BarnesandNoble.com announced that it will launch “the world’s largest e-book store” with 700,000 titles, in formats compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, PC and Mac. It will also offer the Plastic Logic Ebook, which has entered an exclusive partnership with BN.com and will be available in early 2010, with web access tied to the AT&T wireless network. BN.com’s move at once co-opts Amazon’s old slogan while challenging Amazon’s strategy of selling e-books exclusively for the Kindle, its proprietary e-reader. But what does all this mean for readers?

For one thing, the BN.com e-store offers a wider selection of titles than any other single source. Half a million of the e-books on the B&N.com site will be public domain titles available via B&N’s partnership with Google, which is comparable to the number of public domain titles that the Sony Reader store offers its device users, according to ChannelWeb. However, Sony does not offer anywhere near the 200,000 new titles that BN.com does (that number includes the 60,000 fiction titles BN.com acquired when it bought e-book retailer Fictionwise last March). And while Amazon does have about 330,000 titles for the Kindle, it does not currently have a deal with Google for the use of public domain titles.  

E-book readers who buy through BN.com will also be able to use an upgraded version of its eReader software, according to the New York Times. That will allow users to read any e-book bought on BN.com on more than one device, with the glaring exception of the Sony Reader and the Kindle, the two main rivals to the Plastic Logic E-Reader.

B&N’s ebooks will be priced at $9.99, the Times also notes, which is comparable to Amazon’s pricing, and well under the typical $25 price set by publishers for many newly released digital editions. One of BN.com’s potential e-book pricing models may also allow e-book buyers to lend an e-book to three or four other users, for 30 days at a time, adds Publishers Marketplace (subscription only). The price of the Plastic Logic E-Reader has not yet been reported, but it’s likely to be less than the Kindle’s current $299 pricetag, according to Gadgetell.

Of course, none of the articles mention that libraries also offer free downloadable e-books.

At Smart Bitches Read Trashy Books, blogger SBSarah offered a contrarian view to all the hoopla:

“The store isn’t all that, there’s still YET ANOTHER form of book and DRM to deal with, and there’s no transparency as to whether ebook readers are buying a license of limited download (aka a “book rental”) or if they own the title themselves.

While I’m ranting, let me offer my Chinese fortune cookie assessment of the following sentence from the AP article: “The company also says that as part of its digital effort, it will be the exclusive content provider for the new Plastic Logic eReader device.”

Crack your cookie and listen up: NOTHING GOOD comes of the words “exclusive content provider.” Not in an economy that is all about predatory bargain shopping.

In case you were wondering: digital books represented 4.9 percent of books sold in May, up from 3.7 percent in March, according to book marketing company The Codex Group.

Recent news stories about Governor Mark Sanford have focused on the “C Street House” in Washington, D.C., where he and other public servants dealing with situations similar to Sanford’s, have stayed and received counseling.

Last year, Jeff Sharlet published a book about the organization behind the C Street House, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Sharlet appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show twice this week.

Sharlat also wrote a piece on Salon.com yesterday, Sex and power inside “the C Street House.”

(to see Sharlet’s second appearance on the show, click here)

Sharlet’s book is now at #14 on Amazon and is showing heavy reserves in libraries. The trade paperback version that came out earlier this month is now sold out, but reprints are scheduled to be available beginning July 26.

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power Jeff Sharlet Retail Price: $15.99 Paperback: 464 pages Publisher: Harper Perennial – (2009-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0060560053 / 9780060560058

Two of Patricia Cornwell’s novels, Risk and The Front, will be adapted for TV by the Lifetime cable channel, with projected air dates in 2010.

Each movie follows Massachusetts state investigator Win Garano (Daniel Sunjata, from TV’s Rescue Me) and his ambitious supervisor, district attorney Monique Lamont (Andie MacDowell, from Sex, Lies and Videotape), as they investigate cases. Dianne Carroll (TV’s Grey’s Anatomy) stars as Garano’s grandmother; Annabeth Gish (TV’s Brotherhood) plays Garano’s co-worker, Sykes; and Ashley Williams (Good Morning America) is Stump, a detective who becomes Garano’s love interest.

At Risk Patricia Cornwell Retail Price: $7.99 Paperback: 212 pages Publisher: Putnam – (2007-04-04) ISBN / EAN: 0425214761 /978-0425214763

Also available in large print from Thorndike Press:

• $32.95; ISBN 9780786285600

The Front Patricia Cornwell Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Berkley – (2009-05-26) ISBN / EAN: 0425228282 / 9780425228289

Available in large print from Thorndike Press:

• $35.95; ISBN  9780399154188

And from Penguin Audiobooks:

• CD; $ 25.95; ISBN 9780143142003

Debut memoirs couched in pop culture are nothing new, but the twist with The Big Rewind, according to Dwight Garner’s review in the New York Times, is that author Nathan Rabin has a dramatic personal story that justifies his faith in pop culture’s redemptive power. Albums like Nirvana’s In Utero and books like Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest became Raban’s anchor after he was abandoned by his family, placed in an adolescent group home and later a mental institution, before making his way into his current position as head writer on the entertainment department at the fake news site The Onion.

World Cat shows 114 libraries have copies – and reserves were modest at four libraries we checked, but Garner’s enthusiasm could help this memoir take off:

The Big Rewind nonetheless has something real and scuffed and quite winning at its core. It’s probably true, as one of Mr. Rabin’s employers observes, that all his stories share the same problem: ‘They begin really cute and end with you getting viciously beaten.” And this is a troubling portrait of a family that “skidded irrevocably from the neurotic middle class to the feral poor.

But Mr. Rabin’s magpie sensibility serves him, and us, well. This motherless child puts the pieces of his life back together. And you can be both sad and happy for him when he declares, “I found my lasting family in the art and junk that has sustained me.”

Big Rewind: ‘A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture Nathan Rabin Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover Edition: 368 pages Publisher: Scribner Ebooks – (2009-06-30) ISBN / EAN: 1416556206/978141655620697

Nora Roberts won her 12th RITA, for her 2008 title, Tribute, at the Romance Writers of America conference in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. She was interviewed during the conference by Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. Simon also discovered that writing a romance is not easy. He tried writing a chapter and presented it to HarperCollins editor Carrie Feron, who didn’t think much of it (no wonder, he ended up writing a satire).

Ron Charles, reviewer for the Washington Post, won the Veritas Award for “presenting romance in a positive light” in his article, Heating Up the Stacks. The purpose of the award was somewhat undercut by his calling it an “uncomfortable honor, the kind I’m not sure I should include on my résumé.”

Debbie Schneider, romance writer and librarian for King County PL, was named Librarian of the Year. She and coworker Chappie Langemack also presented a session about bringing authors to the library.

The group also gives Golden Heart Awards for unpublished manuscripts. At least one of them has already been picked up for publication, Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin. It will be published by Harlequin.

Next year’s conference will be held in Nashville.

The RITA winners are:

Contemporary Series Romance:

A Mother’s Wish by Karen Templeton

A Mother’s Wish / The Chef’s Choice (Special Edition) Karen Templeton, Kristin Hardy Retail Price: Out of Print Paperback: Publisher: Harlequin Mills & Boon – (2008-09-15) ISBN / EAN: 0733588271 / 9780733588273

Contemporary Series Romance: Suspense/Adventure:

Danger Signals (Silhouette Romantic Suspense) Kathleen Creighton Retail Price: $4.99 Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Harlequin – (2008-04-01) ISBN / EAN: 0373275773 / 9780373275779

Young Adult Romance:

Hell Week (Maggie Quinn: Girl vs Evil, Book 2) Rosemary Clement-Moore Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers – (2008-08-26) ISBN / EAN: 038573414X / 9780385734141

Historical Romance:

The Edge of Impropriety (Signet Eclipse) Pam Rosenthal Retail Price: $14.00 Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: NAL Trade – (2008-11-04) ISBN / EAN: 045122230X / 9780451222305

Regency Historical Romance:

My Lord and Spymaster (The Spymaster Series) Joanna Bourne Retail Price: $7.99 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Berkley – (2008-07-01) ISBN / EAN: 0425222462 / 9780425222461

Inspirational Romance:

Finding Stefanie (Noble Legacy Series #3) Susan May Warren Retail Price: $12.99 Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers – (2008-06-04) ISBN / EAN: 1414310196 / 9781414310190

Romance Novella:

The Fall of Rogue Gerard by Stephanie Laurens in It Happened One Night

It Happened One Night Stephanie Laurens, Mary Balogh, Jacquie D’alessandro, Candice Hern Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Avon – (2008-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061354163 / 9780061354168

Paranormal Romance:

Seducing Mr. Darcy Gwyn Cready Retail Price: $6.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Pocket – (2008-07-29) ISBN / EAN: 1416541160 / 9781416541165

Novel with Strong Romantic Elements:

Tribute Nora Roberts Retail Price: $7.99 Paperback: 464 pages Publisher: Jove – (2009-03-31) ISBN / EAN: 0515146366 / 9780515146363

Romantic Suspense:

Take No Prisoners (Black Ops, Book 2) Cindy Gerard Retail Price: $6.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Pocket Star – (2008-10-21) ISBN / EAN: 1416566740 / 9781416566748

Best First Book:

Oh. My. Gods. Tera Lynn Childs Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Dutton Juvenile – (2008-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0525479422 / 9780525479420

Contemporary Single Title Romance:

Not Another Bad Date (Avon Romance) Rachel Gibson Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Avon – (2008-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061178047 / 9780061178047

It seems everyone is doing it, so why not a bookstore chain?

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Borders is targeting teens with special sections labeled “Borders Ink,” which combine teen books, graphic novels and related merchandise. Several have already opened in Borders’ Michigan stores. Showing lightning speed, the chain plans to have sections up and running in 80% ot 90% of their 513 superstores by the end of August.

Borders Ink also has a presence on Facebook.

The article notes that, in the midst of a general industry slump, YA, science fiction and fantasy are the few areas still showing growth.

The forthcoming movie of Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveler’s Wife is bringing new attention to the book. It went back on the  NYT Paperback Fiction July 5th list, after four years’ absence, and has steadily climbed to #4. Many libraries are showing heavy holds.

The publisher is not doing a tie-in edition. However, they have gone back to press for the trade paperback, adding the time-honored words, “Now a Major Motion Picture.” In the UK, Vintage is offering a tie-in, using the movie poster as cover art.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 560 pages Publisher: Mariner Books – (2004-05-27) ISBN / EAN: 015602943X / 9780156029438

Reserves are also building on the audio version:

The Time Traveler’s Wife: Unabridged Edition Audrey Niffenegger Retail Price: $39.95 Audio CD: 16 CD’s; Unabridged Publisher: HighBridge Company – (2008-05-13) ISBN / EAN: 1598877372 / 9781598877373

Both are downloadable from OverDrive. The audio is also on PlayAway.

The movie, starring Eric Bana (as the Chicago librarian; any hope that will help to change the stereotype?) and Rachel McAdams will be in theaters on August 14th.

Holds are also building on Niffenegger’s forthcoming book, Her Fearful Symmetry, which reportedly sold for a $5 million advance. We were unable to locate any prepub reviews, but BookPage offered a preview last week, based on the first 75 pages. They like it.

Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel Audrey Niffenegger Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2009-09-29) ISBN / EAN: 1439165394 / 9781439165393

Also in audio from S&S audio

As George Gustines, who compiles the NYT Graphic Books bestsller lists, comments in this week’s blog post, the Manga list has many new titles. However, the names are all very familiar, with most of the titles at volume 10 or higher in their series. The only brand-new one is the manga version of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunters. The second in the series will be released in September:

The Dark-Hunters, Vol. 2 (Dark-Hunter Manga) Sherrilyn Kenyon Retail Price: $9.99 Paperback: 208 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin – (2010-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0312554001 / 9780312554002

The next novel in the Dark Hunter series, Bad Moon Rising, comes out next month. The series began as paperback originals and St. Martins is reissuing the first in the series in hardcover in September.

Night Pleasures (Dark-Hunter Novels) Sherrilyn Kenyon Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2009-09-15) ISBN / EAN: 0312593554 / 9780312593551

Arriving at #2 on the Hardcover Graphic Best Seller list is Asterios Polyp, about an architect with the unlikely title name, who tries to solve his midlife crisis by leaving NYC for a small town. New York magazine called Mazzucchelli a “cartoonist’s cartoonist” and said,

What’s best about Asterios Polyp is that it succeeds so wildly at being what it is: a great graphic novel. Mazzucchelli doesn’t seem worried about competing with “real” literature. Nor does the book read, as so many contemporary graphic novels do, like a treatment for a future movie deal.

Entertainment Weekly also gave the novel a glowing review, saying “it’s as if John Updike had discovered a bag of art supplies and LSD.”

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing. Publishers have been preparing for this anniversary for months.

Here are my picks of the childrens titles:

Moon Landing: Apollo 11 40th Anniversary Pop-Up Richard Platt Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 10 pages Publisher: Candlewick – (2008-11-11) ISBN / EAN: 0763640468 / 9780763640460

This interactive picture book is a simple narrative of the space race, packed with facts, photographs and details of the historic landing. Stunning paper engineering and imbedded lift-the-flaps will appeal to the space geek of all ages.

————————

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 (Richard Jackson Books (Atheneum Hardcover)) Brian Floca Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 48 pages Publisher: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books – (2009-04-07) ISBN / EAN: 141695046X / 9781416950462

If I had to pick one moon landing book for young readers from all the anniversary contenders, this would be it. Floca’s lyrical text captures the adventure and wonder while while his ink, acrylic and watercolor paintings express vividly out-of-worldlyness of the experience.

——————————–

The master of the picture book biography turns his talents to this day, forty years ago, following Buzz Aldren and Neil Armstrong as they take those historic steps. His spare sentences are supported by dramatic (how could they not be?) double-page spread paintings.

——————————

This is an excellent overview of the missions of the Apollo space program. Extensive research is evident in the clear precise narrative. Official NASA photographs and Alan Bean’s participation raise this volume above the field crowded with commemorative titles.

———————————

Crossing down from the adult department is this oral history collection; first-person accounts from the astronauts who lived the remarkable experience of space travel.

Sorry guys, I don’t spend my weekends in the Hamptons, dining at the Barefoot Contessa’s home, like some in the book business. No, I’m at the other end of Long Island, in a resort community called Brooklyn, in the company of YA galleys.

This Sunday I was stunned by How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford, coming in October from Scholastic.

“Stunned?” Is that any way to review a book?

Recently relocated from Ithaca to Baltimore where her dad, a professor got a new job, Beatrice is in her final year of high school.   Saddled with a mom, whose odd behavior seems to be getting worse and an absentee ambitious father, Beatrice navigates the social groups at school.  Her first person voice is believable as she finds herself becoming friends with the class outcast, Jonah aka “Ghost Boy,” who is practiced at repelling most overtures. These characters got under my skin and although I turned some pages with trepidation, I could not put it down. Just when I thought, oh I know where this is going, the author gives a tiny deft twist, never sinking into an easy answer. I would be remiss if I didn’t  note this novel’s  strong sense of place as Beatrice and Jonah roam Baltimore and its environs.

Yes, I was stunned and ultimately satisfied by this complex portrait of a singular friendship.

How To Say Goodbye In Robot Natalie Standiford Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Scholastic Press – (2009-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0545107083 / 9780545107082

Frank McCourt died yesterday, days after his brother Malachy announced that he was in hospice and not expected to live much longer. In addition to the many obituaries (the best, as usual, is by  William Grimes in the NYT), more personal “appreciations” are also coming; including Lisa Schwarzbaum’s in Entertainment Weekly, about sharing a summer house with McCourt and his wife Ellen as he began writing Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt: Regular guy, extraordinary artist).

McCourt was also an extraordinary teacher, as evidenced by the comments from former students on the NYT ArtsBeat blog.

Readers are showing their appreciation by buying McCourt’s books (Angela’s Ashes went to #49 on Amazon in trade paper and #308 in hardcover; Teacher Man and ‘Tis also rose).

Among the 200 students at Northwest Missouri State University who tried studying with e-books on the Sony Reader, there was a mixed response, The Wall St. Journal reports.  While some students liked the device, dozens dropped out, finding it awkward and inconvenient. Penn State found similar results last fall with 100 Sony Readers in honors English classes. 

In California, where governor Schwarzenegger is trying to get digital math and science textbooks into schools this fall, some districts have had positive results with e-texts. According to the Journal, ”digital books have been used on PCs and in printouts in elementary-school science classes since 2007″ at the Las Virgenes Unified School District in southern California. Las Virgenes schools superintendent Donald Zimring says he’s impressed by how quickly children engage with e-texts.

Meanwhile, educators are complaining about the expense of e-readers (which start at about $280) and the high cost of e-textbooks (very similar to the print equivalent). Sound familiar?

Even though the movie hasn’t wrapped yet, a teaser trailer for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, scheduled for release Feb. 12, 2010, is being featured before screenings of the new Harry Potter movie.

Percy is directed by Chris Columbus, who also directed the first two HP movies (The Philosopher’s Stone and The Chamber of Secrets), which is underscored in the teaser, as well as I Love You Beth Cooper (in theaters now), which is not.

There’s more coming for lovers of Harry & his ilk; David Frankel (Marley & Me; The Devil Wears Prada) has just signed to direct Septimus Heap: Magyk (the first in the Scholastic series by Angie Sage) as an animated film, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

And in more news for this demographic; Universal just announced that they are changing the title of the movie of Cirque du Freak to The Vampire’s Assistant (confusingly, the subtitle of the second book in Darren Shan’s series) and has rescheduled its release for October 23rd, earlier than the originally announced date of January, 15, 2010.

A week before the publication of The Girl Who Played With Fire, the New York Times praises Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s follow up to his breakout debut thriller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Preorders have already pushed the book up to #19 on Amazon, prior to its July 28 release. Library reserves in four major systems run as high as 367 on 10 copies or more, though one library has 238 holds on 1 copy.

The Times declares that although the book’s ending is “gory, harrowing and operatically over the top,” the reason it works “is the same reason that ‘Dragon Tattoo’ worked: Mr. Larsson’s two central characters, Salander and Blomkvist, transcend their genre and insinuate themselves in the reader’s mind through their oddball individuality, their professional competence and, surprisingly, their emotional vulnerability.”

Variety columnist Liz Smith adds that you really need to have read the first book to enjoy the second one; and also that there is a third book coming, although the author died in 2004.

The Girl Who Played with Fire Stieg Larsson Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 512 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-07-28) ISBN / EAN: 0307269981 / 9780307269980

Audio available from Random House on 07/01/2009

• Compact Disc; 39.95; IBSN 978073938417

Large Print available from Random House Large Print Publishing

• $25.95; ISBN 9780739384169

When Calvin Trillin found out that his friend Fred Kaplan was writing a book about the year 1959, he asked why Kaplan was wasting his time on “the most boring year of the century.”

On the NewYorker.com, George Packer says Kaplan knew what he was doing;

You’d be amazed how much stuff was going on in the unpromising year 1959, and how it all comes under the heading of breaking the chains of the old and embracing the new.

1959 has captured others’ imaginations as well; it will be featured on the upcoming CBS Sunday Morning as well as in George Will’s syndicated Washington Post column the same day.

And, it doesn’t get better than this, Renee Zellweger was recently photographed carrying the book.

1959: The Year Everything Changed Fred Kaplan Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Wiley – (2009-06-15) ISBN / EAN: 0470387815 / 9780470387818