And to this day, I HATE jogging.

Of course, to make myself even more miserable, I ran cross-country in high school– it was either that or gym class. Fortunately, our coach realized that many of us were only there for the class credit and could care less about our personal bests, so practices were pretty low key. But boy did I dread the Saturday meets at Van Corlandt Park in the Bronx–getting passed left and right, the burning lungs, the brutal final sprint across an open field to the finish line, all of which was made worse by those Friday nights of experimental teenage drinking.

So yeah, I am still not a runner. But maybe that’s why I’m an agent, not a writer?

All of this brings me to this interesting piece in The Atlantic about how so many prominent writers pair their writing with a running regimen. And it does make sense—like writing, running can be a long slog, but supposedly you get better with practice. And several authors note how it’s a good way to clear one’s mind and work out story issues away from the page.

So, do any of YOU run? If so, do you find that it helps your writing?

Now, anyone who’s been keeping up with this blog and publishing news in general already knows that e-book sales have plateaued, and that both print and bookstores have had a nice resurgence over the past year. But as they usually do, the Times provides a nice overview, especially when it points out that the ABA counts 300 new independent bookstores since 2010, and that the big publishers are expanding their warehouse space to keep up with demand. And in their even-handed way, the Times does point out that both new e-readers and pricing could lead to an e-book resurgence, though I find it hard to imagine the $50 Kindle will lead the way…

Instead, I wonder if most people will end up as hybrid readers—e-books for travel, work, maybe for certain genres, and print for the rest. You might draw a parallel of sorts to the record biz, where hipsters gather physical vinyl for home listening but use Spotify on the go. If that becomes the new normal, then maybe the more prescient Yogism here would be “It’s deja vu all over again…”

Anyway, I’d love to know your thoughts on this. Has anyone ditched e-books completely at this point, or vice versa? If so, why? And if you’re a hybrid reader, how do you divvy up your reading between print and e?

So, with that said, I’d like to request/plead for sports-related queries. If you have a novel or nonfiction work on sports, I would love to take a look at your material.

Fair warning: books about sports are tough to sell for a very simple reason: the market. Publishers won’t buy a book that they cannot definitively say will appear to X number of readers or Y demographic. It’s no secret that women tend to read more than men, and it also isn’t a secret that men tend to be more interested in sports than women. Except that—and this is a secret—neither are true. Well okay, maybe the former is, but I have male friends who read voraciously and female friends who bleed red and blue (NY Giants, NY Rangers).

Sports are universal. There is a market. And when books about sports work, they really, really work. In fact, they often work themselves onto the big screen. Yeah, I’m looking at you FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS by H.G. Bissinger, MONEYBALL and THE BLIND SIDE by Michael Lewis, and SEABISCUIT by Laura Hillenbrand. Oh, and novels can work too—case in point: THE ART OF FIELDING, Chad Harbach’s wildly successful debut and one of my favorite novels in recent years.

Notice any commonalities between any of those books mentioned above? They’re great sports stories, told beautifully, and aren’t really about sports. Query me if you think your book fits the bill.

Anyway, in reading up on the match-ups this weekend, especially Packers/Seahawks, I stumbled on this article, which, despite the title, talks about how basketball, baseball, and football are going to see some wildly inventive coaching in the next few years, spurred on by advances in statistics and Moneyball-style analysis. A lot of food for thought here, especially if the Patriots make it past the Colts—as much as I hate Belichick, the man is nothing if not inventive. The trick he pulled last week with the four O-line set seems like “gonzo” coaching personified.

Meanwhile, I had drinks last night with a client who was in town for the Digital Book World conference, which focused heavily on data and statistics. And from his description of the presentations, I think there might be a parallel to what’s going on in sports. After all, both sports and publishing at some level start with talent. And then the team/publishing house develops the talent of the athlete/writer, which these days typically involves data analysis, in order to generate wins/book sales.

So, does that mean we’re in for some gonzo innovation on the publishing side? Well, time will tell, though one could argue the PRH merger was pretty gonzo in its audacity. I’ll certainly be watching to see if publishers start pulling some Belichick-style stunts in the coming months—or not, especially if Tom Brady loses yet another Super Bowl. One can only hope…

Now I’m not the resident Yankees fan here. That crown belongs to Miriam. In fact, I’m not even a Yankees fan at all. I’m a Mets fan—may God help me. But come on, how could you not love that moment? Jeter, a class act, the last vestige of the old New York Yankees, the embodiment of clutch, comes up with a big hit in the bottom of the ninth to win the game, his last game in pinstripes. You couldn’t write a better ending.

“Where fantasy becomes reality.” That’s what the announcer said after Jeter’s last ever walk-off hit. I must have watched that clip fifty times. And I got goose bumps every time. But I’m not entirely sure why.

Usually I hate storybook endings. For some reason, whenever I encounter a happy ending at the end of a book, I always feel cheated, taken for a fool. Perhaps I’m a pessimist, but I don’t think happily ever after ever really happens. Books that end that way aren’t realistic. Storybook endings just don’t happen in real life.

Except they do. It certainly did for Derek.

So why then do readers often criticize fairy tale endings? Does good literature always need to end in tragedy and despair? And if so, what does it say that a good book must leave you feeling hopeless?

I am curious to learn what our readers have to say about storybook endings. Love them? Hate them? Does it depend on a case-by-case basis, and if so, why do some storybook endings work and others don’t? Sound off in the comments!

Happily for me, the fine folks at The Three Percent have made my job easy: with their 2014 World Cup of Literature I can combine the two things I love most in the world, books and soccer.  I like their strategy: books published after 2000 to eliminate the old guys who wouldn’t get called up for the squad and in some way capturing the spirit of the team.  Even if their David Foster Wallace/USMNT explanation stings just a bit.

It turns out I haven’t read any of the books in question, so I’ll just be pulling for the same “teams” here as I am in the World Cup itself: US, England, and Spain.  Which book do you think deserves the victory?

I’ll be watching Spain v Netherlands later with one of the refs—I mean, judges—so if anyone wants to offer her a bribe to honor the spirit of FIFA, please let me know ASAP.

So, of course, this baseball immersion has me thinking about sports books.  I can reel off a dozen great baseball titles off the top of my head, from Roger Kahn’s classic The Boys of Summer to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wistful Wait Till Next Year to Chad Harbach’s acclaimed The Art of Fielding, but I have a harder time with other sports.  Sure, every once in a while there’s a great book about football (Friday Night Lights) or soccer (Fever Pitch) or basketball (Hoop Dreams) or mountain climbing (Into Thin Air), but the conventional wisdom among publishing people is that baseball is the sport that sells books.

Is this a case of publishers not knowing how to reach other sports fans and making the backward assumption that those fans just don’t read, or is it that fans of other sports aren’t as interested in reading about their favorite sport?  Is it that baseball sparks writers’ imagination to a greater degree than, say, tennis (the pace of baseball, soporific as it can be, does allows for a lot of contemplation and rumination)?  Is it that women buy more books than men and there are more female baseball fans (given how many women friends I have who are rabid about football and basketball, I doubt this)?

We like sports books around here and we’d like to do more of them.  But, help us out.  What sports do you like to read about and why?  What are your favorite titles and what do you wish there was more of in this category?

Yes, I know it’s been over a week, but I haven’t had a chance yet to properly crow over the Giants’ victory in the Super Bowl. In a completely unavoidable coincidence, I was in Boston on Super Bowl Sunday for a family reunion. While the locals were certainly well behaved (in and around our hotel, at least), it’s not like I publicly advertized my allegiance before retiring to the security of our room to witness the glorious triumph. And by the time we got back to New York on Wednesday night, it seemed like everyone had, typically, just moved on…

Everyone, that is, except for publishers! According to the always reliable folks at the New York Post, books are on the way from Victor Cruz and coach Tom Coughlin, while editors are supposedly lamenting Eli’s lack of interest in writing a book right now.

I have to say, I feel a little torn about Cruz and Coughlin. Not that their literary pursuits are all that surprising—it’s Super Bowl tradition for the winners to capitalize any way they can, and being a New York team the Giants have always been well-courted by the publishing industry (BTW, kudos to Justin Tuck for getting ahead of the curve with his picture book). But how much does Cruz, a rookie, really have to say? And what’s Coughlin going to write that’s any different from his last book, which tanked?

Well, until Eli changes his mind, I guess we’ll have to be satisfied with what the others come up with. But readers, are there any other players you want to hear from? Any other stories you’d like to read? Myself, I’d love to see a book from Bill Belichick on how he can’t seem to beat us in the big game (tee-hee)…

I’ve always been a cycling enthusiast, but I didn’t start commuter biking on a daily basis until three years ago, when my wife and I hired a nanny for our newborn and discovered that it’s supposedly common practice in NYC to supply said nanny with a monthly MetroCard. Combine that with the demands of a baby, and it seemed like biking might be a good way to avoid an additional transportation expense and get some much-needed exercise. And so far, so good—I’m managing to keep my girlish figure, and the nanny shows up (mostly) on time.

Anyway. I was riding home last night, and realized my brakes were a little loose—fortunately, I was north of midtown by this point. So, when I got home I took the bike upstairs for an adjustment. Now, I’ve certainly tweaked my brakes before, but I thought I should double-check a couple of things before I dove in—and for that, I got my handy DK reference guide to bicycle maintenance off the shelf.

But as I was digging through, looking for the brakes section, I had one of those moments—why don’t I just Google it?

So, that’s the question—do we need reference guides in the Internet era, and if so, what subjects are better served by a book? Or, to put it another way—when you need to look up something, do you go to the bookshelf or the computer (or, to complicate it further, the ebook)? If you do go to the bookshelf, what books or series of books are your go-to guides? When was the last time you bought a reference guide? Would love to hear your thoughts!

But starting Thursday, it’s a whole new ballgame! And it certainly promises to be an interesting season here in New York. Of course I’m rooting for my Yankees, but with only two starting pitchers coming off winning records in 2010, it could be a bumpy ride. And I’m really curious to see how it works out with Jorge at DH—the track record for catchers making the switch ain’t great, plus it shakes up the whole leadership structure. And as much as it pains me to say it, Boston looks tough…

Oh, wait a second, this is a book blog. Well… baseball is the most literary of sports—anyone got a baseball book recommendation to ring in the 2011 season? One pick for the younger set: The Unforgettable Season by Phil Bildner, illustrated by S.D. Schindler. Believe it or not, it’s a book both Yankees and Red Sox fans can love!