Category: BookPeople Community

Remembering David Thompson

On September 13, we lost a good friend in David Thompson who suffered a heart attack at age 38. He was a bookstore manager, publisher, and a person to know in the mystery scene. All of these things were tied to the fact he was one of the best booksellers around. He was synonymous with his store Murder By The Book in Houston, where he started as teenager with a salesperson's job and worked his way up to his assistant manager. He ran publicity, getting many of the world's crime fiction authors to come to the store. It is were where he met a lovely coworker, McKenna Jordan, who married him not long after she bought the store. Talk about knowing how to get what you want.

California Reading

The Voyage Out Book Group reads regional fiction. We focus on a certain locale for three months, and then we pack our bags and move on. I’ve always been excited to start the next region. From the American South, to Japan, to Africa, and many more, we’ve had a great trip, so far. But I have to say, I was a little weary of our newest region, California. With the exception of In &Out Burgers and burritos, I’m not a big fan of the left coast. I don’t want to read about San Francisco Beatniks, and I don’t care about surfing. What do you read about a culture that is paper thin and incredibly young? But then we chose our three books: “Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion, “The People of Paper” by Salvador Plascencia, and “Ask the Dust” by John Fante.

Franzen Mania

Even if you didn’t read the recent Time magazine cover story, you may have noticed one of the seemingly hundreds of articles and blog postings praising the work of Jonathan Franzen and salivating over the release of his latest novel. Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections is considered by many to be the best work of fiction produced in the last decade. Fans of Franzen's were provided a collection of essays in 2002 and a memoir in 2006, but waited expectantly for his next novel, hoping that it might provide the same humor, pain, and pathos as his previous novel had. Today, the wait is over. Nine years after penning his Corrections, Franzen has written Freedom, and it is as rich and rewarding as anything he has ever done; the characters are fully realized, the backdrop is perfectly captured, and the story is playful and sad, as heartbreaking as it is hopeful.

By any other name; Talking about titles

Self-deprecation is important. It’s especially important in the book business. There’s a funny website making its way around the literary blogs, Better Book Titles (http://betterbooktitles.com/). The idea is simple, Dan Wilbur is gonna change the titles of some of our favorite books so that we can tell what the book is really about by the title alone. Great! Here is a list of my favorites:

Top 5 Reasons (book wise) To Be Excited For Fall

Top 5 Reasons (book wise) To Be Excited For Fall Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Franzen fans (like myself) have long awaited a follow-up to his brilliant 2001 novel, The Corrections. The ways in which he wrote about family, with all its joy and pain and angst and anger, captured the hearts and minds of many a reader and the praise of many a critic. I am one of those who counts it among the best fiction of the past decade. But the questioned remained; can he do it again? I am here to tell you, he can and he did. Freedom touches upon similar themes, but creates an entirely new cast of characters, as fully realized and alive as those he imagined almost 10 years ago. I cannot wait to sell you this book. You cannot wait to buy it. Trust me.

This just in: FEATHERS OF BOOK LOVERS EVERYWHERE RUFFLED.

Boy oh boy, there’s nothing I love more than incensed bibliophiles. The most recent offender? Anis Shivani at the Huffington Post, who wrote a petty, pithy little thing called The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers. His article might be startlingly inaccurate and small-minded and ill-conceived, but it’s generated a fair amount of buzz in the tiny world of literary fiction since it appeared over the weekend. That’s 1,639 comments on the article at last count, most not worth reading, and several outraged and reasoned responses across the web.

Peter’s top picks for the summer

Well, we're really in the thick of it now, and it's starting to get HOT! To beat the heat, I drink plenty of fluids and hole up in the office to do some "research" on the newest books we have in the store. As I've been making my way through the pile, a few have really stood out. I wanted to share with you my top three books of the summer. Likewise, leave a comment and let me know what you have been digging on this season.

Road Tripping

I’m a member of The Voyage Out Book Club here at BookPeople. Built on the idea that we can tell a lot about a place from its stories, we read regional fiction. We’re finishing up our three-month visit to New York with Paul Auster’s three-pronged book “The New York Trilogy”. I’m, as always, excited. But, while my mythical vacation to New York ends, I’ll be on an actual trip through the South. My wife, my son, and I will pack our car and head east, all the way to Richmond, Va. On the way we’ll stop in Little Rock, Oxford, and Asheville. We’re giddy. The most important part of any road trip, of course, is the music, next is the junk food, but a strong third is the reading list.

Second Annual Austin Publishing University starts Aug. 1st

Attention local writers! Working on a novel, but not sure what to do with it once it's finished? The world of professional publishing can be confusing and tricky... a labyrinth of query letters, book agents, cold calls and mountainous slush piles. The second annual Austin Publishing University, set to start on August 1st at 1pm, is here to help. Held on the third floor of BookPeople, the APU is a five part series that teaches the basics of publishing - how to create quality content, the essentials of book design, and the secrets of succesful marketing strategies.