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Weekly Words about BooksSEPTEMBER 22, 2013
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New on Bookshelves and Bestseller Lists
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DISSIDENT GARDENS by Jonathan Letham. One of my favorite books of all time is Jonathan Letham's Motherless Brooklyn, published nearly 15 years. It's  a gritty, offbeat, and wonderfully written story of a small-time detective with Tourette's Syndrome. I haven't read his new novel, Dissident Gardens, yet, but it's a promising premise from one of our premie  re contemporary writers. The epic yet intimate family saga chronicles three generations of all-American radicals and their connections with the the American Communist Party, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, and more. Flawed and idealistic, Lethem's characters struggle to inhabit the utopian dream in an America where radicalism is viewed with bemusement, hostility, or indifference.
STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. The BIG book of 2011 remained a huge h  it for all of 2012 and well into 2013. The fact that the Apple boss died less than a month before the book was published guaranteed attention and sales - giving Jobs one last marketing success story, albeit unplanned. It also delayed the publication of the paperback edition, which is only being released now. Love him or hate him, Jobs remains an iconic figure, and this biography was hailed for its accuracy and readability. Interestingly, the cover the paperback features a photo of a young, hirsute Jobs while the hardcover featured a portrait of him as an older man.
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SOMEONE by Alice McDermott. The National Book Award winning author of Charm ing Billy creates a fully realized portrait of the life of an ordinary woman named Marie through seven decades. It's an uncomplicated premise but one that McDermott infuses with insight and humanity. She doesn't rush things, instead offering a quiet portrait of the complexities of a simple woman and her Irish-Catholic Brooklyn community that will capture many readers' hearts.
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Why are These Books Doing So Well?
| | It's a head-scratcher at first - a science fiction novel called Ender's Game, published in 1991, has been camped on bestseller lists for several months. Then I went to the movies a couple of weeks ago and saw a preview for the holiday release of, yup, Ender's Game. An even older book, The Great Gatsby, got a similar bookstore sales boost several months ago when the Leonardo DiCaprio big screen version hit theaters. And it's back on bestseller lists now with the recent DVD release.
 In point of fact, the film and television world often impacts book sales. There's an old bookstore saying - Don't judge a book by it's movie - but even bad film versions of good books do drive moviegoers to bookstores and li braries. Publishers often take advantage of the situation by slapping on a new, "Movie Tie-In" cover that is nothing like the original and usually features actors from the film, as you see from the two Gatsby covers pictured here.
And if the screen treatment is done well, book sales can be huge. Not that J.K. Rowling needed it, but the Harry Potter movie franchise sold a ton more of the Potter books, and the Hunger Games trilogy is in the midst of a similar book/movie feeding frenzy with the second installment, Catching Fire, set to duel with Ender's Game for teen movie dollars in a couple of months.
Cable television can also be an impact player. Take the Games of Thrones franchise, whose first four installments have dominated  paperback bestseller lists for months and months. The fifth book in the series, A Dance with Dragons is finally coming in paperback in October after more than two years in hardcover. The usual hardcover-to-paperback spread is 9-12 months, but Dance with Dragons just kept selling, even with a $35 cover price. Wonder if HBO got a piece of that action.
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WHERE TO FIND A BOOKSTORE
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Many of you already have a favorite local bookstore, but for those of you without such a relationship, this link will take you to a list of Northern California indie bookstores by region.
If you live or work elsewhere, you can click here to find the nearest indie bookstore by simply entering your postal code.
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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
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My name is Hut Landon. I'm a former bookstore owner who now runs the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) in San Francisco.
My goal with this newsletter is to keep readers up to date about new books hitting the shelves, share what booksellers are recommending in their stores, and pass on occasional news about the book world.
I'm not into long, wordy reviews or literary criticism; I'd like HUT'S PLACE to be a quick, fun read for book buyers. If you have any friends who you think might like receiving this column each week, simply click on "Forward this email" below and enter their email address. There is also a box in which to add a short message.
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