Portland here we come!

For anyone who’s planning on going to the Public Library Association conference this year, we’ll be there in full force at booth 2570. Here’s what you shouldn’t miss:

Author appearances by Nicholas D. Kristof (Half the Sky), Lisa Grunwald (The Irresistible Henry House), Karin Slaughter (Broken; TripTych), and Beth Kendrick (Second Time Around).

The Book Buzz with Nancy Pearl, Marcia Purcell, and the heads of other publishing houses’ library departments. Find out what all the big books for next season are at 10:30AM on Wednesday March 24!

Spotlight ARC Giveaways including Alexanader McCall-Smith’s Corduroy Mansions, Anna Quindlen’s Every Last One, Lisa Unger’s Fragile and a brand-new historical fiction title, By Fire, By Water. Check your PLA programs!

Hope to see everyone there!

Marci, Jen, David, and Erica

We’re drawing near, again, to the ALA-Midwinter conference held this year in warm, sunny Boston, MA! Or wait, maybe I have the forecast wrong… Either way, we will be there, along with four great authors–Ha Jin, Holly LeCraw, Sue Miller, and Alissa Torres–stacks of ARCs, and of course, our newest books.

To view our official schedule, click here!

We now have room assignments and venue info:

AAP Breakfast with Ha Jin – Convention Center, Room 151 A/B

ALTAFF Author Tea with Holly LeCraw – Hyatt Regency Boston – Grand Ballroom

Also, don’t forget to check out our Adult Titles Book Buzz 12:00-1:00 on Sunday, January 17th in room 160A. Add it to your calendar with the button below.

Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

-David

 Egmont USA organized a bus tour of Manhattan with author Walter Dean Myers, in support of his new novel Riot (Sept.), set in 1863 during the New York City draft riots. Beginning at the New-York Historical Society, the tour visited numerous sites of historical interest, including the Irish Hunger Memorial, Castle Clinton, the South Street Seaport, the site of the former Five Points slum and the African Burial Ground, with Myers and historian/author Barnet Schecter (The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America) serving as guides. Here, Myers speaks in front of the statue of Horace Greeley at City Hall Park.

-Erica

Our bags are packed (almost) and our books have been shipped (fingers crossed). We have an exciting line-up of authors joining us for the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.  Stop by Booth #1834 to see our latest releases, receive free galleys, hear about what we’re reading and what we’re excited about!  We can’t wait to see you there!

James Ellroy (Blood’s a Rover, Knopf)

Saturday July 11th – 10:30am to 11:30am
ALA Auditorium Speaker Series, followed by a free galley signing in the Random House Inc. booth, #1834.

Ben Greenman (Please Step Back, Melville House)

Saturday July 11th – 1:30pm to 2:00pm
LIVE! Stage Reading, Aisle 3200, followed by a signing in the Random House Inc. booth, #1834.

Michael Greenberg (Beg, Borrow, Steal, Other Press)

Saturday July 11th – 3:00pm to 4:00pm
Free galley signing in the Random House Inc. booth, #1834.

Nick Taylor (American-Made, Bantam)

Sunday July 12th – 8:00am to 10:30am
RUSA Literary Tastes Breakfast at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel’s Red Lacquer Room. Signing to follow on site.

Stephen G. Bloom (The Oxford Project, Welcome)

Sunday July 12th – 8:30am to 10:00am
YA Author Coffee Klatch at the Mariott Chicago. 10:00am – 12:00pm The Alex Awards at McCormick Place West, W-179 followed by a signing in the Random House booth, #1834

Carleen Brice (Children of the Waters, One World)

Sunday July 12th – 8:00am to 10:30am
ALTAFF Diversity in Literature at McCormick Place West W-476. Signing to follow on site.

Monday July 13th – 8:00pm – 10:00pm
Black Caucus Literary Awards and Reception at the Intercontinental Seville East Signing to follow on site.

Charlie Huston (My Dead Body, Del Rey)

Sunday July 12th – 10:30am to 12:00am
Things That Go Bump in the Stacks at McCormick Place West, W-190a. Free galley signing to follow on site.

Margot Berwin (Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire, Pantheon)

Sunday July 12th – 1:30pm to 3:30pm
ALTAFF First Author, First Book at Hyatt Regency Chicago – Columbus Hall E/F. Signing to follow on site.

Carlotta Walls Lanier (A Mighty Long Way, One World)

Monday July 13th – 10:30am to 12:00pm
ALTAFF: Reflecting on the Past at McCormick Place West, W-194a. Free galley signing to follow on site.

Gillian Flynn (Dark Places, Shaye Areheart)

Monday July 13th – 2:00pm – 4:00pm
ALTAFF Author Gala Tea at the Fairmont Hotel’s Gold Room. Signing to follow on site.

Tracy Kidder (Strength in What Remains, Random House)

Monday July 13th – 3:00pm – 4:00pm
ALA Auditorium Speaker Series Free galley signing to follow at the Random House, Inc. booth, #1834.

Attending the Massachusetts Library Association conference?  Then be sure to save time to attend the MLA Publishers’ Book Buzz event.  Our very own Erica McDonald will be presenting hot new titles from authors Jonathan Lethem, Stieg Larsson, Tracy Kidder, and more.  Oh, and almost forgot: FREE galleys for attendees! 

Here’s the info on the event, check the conference program for location information:

Wednesday, May 6th

9am – 10:30am

Publisher Round-Up & Book Buzz

MLA’s exhibiting publishers will take this time to let you know about what’s coming up for the rest of 2009 from their respective houses! Best-selling fiction and non-fiction, gory thrillers, essential how-to manuals for home repair… this group covers all the bases.

Speakers: Erica McDonald, Random House Inc Library Marketing; Heidi Kanter, Director of national account and library sales Quayside Publishing; Talia Ross Sherer, Library Marketing Director, Macmillan; Virginia Stanley, Library Marketing Director, HarperCollins Publishers

Marcia, Dave, and I headed down to Houston for TLA’s 2009 conference earlier this month.  We always have fun in Texas – thanks to all the wonderful librarians who stopped by our booth!

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni appeared on the AAP “Adult Books – Not Just for Grown-Ups Anymore” panel, where she spoke insightfully and with humor about her novels and how she came to be a writer.  She was kept very busy at TLA this year, and her books remained a popular draw in our booth throughout the conference.

First novelist, John Pipkin, appeared at the “Evening with the Authors” dinner event.  It was John’s first event in support of his first novel, Woodsburner.  He was personable and well-spoken, receiving a warm welcome from the Texas librarians.  We were also very excited to share with everyone the news of his Kirkus starred review, which called it “Pulitzer Prize material!”

-Erica

One of our most popular Community Reading titles, Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, was chosen as the big read for Cal State-Bakersfield this year. Below is a link to a video that features an explanation of the intergrated First Year Experience program and students lauding its universal appeal. Check it out for your reading communities!

WATCH VIDEO

Makes one wonder what the Ham Amendment is, doesn’t it? You can find out with our free book download that’s going on right now. Click here to download your free copy of this book (to print, save, share, etc. from now till the apocalypse).  

I’d say I’m very picky about my poetry. That’s why I love April. Every April, our leading literary imprint, Knopf, sorts through it all for me and picks out the best stuff for their annual Poem-a-Day campaign.

This year, they’ve even got it set up so that you can subscribe to the feed instead of receiving the daily email. So one stellar poem shows up in my Google Reader every day, and I read it, and I feel at least twice as profound as I did before.  

However, if you do want to sign up for the Poem-a-Day email, they are giving away signed books and including audio clips of the poets reading (which, depending on the poet, can really add a lot). We’re a little late in getting this to you, I know, but you can read the previous days’ poems on the Knopf website.

Here’s my favorite so far, from April 2nd, by J.D. McClatchy. What’s yours?

Going Back to Bed

Up early, trying to muffle
the sounds of small tasks,
grinding, pouring, riffling
through yesterday’s attacks

or market slump, then changing
my mind—what matter the rush
to the waiting room or the ring
of some later dubious excuse?—

having decided to return to bed
and finding you curled in the sheet,
a dream fluttering your eyelids,
still unfallen, still asleep,

I thought of the old pilgrim
when, among the fixed stars
in paradise, he sees Adam
suddenly, the first man, there

in a flame that hides his body,
and when it moves to speak,
what is inside seems not free,
not happy, but huge and weak,

like an animal in a sack.
Who had captured him?
What did he want to say?
I lay down beside you again,

not knowing if I’d stay,
not knowing where I’d been.

Last weekend was filled with Julia Roberts, my long-time favorite actress.  I saw her new movie, Duplicity, with Clive Owen.  And I read Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire, a first novel being published by Pantheon in June.  Julia Roberts and Columbia Pictures have already optioned the film rights for Ms. Roberts to produce and star in.  Wow! 

While Duplicity was set in New York City, and Hothouse Flower also starts out in NYC’s Union Square, you are soon transported to the jungles of the Yukatan Peninsula with not one, but two steamy romances.  The plantology included with each chapter and throughout the book is also very informative and fascinating.  Who knew the mandrake could be so deadly?!  This is a well researched page-turner!

ALA Alert!  Margot Berwin, author of Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire is joining us at ALA Annual in Chicago on July 12th.  Don’t miss her on the FOLUSA First Author panel from 1:30pm – 3:00pm.

-Erica

There was no way I was about to turn down a free pizza lunch with the author of one of my favorite books from the past few years, so I cancelled my day off yesterday and came in. Totally worth it. I don’t know what I would’ve done anyway. Probably just spent money needlessly.

Jesse Ball is the name of the author, and he was actually pretty close to how I’d imagined him: very quiet, very wise, very imaginative. You’d have to be all of these things in order to write books like Samedi the Deafness and The Way Through Doors. Word has it that, during the writing of Samedi, he took up residency in a little room in a castle in Scotland, pasting the pages he’d finished on the walls and ceilings. An essay in Powells explains his process a little more.

The lot of us having lunch with him here in the 20th floor conference room took turns asking questions and getting really fascinating answers. Jesse teaches creative writing at the Art Institute of Chicago, but doesn’t so much teach writing. He teaches them how to be more in tune, how to be “lightening rods,” as he put it. He also teaches a class on lying, and told us a story of one “dangerous” girl who’d won all three lying contests he’s held in class.

All this, including the end of lunch when he turned over his paper plate and drew a little monster on it for us, was endlessly entertaining. Be sure to check into getting him to come read at your library if you are in the Chicago area!

-David