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BookADay will be on a mini-hiatus until mid-September. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Back To Neverland?

A British hospital is calling all writers to write the sequel for Peter Pan. A few prestigious children's' authors, including J.K. Rowling, have already snubbed their noses at the Great Ormond Street's commission for a sequel. While the hospital would own all copyrights, there is a large cash prize being offered. Publishers and literary agents are encouraged to nominate up to two authors. Nominated writers will send a synopsis and sample chapter by January 31. A winner will be chosen in spring for a Fall, 2005 publication date.

Kudos to Scholastic

Right in time for school to start, educational publishing giant Scholastic gave away 40,000 copies of The Big Turtle to poor students in North Dakota. Here's to good press and encouraging new readers.

Coming Soon

Sorry no updates. Hard at work on making BookADay better.

The long-awaited review section is coming soon. There will be three reviews posted this weekend. They will also be archived for future consumption.

Currently Reading
The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain. Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens. Ed. Charles Neider. Doubleday: 1957. 361/679. (Reading at Random.)

Market Forces. Richard Morgan. Del Rey: expected March, 2005. 31/441.

Copyright Victory

Viet Nam is finally going to recognize copyright laws.

Money, Scandal and Sellers

The reports are in. Just in case you're curious on who is making money in book publishing, this week:
Rupert Murdoch is.
Jon Stewart and Warner Books expect to.
Simon & Schuster is hoping Lewis Black does.
HQN, Harlequin's brand-new imprint "devoted to blockbuster romances" is with Diana Palmer's Renegade.

As reported in BookADay earlier this month, the Norma Khouri scandal has come to a head. Random House gave Khouri three weeks to clear her name and prove that her best-selling book, Forbidden Love is true. Her defense in an Australian newspaper wasn't enough for Random House, who dropped her from their list and apologized to buyers for purchasing a book they believed to be true. Simon & Schuster is expected to do the same. Khouri is reported to have been in contact with the major tv talk shows for a tell-all interview.

This Week's Bestsellers, According to the Wall Street Journal.

FICTION
1. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
2. Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
3. Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Hyperion)
4. Visions in Death by J.D. Robb (Putnam)
5. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (Dial Books)
6. Lost City by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos (Putnam)
7. R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton (Putnam)
8. Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson (Little, Brown)
9. Kiss Me While I Sleep by Linda Howard (Ballantine)
10.Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Atria)
11. Shem Creek by Dorothea Benton Frank (Berkley)
12. Immortal Highlander Karen Marie Moning (Delacorte)
13. Star by Pamela Anderson (Atria Books)
14. Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's Press)
15. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah by Stephen King, (Grant)

NONFICTION
1. American Soldier" by Tommy Franks, M. McConnell (ReganBooks)
2. The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston (Rodale Press)
3. My Life by Bill Clinton (Knopf)
4. The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan)
5. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (Gotham)
6. Bushworld by Maureen Dowd (Putnam)
7. Imperial Hubris by Anonymous (Brassey's, Inc.)
8. Good to Great by Jim Collins (HarperBusiness)
9. Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson (Random House)
10.Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (Little, Brown)
11.Woman Power by Laura Schlessinger (HarperCollins)
12.The South Beach Diet Cookbook by Arthur Agatston (Rodale Press)
13.Prophecy by Sylvia Browneby Lindsay Harrison (Dutton)
14.Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Laura Schlessinger (HarperCollins)
15.Automatic Millionaireby David Bach (Broadway Books)

This Week's Bestsellers, According to the New York Times.

HARDCOVER FICTION
1. THE DA VINCI CODE, by Dan Brown
2. LOST CITY, by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos
3. R IS FOR RICOCHET, by Sue Grafton.
4. SKINNY DIP, by Carl Hiaasen
5. THE RULE OF FOUR, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. MY LIFE, by Bill Clinton
2. EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES, by Lynne Truss
3. IMPERIAL HUBRIS, by Anonymous
4. DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM, by David Sedaris
5. SHADOW DIVERS, by Robert Kurson

CHILDREN'S CHAPTER
1. ERAGON, by Christopher Paolini
2. TEEN IDOL, by Meg Cabot
3. HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, by J. K. Rowling
4. THE BAD BEGINNING, by Lemony Snicket
5. SUMMER OF THE SEA SERPENT, by Mary Pope Osborne. Illustrated by Sal Murdocca

PAPERBACK FICTION
1. THE NOTEBOOK, by Nicholas Sparks
2. THE WEDDING, by Nicholas Sparks
3. HELLO, DARKNESS, by Sandra Brown
4. ANGELS & DEMONS, by Dan Brown
5. BLEACHERS, by John Grisham

PAPERBACK NONFICTION
1. THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT.
2. READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN, by Azar Nafisi
3. LIES (AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM), by Al Franken
4. DUDE, WHERE'S MY COUNTRY? by Michael Moore
5. IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BIKE, by Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins

You Normally See This In Reverse

There are a lot of movies made from books. The online arena is a touch different. Game Developer Cryptic Studios just worked out a deal with independent book publisher CDS Books. CDS will publish a series of books based on the game City of Heroes. CDS is most well-known for their book distribution and production services.

America's New Poet Laureate

We have a new Poet Laureate. Ted Kooser's appointment will be announced later today. His latest book is Delights and Shadows, published earlier this summer.

Hollywood!

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has signed over his rights to Love in the Time of Cholera to Hollywood production company Stone Village Pictures Stone Village Pictures. Nicole Kidman and Jude Law may play the book's main characters. Marquez may even write the screenplay. Marquez has previously criticized the United States for its policies and has not released any of his rights to adapt his books into screenplays, with the exception of a single Italian producer. He will be paid about $3 million for the rights.

If you're in Minneapolis, you're probably a reader. A new study by the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater has found it to be the most literate city in America. El Paso, Texas bottoms out the list at 74. Chicago, home to the BookADay headquarters, is number 58. Boo.

Reading Goes High Tech

In case reading on your PDA wasn't good enough for you, you can now read books on your phone. Outside The Fortress Besieged, a novel by Qian Fuchang, will be the first book available through the text messaging portion of Chinese cell phones. Fuchang abbreviated his novel to 4200 characters, available in 60 chapters of 70 characters each. He received $21,733 USD for his work. Full story here.

The Inquisition All Over Again

As a lover of books, I hate it when books are used as propaganda. (It's one of my chief issues with Ayn Rand.) It's happening in Europe.

Human rights groups sent out an alert warning Italians of Oriana Fallaci 's latest book. Fallaci has written two worldwide bestsellers and a number of other platforms for propaganda. Her latest book warns Europeans about the "Arab Invasion", comparing Muslims in Europe to the burning of Troy.

She is another author telling her scores of fans which group of people to allow, and which to throw out. Her book feeds on the fear of foreigners, a xenophobic attitude always an issue in portions of Italy. She is telling people that it's okay to be racist and calling for the exile of Arabs from Europe. The more books like this are published, the more mainstream the ideas of hatred become, until it is not only tolerable to persecute a group of people, it is the norm.

This is disgusting.

Cheers to the Phoenixville Public Library, in Pennsylvania. They thought up a program that had children reading books and watching the movies side by side. This way, children could see where things are based from and get the true experience. It is aimed to create a love of reading in the next generation.

Small blurb about our neighbors to the north. With the gigantic success of Bill Clinton's My Life, as people are still lining the streets to get autographed copies of his book, Canadian publishers are rolling out autobiography after autobiography for their fall catalogues. Long lists of Canadian dignitaries, actors and politicians join the ranks of authors this season. I'm thinking that the same will be true of our Fall List.

In more international news (today's entry is turning into the international issue), England is following the America's trend of multinational conglomerate media companies, replacing independent book publishers. Sigh.

Just Finished
Good as Gold. Joseph Heller. Dell Publishing. 447 pgs.

It's a Sad Day For Libraries

In Ireland. They can't afford to buy books anymore.

In Kentucky, school libraries aren't complaining that there isn't any money to buy books. They're just asking their patrons to do it for them through Barnes and Noble.

Currently Reading
Good As Gold. Joseph Heller. Dell Publishing. 261/447.

What Are You Rereading?

That's it. That ALA has finally done a study (while not scientific and based purely on member opinions).

People are rereading books. Faulkner makes the list. So does Rowling with Harry Potter. A Christmas Carol and the Great Gatsby are seasonal favorites.

The study reports that we reread books we encountered as a child. While I agree, I also think there's more too it. I reread books because I miss the characters or love the author's voice.
(On my list of favorite rereads are Written on the Body and The Adventures of Dr. Dolittle.)

What do you reread?

In more JK Rowling news, she's pregnant with her third child. While she says that it won't affect the publication of her yet-to-be-completed sixth novel, there is no publication date.

Currently Reading

Good as Gold. Joseph Heller. Dell Publishing. 233/447.

The Best Marketing Ever

Before I get on my soapbox about how woeful the budget is that publishers apply to marketing new books, I'd like to give a standing ovation to author Matt Schutt.

Like many writers, he was having trouble getting published. So, he created his own marketing. He took his concern to Howard Stern. Stern made him an offer--a night with gorgeous women who would do anything with him, or a single minute on the show promoting his book. Schutt took the latter. Liberal Independent Publisher Flying Dutchman picked up his book, Encyclopedia Satanica.

I'd love to get my hands on a review copy.


Currently Reads
Good as Gold. Joseph Heller. Dell Publishing. 212/447.