As our own Michael Rogers reports in today’s book news, “Scholastic Orders Record-Breaking Printing“, the publisher is printing a jaw-dropping 12 million copies of J.K. Rowling’s seventh and final series title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. That’s a lot of paper, 22 million pounds of paper, to be exact. But environmentally concerned Potter fans worried about devastated forests can relax. Reuters reports that Scholastic Corp, in collaboration with the Rainforest Alliance, will ensure that 65 percent of the 16,700 tons of paper used to print the book will be Forest Stewardship Council paper, which comes from socially and environmentally managed forests. To date, this is the largest purchase of FSC-certified paper for a single printing.

Last week sister magazine Publishers Weekly launched its newly redesigned website, including a new blog from its book review editors. (Don’t worry: our new website is coming shortly.)  Although we all work on the same floor, our busy editing and production schedules keep us from interacting on a personal level as often as we would like. So I am enjoying reading Kevin Howell’s personal trauma of reading 16 gay romances (who knew there was such a category!) for the Lambda Book Awards and Jonathan Seguera’s wry interpretation of bold new voices in fiction.(not!). 

My only minor quibble: the blog’s name: Notes from the Bookroom. Hello, we were here first! On the other hand, it’s not easy coming up with a unique blog name. (One LJ editor still thinks our name sucks.) Although titles can’t be copyrighted, fellow LJ book review editor Heather McCormack and I had a brief fantasy of duking it out with the PW editors for the ”bookroom” rights in the grand tradition of Will Ferrell’s Anchor Man news team rumble (Public Television: no commercials, no mercy!). Heather, you bring the trident, I’ll bring the net!

Check out the clip on YouTube.

Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed and I say welcome fellow bloggers. The more we can join forces to promote the written word, the better the world will be.

There comes a moment in every editor’s life when she just wants to scream, “Eat me!” at a precarious stack of galleys. This was my situation a few days ago as I was sorting through the diet and fitness titles. In all seriousness, I hardly need a gym membership given how many of these books I have to haul from the Bookroom to my desk, where I do my assigning. This round, I counted no fewer than 34, out of which I could assign only three.

To call this overkill is an understatement. I’m of the mind it’s an epidemic. Americans are addicted to the idea that there’s an alternative to weight loss beyond eating less and exercising. The publishing world feeds that delusion with an appealing goulash of gimmicks—see Jim Karas’s The Cadio-Free Diet (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, May), Joe Marion’s The Cheat To Lose Diet (Crown, May), and Ronald Glassman’s The Alpha Solution for Permanent Weight Loss: Harnass the Power of Your Subconscious Mind To Change Your Relationship with Food—Forever (April, Broadway).

Although it’s my job to bring some of these books to librarians’ attention, I take solace in the fact that there are voices of dissent out there. Just when I was about to lose it over another sugar-water diet, I came across Gina Kolata’s latest book, Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—And the Myths and Realities of Dieting (May, Farrar).

Author of the notable Clone and the best-selling Flu, Kolata, the head science writer for the New York Times, now analyzes the first study to contrast the Atkins diet to a low-calorie diet and purports to answer questions of eating and self-control, genetics and weight, the sensation of hunger across individuals, and diet plateaus. To an editor like me, this book is a gunshot blast of fresh air. Of course, only the review will tell. Stay tuned.

It was a common scenario in the bookroom circa 1998: self-published or indie authors would call my line (I was then the assistant in charge of sorting galleys) looking for advice on making their books known. Often, said books had already been published and so were too late to be submitted to LJ. “What are my alternatives?” they’d inquire desperately. My eager response was, “Stage a reading at your local library!”

As I learned from a recent thread on Publib, however, librarians don’t seem so hot on this idea. Unless the author has a media profile, is backed by a reputable publisher, or has a ready-made audience owing to the local popularity of the book’s subject, they’d rather pass. Chances are, people would not turn up to see a writer without those credentials, and as Tom Cooper of the Webster Groves (MO) P.L. wrote, “[T]here’s nothing worse than working hard on an event that flops.”

Libraries, the message seems to be, want to compete with Barnes & Noble and Ye Olde Slam Poetry Bar down the street. They want in on popular culture—not at all an earth-shattering revelation for me, but it makes me feel for the nobodies who may have a worthy work on their hands. If they can’t find a forum for engaging in person-to-person contact at the library, where can they?

The obvious answer is MySpace and personal websites, but so many people are clamoring for attention now that it’s a miracle to capture and hold an audience. It’s been said that best sellers originate in libraries—a patron stumbles on a book, falls in love, and spreads word—but my feeling is that, increasingly, time-pressed readers are taking their leads from TV book clubs, radio shows, and off-the-cuff comments by established writers or actors and actresses.

The cult of celebrity has infiltrated American reading habits so much, in fact, that decided nonwriters like celebutant Nicole Ritchie (The Truth About Diamonds, now in paperback) and former model Paulina Porizkova (A Model Summer is due in April from Hyperion) can publish novels. I confess that I haven’t even cracked the galley of Porizkova’s book, but my point still stands: having a marquee name seems like more of a requirement for a book contract than being able to construct an artful sentence.

I know, I know. My gripes are older than Grandpa Simpson, but I dare argue that the celebritization of publishing has only gotten worse since I entered the fold nine years ago. Although Judith Regan’s getting the ax is encouraging, we’ve still got a long way to go toward putting democracy back in publishing. And libraries can help by mulling over a genius suggestion by Linda Ballard of the University City (MO) P.L.: “Have any of you experimented with having an evening or weekend afternoon ‘Local Authors’ Day,’ where these authors could come, perhaps speak for a few minutes apiece, and peddle their wares?”

As the editor responsible for assigning child rearing books, I must say I’m surprised it’s taken so long for a manual like Candice Kelsey’s Generation MySpace: Helping Your Teen Survive Online Adolescence (April, Marlowe & Co.) to rear its helpful head. Social networking sites have been around since the early 00’s, and MySpace.com—the leader by leaps and bounds with more than 100 million accounts—is definitely a force with which to be reckoned. Its multimedia capabilities require users to learn a set of technologies, and this is where I think adults got lost, and lost track of their kids in the process.

Kelsey, who cofounded a private high school in Santa Monica, CA, and acts as an evaluator for the College Board’s Advanced Placement program, seems to know her way around the site and more than that, as our resident teen expert Linda Beck points out in her starred review, Kelsey has investigated and witnessed the negative messages of online culture (among them, “privacy is not important”). And she shows parents “how to create a MySpace account safely and how to interpret what other bloggers are saying.”

For the full monty of Linda’s review, make sure to see the March 15th issue. See also her starred reviews of other recent teen-centered titles like American Academy of Pediatrics Caring for Your Teenager and Dianne Neumark-Sztainer’s I’m, Like, So Fat!: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices About Eating and Exercise in a Weight-Obsessed World.

These are exciting times, let me tell ya. Borderline indecently exciting. But I digress. 

The 2nd annual New York Comic-Con is on the horizon! And, did you know that librarians can get a free weekend professional pass to the conference? Furthermore, did you know that on Friday, February 23rd (trade day), Library Journal is the presenting sponsor of four panels of librarian luminaries specifically for you?

So don your geek cap, wear that witty and irreverent T-shirt, put on those steel-toed Doc Martens, and slip on that backpack shaped like some weird plushy animal/alien. I, for one, am planning to put my hair in pigtails, because if I can’t wear pigtails at Comic-Con, then where can I?

And hey, if you see that corset vendor who was there last year - try one on! It’s a trip - and considering that your oxygen intake is cut in half, I mean that literally.

Be sure to sign up at the Professional Registration page - deadline is Feb. 12th!

For more information about the panels, go to this webpage and scroll down to the bottom. The panels ae all moderated by John Shableski of Brodart and the panel titles are:

Feb. 23rd: Panels for Librarians

10:00 AM: Superheroes and Manga: Making Room for Both at Your Library

11:15 AM: Format and Genres: Understanding Comics, Super Heroes, SciFi, Fantasy, Manga, Comics Lit, Humor and Web Comics

1:30 PM: Anime: Making the Most of this Video Entertainment

2:45 PM: Graphic Novel Classics Every Library (public and school) Should Shelve and Circulate

This Con is not to be missed. You make valuable contacts, learn from peers and publishers, get the pulse of the industry…while having fun with frothing fanboys and fangirls leering at manga, graphic novels, figurines, and anime. If the idea makes you giggle with glee (rather than back away slowly), this is the show for you.

I’m actually not as scary as I sound.

This winter, publishers are on a health-and-medicine roll. No less than ten March, April, or May titles by my count have recently rocked and socked my very discerning reviewers. Among these winners are Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance (Metropolitan: Holt) by Atul Gawande, a Harvard-trained endocrine surgeon. So taken was reviewer James Swanton of the Harlem Hospital Library that I suggested he conduct an email interview with the author.

After taking a few days last week to formulate some top-shelf questions, James sent them to me, and I then forwarded to Gawande’s publicist, Claire McKinney, who passed them on to the author. There ensued a hushed waiting period, during which editor and reviewer hoped it would all be worth the trouble. (Sometimes authors of note are flat-out awful about being thoughtful or timely.)

I’m happy to announce that Gawande delivered the goods. His response to James’s question about technology and libraries made this cynical edi-hagstress light up at his generosity. For the full monty, don’t miss LJ 3/15/07—Gawande writes for The New Yorker, and his pedigree even comes across in our abbreviated format (see also our chats with D.S. Lliteras and Mirabai Starr, among other writers).

In the meantime, here are some other forthcoming hits in health and medicine that are being reviewed in the March 1 and March 15 issues:

• Sherwin B. Nuland’s The Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-Being (Random)
• Kathy Kastan’s From the Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Living Well with Heart Disease (Da Capo Lifelong)
• Joyce Venis and Suzanne McCloskey’s Postpartum Depression Demystified (Marlowe & Co.)
• Sidney Wanzer and Joseph Glenmullen’s To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life (Da Capo Lifelong)
• Kathy Kaehler’s Fit and Sexy for Life (Broadway)
• Rebecca Odes and Ceridwen Morris’s From the Hips: A Comprehensive, Open-Minded, Uncensored, Totally Honest Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, and Becoming a Parent (Three Rivers)
• Morton Meyers’s Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs (Arcade)
• Sanjay Gupta’s Chasing Life: New Discoveries in the Search for Immortality To Help You Age Less Today (Warner Wellness)
• Nischala Joy Devi’s The Secret Power of Yoga (Three Rivers)

It is very sad, but not entirely surprising that Barbaro’s life was brought to an end this week after an 8-month struggle following his disastrous injury out of the starting gate at the Preakness.

Eclipse Press, part of Blood-Horse Publications of Lexington, KY, was all set optimistically to publish Barbaro: The Horse Who Captured America’s Heart, by Sean Clancy, a hardcover, in landscape format, with 100 color photos. Review copies of the April publication were recently delivered — and then Barbaro’s life ended. Eclipse will issue the book, still as close to the original  pub date as possible, with a revised final chapter.

Of course Barbaro was the exception in thoroughbred horseracing, and another book, also due in April, will remind readers what most of the sport is like. Not By A Long Shot: A Season at a Hard Luck Horse Track, by veteran racing reporter T.D. Thornton (PublicAffairs) shows readers the more prevalent conditions that exist around this “sport of kings,” with aging horses competing on aging tracks, where young jockeys hope to beat the odds and make it into the big time, where a lot of local men and women — from rural to Runyonesque, and not with the coffers of kings — enjoy the spectacle and are the main support of a multi-billion-dollar betting industry.

Many of us have been to a local racetrack, where ”racing lives [are] lived below the radar,” as the Not By A Long Shot galley sheet puts it. I once bet on a 9-year-old mare named Fast Emily in a race at the Great Barrington, MA fairgrounds. We didn’t win. Thornton reminds us that even the best of the horses lose 75% of the time.

Readers may enjoy a celebratory book about Barbaro, with his 6 races, and the millions earned and spent trying to save him (a rescue motivated at least in part so that millions in stud fees could have been earned — thoroughbreds are only allowed to reproduce by “live cover” ). But Thornton’s book will make sure that they understand Barbaro in context.  

Look for reviews in forthcoming issues of LJ.

It’s been a year since the James Frey train wreck drove book pusher extraordinare Oprah to tears. Last Friday, however, she was all smiles when she revived her book club with Sidney Poitier’s The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Biography (HarperSanFrancisco, 2000). Oprah described the book as being about “what makes character, what makes you who you are”—and while our reviewer (the very well-read celeb hound Rosellen Brewer) might agree, she seemed underwhelmed by the actor’s meditations on his past and pat ending: “We’re all imperfect, and life is simply a perpetual unending struggle against those imperfections.” She also points out that Poitier pads a good deal of Man with material from his first memoir, This Life (1980). Only his takes on acting elicited Brewer’s enthusiasm.

In any case, Oprah’s word is gospel, and not even a week after her announcement, Man is on top of the Amazon chart. We in the Bookroom will be charting its course on LJ’s Best Sellers List.

Back when I was just a casual book buyer and not the galley-juggling superclown of today, I thought of Da Capo Books as that cool rock’n'roll reissue press. Everything I ever needed to know about the precursors to pop music icons of my lifetime (e.g., Elvis, the Beatles, the Clash, Madonna) could be found in the pages of seminal texts like Charlie Gillett’s The Sound of the City, Giles Oakley’s The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues, and Nick Tosches’s Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock’n'Roll. Like a good little student of the devil’s music, I vowed to devour those books and more whole.

I didn’t—still haven’t (except for Gillett’s book). College homework and music nerd boyfriends got in the way, but I’m still enamored of Da Capo and as the music book editor, I have the great pleasure of assigning its books. I know what Senior Director of Publicity Lissa Warren is thinking: “Actually, Heather, after being purchased by the Perseus Books Group in 1999, Da Capo expanded eons beyond music—it now does health, self-help, and even parenting.”

This is true. But as the editor also responsible for those three areas, I still say music makes up the heart of Da Capo. YAs, don’t come looking for photo-heavy, cut-and-paste biographies of the latest post-emo, pretty boy outfits from New Jersey. Da Capo tackles quality, often out-of-the-way music figures (e.g., Dave Van Ronk) without being holier-than-thou. And when it comes to the nearly dead white males of rock’n'roll, as well as the newer icons, the books don’t take the usual approach.

My reviewers would back me up. James Perone, for one, has sung the praises of the 2006 entry in Da Capo’s ”Best Music Writing” series and singled out Everett True’s gritty forthcoming biography of Nirvana (see LJ 3/1/07). His December 2006 review of The Show I’ll Never Forget, edited by SPIN writer Sean Manning, inspired me to take home an extra galley two Fridays ago, and unlike most anthologies, it completely engrosses despite, or maybe because of, the disparate voices and performers included. So no one waxes ecstatic about the Clash at the Palladium. I’ll live. I got to read Linda Yablonsky’s plaintive portrait of Nina Simone (and her late father) at the Village Gate.