Book News

This week, Book Sense This Week is publishing the top ten of the 2003 - 2004 Reading Group Suggestions 76, with bookseller quotes. Next week, BTW will feature the full listing, also with quotes.

Based on four weeks of sales from over 350 independent bookstores across America.

Past Category Bestseller lists are available at http://www.bookweb.org/read/5677.

Attention Media: Please contact Kristen Gilligan at [email protected] for reprint guidelines for your newspaper or magazine.

The Book Sense Book of the Year Awards will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, May 30, during this year's BookExpo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California.

All current ABA member bookstores can vote for the Book Sense Book of the Year. The remaining four finalists in each category will be awarded the title of Book Sense Honor Book. All nominated authors and illustrators will be invited to attend the award ceremonies and the Book Sense 76 Lunch, also to be held on Friday, May 30, at BEA.

Scholastic today announced that it has redefined its policy regarding Scholastic Book Fair's pre-selling of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In a letter to booksellers, Michael Jacobs, Scholastic's senior vice-president, trade, said the new Retailer Coupon Program is intended to drive Scholastic Book Fair customers who pre-order the Order of the Phoenix to participating retailers.

What is the Retailer Coupon Program?
Scholastic Book Fairs is running a program for students to pre-order Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. At the time of purchase, for the full retail price of $29.99, a customer will receive a collectible baseball cap and an official certificate of purchase. Beginning June 21st, the holder of this certificate may redeem the certificate for a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at participating retailers.

As florists await February 14 and poultry farmers the fourth Thursday in November, this year, booksellers have June 21. The laydown date for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix may well be the day a record number of copies of a single book are sold.

The Book Sense Book of the Year Awards will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, May 30, during this year's BookExpo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California.

All current ABA member bookstores can vote for the Book Sense Book of the Year. The remaining four finalists in each category will be awarded the title of Book Sense Honor Book. All nominated authors and illustrators will be invited to attend the award ceremonies and the Book Sense 76 Lunch, also to be held on Friday, May 30, at BEA.

On Friday, March 14, Good Morning America's "Read This!" book club made its ninth pick. The ABC morning show's book club's latest choice is What Should I Do with My Life? (Random House), by Po Bronson.

Scholastic School Division is pre-selling Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix through Scholastic's book fairs. In at least one book fair promotion, for each Harry Potter order, Scholastic guarantees a first-edition copy, a collectible baseball cap, and an official certificate of purchase, which the buyer receives when pre-ordering the book.

Based on the last four weeks of sales from over 350 independent bookstores across America.

The will of individuals to prevail over monstrous obstacles links all of these Book Sense Book of the Year nonfiction finalists. Not only Captain Cook faced uncharted waters. Some spent their childhood trapped in brutal civil war or with brutalizing parents. Fighting adversaries, real or imagined, was necessary for the survival of all the authors.

The Book Sense Book of the Year Awards will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, May 30, during this year's BookExpo America, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California.

In 1960, signs above the Woolworth's lunch counter in Tallahassee, Florida, advertised a roast turkey dinner for 65 cents and sundaes for a quarter. But on February 13, when 10 black Florida A&M University students and two high school students tried ordering slices of cake, a waitress refused to serve them. Undaunted, they remained at the counter, quietly reading from their books, and were soon surrounded by angry hecklers.

In February 2000, when Irish poet, writer, and musician Ciaran Carson was asked to translate Canto XXXI of Dante's The Inferno, Carson had yet to read the epic poem in its entirety. Now, a scant three years later, Carson's energetic translation (The Inferno of Dante Alighieri, Granta) is garnering strong praise from critics and readers.

On Monday, March 10, NBC News' Today Show announced that the ninth selection of its monthly "Today Book Club" is Caramelo, by Sandra Cisneros (Knopf). The title was a November/December 2002 Book Sense 76 pick.