Sale Books

I've talked about "sale books" once or twice here at The Millions, but since I just a got a great deal on some "sale books," I decided to revisit the topic. "Sale books" are also known in the book biz as remainders. These are the books you see in your local Barnes & Noble, usually near the front, piled together in bins or on shelves under signs that say things like "clearance" or "all books on this shelf $5.99 or less." It's usually a rather odd assortment of books: super cheap hardcovers that mere months (or even weeks) ago were selling for full price. If you dig around you can sometimes find some decent books, but usually the titles are a who's who of bad books, kind of like the mangled sale rack at your local department store. However, the path from frontlist to remainder bin can be a lot more circuitous than path from shop window to sale rack. And so I present the life cycle of the remaindered book. The remaindered book starts out as a regular old frontlist book, that is, one of the season's new offerings from a publisher. Let's call our new book Voyage to Hoboken, a widely anticipated coming of age story by a best-selling author. Since the book is expected to be a big seller, your local Barnes & Noble places a frontlist order of 60 copies from Turnpike Press. The book is released, and amid bad reviews and underwhelming publicity the book is a dud, an outright disappointment. After three months only nine people have bought the book at the full price of $26.95. Now, the book industry is rather odd in that, if a book doesn't sell, the retail establishment can simply return it to the publisher and get most of their money back. Sometimes, when you work at a bookstore, you begin to get the eerie feeling that rather than selling books, you're merely storing them until the publisher is willing to take them back. So, the time comes when the buyer at Barnes & Noble decides enough is enough and returns 50 copies to Turnpike Press, leaving one copy on the shelf in case some unwitting reader decides to buy it. At a Turnpike Press warehouse, thousands of copies of Voyage to Hoboken come in from all over the country. But the folks at Turnpike aren't worried, they are ready to cut their losses. They have negotiated with "remainder houses," companies that deal with these unwanted books, to get rid of our unfortunate novel in bulk, lets say $1.50 per copy. The remainder house then turns around and calls up the very same book buyer at Barnes & Nobel and sells back this once bought book at a severely reduced price, $3.00 per copy, and then Barnes & Noble tries to sell it to you, the reader, for $6.00. And, in the end, most folks can't resist the bargain. So, such is the odd journey that bargain books take before arriving in their bargain bin. What inspired me to write about this? Well, the other day I got a catalog in the mail from one of those remainder houses, Daedalus Books, and, since shopping from a catalog is a lot easier than picking through the bargain bin, I got myself four fantastic books for about sixteen bucks. Not bad, eh? Here they are: The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey, Pastoralia by George Saunders, Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones, and The Founding Fish by John McPhee. By the way, bargain books can be found at Amazon, too.

Speaking of Amazon, here is an interesting article about what those sales rankings at Amazon actually mean. It's written from the perspective of a self-publishing expert.

One last thing. During my time at the bookstore, one of the hottest sellers was a collection of short stories by David Schickler called Kissing in Manhattan. Now Schickler has a novel coming out called Sweet and Vicious. It looks interesting.

- C. Max Magee @ 4:31 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

My Review of Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuscinski

Readers of this blog know that Kapuscinski is among my favorite writers. He was born in Poland in the 1930s and lived through World War II. He would go on to write for Poland's national news service (their version of the AP) as a foreign correspondent. He covered the "little wars," the insurgencies, revolutions, and coups that are barely reported in the western media. His point of view is fascinating: a man living behind the Iron Curtain serves his country by reporting on terrifying conflicts in the most inhospitable parts of the world. When you read Kapuscinski's work you may at first feel like something is missing, and then you realize that what's missing is a Western perspective and the presumption and detachment that comes with it. Kapuscinski, like no other writer I've read, is able to delve into the psyche of his subjects and produce remarkable insights about their nature and the nature of their oppression. Which isn't to say that his writing is dry. More often than not, the episodes he relates are quite harrowing. Shah of Shahs is no exception. Quite unexpectedly, I found this book about the Shah and his overthrow by Ayatollah Khomenei to be very relevant to today's conflicts, specifically, the difficulties inherent in replacing a brutal and oppressive regime without falling prey to extremism. His discussion of the horrors of the Shah's secret police, SAVAK, is astonishing, and his insight into the vulnerability of the Iranians as they attempted to move on from decades of oppression is fascinating. In assessing the difficulties of undoing the damage of a regime like the Shah's, the parallels to today's struggles in Iraq are hard to ignore, and, as such, the book was especially interesting to read at this moment in history. I have one book by Kapuscinski left to read, and after that, I can only hope that some benevolent publisher decides to put out more of his work.

Those interested in politics and media may want to read a new book by John Powers called Sore Winners. When I lived in Los Angeles, Powers' column "On" in the LA Weekly was a must-read for me. Powers strikes a great balance between intelligence and humor, and he has the classic ability of Angelinos, living far from the nation's capitol, to deliver an unfettered, outsider's perspective.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:46 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

New Books in August

The summer, that great season of reading, is now on the wane. And as the autumn swings into view, you might be looking for a book to prolong the escapism of the season or perhaps to provide you with some comfort as the cooler months settle in. August is not traditionally a great month for new books. It's too late for "summer reads" and too early yet for the holiday retail push. Still, this August there will be several books that will be worth a look. It's an eclectic and intriguing list, and I'll start with the title that I am most looking forward to. Harbor is a novel about an Algerian immigrant named Aziz who has stowed away in a tanker's hold for 52 days in order to illegally enter the United States. Upon his arrival, however, there isn't much stopping him from becoming an unwitting participant in the war on terror. The book was written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Lorraine Adams. For those who enjoy short stories, check out a new collection by young writer named Courtney Eldridge. Unkempt consists of seven stories as well as a novella entitled "The Former World Record Holder Settles Down" in which the "world record" refers to the now happily married title character's past life as a porn star. The Wasp Eater, a debut novel by William Lychack, sounds especially intriguing. The book is set in New England in 1979 and is about a nine-year-old boy who is caught between his estranged parents. It is, I'm told, beautifully written, and both wrenching and uplifting. For those looking for a more light-hearted book there's another debut effort: An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray. The lead character, Charles Hythloday, is a loveable drunkard from an eccentric family, and his life of leisure is about to be severely curtailed by his feisty sister and the return of his long lost mother. This one is being described as a hilarious update on classic British humor and it was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award no less. Also sure to tickle your funny bone is Eating Crow by Jay Rayner about a restaurant reviewer named Marc Basset whose cruel review drives a chef to suicide. Basset is compelled to make an apology, and, after discover the palliative effects of such an act, decides to make a career of it, eventually becoming Chief Apologist for the United Nations. Viciously funny, I'm told. Two better-known authors will be releasing books in August as well. Arthur Phillips will release The Egyptologist, which is supposed to be even better than his big selling debut Prague. Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has a new book out as well, Snow. Pamuk's previous book, My Name is Red, was a favorite among many readers, but this new offering is supposed to be dense and challenging. Still, some believe that a dense and challenging book is the best way to counteract a summer's worth of fluffy beach reading.

Harbor by Lorraine Adams -- excerpt
Unkempt by Courtney Eldridge -- short story
The Wasp Eater by William Lychack -- interview
An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray -- excerpt
Eating Crow by Jay Rayner -- excerpt, The Apology Log
The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips -- excerpt
Snow by Orhan Pamuk -- excerpt

- C. Max Magee @ 7:29 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

My Review of The Last Amateurs by John Feinstein

John Feinstein is one of the big names in sports journalism. He's written books on a number of headline-getting sports stories and consequently can be heard often on sports radio as an expert guest. Feinstein's background is as a newspaper guy, writing for the Washington Post among others. The Last Amateurs is about college basketball in the Patriot League, a (mostly) non-scholarship league that struggles to survive in the world of big time college ball. To Feinstein, this is one of the last bastions of unadulterated amateur basketball in the United States. These kids play for little more than the love of the game and the glory of winning the league's one berth to the NCAA Tournament. He follows the seven teams from schools like Holy Cross, Lehigh, and Navy through a whole season, focusing on the personalities, on the struggles peculiar to this one of a kind league, and on the great basketball games that never came close to showing up on a Sportscenter highlight reel. Feinstein's newsy writing and copious background anecdotes keep the book moving at a fast pace. It isn't, however, the transcendent sports writing of a Roger Angell. Instead, the book reads like a dozen Sports Illustrated articles strung end to end. As such, this is a fantastic book for fans of college basketball, as it really captures what is best about that game.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:49 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Review of The First World War by John Keegan

My appetite for non-fiction is pretty much equal to my appetite for fiction. I read memoirs, essays, and observations as I would read a novel, keyed into the author's voice. When I read history, though, I read for the information, as though I'm auditing a course at my local community college. I underline the important parts, I try to process the information and place it in context. Sometimes I take notes. I read history when I want to know the facts, and that's why I love John Keegan. His writing is clear, and he brings unassailable expertise to his books. I first discovered him a while back when I read part two of Ian McEwan's Atonement in which the evacuation of British forces from France in the face of German invasion is described. McEwan's vivid description of the grim realities of a small and somewhat forgotten event inspired me to read about World War II in search of more small, somewhat forgotten events. My knowledge of history comes from high school, a few courses in college, the History Channel, and a scattershot array of books I've read over the years. I know the big picture, the facts that we are all supposed to know, but, in the case of World War II, I didn't know the nuances, the details, and campaigns and events that textbooks push to the background in the interest of smoothing out the narrative to assist in the learning process. I found that The First World War neither skimped on the specifics nor did it overwhelm with minutiae. I learned about the Greek campaigns and just how close the Allies were to losing the war. I learned about the British evacuation from France, and, in the end, understood the chronology of events and how all the pieces fit together. As an added bonus, Keegan every once in a while would pause the narrative to describe the realities on the ground, to explain what it was to be a soldier (or a general) fighting in this war. These invaluable nuggets are what make the book great. Naturally, I began adding Keegan books to the queue. The First World War is another great book, and a must read for anyone who wishes to have deeper knowledge of that cataclysmic event. Some fascinating insights: WWI represents a dividing line in history, and much more than the events that preceded it, WWI is responsible for shaping the world order of the last 90 years; this truly was a global war with campaigns in Africa and Asia; though the terrible nature of trench warfare is well-known, Keegan's descriptions of the realities of the life of a WWI soldier are indispensable. If you are interested in military history, you won't be disappointed by John Keegan.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:39 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Review of The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

So, I'm back again after a week in New York. We move to Chicago in three weeks, and after a summer living out of suitcases, an apartment all our own will be a relief. Over the past few weeks I've read four books. I read them on the beach, in cafes, in cars, subways, and airplanes, and in halflit, air-conditioned rooms over the course of long, languid afternoons. This has been some serious summer reading. I plan to get to all of them this week, beginning today with the modern classic and winner of the National Book Award in 1962, The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. I had never heard of this book before I started working at the book store, and it seems to be one of those books that is half-remembered and dimly loved by those who read it decades ago. The moviegoer is Binx Bolling, a successful businessman and a member of a prominent and eccentric New Orleans family. He is unmarried and enjoys the escape that going to the movies provides. He is unable to keep himself from dating his secretaries, and he is constantly trying to hold "despair" at bay. It is an existential novel of the American suburbs where Binx tries to find meaning or hope in the midst of mundanity. But it isn't preachy or didactic, it meanders and searches, and one begins to wonder if Binx is a madman and not just a lonely bachelor. In this sense it has a lot more depth than some other books of middle-aged male suburban angst that I've read over the years, The Sportswriter and Independence Day by Richard Ford and Wheat That Springeth Green by J.F. Powers to name a few, and Binx seems far more ethereal than Frank Bascombe or Joe Hackett. It's short and cleverly written, and I recommend the book to anyone with a taste for the internal monologues of a Southern thinker.

I added Adam Langer's much-praised debut, Crossing California to the reading queue, and I'm about to start reading part one of Peter Guralnick's two-part biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis. More soon!

- C. Max Magee @ 6:10 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

More Book News From Friends

My book-loving friends keep writing me great emails that I feel compelled to share with all of you. Here's one from my friend John about the great books he's been reading:

Currently reading Libra by Don Delillo. I've heard from a few people that it's a modern classic, and though I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, it is very good. Fictional retelling of the assassination of JFK. I think it might be overshadowed by Oliver Stone's JFK, but I would say it's an even more plausible a version of what happened. Just finished reading Dispatches by Michael Herr. Don't know if you've read it, but you probably should. He was a freelance journalist in Vietnam (which is what the book is about) and was also the screenwriter for Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Probably the most readable book about the Vietnam War; haven't read that much though. I also saw The Sheltering Sky on your queue. Amazing book. That really got me into reading again. Very stark, but somehow it struck a chord. Something about wanting to be an ex-pat, but also seeing the hubris that we Americans have, especially in relation to foreign cultures. Some things never change. Probably my fave author of right now is T.C. Boyle. Love his stuff. His last novel, Drop City, is a great read. The thing about him is that his stories are highly readable. Great stories, great characters.

A couple of quick comments: I've been wanting to read Dispatches for a very long time, and I think most of you know how I feel about T.C. Boyle. Also, everyone should check out John's new band The Vanity Fair, they were sent here to rock. I also got a great email from longtime Millions contributor Brian that I'd like to share with all of you:

Not a lot of time, but just wanted to drop an e-mail, let you know I read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. Fantastic. He went to Spain to write about the Spanish Civil War but felt so strongly he joined the fight. He was in the trenches, fought, got shot in the throat, recovered, took part in street battles in Barcelona, was pursued by the police for being a member of the Marxist group P.O.U.M., fled to England and wrote the book. This passage is from just before he fled: "I seemed to catch a momentary glimpse, a sort of far-off rumour of the Spain that dwells in everyone's imagination. White sierras, goatherds, dungeons of the Inquisition, Moorish palaces, black winding trains of mules, grey olive trees and groves of lemons, girls in black mantillas, the wines of Malaga and Alicante, cathedrals, cardinals, bull-fights, gypsies, serenades -- in short, Spain. Of all Europe it was the country that had had most hold upon my imagination."

Great stuff guys. Thanks! If anyone else out there wants to contribute, just drop me an email. Remember, my Millions is your Millions. I have tons of stuff to write about, including the two books I finished last week, but I'm off to New York tomorrow for a few days, maybe a week, so it may have to wait until I get back.

- C. Max Magee @ 4:46 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Reading: A Palliative

My great friend Emre recently experienced some misfortunes, but he has been doing a lot of reading which is keeping his spirits high. Here is what he wrote me:

Another thing aside form your wedding that helped lift my spirits after the debacle was William Boyd's An Ice-Cream War. I'm not sure if you're familiar with his writing, but that was the first I read by him and it blew me away. So, I was back at Barnes and Noble this week to pick up his Stars and Bars which sounds very promising as well. Nevertheless, back to An Ice-Cream War. It is the story of various characters in England, the British East Africa and German East Africa, starting in the summer of 1914 when talk of an Anglo-German war seemed ridiculous and ending with the surrender of the squareheads as the Britons in the novel call them kind of peoples. The satirical approach is akin to Catch 22, a terrible comparison, I am aware, as it is hard to beat Catch-22, but nevertheless unique in its tone and weaving of characters. Yossarian's cowardly rationalization of the stupidity of war might be unparalleled, but Boyd's snotty British approach makes you laugh out loud at the most obscene death. It's not because of the circumstances, but because of the silliness that surrounds all the characters and the world involved in a war about which few had an idea why it started and dragged on for so long and did not realize for a while that it had ended. Man, I can't rant about Boyd's An Ice-Cream War enough. In the opinion of a sweet lady that runs Biography Books, two blocks down from us, Boyd is one of the most under-rated contemporary authors. I don't know much about the ratings, but he sure is a phenomenal story-teller, and certainly is interested in historic events and contexts, which I dig. I'm currently recommending the book to everyone as a terrific summer read that you'll blast through in under a week.

Thanks Emre! Sounds pretty good. I'll have to check it out.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:28 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The Twenty-second in a Series (The Best in 2k3)

Patric (who's got a pretty cool website) wrote in with this question, which tested my research skills.

What was Entertainment Weekly's #1 Fiction Title for 2003?

Before I set to figuring this one out, I guessed what it might be just to see if I would be right. Knowing Entertainment Weekly's tastes, I figured that Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was a pretty good candidate, but, no it turns out to be EW's number two book. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger seemed like a good pick because, while a book club favorite, it broke new ground, Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude for its genre-bending hipness, and maybe Monica Ali's Brick Lane for its multicultural bent. But: no, no, and no. It turns out that the EW editors decided that 2003's best novel was Samaritan by Richard Price. It's actually a pretty good choice; Samaritan was well-reviewed, and sold well, but was not considered one of the "hot" books of the year. In the book, Price (who also wrote Clockers) weaves a mystery of sorts about a man who returns to his roots in a hard-edged New Jersey town and is brutally assaulted, but refuses to implicate his attacker. It's a bold and interesting pick by EW for best book of the year. (My pick, by the way, is The Known World by Edward P. Jones, hands down.)

- C. Max Magee @ 3:44 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The Twenty-first in a Series (A Rose by Any Other Name)

Hey folks. I'm back from the honeymoon, sunburned and with my energy replenished. My inbox is full and I have much to write about so stay tuned. To start, here's a mysterious book question I received from Vicki:

Looking for a book. Think it was called Rose Manor? Fiction, About a woman that is married to a police officer that beats her and she runs away and hides. She changes her name and he sets out to find her to kill her. She goes to a shelter that helps her get a job and a new home and identity. She buys a painting that comes alive, and she finds that out because there are crickets that come out of the painting. There is also a woman in the painting that moves around. The lady in the book also gets a job reading books to be put on tape. Does anyone know what this book is? Please help.

Well, your description sounded familiar to me, but a title search turned up nothing. Then it hit me. Only Stephen King would combine violence and the supernatural in the way you describe. You almost had the title; it's King's 1995 best seller, Rose Madder.

- C. Max Magee @ 3:27 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post