You can download the latest versions of our fall regional trade show summaries from our Terms and Specials page now. Offers are still valid for most publishers for MIBA, and still good for GLIBA, of course.
administrivia in John Mesjak This has been floating around the internet for a few weeks now, but I was reminded to post it here since I just started a fresh Moleskine for my autumnal to-do list, and it's one of the new limited edition Star Wars journals.
book trailers, moleskine in John Mesjak A Monster Calls
by Patrick Ness, inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd
illustrated by Jim Kay
Candlewick Press | 9780763655594 | $16.99 | Sept 2011
I wrote about A Monster Calls in a preview post on my3books.com earlier this year, shortly after I first read it. It's still one of the fall books that comes back to me most powerfully when I tell others about it:
The two authors have created a novel that shares the hallmarks of both their best works: the story goes in directions that are simply not anticipated, and the tidal pull of emotion that hits the reader by the end is out of all proportion to what should be possible.
From the Candlewick Press web site:
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting – he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd-- whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself-- Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.
Candlewick, book trailers in John Mesjak The Flint Heart
by Katherine Paterson & John Paterson
illustrated by John Rocco
Candlewick Press | 9780763647124 | $19.99 | Sept 2011
A really lovely book trailer for The Flint Heart, the enchanting new novel from Katherine and John Paterson, illustrated by John Rocco (who also did the animation for this trailer from his own illustrations).
I originally read this in manuscript with just place-holding unfinished sketches for most of the art. I got my finished copy of the book the other day and now I want to re-read it to better appreciate Rocco’s art.
More about the book from @CandlewickPress’ web site:
An ambitious Stone Age man demands a talisman that will harden his heart, allowing him to take control of his tribe. Against his better judgment, the tribe’s magic man creates the Flint Heart, but the cruelty of it causes the destruction of the tribe. Thousands of years later, the talisman reemerges to corrupt a kindly farmer, an innocent fairy creature, and a familial badger. Can Charles and his sister Unity, who have consulted with fairies such as the mysterious Zagabog, wisest creature in the universe, find a way to rescue humans, fairies, and animals alike from the dark influence of the Flint Heart? This humorous, hearty, utterly delightful fairy tale is the sort for an entire family to savor together or an adventurous youngster to devour.
A robust and wildly entertaining fairy tale, freely abridged from Eden Phillpotts’s 1910 fantasy and wryly retold by Katherine and John Paterson.
The Flint Heart (Book Trailer by CandlewickPress)
Candlewick in John Mesjak John Eklund is one of our favorite fellow sales reps, a fellow midwesterner based in Milwaukee, book lover and bookstore lover. He's a sales rep for three great academic presses: Harvard, Yale and MIT Press. Like so many of us book travelers, he's a former bookstore employee too.
Last week, we all learned that he's one of four finalists for Publishers Weekly's annual Sales Rep of the Year.
I grinned wildly when I saw his name on the list because, with absolutely no disrespect intended to his co-finalists, he's a hell of a sales rep. Like all the Academy Awards nominees always say, they share the honor of simply being nominated with a group of amazing colleagues and there's not a bad one in the bunch.
But as this Harvard University Press blog post pointed out, in addition to holding down his sales rep duties with a careful intelligence, John thinks deeply about the book business and writes about it sincerely and passionately. You owe it to yourself to follow his writings at Paper Over Board.
Another of the finalists for Sales Rep of the Year is Bridget Piekarz, one of the Random House reps based in Chicago, and she is another formidable colleague with a passion for sharing her publishers' new books to the booksellers here in the midwest.
Whichever sales rep is chosen in the end to be this year's Sales Rep of the Year, we are glad that John and Bridget and Doni and Rick have been lifted up and recognized in this way.
sales reps, the biz in John Mesjak