Category Archives: fun

December 14, 2016   sharon   fun, holidays, Sharon, suggestions, year end  
2

Book Lovers’ Holiday Survival Guide

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Time to bake and cook and shop and wrap and ship and pack and travel…all things that take precious time away from READING. It’s the most hectic (and wonderful) time of the year!

Well, here are my holiday tips to make the season bright while still finding plenty of time to get lost in a good book or three.

  • With bunch of sparkly gift bags and colorful tissue, you can wrap gifts in a snap and get back to reading.
  • Pick up refrigerator cookie dough so the baking can be done in a jiffy and you can get back to reading.
  • Grab the kids and head to your favorite local bookstore for their holiday storytime. While they listen to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you can finish your shopping because books are the perfect classy gift for any name on your list. If you’re unsure about the bookworm on your list, a bookstore giftcard means they can get the next book in their favorite series, no guessing needed!
  • If you’re shipping gifts, go to the post office at a very busy time. Plenty of time in line to read! (You’ve got the Kindle app on your phone, right? All set!)
  • Holiday guests coming to stay with you? Splurge on an hour or two of maid service to get the house ready while you sit back with your feet up and read.
  • Holiday guests coming to stay for way too long? Dig up your Starbucks gift card from last year’s Secret Santa exchange and sneak out to read in peace for a couple hours.

What are your tips and tricks for getting through the holiday season and your To Read stack at the same time? Any favorite ways you incorporate books into the merry time of year?

And wishing you all very happy holidays!

November 10, 2016   Miriam   books, fun, memory, Miriam  
2

Book storing

Years ago a young man I loved gave me a bunch of irises.  Ours was a turbulent relationship and I spent a lot of time obsessing over whether he reciprocated my affections, in the way only a 20-year-old can.   His small flowery token moved me deeply—and convinced me for an afternoon that what we had was real and lasting (spoiler alert: it wasn’t)—and I wanted to preserve the feeling of elation I had when I accepted the bouquet.  So, I took one of the irises and pressed it into a book I was reading for a class at the time.

A few months ago, I was organizing one of my many bookcases and I came across the book.  It felt a little lumpy and I thought that maybe it had suffered some water damage.  I’d long since forgotten about the iris I’d placed inside it decades ago, but when I opened it, there it was, perfectly flat, the purples and yellows a little faded, the fragile webbing visible on the petals.   Yes, I had forgotten that the flower was in the book but in a moment I remembered the day I received the bouquet it came in, the boy who gave it to me, and the giddy girl I was then.  I also remembered the book and how much I struggled reading it—long and dense as it was—and how self-satisfied I was  when I finished it.

Anyway, over a lifetime of reading and loving books, I’ve often marked them up and left scraps of paper (and other things) in them, and every once in a while I will open an old favorite and find myself on a trip down memory lane.  Which is why I got such a kick out of this piece in The Millions, “The Things My Books Carried.”  Books are not only a repository of intangible treasures but of physical ones too.

What  little pieces of yourself have you all left in your books?

 

October 13, 2016   Stacey   author favorites, best-of, bestsellers, favorites, fiction, fun, humor, nonfiction, Stacey  
5

Books that make you laugh

It’s not that often that we talk about books being funny. People look to books for a lot of things, and it’s not always to laugh. Yet there are many authors who write about serious and not so serious matters in a humorous way. And those books can be very successful.

I thought this Slate piece was kind of fun (if not funny) that asks Maria Semple the books that she picks as her top funny reads. Then they asked those three to pick their top books and it goes on in a visual pyramid with all of the colorful book covers represented. All in all, it adds up to 82 books that you can read for a laugh, some of which are by well-known authors (David Sedaris, Philip Roth, Bill Bryson, Sherman Alexie etc.)  and a couple of which are recommended twice (THE HATERS by Jesse Andrews, and WHAT I’D SAY TO THE MARTIANS by Jack Handey, must read those).

I’m a fan of classics like A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES and the more recent WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE by Maria Semple for their originality and unique voices. On the nonfiction side, comedians like Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, and Amy Schumer all have huge bestsellers. I enjoy the wackiness of Jenny Lawson, and I think Sloane Crosley is writing smart, funny nonfiction for a younger generation, finding humor in everyday situations.

What are your favorite funny books, or serious books that still make you laugh? It’s a hard balance to strike but I do think there is room in the marketplace for more smart, humorous fiction and nonfiction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30, 2016   Lauren   fun, Lauren, length, lists, reading  
6

Keeping it short

September is a brutal month in publishing. In theory things wind down a bit in August, then rev back up after Labor Day, though in practice that August wind down appears to be a thing of the past, so the September rev up is just adding new pressure on top of old. (RIP End of Summer Blank Slate. I will miss you.) And if you’re both a literary agent AND a rights director, the go-go-go nature of September peaks in both sides of your job at once, as publishing resumes its post-vacations speed and international publishing preps for the Frankfurt Book Fair.

So September is the month each year that I find myself incapable of squeezing in pleasure reading, something I work hard to make room for every other month of the year but now need to trade for sleep. That means that when I’m formatting highlight lists and triaging my overflowing inbox, I find myself daydreaming lists of short books I could read if I just, you know, pull an all-nighter, or convince the rest of publishing to call out sick for a day. I find my mind wandering to the slim volumes on my living room bookshelves, my eye wandering to the narrowest book in the to-take-home office stack. This would not be a great time to finally start reading that copy of Infinite Jest I bought freshman year of college, but maybe I could take a quick mental break with some middle grade or a breezy essay collection, right?

Wrong, realistically, but once I’ve powered through to the other side of the never-ending to-do list, I’m going to need a reset. And I’m going to want to speed through some not-DGLM books in October to make up for September’s big zero. So help me out: what are the best books you’ve read that are under 200 pages, or just feel like they are?

September 26, 2016   Jane   fun, inspiration, Jane, travel, vacation  
2

China!

great-wallOur trip to China was truly fascinating.  As you all know,  the country is huge, both geographically and in terms of its population.  Beijing has 22 million people; Shanghai has 25 million.  We saw so many amazing things—even a week after our return it is difficult to remember them all:

In Beijing, of course, we climbed The Great Wall.  Our guide took us to a part of the wall not visited by many tourists so it was relatively free of the hordes.  And in order to come down, we took individual toboggans—which was really thrilling. Being there was incredibly exciting.

We also visited The Forbidden City which is very beautiful and The Temple of Heaven which is both lovely and interesting. We had lunch in one of the old neighborhoods called Narrow Alley where our guide had grown up, and we rode on a pedicab.  We drove around Tiananmen Square with the huge picture of MAO still overlooking it.  I felt like I had taken a step back in history.

terra-cotta-1Then we flew to Xian—a city of nine million—where the huge number of high rises going up is simply astounding.  It was there that we viewed the army of Terracotta Warriors, a stunning archeological discovery made in 1974.

Among other things, we also had a lesson in Chinese Calligraphy which was great fun. And we saw the Wild Goose Pagodas which overlooks Xian and is simply beautiful.

Then on to Shanghai.  This city, whose modern section is no more than 25 years old epitomizes modern China—rushing headlong towards the future.  There are incredible innovations in fashion, finance, technology and transport which have helped make this a global hub with one of the world’s busiest ports.  We walked The Bund—a  famous waterfront area in central Shanghai—several times and visited both the historical buildings along the way as well as the towering skyscrapers (many over 100 stories high) just across the Huangpu River near the mouth of the Yangtze.  We explored the old British and French quarters, the Yu Garden, which is beautiful, and shopped (or tried to at least) on the famous Nanjing Road.  One of the highlights was seeing a thrilling extravaganza featuring innovative acrobatics, death defying stunts and the latest in high tech special effects.  (It was like the Big Apple Circus on steroids!)

img_2869This is an adventure we will never forget.  It was challenging in that there is a twelve-hour time difference and the language barrier prevented us from doing certain things we would have liked to do.  But we agreed that this was probably the most fantastic trip we have ever taken.

And, of course, I am thinking of some book ideas inspired by China, and hope to be able to move ahead with them in the weeks and months to come.

September 13, 2016   Miriam   books, booksellers, fun, Miriam, publication, tradition  
0

Publishing Tuesdays

I’ve been on a book buying tear lately.  This mad shopping spree has, unfortunately, coincided with the back-to-school avalanche of proposals and manuscripts that have hit my desk with the abandon of a drunk parallel parking in New York City.  So, I’m pretty certain all those titles will end up gathering dust for months while I dig myself out enough to be able to read for pleasure again.

Thing is, a plethora of amazing authors and delectable sounding books are being published this fall.  Ann Patchett, Zadie Smith, Maria Semple, Ian McEwan, Colson Whitehead all had/have hotly anticipated novels coming out.  And then, of course, there’s the Springsteen memoir which will undoubtedly break sales records because, OMG, the Boss!!! (Ahem, okay, I’m done fangurling.)

What all of these books have in common, is that they are all being published (or were in Whitehead’s case) on a Tuesday.  Because, well, that’s when books are published.

Now, I’ve been in the business for roughly 150 years, give or take, and when my husband asked me why the Springsteen book was pubbing on a Tuesday, I mumbled the usual “distribution, PR, bestseller lists” blather I’ve heard over the years.  Then I thought about it and realized that I don’t really know for sure how Tuesdays  became the “new books” day.

Turns out, I’m not alone.  Laurie Hertzel goes digging for answers in this amusing piece in The Star Tribune and reaches no definitive conclusion.  Suffice it to say, books are published on Tuesday, so pre-order accordingly.

luther

August 29, 2016   Jane   fun, ideas, inspiration, Jane, travel, vacation  
4

My impending trip to China and what I am hoping to learn from it

great-wall-of-china-814143_1920Over the last several years, my husband and I have become more adventurous in the places we travel to on vacation. We have been to Greece, Turkey, Israel and Jordan (five years ago), Australia, Kenya, through Peru and Machu Picchu, and on a cruise on the Amazon. This year, we are going to China (Beijing, Xian and Shanghai). Every time I travel, I hope to learn something that I can bring back with me to my regular life. When I returned from Kenya, I came back with a book idea and as a result we have a publishing contract which I am very excited about.terracotta-1028109_1920

In Beijing, we will go to The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, and we will of course journey to The Great Wall (and climb a bit of it). I am so excited to visit these historic places that I have only read about in the past. In Xian, we will see the Terracotta Warriors (both those which have been restored and the actual “dig” which is ongoing), the Great Mosque of Xian, and the Wild Goose Pagoda. In Shanghai we will have a full city tour including the Old Quarter, Yu Garden and the modern city. One night we are going to an “extravaganza” including acrobatics, death-defying stunts and the latest in high tech special effects!pexels-photo

Throughout all of this, I am hoping to learn about the people of China and their culture and maybe, just maybe, I might return with another book idea or two.
I wonder what you come back from your vacations with? I would love to hear.

August 10, 2016   sharon   booksellers, fun, new book smell, new releases, Sharon  
0

Returning to the Scene of the Crime

Lauren Abramo and I both have books coming out today, and that’s not all we have in common – Lauren and I also both used to work at Barnes and Noble! So we thought it would be fun to spend a little time visiting the big flagship B&N here in Union Square and see how many DGLM books we could spot. Including, of course, our own!

Lauren put together this fabulous collage of our field trip, which you’ve already seen if you follow her on Twitter (and while you’re at it, follow me too!) .

 

BN collage

 

Agents are almost as proud of the books they’ve worked on as the authors themselves are! In my bookseller days, my favorite part of the job was suggesting books I loved to regular customers and hearing what they thought on their next trip to the bookstore. And being an agent is like that, only better, because you get to be an even bigger part of getting books you love into customers’ hands. It makes wandering through a bookstore all the more satisfying.

 

August 03, 2016   Stacey   bestsellers, buzz, characters, children's books, culture, fun, Harry Potter, Stacey, theater, word of mouth  
0

Potter mania!

I know I’m not the only one talking about Harry Potter these days. The new “book”, which is really the published version of the play currently running in London (oh, how I wish I could go!) went on sale this week and the frenzy is out of control.

Publisher’s Weekly reports here that sales have already topped 2 million copies, in North America alone. I admit I’m one of those who preordered the book as soon as I heard it was becoming available. I actually realized that I did it twice so now have 2 copies on their way! Midnight parties across the country attracted kids and adults of all ages.

I just love how a fictional character has caused such a stir in popular culture. It’s such a positive reminder of the lasting impact books can have in a time when there is so much negativity being put out into the media. It’s incredible and practically unfathomable to me that a published play could achieve this level of success. I love theater so it’s heartening to me to know that this medium can generate big numbers, as evidenced by this new Harry Potter as well as the huge success of Hamilton (my other current obsession, more exciting news to come on that in a later post).

We’ve had our own version of Potter fever around here lately. While my oldest daughter is away at sleepaway camp, her younger sister dressed up as Harry for Halloween in July at camp (photo below). I was impressed with how she put the costume together with adult glasses and the scar drawn on a piece of scotch tape, and it helped we still have our wands from our amazing visit to Potter World at Universal in Florida last November.

Have you ordered your copy of Cursed Child yet? If you have and you’ve read it, please let us know what you think. Michiko Kakutani’s review in the New York Times was very positive and she’s one tough critic. She actually refers to it as “a compelling, stay-up-all-night read.” I’m so excited to dive back into the wonderful world of Harry Potter and read it with all the girls when Sam’s back from camp. Will let you know how it goes!

ps- my first copy arrived while I was writing this post, and it’s a beautiful book:

July 26, 2016   Miriam   books, editing, fun, Miriam, writing  
3

Pretentious much?

The thing is, writers can be inordinately pretentious and blissfully unaware of the fact.  Part of the whole living in your head while trying to describe the most banal processes using language that elevates them to art will do that to you, I guess.

I’m reading The Girls now and had just finished Sweetbitter before it.  I loved the latter and struggled with the former at first, before giving myself over to the strangely familiar creepiness of the story.  Both are debut novels by pretty young blonde women.   Both are firmly evocative of a particular time and place—California in the late ‘60s and New York City in the early oughts.  And, both showcase prose that is sometimes pretentious to the point of hilarity.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some great writing in these books.  The authors are nothing if not exquisitely attentive to their craft.  It’s just that as I read, my eyes occasionally rolled back into the universal expression for “Girl, get over yourself!”

Anyway, this parody in The Millions of Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer’s e-mail exchange for T The New York Times Style Magazine in which the hyper-educated actress and Cormac McCarthy trade brilliant observations, cracked me up, precisely because it’s really not that farfetched.  Writers who are allowed to indulge their bombast without check (i.e., a strong editor with a finely sharpened red pencil) can very quickly veer into self-parody.

Personally, I don’t mind a little purple mixed in with the black ink, but it is one of the things that authors need to be vigilant about.  A momentary lapse is forgivable and even endearing, too many and you’re headed for the rejection pile.

Can you think of any fun examples of affected, self-important writing you’ve seen recently?

Cat Godard

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