May News and Review Round Up

Here at David R. Godine, Publisher, we strive to produce high quality books above all else. So, when our books and authors are praised, we hope you'll forgive us for acting like proud parents. Please join us in celebrating the recent success of a few of our talented authors.

First, we are pleased to announce Stuart M. Frank's Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum as the winner of the Pictorial category for the Bookbuilders of Boston New England Book Show for 2013!

Kristin Brodeur and Jennifer Delaney (Godine's Production team)
with the book at the New England Book Show.

Congratulations to Stuart M. Frank and designer Sara Eisenman! You can purchase a copy of Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum on our website.

Joe McKendry was also honored this month as one of the winners of the 2013 New York City Book Awards for One Times Square: A Century of Change at the Crossroads of the World. David, Joe, and designer Carl Scarbrough went into the city for the awards ceremony.

David Godine, Joe McKendry, and Carl Scarbrough at the New York City Book Awards Ceremony.

Congratulations, Joe! For more information about One Times Square, visit our website.

This past month, several Godine titles also received positive reviews. Publishers Weekly applauded both the stunning, lurid photographs and the insightful prose of The Arctic Regions by William Bradford:

Whether readers choose to focus on Bradford’s text or the book’s remarkable images, they’re sure to quickly become immersed in the trio’s journey north. . . . Though best known for his portraits of ships and the Arctic scenes that inspired him on this trip, Bradford’s crisp Victorian prose is endearing, and he makes for a curious, often enthusiastic guide, frequently taking time to marvel at his surroundings. When combined with the sharp images, the result is a remarkable book that deserves a much wider audience than it originally received.

You can find the full text of the review here. Be among the first to purchase a copy of The Arctic Regions (it just arrived in our warehouse this week!) on our website.

Publishers Weekly also praised the playful and intelligent discourse with familiar classical texts in Black Sparrow title Taking What I Like: Stories by Linda Bamber:

. . . Bamber’s imaginative tales draw the reader in by virtue of their seeming shagginess, combined with a somewhat confessional tone that feels a bit like memoir or creative nonfiction. In “Time To Teach Jane Eyre Again,” she uses a professor’s academic dilemma as a jumping-off point for a consideration of the love life of the heroine, her friends, and some of the students in the upcoming class, through the lens of the Brontë novel. . . . fans of theatre or lit-crit should be exhilarated by her circuitous flights of intellectual fancy.

You can find the full review here. You can find out more information about Taking What I Like - and download the first story in the collection - on our website.

As always, be sure to check our homepage for more information about upcoming and current Godine titles!

BookExpo America 2013: A Novice's Perspective

by Marissa Litak

Morgan, our sales manager, at the Godine booth

This past week, from May 29 to June 1, BookExpo America (BEA) was held in New York City. And who, you may ask, was lucky enough to go this year with the excellent staff at Godine? This intern! Needless to say, I was thrilled. As a major industry event, I had heard of BEA before (though, I must admit, I was initially a bit lost when people starting throwing the abbreviation around). BEA is a publishing trade show, where everyone gathers together and checks out each other’s work. Publishers get together with booksellers to make sales, and in the last couple of years the public has been permitted to attend on the last day. (For more information on BEA in general, visit bookexpoamerica.com.)

Inside the Javits Convention Center

I joined the staff on Saturday, June 1, for my first taste of BEA. Getting a little lost in NYC and struggling to figure out the subway system were, apparently, included in the package. After finding my way to the convention center with only a modicum of trouble, I picked up my badge and entered the huge glass building with feelings of awe and a little trepidation that quickly faded to excitement. Booths, banners, and bustling people met my eye, a sea of them surrounding me in every direction. It was overwhelming: where to begin? I hitched my tote bag (I had come prepared) up onto my shoulder, took a deep breath, and set out.

Sight upon BEA entry

I explored booth by booth, stopping to talk to people, look at displays, and collect the many freebies being handed out. Seeing the way that “publishing people” interacted with one another was fascinating, and underscored how small of an industry this really is, in that everyone knows everyone else. Forget six degrees of separation; in publishing, it’s more like one or two. Everyone’s booths were set up to display their best titles and projects, and books were everywhere. Stacks of books, shelves of books, books on the floor in both intricate designs and haphazard piles. 

The Godine booth (complete with David sitting in the corner)

I felt a sense of kinship with my fellow literary people, many of whom wore book-related t-shirts such as “Stay Calm and Love Books,” or the Lemony Snicket tee that someone was handing out. Almost all of them, including me, were carting around huge stacks of books. You see, everyone at BEA gives you books. Sure, there are other give-aways, like pins, stickers, pens, t-shirts, the ever-useful tote bag, and even a lunar calendar, but books are the meat and potatoes. Many publishers hand out free galleys, or unpolished copies of books before they’re published. They often say, “Uncorrected Proof, Not for Sale” in big red letters on the cover, and have an outline of the marketing plan on the back. These are the books that get sent out to reviewers, and these are the books that are handed out en masse at BEA.

Morgan and Katie, an intern, enjoy some pizza
to celebrate our new book Pizza in Pienza

It feels amazing to get to read something before it’s released, and even more so when you’re able to get your galley signed by the author. One of the coolest parts of BEA was all of the authors hanging out around their publisher’s booth or the autographing area. I got a few of my galleys signed, one of which I’m particularly excited about. Never Fade, Alexandra Bracken’s sequel to The Darkest Minds, isn’t due out until October. Not only am I reading it early, but I also met Alexandra Bracken. How great is that? I’m also eagerly looking forward to reading Thomas Keneally’s The Daughters of Mars, and Artis Henderson’s memoir Un-Remarried Widow, among the dozen others I acquired at BEA. I even picked up a little something for my parents: When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up? Loving and Understanding Your Emerging Adult, by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and Elizabeth Fishel. Overall, my first BEA experience was incredible, and I can only hope that I’ll be able to go again in the future.

What authors would you love to meet? Are there any book releases you’re anxiously counting down towards? Leave a comment telling us which Godine books you would want to check out at our BEA booth, or send a tweet @GodinePub on Twitter!

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Psittacism n. A string of meaningless, repetitive words. Literally “parrot talk.”

“Now let’s talk about the state of the economy.” The audience groaned at yet another psittacism.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Psittacism appears in the Third.

An Ode to the BPL

by Jodi Bosin

The front of the Boston Public Library

A palace for the people, Charles McKim called it. 

The Boston Public Library on Mason Street,
its location from 1854-1858. Image from bpl.org.

The architect's firm McKim, Mead, and White completed their masterpiece one hundred and eighteen years ago. The Boston Public Library, better known as the BPL, had been located first in a former schoolhouse on Mason Street (shown on the right) and then in a building on Boylston Street. Both of these locations were much too small to contain the first large free municipal library in the United States, even in its younger days. In 1854 when the library first opened the collection had about 16,000 volumes; it now holds almost nine million. Indeed, a palace seems the only structure suitable for an urban cave of wonders such as this.

Upon approaching the library, I navigate the streams of pedestrians passing through Copley Square and ascend the thin sheets of steps that surround it. The giant stone building stands majestically before me; skyscrapers rise up behind it but their shining surfaces seem to be made of something less eternal. I step in one of the gaping oval entryways and into a sudden quiet, sheltered from the bustling square beyond. A marble staircase leads upward, under the protective gaze of two sculpted lions and past murals by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Edwin Austin Abbey, and John Singer Sargent.

The front stairs

I then enter Bates Hall, my favorite public space in the city of Boston. The ceiling stretches 50 feet high, lined with fifteen large windows and magnificent barrel vault arches. The hall is bordered by bookshelves around its edges and features two long rows of wooden tables with the sort of green lamps remeniscent of a musty grandfather's study. The room exudes comfort and calm, and I have often found it the perfect refuge to study, read, or write surrounded by others doing the same.

Bates Hall

I am proud to count myself among the three million or so that visit the BPL each year. With a wide range of programs, manuscripts, maps, prints, and books, as well as 25 other branch libraries, the BPL is a veritable beating heart. "Boston Pubic Library is a community gathering place, a place for lifelong learning, a place to seek knowledge, solace, and renewal," wrote President Amy E. Ryan in a letter announcing the BPL's reopening following the Boston Marathon events. Charles McKim would be glad to hear it, and thousands of Boston residents would readily agree. We are glad to have it back.

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Griffonage n. Careless handwriting, illegible scribble.

With claws like that, his handwriting must be complete griffonage.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Griffonage appears in the Second.

Godine Quotables

May is Get Caught Reading Month!

by Katie Turnbloom

Image from getcaughtreading.org.

Founded in 1999 by former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, Get Caught Reading is a nationwide campaign with the objective to “remind people of all ages how much fun it is to read… and to share that pleasure with the young children in their lives” (getcaughtreading.org). While the core focus of this campaign is to emphasize the joys of reading, particularly for pleasure, their website also discusses how encouraging children to start reading at an early age helps their cognitive development, earn higher test scores, and decreases the likelihood of their dropping out of school later in life. Ultimately, too, and at risk of stating the completely obvious, encouraging and teaching children to read breaks the cycle of adult illiteracy and thus providing greater educational and occupational opportunities. The campaign includes a series of posters where celebrities that kids look up to (both human and cartoon) are "caught" reading - see them all here.

I remember when I was young pretty much the only thing I was caught doing was reading. I loved to read and would devour anything I could get my hands on (although Roald Dahl was, and honestly still is, my absolute favorite). I can even remember going to the book store when I was twelve or thirteen and purchasing Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno – which, as my parents probably expected but didn’t have the heart to tell me, was far too advanced for me at the time; even though it was too much for my preteen self, I was encouraged to return to the text years later to further explore and re-challenge myself.

Matilda Wormwood of
Roald Dahl's classic, Matilda

I consider myself so lucky to have been able to develop my affinity for literature through my bibliophilic family; no matter what was going on we were all reading at least one book. My sister and I were encouraged to read often, much, and without censorship. A memory I remember most vividly is one shared by both my sister and I where night after night our heads rested on the soft, cotton pillows laid in our father’s lap as he read us The Hobbit at bedtime. This is just one of many occasions that I took for granted as a child and one that helped develop strong relationships between myself, literature, and my family. These relationships very much helped in forming my identity, not only in regards to my personal interests but also in my academic and career goals (heck, I’m a masters candidate working towards a degree in children’s literature, if that says anything).

So it saddens me to read that, according to the CIA Yearbook, the United States, our 315 million–plus person country, has a 99% literacy rate, leaving millions of people unable to read, or to do so with extreme difficulty. Not only are these individuals unable to experience literature for its boundary-crossing, world-creating magic, they are also unable to experience the relationships often formed through that literature.

That is why this month, to honor the memories when we at Godine were (and are!) caught reading, we will donate a picture book for every comment this blog post receives to the Waltham Family School of Waltham, MA. This school is committed to teaching illiterate adults the English language and is multi-purposed, helping adults not only read themselves, but to also form a relationship with their children through literature and pass on their enthusiasm for literature and learning to future generations.

So tell us something about your literary selves! What were your favorite books growing up? Your favorite David R. Godine, Publisher books? A book that changed your life? A memory when you were caught reading?  

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Prestidigitation n. Sleight of hand. Literally, “quick fingering.”

Prestidigitation? More like “presto”-digitation!

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Prestidigitation appears in the Third.

The Virtues of Coffee

by Ross Wagenhofer

“Coffee - the favorite drink of the civilized world.” – Thomas Jefferson

One of the most beautiful sights, at least in my opinion, is that of steam rising from a cup of coffee. I often watch it coiling and moving around in the air as I wait for the coffee to cool. There's a great juxtaposition of the steam's white lightness and the black bitterness where it originates.

In my estimation, coffee shares the top spot with alcohol as the most literary drink (my metric for judgement of the literary quality of a drink is the popularity of it among writers, although I suspect actual hard data could reveal booze to be in the number one spot). The caffeine so abundant in coffee is a great legal source of drive and inspiration. Consider Honoré de Balzac, the famed French writer of numerous novels, plays, and stories. He turned to coffee, taken in appalling amounts, to fuel long stretches of intense and focused writing. The amount of coffee he drank slowly turned his stomach ulcerous and caused the left ventricle of his heart to hypertrophy, leading to his early demise at the age of 51.

A cup of brew I enjoyed while at the Massachusetts Library Association conference.

Balzac is an inspiration unique case in the amount of coffee he put into himself, and many other famous writers and figures have sought the drink in lesser amounts. Noted fans include Jonathan Swift, John Van Druten, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and T.S. Eliot. Eliot once said, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Among some modern celebrities that have publicly declared their fondness for coffee: Hugh Jackman, Lana Del Rey, and Ice Cube.

Coffee is a bitter drink when made poorly, and slightly less bitter when made right. I don't often drink coffee black. I've heard many insist coffee ought to be drank black and with no frills to experience it properly. I agree; it is the same with steak, wine, Shakespeare, paintings, and walks through the forest. And yet, I prefer steak with A1, wine with food and friends, Shakespeare in modern interpretations, paintings hung in ornate frames, and strolls among the trees with musical accompaniment from my iPod. So it is with coffee: I like cream and sugar. If there's shame in that, so be it.

Image credit: broadstreetng.com

I first discovered the inspirational qualities of coffee when working on college entrance applications and writing essay after essay for different scholarships and schools. The average-sized and average quality drip coffee machine in my kitchen became a fountain of lethargy-killing nectar. Once discovered, I never stopped drinking the stuff. Like many freshmen before me, my first year of college startled me with work and busyness, and I turned toward coffee to help me with the myriad essays, tests, and stressful evenings laboring over projects.

Albert Camus once pondered: “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” It’s a classic question of existentialism, but perhaps also a statement of the necessity of the black stuff for the Absurdist’s everyday existence. My ongoing wellbeing is certainly connected to coffee.

How do you drink your coffee, and how do you prepare it? (No really, I want to know. I've been thinking of getting a moka pot - it is worth it if I already have a French press?) Drop a comment below or toss us a tweet at @GodinePub on Twitter!

Godine Quotables

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Slumber Room n. The room in which a corpse (sorry, the “departed”) is laid out by a funeral director in preparation for the funeral. Why not add a little spice to family visitations by eschewing the term “guest bedroom” in favor of this somewhat more ambiguous appellation?

In Death at a Funeral, raucous guests bring chaos to the slumber room.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Slumber room appears in the Superior Person's Field Guide.

2013 Jane Jacobs Walk: Exploring "Prayer Central"

At the encouragement of national Jane Jacobs Walk leaders (who have been enthusiastic supporters of Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of The Death and Life of Great American Cities), Glenna Lang has organized the popular local walk in Cambridge, MA, for the last five years. A version of the following article appeared in the Cambridge Chronicle.

Walkers on Norfolk Street

Cambridge Jane Jacobs Walk Explores “Prayer Central”

Cambridge’s fifth annual Jane Jacobs Walk proved more timely than its organizers had imagined when they planned the route several months ago. On Saturday morning May 4, more than sixty people, led by Charles Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, set out from Central Square to explore the layers of history and culture found just north of Massachusetts Avenue between Prospect and Norfolk Streets, Cambridge’s geographic and political center in the early 19th century.

Writer Michael Kenney suggested the theme of this year’s walk, inspired by his Boston Globe article on November 4, 2000, entitled “Prayer Central: Known for Its Curries and Live Music, One Cambridge Neighborhood Is Home To Nearly 60 Congregations.” The area’s diverse and continually changing population is reflected in its surprising number of places of worship.

Charles Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge
Historical Commission, and Father Gabriel Troy, pastor of St. May
of the Annunciation, address Jane Jacobs Walkers

As the walk began, Kenney pointed out an unassuming storefront Pentecostal church among multi-family dwellings on Norfolk Street. Walkers then headed to St. Mary of the Annunciation, the city’s third and once most important Catholic church, dating from 1866. Over time, St. Mary’s grew to form a complex with two school buildings, a convent, rectory, and gymnasiums for boys and girls. Its programs included a boys’ high school and two-year college, all free to its mainly Irish parishioners. The current pastor, Father Gabriel Troy, invited walkers to view the gloriously refurbished church interior, now home to a largely Spanish-speaking congregation. Appointed to a parish in the Peruvian mountains by Cardinal Cushing, Father Troy – a native of Ireland – is fluent in Spanish and delivers services in both languages.

Around the corner from St. Mary’s, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church was originally built in 1861 as a Methodist church and now serves many families whose shared heritage is from the Caribbean islands. Minka vanBeuzekom, a Cambridge City Councilor on the walk with a copy of Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities in hand, called attention to the solar panels on the church roof, which they obtained through a grant for nonprofits.

Cindy Carpenter, a walk participant, informed the crowd about the Temple Beth Shalom, also known as the Tremont Street Shul, which she attends. She described it as special because “it seeks to accommodate different Jewish practices, often offering two services at the same time (egalitarian and traditional), and is not formally affiliated with any of the three main branches of organized Judaism in this country."

Nichole Mossalam, secretary of the Islamic Society
of Boston in Cambridge, speaks with a participant
in Cambridge’s annual Jane Jacobs Walk.

Welcoming the walkers to the Islamic Society of Boston’s Cambridge mosque, Nichole Mossalam, its secretary, led the group through the site. The visitors peered into two prayer rooms with sparsely decorated walls and beautiful rugs covering the floors. Outside the painted tile-like front of the former Knights of Columbus building, erected in 1958, Mossalam described the mosque as unaffiliated with any particular kind of Muslim religion. Worshippers come from countries on at least four continents, and they value inclusiveness. Muslims in the U.S. are becoming part of American life, she said, and “they don’t want to be divisive” in their relations with non-Muslims.

As they headed back to Central Square, many walkers expressed delight in discovering the diverse houses of worship tucked within a few blocks and remarked on the warm reception they had received.

Jane Jacobs Walks honor the memory and spirit of author and urban activist Jane Jacobs.

Begun in Canada the year after Jacobs died in 2006, the walks take place on the weekend closest to her birthday on May 4. Any group or individual can organize a walk and list it on www.janejacobswalk.org. In its seven years, Jane Jacobs Walks have become an international movement with hundreds of walks occurring simultaneously all over the world.

Glenna Lang is a Cambridge, MA, resident and the author, along with Marjory Wunsch, of Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Genius of Common Sense is available on the Godine website in both hardcover and softcover formats.

April Review Round Up

Here at David R. Godine, Publisher, we strive to produce high quality books above all else. So, when our books and authors are praised, we hope you'll forgive us for acting like proud parents. Please join us in celebrating the recent success of a few of our talented authors.

This past month, Kirkus Reviews highlighted two of Godine's upcoming releases. The first book that the magazine praised is The African by J.M.G Le Clézio, a stunning tale of the author's experience moving from Nice, France to a Nigerian village:

A slim yet resonant autobiographical entry from the Nobel laureate’s early years in West Africa.

Le Clézio’s (Desert, 2009, etc.) memoir of his African youth is thin in length yet rich in detail as he reconciles his experience being spontaneously relocated at 8 with his mother and brother from World War II–era Nice, France, to remote Nigeria. As the only whites in a villages of natives, he describes family life crammed into a rustic homestead with paneless windows and mosquito netting—the best the French government could provide to his father, a military doctor. Even without schooling or sports, the author’s cultural enlightenment becomes an explosion of sensations, from the sun-induced bouts of prickly heat to the naked culture’s immodest “supremacy of the body.” Le Clézio writes of liberating his pent-up frustration from being raised fatherless in dreary, wartime Europe on the African savannah, yet his father, the man he’d reunited with in 1948, emerges as the memoir’s beating heart. Restless after medical school, he’d fled Europe for a two-year medical post in Guyana and two decades in West Africa. The author paints his father as pessimistic, lonely, overly authoritative and staunchly repulsed by colonial power, yet happily married. Sadly defeated by time and circumstance, he’d become a stranger and, once relocated back to France, “an old man out of his element, exiled from his life and his passion for medicine, a survivor.” Only in his lyrically articulated hindsight does the author truly appreciate his father’s good work and a unique, memorable childhood.

A vivid depiction of a splintered childhood and the lovely wholeness procured from it.

The African will be available this summer; you can learn more about it on our website.

Kirkus also reviewed Pizza in Pienza, a delightful read filled with colorful illustrations and information on the history of a simple Italian creation that Americans have come to love:

A little Tuscan girl introduces readers to her hometown of Pienza and her favorite food, pizza.

Simple, declarative sentences take readers from Queen Margherita of Italy, circa 1889, to the streets of Pienza, where life “is still pretty old-fashioned,” to a brief history of the pizza. “[P]izza as we know it,” she says, “was really born in Naples,” but she goes back even further to inform readers that the ancient Greeks and Italians ate flatbreads before moving on to discuss classic pizza ingredients and the invention of the pizza Margherita. The first pizzeria in the United States opened in New York City in 1905, she continues, but pizza did not become popular around the country until after World War II: “Now there is pizza in Pienza… / …and all around the world!” Her ingenuous voice is matched by equally enthusiastic, folk-style artwork, which looks to be made with oil pastels and is dominated by warm, Tuscan colors. Fillion spices the illustrations with humor, pairing a black-clad nonna on a bicycle to a modish young woman on a Vespa on one page and planting a demurely held slice in Mona Lisa’s left hand on another. The English text appears above an Italian translation on every page, and the story is supplemented by an author’s note, a pronunciation guide, a two-page history of pizza and a recipe.

Both tasty and just filling enough, just like a slice of pizza Margherita.

Look out for Pizza in Pienza, available on our website this summer. In the meantime, check out godine.com for more of our recent and upcoming arrivals!

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Sackbut n. A medieval instrument, not unlike a trombone. The term is derived from an old French world for a hook used to pull a man off a horse. Make what you will of this.

In recent years, the sackbut has become very popular at lavish New York dinner parties.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Sackbut appears in the Second.

Hiding From Distraction: My Favorite Reading Spots

by Ross Wagenhofer

When I was younger, I read a lot on the school bus. It was a designated time where nothing was happening and I had nothing to do but either talk with my brother, play Pokèmon, or read. Of those choices, reading almost always trumped the others. It was the perfect way to escape the monotony of the daily bus ride home. I was eager in high school to ditch the bus for a car, and it wasn’t until senior year that I began missing those thirty-five minutes of time where I had all the freedom just to read, mostly distraction free. I didn’t get back that dedicated reading time until I moved out of my college dorms to Jamaica Plain, a good twenty-minute subway ride into the city. Reading has once more been my go-to source of overcoming the tedium of my every-day commute.

The subway isn’t the only place I love to read, of course, but it’s one of the best. My trip from home to campus or work is exactly long enough for a single magazine feature or a short story from a literary magazine. If I just have a book on me, I’m sometimes hesitant to read it on the subway out of fear that I may be interrupted by my arrival just as I’m getting into a good part. But with short form writing, my trip time is ideal. I now always carry both a magazine (or literary journal) and a book with me at all times to suit my reading location.

A moving train is one of the best places to read because it’s boring, mostly free of distractions, and away from either television or the internet. Sometimes (only sometimes, though), I wish for a longer train commute so I had even more perfect reading time. Since being in college, I’ve found myself a victim of the now-ubiquitous 21^st century plague of distraction. I used to be good at tuning out the noise around me and ignoring the pull of the TV and the computer, but I’ve lapsed considerably with these skills the past few years. I’ve had to cultivate strategies, and most importantly, places to help me hide from distraction.

Emerson's Iwasaki Library (Credit: emerson.edu)

My college library, first and foremost, is one of the most beautiful places to find solitude. It’s a deceptively large space, despite being nestled away on the third floor of a building in downtown Boston, and has numerous nooks and spots where one can hide away. I can go hours in the evening there with little indication of an outside world.

Besides the library, the second best place I’ve found to read is on my bed, the classic spot. I’ve tried my desk, but with my computer and charging phone right there in front of me, I can often be pulled away by the blinking indicator LEDs now affixed to nearly every electronic device. My bed is the perfect distance away – near yet far – and is comfortable enough to sustain even the lengthiest of forays into a separate literary world.

The Thinking Cup (Credit: yelp.com)

And third is the coffee shop. I used to be very resistant to the idea of using a café as a place to read or write, as I tended to think of the people who I saw in those places being more exhibitionist than otherwise. I’m the kind of person who will remove a dust jacket or hide a magazine cover to avoid conversation about what I’m reading, detesting the interruption. But the coffee shop has become a favorite spot of mine for a couple of reasons. The proximity to quality coffee is a large draw. While I’m not dependent on coffee, I might say I’m reliant on it; it’s often a useful friend to lean on. Second, cafes and coffee houses offer a space away. The library serves a similar purpose, but I can always count on stopping into any coffee place in any part of the city, or a different city, and having a roughly similar environment.

Where do you like to read, and how? How best can one either drown out distraction or escape it? Drop us a comment below or share a tweet with us at @GodinePub!

Crime and Puzzlement 2 - The App!

We are very pleased today to announce that Crime and Puzzlement 2 is now downloadable in app form, and for only $1.99! The sequel to Crime & Puzzlement by award-winning mystery author Lawrence Treat lets you again match your detecting powers in 24 brand new cases, available for the iPhone (including full compatibility with iPhone 5 / iOS 6) and iPad (incl. iPad Mini).

Alone (or was he?) in his locked room. Torrick the truckdriver succumbed, but to what, and why? Arthur, on his way downstairs for another drink, slipped, or did he? Siegfried Jones was obviously knifed on his way to the operation room, but by whom?

•  Read the story
•  Ponder the picture
•  And solve it yourself!

With the applause for Crime and Puzzlement still ringing in his ears, Lawrence Treat has conjured up an even more addictive and fiendishly delightful encore. Who finished Isabelle Spiegel? Why did Mr. Grange topple dead from his saddle, and what was the catch in Mr. Fishhead's alibi? It's up to you, the armchair detective, to find out!

If you cut your detecting teeth on Crime and Puzzlement, you'll sink them again into Crime and Puzzlement 2 with glee... Once again, YOU ARE THE DETECTIVE!

Watch a video of the app in action:

Here are some screenshots:

Down the app from the iTunes app store here – it's available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese!

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Parisology n. The deliberate pursuits of ambiguity in one’s use of language.

A true Renaissance man, Ben Franklin was an expert in the field of Parisology.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Parisology appears in the First.

An Intern's Observations

by Katie Turnbloom

Frances Hodgson Burnett's observant robin-on-the-wall
in The Secret Garden

A while back, one of my supervisors joked with me, saying that I’ve had the opportunity to be a “fly on the wall… but an interactive fly!” (or Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast on the wall, if we're looking at Godine's edition of Burnett's The Secret Garden) with all of the meetings and out-of-office experiences I’ve been able to observe. And it’s true, in my time as an intern here at David R. Godine, Publisher, I’ve had the privilege of meeting people who occupy all ends of the literary world, the ends that stretch beyond the walls of our tiny Boston office, across the country, and towards bookshelves around the world: from buyers to authors and illustrators (and those aspiring to become such), curators, librarians, bloggers, reviewers, academics, ever-devoted interns, and amazing warehouse workers.

I’ve met and spoken with a vast group of people who encourage a book to thrive, from the very beginning when in the diligent hands of those in the publishing house, to the brave literary patriots (the librarians, buyers, reviewers, sellers, and so many others) who encourage the texts into the hands of loyal readers. Each profession takes on a different role in the life of a book; each is responsible, in myriad ways, for the birth of the book, the growth, the nourishment that allows a text to thrive and, in a best-case scenario, become timeless.

Despite their different responsibilities in the literary world, they intertwine on multiple levels, each being a significant link in the literary chain that connects reader and text. Yes, the business side is important – we have families to provide for, student loans to pay, new books to buy – but in my experiences speaking with the literary enthusiasts we work with here at Godine, the emphasis is still on the book.

One children’s book author expressed her concerns over lunch with David and I one afternoon about how her characters and settings would best capture the essence of the peoples and environments they are meant to emulate and how the visual text, or the illustrations, would effectively narrate the cultural atmosphere in her most recent manuscript. To this David replied that, of course, only an artist who knows the setting and has experienced the culture should be illustrating this particular text; the artist must not just have a vision, but also a relationship with the characters and setting.

Other raised concerns interrogate how books relate to people, where the humanity is in them, what these books actually say. Of utmost importance, too, here at Godine will always be, as it has been for over forty years, the quality of the physical book; Godine readers have come to expect great narratives (cloth)wrapped and (foil)stamped in the highest quality of production materials. On the two sales calls I’ve sat in on, Morgan, our sales manager, only has to let the buyer hold the book and flip through its pages to prove that book needs to be on their shelves. Godine is committed to quality – and our readers know quality.

The people we work with here in our Boston office, our Jaffrey warehouse, and expansively beyond our walls are book people. And at the end of the day it is our relationship with books that keep the gears churning and chain strong: between author/illustrator and their texts; texts and readers; and readers with, and as, librarians, teachers, bloggers, reviewers, theorists, curators, buyers, and, of course, other readers. After all, what good would it do striving to fulfill a motto as strong as “Books that matter, for people who care” without arming ourselves with anyone but those who are most devoted to literary quality for the sake of both the book and, of course, the reader?

Godine Quotables

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Touch Signature n. A dactylogram, i.e., a fingerprint.

A young researcher carefully prepares a colorful touch signature for analysis.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Touch signature appears in the Superior Person's Field Guide.