Book Sense Makes Good Housekeeping

Book Sense will reach 4.6 million readers next month through a feature in the April issue of Good Housekeeping, which goes on sale March 5. "Book It," a three-page special insert, posits the question "Wondering where to go on your next vacation?" and offers a diverse list of classic to contemporary literature to help spur travel ideas. A sidebar, with the Book Sense logo at the top, directs readers to BookSense.com to find "a diverse community of over 1,200 independent booksellers who share your joy for the world of books." The sidebar also offers information about winning one of five $100 Book Sense gift cards at Good Housekeeping's www.ghtravel.com Web site.

Book Sense was invited by Good Housekeeping Marketing Manager Heidi Sacko to help put together the insert for the April issue. Sacko talked with BTW about the impetus to write about book-inspired travel. "I was having a conversation about how certain books make me feel like I'm in a certain city, or they make me want to visit the city the book describes," Sacko explained. "I thought, Wow, what a great idea for a story." About including Book Sense as part of the feature Sacko said, "I really respect the work Book Sense does in supporting independent booksellers. And people who are traveling like to stop at independent bookstores."

The 11 featured titles, selected by Sacko and Book Sense staff members, include a range of old and new, adult and children's titles. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (Penguin American Library) is suggested for readers considering a visit to Salem, Massachusetts. The historical novel and 2003 March/April 76 Pick The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (Random House) is suggested as apropos for readers touring Boston, since the city has "long been a Mecca for intellectual pursuits" writes Good Housekeeping. For planning a trip to Georgia, the insert reports "Savannah is irresistible in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (Vintage). As the unpredictable twists and turns of this landmark true-crime murder case unfold, the eccentric cast of characters capture the colorful personality of this truly Southern city."

Other featured titles are You Can't Take a Balloon Into the Museum of Fine Arts by Jacqueline Preiss (Dial Books for Young Readers); From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (Random House); Shutting Out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York, 1880-1924 by Deborah Hopkinson (Orchard Books); Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (Warner Books); A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (Anchor); Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (HarperTrophy); Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (Vintage); and Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear by Lensey Namioka (Dell Yearling).