Book Passage picks on the Ronn Owens Show

Elaine Petrocelli was on the Ronn Owens Show on KGO on December 21st, where she and show host Ronn Owens discussed some recommended books. The shows feature engaging conversation and excellent reading recommendations! Here is a checklist of the titles they spoke about. A more fully annotated and illustrated page listing these books has been posted to the Book Passage website.

 GIFT BOOKS 

Grantland
McSweeneys $19.95
call (415) 927-0960 to place an order

Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees
Nancy Hugo $29.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781604692198

Italian Racing Bicycles: The People, The Products, The Passion
Guido Rubino $39.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781934030660

The Conference of the Birds
Peter Sis/Rumi $29.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781594203060

Italian Baker (revised)
Carol Field $35.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781607741060

Pilgrimage  *** 
Annie Leibovitz $50.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780375505089

NON-FICTION

Extra Virginity  
Tom Mueller  $25.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780393070217

The Time of Our Lives: A Conversation about America
Tom Brokaw  $26.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781400064588

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
Robert Massie $ 35.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780679456728

The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation
Elizabeth Letts, $26.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780345521088

The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food
Adam Gopnik $25.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780307593450

FICTION

The Language of Flowers  
Vannessa Diffenbaugh $25.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780345525543

-- companion book
A Victorian Flower Dictionary
Mandy Kirkby, Vanessa Diffenbaugh $22.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780345532862

The Cat’s Table  *** 
Michael Ondaatje $26.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780307700117

The Buddha in the Attic
Julie Otsuka  $22.00
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780307700001

The Drop
Michael Connelly $27.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780316069410

Love and Shame and Love  *** 
Peter Orner $24.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780316129398

Oracle of Stamboul
Michael David Lukas $13.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780062012104

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson  $15.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780307949493

Dead Love  zombie fiction
Linda Watanabe McFerrin $14.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781933330907

The Hunter not yet released
John Lescroart  $26.95
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780525952565

KIDS BOOKS & BOOKS FOR YOUNGER READERS

Lonely Planet Not-for-Parents Travel Book
Michael DuBois, Katri Hilden, Jane Price
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781742208145

Lonely Planet Not-for-Parents London: Everything You Wanted to Know
Klay Lamprell
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781742208169

Lonely Planet Not-for-Parents Paris: Everything You Wanted to Know
Klay Lamprell
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781742208176

Lonely Planet Not-for-Parents New York: Everything You Wanted to Know
Klay Lamprell
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781742208152

Lonely Planet Not-for-Parents Rome: Everything You Wanted to Know
Klay Lamprell
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9781742208183

Time Travelling Fashionista
Biana Turetsky $17.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780316105422

Inheritance *** 
Christopher Paolini $27.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780375856112

Book Thief
Markus Zusak $12.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780375842207

Here Comes Grandma!
Janet Lord and Julie Paschkis  $13.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780805076660

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site
Sherri Duskey Rinker (Author), Tom Lichtenheld (Illustrator)   $16.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780811877824

Secrets at Sea
Richard Peck and Kelly Murphy  $16.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780803734555

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales
Chris Van Allsburg $24.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780547548104

The Scorpio Races
Maggie Stiefvater $17.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780545224901

The Emerald Atlas
John Stephens  $17.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780375868702

Bigger than a Bread Box
Laurel Snyder  $16.99
http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780375869167

 ***  some autographed copies available

CNN en Español visits Book Passage

CNN en Español recently paid a visit to Book Passage. The occasion was the release of the new Isabel Allende novel, El Cuaderno de Maya. Allende is a longtime friend of the store, and CNN was here to interview Book Passage President Elaine Petrocelli about the celebrated author and her new book.

The CNN visit was also also occasioned by the recent announcement that Isabel had been given Denmark's Hans Christian Anderson Award for her many splendid contributions to literature for children and young people. To celebrate, Book Passage put up a display.

So far, El Cuaderno de Maya is only available in the United States in Spanish. (It is due to come out in English, as Maya's Notebook, in 2012.) To mark the occasion, Isabel Allende will be reading from her new novel at Book Passage on September 18th. Please note that this is a Spanish-language event.

For those who can't make it, Isabel recently signed a few copies of El Cuaderno de Maya (hardback, $26.95) at Book Passage. These are, we believe, some the very first signed copies in the United States. To place an order for a 1st edition hardback, please visit this link.blogged by thomas gladysz

Buyer’s Musings – Tinkers revisited.

by Sheryl Cotleur

I couldn’t be more thrilled upon learning that Tinkers by Paul Harding won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I’ve loved this book so long and hard that I sat and watched the Pulitzer Web site on Monday April 12th, 2010 just in the vague hope that it would be somehow recognized. After shouting in surprise when the announcement came, I called Paul and left a congratulatory voice message.

We’d become friends some 14 months earlier when Tinkers was first published. My Consortium rep, Lise Solomon pressed a pre-publication copy into my hands begging me to read it because she loved it so much. I was enthralled also and suddenly came up with an unusual idea. After talking it over with Mary Benham who runs our Signed First Editions Club, and who also then read the galley, I asked Lise to provide me with a publisher contact at Bellevue Literary Press. I proposed to Erika Goldman that if she’d print some hardcovers of this original paperback, I’d buy 250 copies and Mary would make it our January 2009 Signed First Editions Club selection. Elaine Petrocelli, the bookstore owner, also loved this idea. Erika decided to print 500 copies and Lise helped sell some to other Bay Area accounts.  I bought more copies than just what was needed for our club and we then set about announcing to our customers, both online and in the store, that we had this special book. After they arrived and were signed, we sold out in three days.

Part of the negotiations included that we needed the book signed so arrangements were made for Paul Harding to come to the Bay Area and do readings at Book Passage and a few other stores. We had a great time getting to know Paul and have kept in touch ever since.

Over the months of 2009 I continued to hand sell and talk about Tinkers, and it has been on display as a staff favorite of mine every day since it’s publication. I wrote about it in our newsletter about that time also which goes out to over 40,000 people. Mary got her employee book club to read it that spring and that created another eight or so enthusiastic hand-sellers. The day the Pulitzer was announced we had sold 242 copies of Tinkers in paperback and 40 at our San Francisco store. We had sold 250 copies in hardcover.

Also in the spring of 2009 I mentioned it to other sales reps I see, several of whom share with me an avid interest in exchanging the news of whatever we love, no matter the imprint. I gave a copy to Ron Shoop, one of my Random House sales reps. He loved it as well. Later he found himself in conversation with a senior editor at RH where he raved about this small press book. I understand that over time she heard others mentioning Tinkers with great appreciation. She eventually contacted Paul and offered him a contract for his next two books. I have never met this editor, but I’m grateful that even a small part of my enthusiasm for Tinkers entered the energy field of it being noticed by her.

In June of 2009, having recently met John Freeman, Granta editor and former NBCC president, I sent him a signed hardcover, one of my personal copies; because I knew he loved good books and was a collector of fine First Editions. It was with complete surprise and delight that I saw he named this novel one of the top five fiction books of 2009 on NPR in December 2009.

In the spring of 2010 I was on the ABA/Indiebound eight-member jury for selecting the top six finalists of 2009 in three categories: Fiction, Nonfiction and Debut Fiction. I was pleased to find a receptive group for choosing Tinkers as one of the six finalists in the Debut Fiction category. One jurist even pointed out that he got special pleasure out of recognizing a great novel that was also from a quality small literary press.

I have mailed Tinkers to literary friends in Europe and still find myself in animated conversations about it regularly. We at Book Passage all celebrate Tinkers and Paul Harding winning the Pulitzer Prize, feeling that we knew all along it was worthy. We are delighted that now a lot more people will discover this gem!

--Sheryl Cotleur, Buying Director, Book Passage


Order a copy of Tinkers by Paul Harding:
While the limited first edition, original  signed hardcover of Tinkers is SOLD OUT, this Pulitzer Prize-winning title will be re-printed in hardcover in the coming weeks. If you would like to pre-order a copy of the new hardcover edition, please click this link to place your order.

You may also order, or request a copy to be held for pick-up, by calling the store at (415) 927-0960, ext. 1.


Read more about Tinkers:

From the Boston Globe

From NPR

From the Huffington Post