.

This year's judges ('Why no Sophie Dahl?' complained Ian Jack, editor of Granta) were Jack himself, as chair; Robert McCrum, The Observer's literary editor; Hilary Mantel, novelist and critic; Nicholas Clee, editor of the Bookseller; and Alex Clark, fiction reviewer for the Guardian and London Review of Books. They have been reading since September, when Jack and two assistants at Granta had already whittled down the original 140 submissions to around 50.

Almost constant email traffic helped to streamline their six meetings, which, according to Jack, 'sometimes followed a pattern of quite refined discussion, using words like interiority and plot strategy. At other times it was just: "I couldn't stand it".' Mantel was impressed that none of the judges seemed to be pushing a line. 'When it was all over, I realised we all had unpredictable tastes. I couldn't now pick up a book and say: "Alex Clark will like this".'

Clark thinks 'it's significant that a feeling came over us that we weren't battling each other to get our choices on the list, but that we were battling through what was in front of us to try to get to the gems. It can't be denied that we read some stuff that was absolutely shocking or simply lacklustre.'

Clee felt he suffered 'too many self-conscious works of fiction, and writers who didn't feel like novelists to their fingertips. There was some pretty bad stuff - disguised autobiography that didn't really work as fiction, books that were poorly structured, quite a lot of posturing from people who seemed to regard fiction as a kind of exercise, a too common desire to shock, quite a lot of overwriting and a certain amount of underwriting. A few were hard to read: the writers weren't engaged with the reader.'

Clark mentions 'work obviously rushed or clichéd, novels that were clever ideas not properly seen through, awful self-consciousness, and particularly, novels that could happily have seen a few more drafts. I don't think we came away with a very positive view of editing.' Jack finds it hard to avoid the conclusion that much publishing works on the slot machine principle: 'If you put out enough, you'll eventually come up with three oranges.'

Whether mischievously or incompetently, publishers submitted a number of authors who weren't eligible, three of whom would have been strong contenders. Claire Messud holds three passports, none of them British. Nick Barlay (author of a trilogy of low-life stories told in London demotic) and Andrew Crumey (who holds a PhD in physics and has written four novels) were both disqualified for being too old.

So were there any shoo-ins? Several judges mentioned, unsurprisingly, Zadie Smith. AL Kennedy appears on the list for the second time, 'and if anyone was a certainty, she was,' says McCrum. Mantel read Fingersmith (quite a fat novel) in two sittings. 'We were all bowled over by that book,' says Clee. 'I don't think there was much argument either about David Mitchell [author of Ghostwritten and number9dream, which was shortlisted for the Booker] or about Rachel Seiffert's The Dark Room [also shortlisted for the Booker] which was very impressive. Ben Rice has only written one small book [Pobby and Dingan, a novella about a child's imaginary friends set in the Australian outback] but it's marvellous, such a perfect little gem of a thing that I wanted him in.'

A similar consideration influenced Alex Garland's omission. His publisher didn't submit any work, and it is rumoured that the author of The Beach is blocked and doesn't expect ever to write another word. Nevertheless, McCrum thinks that he ought to be there: 'Even if he doesn't write again, we're missing a towering talent without him. But it would have meant 20 blank pages in the magazine.'

Garland's is not the only striking absence. Giles Foden was one of two authors (the other was Zadie Smith) tipped by Bill Buford, now literary editor of the New Yorker; his first novel, The Last King of Scotland, about Idi Amin, garnered great reviews, excellent sales and a Whitbread award. Both Jon McGregor (If No One Speaks of Remarkable Things) and Maggie O'Farrell were frequently mentioned as likely contenders. (There was a groundswell of support for O'Farrell, but her bid foundered during a discussion of the plotting of her recent novel, My Lover's Lover, in which the protagonist sees something on a station which is not revealed until the end, although there is no reason to withhold the information; it is, as Jack says, 'a stunt'.)

Others who might have been expected to make it on include Welsh writer Niall Griffiths, Tobias Hill and Patrick Neate. Jack regrets the exclusion of Zoe Heller, whose as yet unpublished second novel is about a North London school teacher, and Rebecca Smith, who has written a charming first novel about an organic café on the South coast.

On the plus side, there are some unexpected discoveries. Monica Ali's Brick Lane won't be published until the middle of the year, but this story of the Bangladeshi immigrant experience 'sailed through,' according to McCrum. Adam Thirlwell was born in 1978, and he too is yet to be published (his novel, Politics, has been bought by Jonathan Cape). 'He was a late entrant,' says Jack, 'his agent wrote to me saying he was a cross between Milan Kundera and Woody Allen, which made me really not want to read him.'

Other authors were judged on a very small output - Rachel Seiffert, Ben Rice, Dan Rhodes. While some entrants were known to the judges, there were others whom none of them had encountered, such as David Peace, who has written four books with unappealing titles - 1974, 1977, 1980, 1983 - about the Yorkshire Ripper.

Clark acknowledges that the hardest thing was probably 'trying to give parity to new writers who show real promise, and more experienced writers who have already fulfilled a certain amount of theirs'. This could cut both ways. Rachel Cusk got on as much for her track record as for her latest novel, which was not greatly admired. Giles Foden conversely suffered from having produced a couple of books, Ladysmith and Zanzibar, that didn't live up to his debut.

So does a certain kind of writer emerge from this process? Or, to put it another way, does it make sense to talk of a generation of writers? At one level, these books have little in common: they are variously set in nineteenth-century London, in Scotland, Australia, Japan and Afghanistan, and they range in tone through comedy, melodrama and introspection.

'I doubt it's ever made sense to talk of a generation of writers,' says Jack. 'Ishiguro is not like Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie is not like anyone, except possibly Marquez. There is, though, quite a lot of sex, and transgression generally, in this lot, and much more historical writing. This introduced us to what came to be known as the Bakelite knob problem. In one novel we read, a woman didn't switch on the radio, she turned the Bakelite knob on the wireless. There was a lot of that sort of thing. Sarah Waters is brilliant at not doing that.'

Clark suggests that the notion of a generation of authors is antithetical to the individual quality of novel-writing. In the end, the judges weren't looking for anything much beyond pleasure. 'An affection for the reader,' says McCrum. 'After all the discussion about what it said about the condition of England,' says Jack, 'we would ask, "If you weren't a judge, would you want to carry on?" So, the giving of pleasure.'

Mantel was 'delighted' to discover Ben Rice, Dan Rhodes and Monica Ali, 'whose big book came in quite late. It's not entirely without problems, but she has a wonderful commitment to narrative and to bringing us news of a world, a mindset. I hadn't read Sarah Waters before, but Fingersmith stood out. I don't think I've enjoyed a book for years in the way I did that - the feeling that you're in safe hands and can give yourself up to it. I read it as if I were a child.'

Even so, Mantel was disappointed with the overall standard. 'It would be nice to think people were making exciting, new, 2003 mistakes, but many showed the usual defects of bad writing - an inability to keep the viewpoint steady, to decide who the book's about, or to impart information, so that it's done clumsily through dialogue. Too many people seem to go into print without editorial support and are left to sink or swim, when one well-targeted question could have brought down the whole edifice.

'My feeling is that the list is weaker than previous lists because of the apparent ease of getting published,' says Mantel. 'There are half a dozen brilliant people on here, and not just the ones I've mentioned, but the competition was not that strong. Many of the others would not have been on in other times.'


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

The Granta list 2003

Sunday January 5, 2003
The Observer

Monica Ali, 35: her first novel about a Bangladeshi family living in UK is published his year. Unfair to call her 'the new Zadie Smith', though people will try
Nicola Barker, 36: the literary voice of Estuarine England

Rachel Cusk, 35: takes on mothers and daughters and the changing landscape of Middle England

Susan Elderkin, 34: one novel set in Arizona, the second, Voices, set in Alice Springs and coming out this year. A generous and ambitious writer

Peter Ho Davies, 36: two collections of short stories range across Britain and North America. His first novel, out this year, is set among German pows in North Wales

Philip Hensher, 37: his most recent novel, The Mulberry Empire, has a long cool look at the fantasies and failures of early Victorian imperialism

ALKennedy, 37: leading fictional anatomiser of anger, despair and - sometimes - happiness

Hari Kunzru, 33: one novel so far, The Impressionist, which had mixed reviews. Race is the subject. Several confident and comic set-pieces

Toby Litt:, 34: his most recent novel is deadkidsongs - Just William crossed with something more cruel and sinister

David Mitchell, 33: epics of modern Japan from an inventive and original writer

Andrew O'Hagan, 34: second novel, Personality, out this year. Showbusiness, Scots-Italians, Britain in the 1970s - described with the sincerity that has become O'Hagan's hallmark

David Peace, 35: a quartet of novels set in the West Riding of the Yorkshire Ripper. Powerful on police corruption and crime

Dan Rhodes, 30: First novel, Timoleon Vieta, to be published this year, which charts a dog's life in Italy. Funny, kind, but not sentimental

Ben Rice, 30: his novella, Pobby and Dingan, is set among Australia's diamond miners and relates the story of a girl's imaginary friends. Wonderful narration, perfect craftsmanship

Rachel Seiffert, 31: first novel, The Dark Room, comprises three stories about Germany, from 1920 till now. A huge subject expressed convincingly

Zadie Smith, 27: the most successful novelist on the list, and deservedly so, despite a second novel that was less generously received

Adam Thirlwell, 25: first novel, Politics, to be published this year, about a ménage à trois in North London. Funny, profound, about sex and sexual manners

Alan Warner, 38: his most recent novel is The Man Who Walks - disturbing view of decaying ruralism and the Highland life

Sarah Waters, 36: Fingersmith, a novel set in Dickensian London which doesn't rub your nose in over-researched detail. Compelling story-teller

Robert McLiam Wilson, 38: next novel - after a long gap - will be published this year. His previous, Eureka Street, evokes Belfast lives that are stranger and more various than the media allows

Women Publish From Prison
Victim Advocates Question Book Sales
By DWIGHT F. BLINT
Courant Staff Writer

January 5 2003

A month before its release, the latest book by best-selling author Wally Lamb is already sparking a discussion. But this time the conversation is not taking place on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

"Couldn't Keep It To Myself," is a series of autobiographical stories written by 10 women at the Janet S. York Correctional Institution in Niantic who were participants in Lamb's writing workshop.

The book details the women's lives and the events that led to their incarceration. It is scheduled for release at the end of the month.

It is also raising concerns among victims' rights advocates who question whether Lamb, who volunteers at the prison, and the women, should be allowed to profit from its publication.

"This says that crime pays. It shouldn't pay," saidDee Clinton of Survivors of Homicide. "They should be paying their debt to society; instead they are making a profit."

Clinton, whose 28-year-old son, Anson, was gunned down by a hit man in 1994 in East Lyme, said she wished Lamb and other writers focused as much of their attention on the victims of crimes as on convicts. She encouraged him to come to one of her group's meetings and to provide a workshop for them.

"I think it's absolutely outrageous. The money should go into the victim's compensation fund," said Clinton. "I hope the legislature takes a good look at this. It makes me cringe."

Lamb could not be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for the book's publisher, HarperCollins, said the company does not believe this is a case of people profiting from their crimes.

"The stories written by these women do not discuss their crimes. These are stories written as part of a prison-initiated creative writing class," said Lisa Herling, a company spokeswoman. She said HarperCollins published the collection based on the quality of the writing.

Department of Correction officials would not comment on the book's publication, but said they would review the matter of proceeds paid to the inmates.

"Connecticut does have cost-of-incarceration legislation in place. How this legislation will impact the money received by these offenders will be determined by our legal counsel," said Christina Polce, a department spokeswoman.

It did not appear that Lamb violated any of the department's volunteer and recreational service directives, Polce said.

"The department does recognize Mr. Lamb's service to the agency as a volunteer. He has provided females at the York facility with an educational as well as a positive therapeutic experience," she said.

A source inside the department said correction officials are reviewing Lamb's contract to determine whether he violated any of its provisions.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Connecticut does have "Son-of-Sam laws" that prohibit inmates from profiting from the crimes. It bans them from earning proceeds from ventures such as books and movie deals. But he said his office would have to review the book to determine whether its contents fall under those guidelines.

"At this point, we don't have any of the specifics," he said.

Lamb is the author of "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True," both selections of Winfrey's book club. He began volunteering at York, the state's only all-female prison, in July 1999. He initially intended to hold one session. Two years later, he and the women had secured a publishing contract for their project.

Robin Cullen, who served three years for second-degree manslaughter with a motor vehicle, said writing the book was not about making money. The workshop created a safe space where she could talk of about the loss of her friend during her drunk-driving accident, she said.

"It's really an act of courage," said Cullen, whose segment in the book reflects on the three Christmases that she spent in prison.

Cullen said none of the women attempts to sensationalize or specifically mention the details of their crimes, or makes excuses for themselves. The women, she said, talk about their feelings and circumstances such as broken homes, teenage pregnancy and poverty.

A copy of the manuscript was not available, but initial reviews have been positive. One writer described it as powerful and said Lamb "succeeds in giving the collection an intense, recognizable emotional core reminiscent of his blockbuster debut."

"Once people read it and feel the humanness of it, it will be understood because it is honest," Cullen said.
Copyright 2003, Hartford Courant

You gotta love a story like this one.

Friday, January 3, 2003

Lessons in book promotion pay off for young self-published author

By JOHN MARSHALL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER BOOK CRITIC

The fresh-faced young man sat at a table at last fall's Northwest Bookfest in Seattle, sometimes outfitted in costume as a storyteller of yore, but not altogether pleased with the number of buyers for his self-published fantasy novel. Eighteen-year-old Christopher Paolini of Paradise Valley, Mont., had been on the road hawking his book for most of the year and was used to far more buyer interest, sometimes approaching sales of 100 copies in a single day. So Paolini was not just indulging in idle grousing when he told a Saturday visitor to his display, "This is a bookfest, but nobody is buying."

Those frustrations are behind Paolini now. This young author became one of the latest graduates of the difficult world of self-publishing to climb into the major publisher big leagues. World rights to Paolini's "Eragon" and its two unwritten sequels were sold recently to the youth division of one of the country's most prestigious houses, Alfred A. Knopf, in a deal reportedly worth more than $500,000.

"I'm sorry," Paolini said this week from Montana, "but I can't confirm the size of the deal."

The young author, who recently turned 19, has now learned far more than just to sound like a big-time author. He has learned about the draining grind of book promotion, with more than 70 appearances around the country during 2002, from elementary schools to bookstores. And he has also learned the power of persistence, to keep slogging away through good times and bad.

Since his novel was self-published in February, Paolini says he had never spent more than three days in a row at his home near Livingston where he was home-schooled and where he graduated with a high school degree at 15. That was the same year when he first started writing "Eragon." He finished his first draft of the book at 16, his second draft at 17. And at 18, he was a published author with a 472-page paperback novel that also bore a cover he designed.

The road to Knopf in New York was paved with tireless personal appearances and strong word-of-mouth response from readers that soon resulted in some impressive reviews, including readers posting their comments at Amazon.com and in Publishers Weekly, the trade journal that described it as an "impressive epic fantasy."

Some of the interest in the young man's novel was, no doubt, generated by the huge popularity of "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings" and their film versions. Paolini's publicity flier attempts to make that connection on its cover: "After 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings,' read 'Eragon.'"

But there were also bookstore owners who trumpeted "Eragon" to their customers. Among the most enthusiastic was Roger Page, owner of Island Books on Mercer Island, who has sold 200 copies of the novel.

"I've had a 50-year-old reader say 'Eragon' is the best book he's read since 'Lord of the Rings' and a 10-year-old reader say the same thing," Page relates. "I've also had 25 people say this novel is just a great read."

So much momentum had been building for the novel that Paolini and his family were starting to find themselves overwhelmed by the demands of running their own publishing business, including an exhaustive Web site supporting the novel's sales (www.factsource.com). And the author himself was feeling a tad tired from a promo schedule that left him finding it difficult to focus much attention on the writing of his second novel.

"We couldn't handle things any longer on our own, then Knopf came to us, so it was a case of perfect timing," Paolini said. "It's incredible to me, very, very exciting. I think it's wonderful that so many more people will be able to read 'Eragon.' "

Knopf plans to bring out a hardback edition of the first novel in Paolini's planned "Inheritance Trilogy" next September. Sales of the self-published paperback will be discontinued in the next few weeks.

Paolini's "Eragon" is the second self-published novel by a Northwest author to be given the big-bucks boost by a major publisher in the past nine months. Craig Joseph Danner of Hood River, Ore., received a six-figure payment for "Himalayan Dhaba," which was published last spring by E.P. Dutton.

This list is an annual keeper.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/booksmags/sfl-bk2002mystdec22,0,2337725.story?coll=sfla%2Dfeatures%2Dbooks
The year's best, from veterans and newcomers
By Oline H. Cogdill

December 22, 2002

In his Washington, D.C.-based thrillers, George Pelecanos combines the social historian's eye for detail with the entertainment of a good mystery. Hell to Pay continues to plot the progress and decline of a multiracial, multicultural capital city, where people in the shadow of Congress live on the grinding edge of poverty, crime and social disenfranchizement.

Seven years ago, Pelecanos was considered a cult figure, author of gritty mysteries such as King Suckerman and The Big Blowdown. Now his cinematic writing also has put him in the mainstream. His skillful novels rival those of literary authors like Richard Price.

In his 10th book, Hell to Pay, Pelecanos pulls together a taut story driven by two cops-turned-private detectives. Derek Strange is a black man in his 50s, wrestling with the city's demons as well as his own, while Terry Quinn is a white man in his 30s with a propensity for violence.

Hell to Pay easily takes the spot for best mystery of 2002, but in a better world it would be considered for both mystery and mainstream prizes.

The most compelling mysteries are those in which the story keeps a hold on the reader long after the plot has been resolved. The following is the best that mystery fiction offered in 2002.

1) Hell to Pay. George Pelecanos. Little, Brown. $24.95. 353 pp. Pulling together a cohesive, taut story that echoes Richard Price's Clockers, Hell to Pay is a look at an inner-city society driven by characters who are under siege from the drugs and violence that have infiltrated their world.

2) City of Bones. Michael Connelly. Little, Brown. $25.95. 393 pp. 2002 could have been considered the year of the Connelly with two thrillers -- City of Bones and the high-tech world of Chasing the Dime -- plus an average Clint Eastwood movie based on Connelly's Blood Work. But City of Bones, in which Harry Bosch investigates a 20-year-old murder, is his year's standout as Connelly solidly blends the details of a police procedural with the character study of a man on the edge and his city of L.A.

3) Nine. Jan Burke. Simon & Schuster. $24. 369 pp. Nine is nearly a perfect 10 as Jan Burke, best known for her Irene Kelly mysteries, delivers a multilayered stand-alone thriller about a group of spoiled rich kids who turn vigilante to target the FBI's most-wanted list.

4) The Last Place. Laura Lippman. Morrow. $23.95. 341 pp. The Baltimore-based author continues to push the edges of the traditional private eye novel as she takes an unconventional look at the anger and maliciousness behind domestic violence.

5) Gone for Good. Harlan Coben. Delacorte. $23.95. 342 pp. Few suspense writers are as solid as Harlan Coben as he delivers an unstoppable whirlwind that hinges on deception, revenge and identity. In Gone for Good, a man struggles with the knowledge that his brother is a murderer.

6) Kisscut. Karin Slaughter. Morrow. $24.95. 352 pp. Engaging, likable characters in small-town Georgia balance chilling terror as the author unflinchingly looks at the beginnings of violence and how sometimes predators live too close to their victims.

7) Winter and Night. S.J. Rozan. St. Martin's/Minotaur. $24.95. 338 pp. Much has been written and debated about the tragedy of school violence, and what makes students kill. Using a well-plotted private eye mystery, S.J. Rozan compassionately delves into a town's mindset that makes one set of students royalty, saps the self-esteem of others and makes revenge the goal of still others.

8) The Killing Kind. John Connolly. Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. $25. 376 pp. Irish author John Connolly masters the totally American private-eye novel in this pitch-perfect noir vision with undertones of the supernatural. Mournful ex-cop Charlie Parker battles religious fanaticism as he investigates the death of a young grad student in the dark crevices of Maine.

9) Acid Row. Minette Walters. Putnam. $24.95. 339 pp. During 24 hours in an English housing project, a riot, fueled by rumors, ignorance, hate and a few drug-crazed teens escalates into a war. Out of the rubble, the unlikeliest of heroes and villains will emerge; the frailest elderly will show their inner strength. Shaped as an in-depth Sunday magazine piece, this journalistic approach lets us see the entire situation, and then zooms in for a close-up, as we become one with the story.

10) Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth. Scribner. $24. 400 pp. Set in England's Peak District, Booth mixes the British police procedural with the conventions of a historical to produce a solid psychological suspense tale in which an investigation of a new murder intersects with a mysterious WWII crash. Booth takes a decidedly hard-boiled approach that he then tempers with all-encompassing character studies rather than violence.

11) Bad Boy Brawly Brown. Walter Mosley. Little, Brown. $24.95. 320 pp. Walter Mosley made the year Easy. It's been six years since Mosley wrote about the reluctant detective Easy Rawlins, but his return is a smooth transition. Here, revolution's in the air as Easy searches for a young man who may have been caught up in an underground civil rights group.

12) Blackwater Sound. James W. Hall. St. Martin's Press/ Minotaur. $24.95. 339 pp. Man's manipulation of -- and often careless disregard for -- nature has long been a favorite theme of South Florida author James W. Hall. In his 11th novel, Hall combines a retelling of Moby-Dick with a dash of The Old Man and the Sea into a superior thriller while bringing together two of the author's most popular characters to battle a ruthless and secretive family out for destruction.

13) No Good Deed. Manda Scott. Bantam. $22.95. 304 pp. British author Manda Scott immediately plunges the reader into a harrowing world of deep undercover police detectives whose assignment to ferret out one of Glasgow's vicious crime lords hinges on a frightened 9-year-old boy. Unflinching in its exploration of cops and criminals, No Good Deed's dark tale still offers a glimmer of hope for its characters.



14) Black Jack Point. Jeff Abbott. Onyx. $6.99. 400 pp; and A Killing Sky. Andy Straka. Signet. $5.99. 288 pp. Many paperback originals are up to the standards of hardcover novels. Greed, family secrets, ruthless treasure hunters and centuries-old pirates, and a compelling look at the historical legends of Texas' Gulf Coast intertwine in Black Jack Point. An ex-cop's passion for falconry is the springboard that makes A Killing Sky soar with three-dimensional characters and a plausible story.

15) Dead Midnight. Marcia Muller. Mysterious Press. $24.95. 289 pp. Before Sue Grafton or Sara Paresky, Marcia Muller created a successful female private detective. In her 21st novel, Muller looks at the demise of the dot-com industry as she investigates the alleged suicide of a young Internet journalist.



Debuts

Sleepyhead. Mark Billingham. Morrow. $24.95. 320 pp. It's no joke that Mark Billingham -- who's well-known in his native England as a stand-up comedian and television writer -- debuts with a dark, intense thriller that funnels its solid plot through a contemporary nightmare.

The Devil's Redhead. David Corbett. Ballantine Books. $24.95. 373 pp. A hard-boiled, gritty mystery set against the background of California's early 1990s drug wars and organized crime, The Devil's Redhead is essentially a love story about two ex-cons willing to risk everything.



The Blue Edge of Midnight. Jonathon King. Dutton. $22.95. 260 pp. Sun-Sentinel reporter Jonathon King melds an evocative look at Florida history with a contemporary, fresh view of South Florida -- from Palm Beach to Miami-Dade counties -- in this hard-boiled tale of an ex-cop seeking redemption in the Everglades.

Surface Tension. Christine Kling. Ballantine. $23.95. 304 pp. Christine Kling travels Fort Lauderdale's waterways with a strong, no-nonsense female tugboat captain. Confidently dipping into Travis McGee territory, the author creates realistic people who comprise the multifaceted boating community and offers a showcase of South Florida.

The Edge of Justice. Clinton McKinzie. Delacorte Press. $21.95. 326 pp. Clinton McKinzie takes us to the mountaintop and dangles us over the precipice with good plotting and realistic characters. The author makes the most of his breathtaking knowledge of mountain climbing as his flawed and quite appealing hero looks into the death of a young woman killed while mountain climbing.

Oline H. Cogdill can be reached at ocogdill@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4886.


Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Ever want to know what it's really like for an author being on tour? Check out these two journals:

Leif Enger

Jennifer Weiner

Libraries Across U.S. Are Scaling Back
Mon Dec 30, 1:37 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

Seattle's libraries were forced to close for two weeks. Denver doubled its late fees. And Sunday book browsing is out in Erie, Pa.

Libraries across the country are cutting staff and services because of a budget crunch. Librarians say one of the most disturbing things is that the cutbacks are occurring at a time when an increasing number of people need libraries to help them find jobs.


"As the economic times get worse, library use has gone up," said Maurice J. Freedman, president of the American Library Association. "The injustice of it is, here we are providing more service with the same staff, and we're asked to cut our budgets."


Children's and school librarians are being laid off, weekend hours are being cut and new book buying is out of the question.


The problem stems from tight state and local budgets. When cuts need to be made, libraries are hard-pressed to compete against, say, fire and police protection.


In Pennsylvania, Erie's main library will close on Sundays starting in January. Further cuts are expected.


"We're just grinding our teeth over this," library coordinator Mary Rennie said. "Sunday afternoon was a great time for families to come down together."


Late fees at the Denver Public Library double to 20 cents a day in 2003 to help cover a $410,000 budget cut.


Librarians say that in addition to job seekers, the cuts are hurting students as well as homeless people who spend their days in the library.


Library patron Dennis Hunter, 46, who lives outside of Erie, said that if libraries cut back, he can still get onto the Internet. "But a lot of people just don't have the resources to make do," he said.


Elsewhere around the country:


_The Public Library of Cincinnati planned to close five branches in 2003, but after a public outcry decided to reduce staff and services.


_New York City, starting in October, reduced service at 67 of its 85 branches to five days a week, from mostly six; its 2003 budget was cut $16.2 million, or 14 percent, spokeswoman Nancy Donner said. The cuts came despite a 7 percent rise in attendance since September 2001.


"The annual attendance of 40 million at the city's library system is higher than that of all the city's cultural institutions and professional sports teams combined," Donner said.


_In suburban Detroit, the Berkley Public Library plans to cut hours and lay off its children's librarian, a 14-year veteran. "In 20 years I've never had to cut library hours," said director Celia Morse said. "To cut them twice in one year is particularly painful."


_Seattle shuttered its libraries for a week in August and December and will do so again in 2003, spokeswoman Andra Addison said. The budget has been cut $7 million in the last two years. Library workers voted for the closings and are going without pay during the shutdowns to avert job cuts.


"I don't think people understand what libraries do, and their value to a city's economic and cultural health," Addison said. "In a down economy, this is when people use books more."


An American Library Association-sponsored study released this year found that circulation at 18 of the country's largest libraries was up about 8 percent in 2001 over the average of the four previous years.

Freedman, the ALA president, said libraries' funding problems stem from a lack of political clout. At its annual meeting in January in Philadelphia, the ALA will launch a campaign to raise funds and awareness.

"We have to get a message across," Freedman said.

___

On the Net:

American Library Association: http://www.ala.org

Pennsylvania Library Association: http://www.palibraries.org

A Notion of Really Rogue Nations
Web 'Game' Allows Players to Create and Run Virtual Countries

By Noah Goldman

Dec. 30
— Imagine a nation where college students make ends meet by selling their kidneys, the government is avowedly atheist, euthanasia is illegal, and all tariffs have been abolished.

Sound like a throwback to the bleak days of hard-line dictatorships of the Eastern Europe's Iron Curtain? Or perhaps the return of a despotic-ruled Cambodia?
No, this describes the present-day regime of the ever-formidable Empire of Mediocrity.

What? Never heard of it?

The Empire is part of the biggest online game you never heard of — yet. It is called NationStates, a free Web-based game that allows anyone to build and run their own virtual country.

Max Barry, a 29-year old Australian novelist, says he came up with the idea of NationStates.net after filling out an online quiz designed to gauge a person's political philosophy.

"So many people have so many views as to what that best form of government is and they are absolutely convinced that theirs is the best way," Barry states. "NationStates allows them to see how their ideologies might play out."

And the types of online nations, housed in an online world of 12,000 "regions," truly run the gamut.

Consider some of Barry's favorites, such as The Principality of Twenty Nine, whose credo reads "Peace through superior firepower." Or perhaps, The Dictatorship of Angry PoliSci Majors whose motto says, "We're all going to be unemployed."

Other nations include the Holy Empire of Half-Naked Chicks and the United States of Bushism, a jibe at the verbal flubs made by the real president of the United States.

Free to Rule As You See Fit

NationStates can be described as a mix between the popular online family simulation, The Sims, and the classic board game Risk, the game of global domination.

Within minutes, anyone can set up their own "nationstate" by answering just a few simple questions in three subject areas: economy, civil rights and political freedoms. The result is one's very own virtual country, tailor-made to fit one's own personal political preferences.

Players also designate the national animal, the currency and the official motto of their land. But the fun does not stop there.

Once a nation is established, players will be presented with various issues, ranging from allowing Nazi protestors to march to feeding the hungry. Users can take stances on issues or ignore them all together.

Each action, or non-action, affects the prosperity of the player's nation and sometimes produce unforeseen side-effects. For instance, granting greater political freedom will lead to more civil unrest.

"There is no way to win and no way to lose," says Barry.

Alternate Realities

But the game has certainly proved to be a "winner" for Barry, who initially planned the site as an adjunct to his soon-to-be-published novel, Jennifer Government.

In the satirical tale of an "alternate present," practically the entire world is completely capitalistic. Everything is publicly traded. People take their last names for the corporations they work for and the police will only investigate crimes for which they can directly bill.

The book's epomymous lead character is a government agent, looking to nab a low-level Nike employee, Hack, who has been tricked into signing a contract that is really a Mob-like "hit" order. The order requires Hack to kill people who purchase Nike's newest model of shoes in order to build notoriety for the company.

Power Play?

The game, however, received no formal promotion from Barry's publisher, Doubleday. The Web site's launch consisted of merely an e-mail to twenty of Barry's friends. But word quickly spread from there.

"People started linking the site on their 'blogs , their web logs," says Barry. "And they would talk about their nation and how it was doing." About 1,000 virtual nations sprang up within two weeks — well ahead of the book's Jan 21. release date. And the roll of virtual nations grows scores almost by the hour. The tally now surpasses 20,700 nations, not counting the 1,500 or so countries that have been deleted due to inactivity.

Barry says he is surprised by the response the site has received. He adds that the game has served as a sounding board for many different ideas. "I am a big believer in free speech," Barry mentions. "That this has developed into a forum for something political is great."

Equally fantastic for Barry: The book has recently been optioned to be adapted for the big screen by George Clooney and Steven Soderberg's Section 8 film company.

Barry has already started thinking about whom he would like to play the lead. "Maybe Sandra Bullock," he says.

Copyright © 2002 ABC News Internet Ventures.

December 29, 2002
Who Owns the Internet? You and i Do
By JOHN SCHWARTZ, NY Times

SOMETHING will be missing when Joseph Turow's book about families and the Internet is published by M.I.T. Press next spring: The capital I that usually begins the word "Internet."

Mr. Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, studies how people use online technology and how that affects their lives. He has begun a small crusade to de-capitalize Internet — and, by extension, to acknowledge a deep shift in the way that we think about the online world.

"I think what it means is it's part of the everyday universe," he said.

Capitalization irked him because, he said, it seemed to imply that reaching into the vast, interconnected ether was a brand-name experience.

"The capitalization of things seems to place an inordinate, almost private emphasis on something," he said, turning it into a Kleenex or a Frigidaire. "The Internet, at least philosophically, should not be owned by anyone," he said, calling it "part of the neural universe of life."

But, he said, dropping the big I would sent a deeper message to the world: The revolution is over, and the Net won. It's part of everyone's life, and as common as air and water (neither of which starts with a capital).

Some elements of the online world have already made the transition. Internet often appears with a lowercase I on the Internet itself — but then, spelling online is dreadful, u kno.

Although most everybody still capitalizes World Wide Web, words like "website," and the online journals known as weblogs (or, simply, blogs) are increasingly lowercase. Of course, the Internet's capital I is virtually engraved in stone, since Microsoft Word automatically capitalizes the lowercase "i" unless a user overrides its settings.

For Mr. Turow, the first step in his campaign was persuading his book editor to enlist. She compromised, dropping to lowercase in newly written parts and retaining the capital in older articles reproduced in the book.

Then he nudged Steven Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and president of the Association of Internet Researchers. Mr. Jones was cool to the idea, until he looked at copies of Scientific American from the late 19th century, and noticed that words for new technologies, like Phonograph, were often uppercased.

Today, Mr. Jones is a crusader himself.

"I think the moment is right," he said, to treat the Internet "the way we refer to television, radio and the telephone."

He shared his view with a few hundred close friends last month at a meeting of the National Communication Association, an educators' group. "I just noticed everybody's attention kind of snapped forward," he said.

"I'm used to having people say nice things," he said. "We're scholars, not wrestlers. But this time I was struck by the number of people who were saying the equivalent of, `Right on!' "

DICTIONARY editors, though, have dismissed Mr. Turow politely but firmly.

Dictionaries do not generally see themselves as making the rules, said Jesse Sheidlower, who runs the American offices of the Oxford English Dictionary.

"What dictionaries do is reflect what's out there," he said. He and his fellow dictionary editors would think seriously about such changes after newspapers make them, he added.

That could take a while. Allan M. Siegal, a co-author of The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage and an assistant managing editor at the newspaper, said that "there is some virtue in the theory" that Internet is becoming a generic term, "and it would not be surprising to see the lowercase usage eclipse the uppercase within a few years."

He said, however, that the newspaper was unlikely to make any change that was not supported by authoritative dictionaries.

Time to ask Robert Kahn, who is as responsible as anyone for the creation of the Internet, having helped plan the original network that preceded it and having created, with Vinton Cerf, the language of computer networks, known as TCP/IP, that allowed the vast knitting-together of systems that gave birth to the modern medium.

He cares deeply about the name, having led a fight for years to ensure that its use is not restricted or abused by the corporation that received the trademark in 1989.

A settlement was reached two years ago with the company now known as Concord EFS. The company agreed that it would not dun people who used the word, which meant that "Internet" now belongs to everybody, Mr. Kahn said.

"We defended the right of people to use the word `Internet' for what we think of as the Internet," he said.

THAT was the important fight, according to Mr. Kahn. "Whether you use a cap I or little I" hardly matters, he said.

Which leads us back to a profound question for Mr. Turow: Don't you have anything better to do?

"That's a really interesting question," he said. "I was an English major. I'm very sensitive to the nuances of words, and I'm very concerned about the nuances, the feel that words have within the society."

Fair enough; Perhaps the next big thing, after all, will be small. At least initially.

Publishers have the Hollywood tie-in covered
By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

Literary purists cringe, but publishers know the easiest way to sell a book is with a new cover from Hollywood:

The Hours, Michael Cunningham's novel inspired by Virginia Woolf's 1923 masterpiece, Mrs. Dalloway, became a best seller only after winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. Now it has another life: 250,000 copies with a film image of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman, who plays Woolf. The movie opens in select cities Friday.

Catch Me If You Can, Frank Abagnale's memoir of a con man, sold 86,000 copies after it was reissued in 2000. Now 250,000 copies carry a cover that copies the movie poster. Top billing goes to Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The movie opens today.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Chuck Barris' account of his schizophrenic life as a TV game-show host and CIA hit man, was out of print until this month, when 75,000 copies of the movie tie-in edition were released with actor Sam Rockwell on the cover. The movie opens Dec. 31 in Los Angeles and New York and Jan. 17 nationwide.

"Movie art on books isn't as aesthetically pleasing to some purists," says Carl Lennertz of BookSense, the marketing organization for independent bookstores. "But it's essential to increased attention, display and accessibility to a much larger potential readership."

Hollywood-inspired covers, he says, help "moviegoers, of whom there are more of than readers — a lot more, alas — make the connection to the book."

Consider A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, a brilliant but mentally troubled mathematician. The original paperback pictures Nash on the cover. The movie tie-in edition shows Russell Crowe, who portrayed Nash in last year's movie.

The publisher continues to print both editions, but the cover with the actor is far more popular than the one with the actual subject of the book. With Crowe on the cover, 850,000 copies are in print; 160,000 copies show Nash.

This year, nearly all of the leading Oscar contenders were inspired by books, from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers to Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese's movie based on Herbert Asbury's 1928 collection of stories.

But Carol Fitzgerald of Bookreporter .com, a Web site for book discussions, says she fears that because of the economy, "people will make a choice to 'see the book' this year instead of reading it. Movies cost less, require a smaller time investment and deliver instant gratification."

If she had to choose one book she believes people will read as well as see the movie, it's The Two Towers. "Readers are invested in the trilogy," she says.

"People who read these books when they were younger tell us that they are circling back to them now and appreciating them more. They are the ones leaving the theaters and heading to the bookstores."

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Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2002-12-25-hollywood-covers_x.htm

USA TODAY
10 outstanding reads, 10 stand-out stinkers

Yes, at 3 a.m., book reviewers do toss and turn, worrying that a deserving debut novel, a deeply researched history or that truly moving memoir has been buried beneath an avalanche of glossy publicity kits or ignored because of deadline pressures. But we do our best. Alphabetized by author, here is a sampling of some of the outstanding books of 2002 as well as books we found disappointing — or worse.

The best

1. Master of the Senate by Robert Caro (Knopf, $35). Caro writes history with the touch of a novelist who values a sense of place and mood. Though the book is anchored by relentless research, Caro knows that history is more than facts. Master of the Senate, the third of Caro's four volumes on Lyndon Johnson, is about LBJ's Senate years, from 1949 to 1960. No writer offers a more vivid sense of modern history.

2. The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen Carter (Knopf, $26.95). Although wrapped in the conventions of a mystery, this long, profoundly satisfying novel wrestles with life's most perplexing issues: religious faith, sibling bonds, human weakness, truth, marriage, ambition, money, race. Carter's answer on how to live the good life is not found in automobile showrooms or Restoration Hardware, but in the Bible. This resonating novel is one to read and reread.

3. Atonement by Ian McEwan (Doubleday, $26). McEwan, who won the Booker Prize in 1998 for Amsterdam, infuses his slyly graceful Atonement with energy. Its historic sweep from 1935 to 1999 uncovers betrayal, guilt and redemption. It is a provocative engagement of the senses, an adroit management of grand themes, grand schemes and grand resolutions.

4. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (Houghton Mifflin, $24). In this debut novel, Foer fictionalizes his voyage at age 20 to trace his family history in Ukraine. He inserts vibrant characters, invents clever plot points and imagines events from centuries ago. The result is a hilarious yet heartbreaking tale of family and discovery.

5. Roscoe by William Kennedy (Viking, $24.95). Kennedy has written seven novels set in Albany, N.Y. (Ironweed is the best known.) But he shows no signs of overmining the territory. His latest is an exuberant portrait of political and sexual betrayal, set mostly between World Wars I and II, notable years for crime and punishment in New York's state capital.

6. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (St. Martin's, $24.95). On the surface, this is a portrait of a young girl caring for a darling little boy neglected by his wealthy, self-absorbed Manhattan parents. Yet the debut novel is both hilarious and far more profound than one realizes at first. For one thing, the mother, Mrs. X, is not the one-dimensional she-devil she appears to be. (Selfish and tormented, she bears her secret sorrows.) The novel reminds us that more tears are shed over answered prayers.

7. The Founding Fish by John McPhee (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25). McPhee is an amateur (except when it comes to writing) who delights in hanging out with the best pros. Which is what he has been doing for 26 books, from a profile of a college basketball player named Bill Bradley to his Pulitzer-winning opus on geology. His latest weaves wonders about what might seem a small topic: shad, the most storied of American fish.

8. I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson (Knopf, $23). Often compared to fellow British female protagonist Bridget Jones, Kate Reddy exists as a far more complex, intelligent and tormented soul. This tale of a working mother in London's financial district offers up observations that will resonate with readers long after they have finished the highly praised novel. Though the ending wraps the story up too neatly, the novel has far more depth than simply another dispatch from the eternal mommy wars waged between working and stay-at-home mothers.

9. Hell to Pay by George P. Pelecanos (Little, Brown, $24.95). Masters of the crime novel genre like Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Elmore Leonard read Pelecanos. And for a lot of good reasons. Hell to Pay continues the emotional journeys and crime-solving escapades of Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, the ex-cops Pelecanos introduced in last year's knockout, Right as Rain. Pelecanos' fiction is excruciatingly realistic, his protagonists are flawed but sensitive, and his bad guys are very, very bad.

10. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown, $21.95). A lovely novel that begins with the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. An audacious contradiction? Perhaps, but Sebold's debut novel rises, literally and figuratively, above its plot. A surprise best seller, it's propelled by the voice of its questioning narrator, the murdered girl. In the end, it's more about redemption than death.


The disappointments

1. Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy (Putnam, $28.95). His 10th novel featuring Jack Ryan is less of Clancy's usual techno-thriller and more of a conventional spy story. Set in 1983, it's about a Soviet plot to kill the pope. Its biggest problem is that it doesn't need to be 618 pages; it takes Clancy a good 200 pages to get the plot going. For a writer whose strength is neither dialogue nor characterization, that's inexcusable. It's also dangerous to fall asleep reading a 600-page book.

2. Prey by Michael Crichton (HarperCollins, $26.95). In his new novel, Crichton tries to scare the bejesus out of us with a harrowing tale of nanoparticles gone berserk. If you don't get what all the nano-fuss is about, Crichton makes a valiant but futile effort to evoke the dangers of mixing nanotechnology, biotechnology, computer technology and humanity's reckless egotism. Prey is a big fat tech manual wrapped around a threadbare story. The subject matter is way too complicated for commercial fiction.

3. Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's, $19.95). Evanovich has built a loyal following of readers who have devoured all eight of her mystery novels about a zany New Jersey bounty hunter named Stephanie Plum. Apparently, those readers will follow Evanovich anywhere. A disjointed plot involves one character named Sandy Claws and another, Diesel, who may or may not be from another world. In this world, it looks like little more than an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Christmas novels.

4. The Cell by John Miller and Michael Stone, with Chris Mitchell (Hyperion, $24.95). This book promised to reveal why the FBI and CIA failed to stop the Sept. 11 terrorists. The authors are veteran crime reporters better suited to writing about Mafia thugs. They have lots of FBI sources but are in over their heads in dealing with international terrorism. They use second- and third-hand information but write about events as if they were witnesses.

5. More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction by Elizabeth Wurtzel (Simon & Schuster, $25). The author of Prozac Nation, that shapely Harvardian is at it again. Now our struggling writer has developed an addiction to Ritalin, which she grinds up and snorts while trying to finish a book. And again, we are treated to her endless self-absorption mixed with self-pity.

6. Halloween by Jerry Seinfeld, illustrated by James Bennett (Little, Brown, $15.95). This reader could fill an entire newspaper with savage reviews of trashy kids' books that have been written, so to speak, by celebrities and/or adult authors. Halloween is one of the worst. It is not a bit funny. And it features a particularly shameful moment when the young Jerry look-alike sneers at an old lady who dares to ask him, "What are you supposed to be?" He hits her in the head with her own orange peanut-shaped marshmallow, snarling, "We're going for name candy only this year."

7. The Book of Mean People by Toni and Slade Morrison, illustrations by Pascal Lemaitre (Hyperion, $16.99). Being a Nobel Prize laureate is no guarantee you can write a children's book. This strange offering involves various definitions of what makes people mean. Mothers yelling at their children or trying to feed them green peas are demonized. (By that standard, 99.9% of mommies are mean.) By the end of the book, it's hard to figure out who isn't mean, except for the rabbit hero and his dog.

8. God Bless America, song and music by Irving Berlin, accompanying CD performed by Barbra Streisand, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger (HarperCollins, $15.99). As a book illustrating Berlin's beautiful and patriotic song, this is an acceptable title. And Munsinger's bear illustrations are pleasant. But the book would benefit from more information about the brilliant and fascinating Berlin, who published the song in 1938. And the accompanying CD of God Bless America, performed by Streisand, illuminates why it is the rare celebrity who should venture into the kids' market. Save it for Vegas, Babs.

9. What About the Big Stuff? Finding Strength and Moving Forward When the Stakes are High by Richard Carlson (Hyperion, $19.95). Filled with platitudes about learning patience, the importance of meditating and taking time to be kind, this new offering is ineffectual. Readers would be better served reading Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People, or any books by the Dalai Lama, when "Big Stuff" happens. Carlson's anecdotes about his back problems and his thoughts on forgiveness, illness, death and 9/11 are pretty thin.

10. The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen (Harmony, $19.95). This self-help tale mixes obvious fiscal advice — use only one credit card; be persistent in pursuing your goals — with a far-fetched novel about a widow who must earn $1 million in 90 days to regain custody of her children from her evil in-laws. Save your money. Avoid this book.

Contributing: By Deirdre Donahue, Bob Minzesheimer, Carol Memmott, other USA TODAY staff writers and freelancers

New Booker Prize award
The Booker Prize's advisory panel is setting up a new prize. Unlike the Booker Prize for Fiction, which identifies a British or Commonwealth novel as book of the year, the new prize, which acknowledges a lifetime contribution to literature, will be open to authors in the United States and any other English-speaking country.

December 19, 2002
Room at the Table for Fresh Faces
By MARTIN ARNOLD

How's this for an upbeat thought? Despite a year of whining about economic gloominess in book publishing, 2002 might be remembered, if one notes such things, as a particularly good year for first fiction. One would have thought the contrary, that in these times of uncertainties, publishers would be betting only on the sure thing, the brand name writers, and that that would rule out taking many risks with debuts.

Not necessarily true. Several days ago Random House Inc. astonished book professionals with the announcement that its seven book divisions had this year published 103 first novels or first short-story collections. A company record. Random House Inc.? Wasn't that the behemoth many in the business felt would be the most risk averse after its conglomeration in 1998?

There were other bright signs for wannabe fiction writers, and it didn't have much to do with the size of the publishing house. St. Martin's Press, for instance, which churns out 700 titles a year, published 63 debut fiction titles, and Little, Brown & Company, with a 50-title program, did even better proportionately in risk taking. It published eight first novels or debut short-story collections.

In a way this adventurousness may seem surprising in such a mingy economy. But an essential part of publishing lore is that its attraction as a profession for the young and idealistic is precisely this: the joy of discovering and publishing new writers. And this excitement seldom fades over the years of a career.

Michael Pietsch, publisher of Little, Brown, put it this way: "There's nothing publishers love more than first novels: opening up that box with a manuscript in it and discovering a new novelist."

Peter Olson, chairman and chief executive of Random House Inc., said: "Contrary to the cynics who believe publishing is focused mainly on best sellers and big advances, for our editors author development is a privilege and a truly passionate undertaking. This year they jump-started 103 author careers." (Random House Inc. publishes more than 1,500 fiction titles a year.)

Career building can be a necessarily slow process. Sally Richardson, publisher of St. Martin's Press, said, "We will take on first novels that other publishing houses wouldn't, because we are willing to do smaller numbers than many other houses — have first printings of 3,000 or 4,000, maybe some at 12,000, in hardcover."

"It's no-frills launches," she said. "Part of it is working the smaller bookstores, with a whole spectrum of genres. Mysteries, women's fiction, historical fiction." St. Martin's had 73 best sellers this year, Ms. Richardson said, including "The Nanny Diaries," a first novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Clearly Ms. Richardson's not a bad starter for a writer.

So in a book year with little excitements, when even the sales of some brand name authors are slipping a bit, first fiction provided some energy and juice. One of the few enduring buzz books of 2002 was Alice Sebold's first novel, the best-selling "Lovely Bones" (Little, Brown), which is still buzzing along. Mr. Pietsch, its publisher, said, "It's been a banner year for first novels, and `Lovely Bones' will fuel that for a few years to come."

One thinks back to 1997 when Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" (Atlantic Monthly Press) and Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha" (Alfred A. Knopf), both first novels, were publishing's propellants. People read them and rushed for their computers to try their hand.

This year, too, there were awards as well as popularity for some first fiction. Julia Glass's novel, "Three Junes" (Pantheon), won the National Book Award for fiction, and "You Are Not a Stranger" (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), a debut story collection by Adam Haslett, and Brad Watson's "Heaven of Mercury" (W. W. Norton), a first novel, were finalists.

What does this first fiction array prove, other than that perhaps publishers have more nerve than they often lead us to believe? It proves yet again that the best engine to drive a book's sales is not advertising or authors' tours or even reviews, but word of mouth. People will read a book recommended by someone they respect even if they have never heard of the author.

Selling any novel is not easy, but rookie novels are an easier sell than most people would suppose. Publishers and editors are always searching for that new writerly voice. The hunt may be as important as the back list, for in the end the new voice, they hope, becomes a steady voice and eventually that's what makes up the all-valuable back list — those books that bring steady sales to a publisher year after year.

But writing is a torturous game. Get a nicely published first novel in the stores and the writer is on the way, right? Far from true in most cases. The really hard sell is the author's second novel. The voice is no longer new and fresh. Moreover, the prospective publisher has the computer printout revealing the net sales of what was that promising first novel. The numbers don't have to be best selling, but they had better be promising or the author's agent is going to have a tough sale to a publisher still searching for new fresh voices. Unless, of course, that second manuscript is so obviously smashing. Hey, editors and publishers, make 2003 the year of the second novel!

Copyright The New York Times Company

Dunn's word game has something to say
By Pat Craig
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

QUIET, SELF-EFFACING, and with the sort of politeness that inspires grandmothers to bake a special batch of cookies, Mark Dunn isn't the sort of literary type you'd expect to find infused with the red-hot political spirit of, say, George Orwell.

Of course, he doesn't see himself as anything near Orwellian, either. Just a guy with a few concerns about civil liberties.

He's a bookish, bearded Southern man who switched, at least temporarily, from playwriting (he's written 25 plays, including "Five Tellers Dancing in the Rain," which was produced in 1997 by Pleasant Hill's OnStage Theatre) to novels, spent his career, until recently, working in the rare books and manuscripts division of the New York Public Library.

"I wrote a relevant novel by accident," says Dunn, who isn't the least bit disappointed when people point out the similarities to Orwell's "1984" in his "Ella Minnow Pea." "Orwell may have influenced me. But I wanted something that might appeal to a younger audience."

Some critics have called his work Orwell-lite, but, in truth, Dunn's relevance is due as much to timing as anything else. He did want to write a piece about censorship, civil liberties and freedom of expression. But it is probably the fact that the hardcover edition came out at about the same time as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center that is creating the attention.

The hardcover edition became a cult hit, but hardly a best seller. But when the government began talking about some of the possible restrictions that the homeland security process might place on liberty, people began reading a lot more into what is essentially a novel within a word game.

And, in turn, the paperback rights touched off a bidding war, which meant that Dunn was a literary force to be reckoned with -- and that, for the first time, he wouldn't have to hold down a day job.

"It was funny, really; some of those bidding for the paperback were the same publishing houses that turned me down the first time," he says. "It has changed things. For example, I've made more money at this than from all of the plays I've written."

The book, described by Dunn as "an epistolary lipogram," is a direct result of his work in the New York Public Library, and a huge fondness for words. The epistolary form -- a collection of letters -- is not that uncommon a literary device. A lipogram, a story written without the use of one or more letters, is a bit more rare. But at the library, Dunn found himself reading about lipograms and decided to challenge himself by writing one.

That was the birth of Nollop, a fictional island town off the coast of Charleston, S.C. The town was named for Nevin Nollop, who is credited with coining the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," a sentence that uses all the letters in the alphabet.

After some years have passed, the Z drops from the monument to Nollop, leading the town council to ban the use of that letter by citizens. In rapid fashion, other letters fall off, leading to more letter bannings

Dunn's challenge was to continue writing the epistles, minus the newly forbidden alphabet letters. He does that quite masterfully and manages to tell the story, complete with the council's threats of punishment -- including flogging and banishment -- and the battle of Ella Minnow Pea to restore civil liberties to her island.

"I knew how it was going to end, obviously," says Dunn, "But as I wrote it, it got harder and harder. It was a mental challenge beyond the story itself."