Bailouts of the Self-Help Kind: Self Help Books in a Down Ecomony

Millions of jobs lost. Companies struggling to stay afloat. Economies around the world teetering on the brink of ruin. No one reads today’s headlines and feels better. But the endless litany of bad news might have a silver lining for one segment of publishing: the self-help category. Conventional industry wisdom holds that books focusing on personal improvement have done well in recession...

Fiction Book Reviews

A Fair Maiden Joyce Carol Oates . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , $22 (160p) ISBN 978-0-15-101516-0 Sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak and elderly Marcus Kidder share a bizarre romance in Oates’s derivative and unpolished new novel. In bland Bayhead Harbor, N.J., Katya serves as a nanny to the Engelhardts’ two young children.

The Original Joy of Cooking: PW Talks with Author Richard Wrangham

In Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (Basic), Richard Wrangham dishes up an intriguing theory of human evolution. On behalf of sushi haters like me, tell our readers how nature has fitted humans to eat cooked food. Biologically, we are not well-adapted to raw foods. Our teeth and stomachs are small compared to those of chimpanzees or gorillas, because we don’t eat ...

‘Twilight’ Hits Arab World

The Arab Cultural Center, bought the Arabic-language rights to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight quartet at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, and will be publishing the books this May.

In Defense of Historical Fiction

Someone who owns a successful independent bookstore told me recently that if I ever decide to write a novel about an officer in the army in the American Revolution I’d better give him dripping fangs, bat wings and a tail. Well, he wasn’t far from wrong, because as we all know, the bestselling young adult novels today are either about vampires, fantasy or romance.

The Boys Blow up at Dynamite

The Boys and writer Garth Ennis have found a happy home at Dynamite Entertainment, with 100,000 copies of various Boys collections in print.

10 Years and Counting At AiT/Planet Lar

San Francisco indie comics publisher AiT/Planet Lar celebrated it’s 10th anniversary in March.

Carol Tyler Recalls “A Good and Decent Man”

Cartoonist Carol Tyler’s father, Chuck, is a regular guy. He’s gruff and he’s loyal and he builds things. In her new graphic novel, You’ll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man, Tyler begins to tell Chuck’s story, which is also, of course, her story.

Stan Mack Revisits the American Revolution

Cartoonist, children’s book author and pioneering graphic novel creator Stan Mack has teamed with writer/editor Susan Champlin to create a four book series of fictional graphic novels for Bloomsbury that are aimed at 10-14 year-old readers and set during important American historical periods.

Comics Briefly

Book Review Comic by Bechdel; New Runaways Creators Revealed; S. Clay Wilson Needs Help; Hernandez and Sakai Signing; Bleach, Naruto Movies on iTunes; Secret Identity Launch Party; War of Kings #1 Free Online and Princess Diana in Female Force

Panelmania: Remake

A robot boy named Max Guy battles bookstore shoppers in this exclusive 6-page preview of Remake, a collection of comics by Lamar Abrams that mixes manga-style action with pure absurdity. Remake will be released by Adhouse Books in May.

A Garland of Garlands: 2009 Poetry Anthologies

The father of all poetry anthologies was Greek—the Anthologia Graeca, known in English as The Greek Anthology, the first version a collection of epigrams and poems compiled by Meleager of Gadara. That was in the first century B.C. Ever since, the poetry anthology has endured as a form that strives to represent or establish a particular tradition or mode of practice.

The New Storytelling: Multimedia Children's Publishing

Back in early December, when we meet with Lisa Holton about her new book packaging company, Fourth Story Media, it seems like an oddly exhilarating moment to be discussing a start-up, much less a book publishing start-up. Back then, word had just leaked that Houghton Mifflin wasn't acquiring new books.

Children's Book Reviews: Week of 3/30/09

Picture Books What Is This? Antje Damm . Frances Lincoln (PGW, dist.), $15.95 (96p) ISBN 978-1-84507-899-7 Buttons become pig noses and a kitchen faucet turns into a swan under Damm's inventive hand. This appealing title, in line with Damm's Ask Me, invites readers to imagine what ordinary objects could become, given the addition of some paint, paper or clay.

Nonfiction Book Reviews: Week of 3/30/09

The Management Myth: Management Consulting Past, Present, and Largely Bogus Matthew Stewart . Norton , $27.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-393-06553-4 Stewart (The Courtier and the Heretic) reflects on his unconventional path to becoming a successful management consultant—despite a complete lack of business knowledge or experience, let alone an MBA.

Fiction Book Reviews: Week of 3/30/09

The Story Sisters Alice Hoffman . Crown/Shaye Areheart , $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-307-39386-9 Lyrical but atypically monotonous, bestseller Hoffman's (The Third Angel) latest follows the dark family saga of Elv, Megan and Claire Story, sisters plagued by uncommon sadness. As a child, Elv spun fairy tales of a magical world for her sisters, but a period of savage sexual abuse—information a...

Haunted House: PW's Book of the Week

The Little Stranger Sarah Waters . Riverhead , $26.95 (464p) ISBN 978-1-59448-880-1 Waters (The Night Watch) reflects on the collapse of the British class system after WWII in a stunning haunted house tale whose ghosts are as horrifying as any in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Doctor Faraday, a lonely bachelor, first visited Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked as a pa...

Sustaining for Sustenance: 2009 Gardening Books

Despite publishing's massive layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, many gardening publishers have noted an increase in their annual sales. This is due in large part to a renewed excitement surrounding books on organic gardening and, especially, sustainable gardening techniques. Chelsea Green publisher Margo Baldwin says gardening publishers are releasing titles on sustainability to tap into ...

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/30/2009

Upbeat ComicsPro Confab Generates Optimism

The four day annual ComicsPRO convention brings together about 100 retailers dedicated to uniting the comics retail segment to address issues and solve problems.