This weekend is full of activities at the Beverly Hills Literary Escape.  I’ll have lots to write about in the future, until then here’s another book domino video for your literary entertainment.  Carefully watch the entire screen, there are lines of books falling everywhere.

My favorite line?  ”Is that your blood?”  ”Oh . . . yes, some of it.”

I feel fairly certain Jane would have loved this.

On the other hand, he brought this clip to my attention.  Admittedly it’s about writing, not about bookstores, but I defy you not to laugh.  Watch it two or three times.  I’ve seen it like ten times and it still cracks me up.

It speaks to a basic human truth: we’re all working on our novels, aren’t we?

Note: I can’t get it to embed–rats.  I’ll keep working on it, but until then, click on this link if you want a smile to send you happily off into what I hope is a wonderful summer weekend!

Wait, maybe this will work (thanks, Kim).

I like Parnell’s attitude though, so much so that I’m going to look up his books the next time I’m in a bookstore.

One of the comments on YouTube was from an author who said when no one showed at his signing, he started hanging around in the section for his genre and recommending books.  He sold nine of his books and nine from other authors.  The bookstore hosting the signing loved him.  I’ll make sure to pass that on to Claire, just in case.

Seriously, people’s tastes are so drastically different you have to know your audience.  My father told me to read Elegance of the Hedgehog because he loved it, so I borrowed Kim’s copy.  When I returned it to her, admitting I had given up halfway through because it was so much NOT my kind of book, she laughed and said, “You’ll notice I didn’t tell you you should read it.  I didn’t think you’d like it.”  Kim knows me well enough to know what to recommend to me–and what not.  For instance, every good friend or relative of mine knows never to tell me to read a book where a child gets bullied or abused in any way, because I won’t sleep for a month, and I’ll blame them.

And I know Kim doesn’t share my love for graphic novels or fantasy, so I wouldn’t go around telling her to read any of my favorites, although I will rush to tell my sister or my oldest son about any new good one, since they love that stuff too.

But I’m reading a book right now that I think anyone who’s into books at all would enjoy.  It’s funny, for one thing–and who among us can’t use a good laugh right around now?  Can’t think of a soul–but even more importantly, it has insights about publishing and book-writing that are so unbelievably on target, it’s basically a primer in how to write and sell books.

The book is How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely.  (Full disclosure: my husband’s met Hely a few times and they have some mutual friends, which is why he read the book in the first place and passed it on to me.  But I’ve never even met the guy and, sadly, I don’t get any commission or recognition for recommending his book.  Of course, if Steve reads this post and wants to send me a muffin basket, I’ll be all “STEVE!  BUDDY!” so I hope someone sends it on to him and he feels inspired . . .)

Most of this book is laugh out loud funny–when Rob was lying on the bed, reading the book to himself, I got annoyed at how often he’d chortle.  I think that’s rude if no one else can share the joke, don’t you?  (Note: it isn’t rude when I do it.)  Pete, the protagonist, is stuck in a dead-end job, but when his former girlfriend invites him to her wedding, he realizes he needs to become a success before then.  He decides he’ll write a best-selling book and sets about figuring a formula that will work for him.

And that’s the part I love: he breaks down the different genres and gives you sample pages from various authors (yes, they’re fictional, and, yes, you will be able to tell almost immediately which real-life bestselling author they’re based on).  He even offers up a mock New York Times bestsellers list with book titles that are so close to the real thing, I was tempted to try a few of them on my agent and editors.

The book wouldn’t work if it were too broad, if Pete’s ideas were silly and implausible.  No, they’re silly and very, very plausible.  And the “excerpts” from various different writers’ works are dead-on accurate, which makes you wonder how hard it really is to do what Dan Brown does, especially when Hely’s outline of a published book called The Darwin Enigma offers up about as convincing a storyline as anything Brown writes.

As the main character breaks down–scientifically–what you need to include to have a bestseller, you realize how most bestsellers today really have fallen into a genre-trap and can easily be quantified.  Pete does pay a visit to some “serious” writers, who are teaching or getting their masters at a place that sounds a lot like Iowa and reading their overly detailed and gently nuanced stories to one another.  Hely does a pretty good job of capturing that world, too (and the kind of writing it encourages).  As he points out, why bother with that when you can just hammer out a bestseller?  He’s not actually contemptuous of these people, though: Pete comes away with a vague sense that maybe they’re trying to do something more honest and less cynical than what he’s doing.

Hely does an amazing job of dissecting the story and creative elements of successful detective novels, thrillers, memoirs, and philosophical ruminations along the lines of a Life of Pi kind of thing.

In Hely’s book, book editors have no idea what they’re doing and spend their lives terrified they’ll reject the one book that will go on to be a bestseller for someone else.  Success is dependent on luck, and when his own book starts to pick up steam, it’s for no merit of its own, but some weird confluence of events that brings it unexpected attention.  We should all be so lucky.

Anyway, my point is: this book is brilliantly accurate.  So much so that as I read it, I kept saying, “Actually, that’s a really good idea.  That’s a great title.  Wow, I’d watch a movie with that scene” (Oh, yeah, Pete also has a stint in Hollywood, meeting with a brilliant, crazy screenwriter who’s got a movie about chess and Russian mobsters that I swear could get greenlighted tomorrow if someone pitched it for real).

Let me leave you with one example from Hely’s New York Times bestseller list parody:

“EXPENSE THE BURBERRY, by Eve Smoot (Simon & Schuster, $23.95.)  A young woman in Manhattan spends her days testing luxury goods and her nights partying and complaining.”

Expense the Burberry.  Why oh why didn’t I think of that title first?  There’s bestselling gold in this book.  Too bad Hely’s only interested in satire.

There’s a different judge for each match up, some are editors or at-large-book-know-it-alls, and others are authors.  Commentary for every match is provided by John Warner and Kevin Guilfoile and in true Tournament of Books fashion, I can’t remember who they are and I don’t really care.  But, I love their banter.  This will give you a sense of their style:

John:   I’m excited to put the Rooster-red blazer back on and join you in the booth for this year’s commentary. In a continuation of a tradition reaching back to last year, we’ve tried to actually read the books in the Tournament. I think I might’ve done a bit better than you, having completed 14 of 16 and sampled the other two. This is mostly due to me having read four of the contenders prior to the announcement of the brackets, though.

Kevin:  I started reading with the intention of running the table, but life intervened, and by “life,” of course I mean Life Unexpected, which airs Tuesday nights on the WB . . . I finished better than half of this year’s contenders, and if I can inject some early optimism into the proceedings, I personally found this year’s field to be very strong. It might not have as many novels coming in with as much hype as we had in past years, but there’s a lot of parity here. I have in my mind the book that I think is the one to beat, the one with a target on its spine, but I expect a lot of unpredictability along the way. I mean, other than me saying something really stupid, which is a given.

Brackets for the Sweet Sixteen

The Tournament of Books brackets are out and I’ve filled mine in.  I’ve only read four of the 16 books (all can be purchased from Powells for 30% off), although I’m hoping to knock out some of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned before the judge evaluates it on the 16th.  Regardless, I filled my brackets in.  Here’s an overview of Round 1:

Let the Great World Spin beats Miles From Nowhere because it won the National Book Award.  If it gets out of Round 1, I will actually read it (been meaning to, you know how that goes).

The Help beats Lowboy because I read it, so I chose it.  If it loses early, I think it will come back as a reader’s choice in the third round (readers had the opportunity to vote for two books that could come back later in the tournament if they were knocked out early.)

The Lacuna beats Fever Chart – I loved The Lacuna, it has a lot to say about history and art, plus I haven’t even heard of Fever Chart so how could I vote for it.

That Old Cape Magic beats Burnt Shadows – ditto, loved Old Cape, never heard of Burnt Shadows.

Wolf Hall beats An Epic Search for Truth, well, it won the Booker which gives it gravitas, plus it takes an old, familiar, much written about story and gives is a new twist, quite an accomplishment.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned beats The Anthologist because I own Everything and if it wins I’ll be motivated to pick it up, whereas with The Anthologist I’d actually have to buy it and I’m feeling lazy.

The Book of Night Women beats Gate at the Stairs because Laurie Moore annoys me.

The Year of the Flood beats Big Machine because who is going to vote against Atwood in the early rounds?

Who would you pick?

Unbridled Books explains how reading can be dangerous:

Be careful who you invite to your book clubs:

The Santaland Diaries is the first Sedaris essay I heard.  I was getting ready for work one morning and literally dropped to my knees I was laughing so hard.  Another time I was driving to work and had to pull over because I couldn’t drive with my eyes squeezed closed in laughter.  I’ll share the piece of advice I tell everyone the first time they hear Sedaris, “go to the bathroom because you could pee in your pants.”

Take a break from the hustle and bustle, grab some hot chocolate and get ready to laugh (no need to watch the screen, it doesn’t change):

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

In honor of Christmas, we’ll be taking a few days off, but will return for a few final reading challenge posts (nothing like leaving it to the last minute).   For Claire, Christmas is a wonderful holiday to spend with the family, for me, it is a precious day of faith.  However you celebrate the holiday, we hope that it is joyous for you.

The foundation of the book is Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity speech in which he invokes “a city upon a hill” from the Book of Matthew in the New Testament.  More than one President took up the phrase from Winthrop.  Sarah explains, “The most important reason I am concentrating on Winthrop and his shipmates in the 1630s is that the country I live in is haunted by the Puritan’s vision of themselves as God’s chosen people, as a beacon of righteousness that all others are to admire.”  She points out that the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony includes an Indian with the words “Come over and help us” coming out of his mouth.  Sarah noted that ever since we have been helping people to death.

A Model of Christian Charity sets out a road map for how the Puritans are to live in community:  the rich are to help the poor, all are to mourn together, rejoice together, take on each others “conditions.”  Sarah calls it a declaration of dependence.  She then sets out to look at how Winthrop and his Puritans lived up to the ideal.  They failed miserably.  Enter stage left, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, on scene to prove that Winthrop’s community is a model of charity as long as everyone agrees with him and the leadership he established. 

Sarah chronicles the founding years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony inhabited by bookish people.  A subject matter that could turn deadly dull in an instant, Sarah describes with humor and a knack for showing the continuing relevance of the events.  Sarah finds Winthrop, with all of his flaws and inconsistencies, laudable and lovable, but hard to like.  Williams and Hutchinson, two people who have come down through history as outcasts for standing up for religious freedom retain their reputation, but are also fanatics.  Quite frankly, I would have been happy to see them go myself.

At her reading at Book Soup earlier this month, Sarah explained that she decided to write the book after hearing the “the city on a hill” image used during Ronald Reagen’s funeral.  The irony that the term was used by Winthrop to describe a city where the poor were helped and everyone contributed to the betterment of the community when Reagen aggressively slashed programs for the poor was not lost on her.  Winthrop declared that the the world would be watching the Massachusetts Bay Colony to see if it failed to provide mercy and love.  Sarah found the entire meaning twisted by the 20th century.  At the end of the book, Sarah describes Pres. Kennedy use of the phrase a city on the hill that everyone is watching in a speech a few days prior his Inauguration.  She notes that of course the world is watching us, we have stock pile of gigantic bombs that we could use to end the world as we know it.

I loved the book and I enjoy Sarah’s voice, although the degree to which her opinions are secular can be strong for me at times.  As a fan of history, my  hope is that people who don’t usually read it will find Sarah’s writing so fun that the knowledge will sneak in with the enjoyment.  Asked who her favorite historian is, Sarah responded that she doesn’t think of herself as a historian, she wants to write better than that.  Thankfully, her emphasis is more on the writing than the history, making the entire reading experience better for all of us.

We’ll be taking the rest of the week off to enjoy the holiday with our families.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Shelf Awareness posted this picture of a bookstore in Hong Kong and mentioned some of the ways it’s title has been used.  Here’s mine, an independent bookseller’s answer to the following question:

“Can I buy the new Barbara Kingsolver book for $9/$8.99/$8.98?”

Tell us how you would use the name of this unique Hong Kong bookstore!