Readers' Books Responds

Unable to accept yesterday's Narwhal Award® in person, Lilla Weinberger sent along this fine portrait of a co-worker at Readers' Books in Sonoma Valley, California. That reminds me—if you have any nominees for the Awards, please let me know their story!

The Narwhal Awards

I'm starting the Narwhal Awards® today to recognize booksellers, agents, publishers, and other industry folk who are doing something unique during these allegedly difficult times.

The first Narwhal Award® goes to Readers' Books in Sonoma Valley, California, a shop that recently made an unusual addition to its shelves—organic eggs. Readers' has begun selling eggs from the owners' family farm, and plans to follow up with vegetables and preserves this Autumn, so that bookworms can save themselves a stop to the grocery store on the way home. Co-owner Lilla Weinberger says that she has no intention of competing with local farmers' markets, but I'm sure that other local booksellers are feeling a bit threatened. I hope that this Narwhal Award® brings Readers' the attention it deserves—and I think we should all... take a page from its book.

Bride Price Reviewed!

Buchi Emecheta's Bride Price received a thoughtful review on the Cuban In London blog yesterday—comparisons are drawn between Emecheta and Wole Soyinka, whose play Death and the King's Horseman recently premiered in London.

Will Barnet in ARTnews!

Will Barnet is center stage again, this time in an ARTnews review featuring our Will Barnet: A Sketchbook, 1932–1934. Here's what Deidre S. Greben says about the title:

"Will Barnet: A Sketchbook, 1932–1934 is an excursion unto itself. Discovered in files buried in Barnet's studio, the plein-air sketches of lovers, strollers, thinkers, and loungers were a relief from the labored compositions of the artist's early academic training. Their only purpose was the delight he obviously felt in making them. As a New Englander just arrived in New York, Barnet was drawn to Central Park, which he called a front lawn for Depression-era city dwellers packed into airless tenements. These bold, direct drawings capture the openness of the setting, but also the subtle interactions among the figures. As critic Robert C. Morgan keenly note in his introduction, these are intimate even romantic works of youthful discover, yet they suggest the foundations of a classicism that was to characterize Barnet's long career."

See What's New at George Braziller!

Summer is almost upon us, and soon publishers along Madison Avenue will begin running on summer schedules, which means a Monday-through-Thursday schedule for 9-to-5ers, and a Monday-through-when-I-head-off-to-Maine schedule for editors. Even so, George Braziller, Inc., is still working around the clock to bring you new titles in 2009 and 2010. Check out our home page and download a free copy of our Spring / Summer 2009 flyer. You'll learn about our upcoming projects, and some great back-list titles, too.

Save The Narwhal—Don't Self Publish Yet!

Dear Readers,

This month's Smithsonian offers an unusual look at a very unusual beast: the narwhal. Long thought to have magical powers, the narwhal has been enthusiastically pursued over the centuries, but its peculiar, solitary habits make him nearly impossible to approach. Even today, we know little about this hornèd* sea mammal—we only have evidence that his numbers are dwindling. It seems that, if we want to learn anything about the narwhal, we have to start learning now.

Well, that brings me back to independent publishing. A few odd decades after the Golden Age of Publishing made us fall in love with the magic of independent publishers, we are still just beginning to discover their potential. Unfortunately, those pub houses (old and new) are now struggling to survive the many changes mentioned already on this blog, especially the advent of self-publishing. (Certain self-publishing house profits have grown by 30% in recent years, while indie houses have been forced to shrink their operations by 10% or more.) Small houses are in danger! If we want to know what they can do, we have to start working now—before they're gone!

That's why George Braziller is asking you to get out to the post office and submit your manuscripts this May. We'll get back to you with a thoughtful reply within two weeks, which means you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Don't self publish yet. If our house doesn't suit your project, find one that does. It's time to save the small publisher. Ready, go.

Best regards,


Maxwell Heller
Editor

*Actually, it's an enormous tooth, not a horn.

Will Barnet is Profiled in Art & Antiques

Will Barnet, the prolific American painter and printmaker, is profiled in the May issue of Art & Antiques.

Barnet will turn 98 in May, and to celebrate George Braziller is releasing Will Barnet: A Sketchbook, 1932-1934, a collection of previously unreleased drawings from the beginning of Barnet's career. Here's what Art & Antiques says about the book:

The artist himself had forgotten it existed, so the freshness of the drawings, executed en plein air in Central Park, was as much a revelation to him as it will be to those who know Barnet's more finished works. Here are spontaneous, emotionally intense pen-and-ink snapshots of ordinary people taking refuge in the park from the city's stresses--sailors with their dates, young parents with babies, lovers embracing in the grass--and finding some relief from the worrisome times in each other's company.


Barnet had only recently arrived in the city when he begain the sketchbook. "It was the deep Depression, and I cuaght these people who were its victims," he recalls... "I was living like they were living... I used to sleep in the park on top of big rocks across from the St. Moritz Hotel. I wanted to catch the moment. My sketch pad and pen were a means of expressing my feelings about the city."