Just the Right Book

It feels good to showcase an indie bookstore company, Just the Right Book, right before the official Holiday Shopping season begins. Oh wait, it began before Halloween this year, didn't it?

My feature that's on Publishing Perspectives today is about a creative bookseller named Roxanne Coady who launched a new business model online-- matching readers to books based on human to human customer service. Not eBooks, not discounted books... just books.

It was a pleasure to talk to Roxanne and learn about a self-imposed exile she gave herself from her bookstore four years back. She left the shop in capable hands and embarked on an 8-week journey interviewing people in the book business, from other bookstore owners to the heads of all of the big publishing houses to Ron Johnson, the visionary designer behind the first Apple store. Click here to learn about how those conversations reshaped the philosophy of her business practices.

Twitter Book Parties

Today, Publishing Perspectives posts a piece I wrote about book publishers who are repositioning their marketing budgets (read: shrinking and possibly even eliminating) by throwing Twitter Parties to launch their books and new imprints. This was a fun story to write- I got to speak to @thebookmaven, Bethanne Patrick as well as other lovely book folks who are claiming this virtual territory to propagate authors and their livelihoods. Read it here. If you Tweet, I'd love for you to follow me at @Rachelrooo.

How Authors and Booksellers Find Funding Online

The lead feature on Publishing Perspectives today was a piece I wrote about independent booksellers and authors trying to raise money online to fund their projects...

Kickstarter: “A New Way to Fund & Follow Creativity”, which was founded in April of 2009, is an online fundraising tool that has raised over $15,000,000 for various creative projects. The numbers continue to impress: 200,000 self-anointed patrons have donated seed money for everything ranging from independent films to decorating a front yard as the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” for Halloween, to launching a LGBT-friendly independent book store. More than 3,000 projects have met their goals and raised enough capital to get going. The founders of Kickstarter are Brooklyn-based Yancey Strickler and Perry Chen. “It’s amazing when you give creative people a space what can happen,” said Strickler.... finish reading the rest of the story here.

Interview With Emmy Winning Cartoonist, Dean Haspiel

In today's Publishing Perspectives, I interview my friend Dean Haspiel, the comic book artist who's illustrated the new book Cuba: My Revolution. It's a collaboration between himself and his old family friend, Inverna Lopez, who lived through the idealism and the horror that followed. Here's the beginning of the piece, with a link at the bottom to the rest (check me out in the panels above, linked here for a larger, more readable version. Thanks for the flattering portrayal, Dean!)...

Some 20 years ago, Eisner prize-nominated and Emmy-winning comic book artist Dean Haspiel heard about a family friend, Inverna Lockpez, who escaped from Fidel Castro’s revolution-era Cuba and began documenting her story. Now comes, Cuba: My Revolution, a graphic novel published by Vertigo, a division of DC Comics in New York, that tells the story of a young revolutionary named Sonya who struck out from the beliefs of her family and friends for a greater ideal — it just didn’t turn out the way she thought it would.

Here, Haspiel has offered a visual interpretation of his interview with our writer Rachel Aydt and discusses the challenges taking a friend’s delicate story and giving it a fictional and visual voice:

Publishing Perspectives: How long have you known your collaborator, Inverna Lockpez?

Dean Haspiel: I met Inverna Lockpez through my mother and have known her for over 25 years. She’s a longtime friend, an extension of my family, and has become like a second mother to me. The whole time I’ve known her, she’s been this gregarious, amazing person and painter. She’s an artist and curator, and organized INTAR, a Spanish arts gallery in Manhattan. I always knew her in this context, and thought she was a very interesting, albeit, mysterious woman. Over the years she would reveal stories about Cuba, the things that happened to her.

PP: How did you and she settle on turning this into a graphic novel?

DH: I became fascinated with the fragments of her story as I would hear them, and began knitting a narrative together from the pieces that had drifted out of her. I’d illustrated The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames, and I’d worked with Harvey Pekar on American Splendor, and The Quitter, and Inverna became fascinated with the power of the medium. In our discussions, I said to her, ‘I feel like there’s a full narrative here that we should explore.’ She hesitated because she’d been burying information and keeping it back for so many years. It must have been extremely difficult for her to leave Cuba and to find a new home. I imagine her coping mechanism was to block it out until I encouraged her to open that door.

PP: It must have been difficult to illustrate the more nightmarish parts of her story… click here to read on....

Galignani Bookstore, Paris

This marks the end of my English bookstore blog entries in Europe (for this year, anyway!). I'm grateful to my editor, Ed Nawotka at Publishing Perspectives, who gave me the chance to wander and write whatever I wanted to about pretty much any bookstore I felt like writing about. There were dozens more had I had the time, and my hope is that I can pick up the thread in years to come. In the meantime, I saved the oldest for last....

Old World, High Style: A Visit to Paris’ Librairie Galignani, Est. 1801, Publishers Since 1520

• Paris' venerable Librairie Galignani lays claim to being the oldest English language bookstore on the European continent.

• Despite its age — the store was founded in 1801, but the publishers of the same name date back to 1520 — it has weathered the years well and continues be an important part of Paris’ vibrant literary community.

PARIS: A publicist friend of mine who was staying at Hotel Costes in Paris had waxed on about the famous hot chocolate around the corner from her at Angelina’s on rue de Rivoli. Although the end of summer is stultifying — even in Paris and doesn’t usually mean the Best Hot Chocolate Weather — I decided to take my little chocoholic boy to try it out. We’d been on a bickering roll lately and I felt like offering him the ultimate olive branch instead of dragging him through yet another museum. I hadn’t even put together that Angelina’s would be across the street from Fete des Tuileries, an amazing little fair in the Tuileries Gardens with a Ferris Wheel and tons of rides and games, right across the street.

On the walk between the “chocolate l’Africain” which — at the princely price of seven euros — was actually to die for if not slightly nauseating in its richness, and the carnival, was a handsome bookstore called Galignani.

The sign outside claimed it to be “The First English Bookshop Established on the Continent.” On their website, they say it’s been in business since 1520 (as publishers), though the store was originally opened in 1801.

Galignani does boast an impressive history: “The Galignanis were among the first to use the recently invented printing press in order to distribute their books to a larger audience. Beginning in 1520, Simone Galignani published in Venice a Latin grammar (the oldest “Galignani” known)…. However, their greatest success was the Geografia by PTOLEMAUS published in 1597, an incredible bestseller in both the 16th and 17th centuries.”

Not surprising, the shop has moved locations several times in four centuries, and only as recently as 1856 has been parked in the posh arcade of the rue de Rivoli. It is still run by direct descendants of the original family.

I used the carnival as a carrot to keep my kid in check while I took a few spins around the bustling store, which is lined with enviable hardwood shelves dating back to the 1930s. This is an international bookstore, so there are of course massive amounts of titles in French, as well as other languages.

English-language book seekers should walk straight through to the back of the store (passing an incredible International Fine Arts section chock full of esoteric coffee table art books) where they’ll find a comprehensive selection of titles in English, with a strong emphasis on modern fiction and classics alike.

I was happy because my mom, who was doing an apartment swap in Anzio, had run out of books to read in English, and had requested one or two to be thrown in my suitcase for when we visited. She’s obsessed with dark Swedish mysteries, a la Detective Kurt Wallender, and it’s nearly impossible to find something that she hasn’t discovered on her own. The multiple display tables heaved with fun choices — not with any new Swedish murder mysteries — and I was able to snag a couple of lightweight (literally) choices that wouldn’t overburden my strict RyanAir luggage limit.

Small disclaimer: Those who seek out Galignani’s to soak up the atmosphere of an ancient bookshop might be disappointed, not in the selection of titles, but by the newness of the place. It’s pristine, which isn’t of course a bad thing, but I was surprised to learn how old it really was, including the wooden bookshelves. They’re gorgeous, but don’t scream “Old! Made in the 1930s!” I guess I’m always up for a mustier, dustier experience, but I certainly can’t blame Galignani’s for being as high-style as the block that it calls home. Take a look for yourself: their website offers a charming video tour that takes you right into the store (click here).

Librairie Galigani is located at 224, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris.

Shakespeare and Company

Many thanks to the publishing online trade magazine Publishing Perspectives for running blog entries about my trip (insofar as visits to bookstores go!). Here's my first entry...

I've gotten to the point during a long summer apartment swap in Paris where the Lonely Planet France and Paris books aren't going to cut muster for much longer. It all begins to sound the same... one bland historical reference after another (how exciting can a single sentence be?)... it was time to hit a bookstore for some reading material (in Anglais).

Enter the renowned Shakespeare and Company, the storied writerly haunt on the edge of Paris's Left Bank. Last night, on a warm Monday evening, I headed over for my pilgrimage with husband and 7-year-old son in tow, and was greeted by a crowd beginning to get seated outside for some event or another. Turns out I'd picked the one hour of the week when some famous and amazing Prize Winning writer is invited to do a reading. Last night we stumbled into a beautiful short story byNathan Englander , author of the collection "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges", for an NYU reading series that the store hosts. It was packed with students and tourists alike, clear into the cobblestone street that overlooks the Seine and Notre Dame. Englander's 20 minute reading was too short for me, and probably a tad too long for my kid. Fortunately, I lucked out as he found a black labrador to fawn over during the "consummation with the prostitute" section. He did look up at me at one point to ask me what the story was about, and I said "Well, this guy gets sick of his wife", and he says to me, "And he kisses another lady and the wife gets jealous?" Yep, in a nutshell. Now go back to petting that labrador, will you?

The store itself is much the same as I found it roughly 8 years ago (and I suspect much the same as it's opening day in 1951). Beautiful editions of modern paperbacks take front seat, while upstairs the warren of rooms remain dusty and inviting. This time around, I was newly grateful for the cushioned bench in the children's corner; Jim could read Anatole the Parisian mouse to Jamie while I poked around, trying to remember what my earlier poetess years felt like moving through the stacks for a bit. Sadly, the black cat I'd fallen in love with during my last visit was missing, and I fear the worst as it was in its gentle older years back then...

The one thing we remarked on when leaving was that it seems like the last time we made a visit, we were greeted by enormous stacks of reasonably priced used paperbacks-- perfect for travelers with one carry on bag and a budget to stick to. This time around, the bulk of the selection seemed to be handsome Vintage-esque Modern Library types, on sale for the cover price and beyond. Still, the collection of used books are strewn about, shelved both downstairs and upstairs if you feel like digging around. I found a small paperback for 3 euro of Rebuilding Conventry, Sue Townsend's first book, post Adrian Mole series.

The Underwood typewriter perched on a little alcoved desk upstairs is still a sweet touch, yet this time around felt sort of contrived. A sign tacked above it said something along the lines of "sit here and meet your muse", and I felt slightly embarrassed considering the possibility that I would actually do this while Nathan Englander was downstairs preparing to read from his Pushcart winner.

The store has just begun to put out its own literary journal, The Paris Magazine, and I picked that up for later reading. It's an attractive and hefty journal, well priced for the store at 6 euros. They've also launched a prize (roughly $12,000) to be given out every other year for a novella written by an unpublished author. The store, after all, has a record of supporting up and coming writers through the decades, and maybe in a few years I can come back, sans le bebe, to revisit that Underwood and hang out for awhile.

Dark Harbor: Slashed Throats and Bullets

A break from the Paris blogs for a little bit...I've been feeling the love from Publishing Perspectives lately, an international online trade publication about the publishing world. My old friend Nathan Ward, who hails from my American Heritage days, has just published his first book and here is the Q & A I did with him. Dark Harbor tells the story of Mike Johnson, a scrappy reporter who told the story of union muckrakers, and the hit men who dumped them in the rivers, in a 24-part tabloid series that garnered him a Pulitzer Prize. Budd Schulburg eventually co-opted the sordid tale for "On the Waterfront"...