Book clubs are pretty amazing things. I don’t belong to one at the moment, but I would say 80 percent of my friends are members of book groups. I really believe there is a book group for everyone. There are highly structured book groups, very laidback ones, clubs that read only classics, I could go on and on. Well, I just learned of a public book club in Minneapolis called Books & Bars. The group meets once a month at Bryant Lake Bowl, a theater that is adjoined by a pub and bowling alley.

Books & Bars has a moderator, comedian Jeff Kamin, and each session boasts about 70 attendees. Among the book club’s sponsors are independent bookseller Magers & Quinn and satirical newspaper The Onion. Participants are encouraged to purchase the selected books from Magers & Quinn and to enjoy food and drink at Bryant Lake Bowl during the gatherings. And even though it’s a book club, reading the book selection is not a requirement.

Upcoming book selections include The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, and illustrated novel Blankets by Craig Thompson.

Do you attend bookstore readings? I am fortunate to live in Portland, Oregon, home to many bookstores, including the venerable Powell’s Books. I could probably go to a bookstore reading on a daily basis, and I often read through the listings in the local paper with great interest. The truth, though, is that I rarely go to bookstore readings. I never gave it much thought other than to attribute it to laziness, but then I saw this article, “The Dreaded Question: What is a ‘Reading’?” in the Huffington Post. The piece is by bookstore owner Alex Green, who talks about how the label “reading” is not quite accurate. He writes that “many of us are reluctant to attend a reading because we don’t know what one is, and we become afraid that something egregiously uncomfortable, or boring, is going to happen.” Green then goes on to explain that readings, at least at his bookstore, are engaging and lively discussions.

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Small, independent, or university presses get little glory. These publishers are generally not in the business in order to make heaps of money or attain celebrity status. Books are selected with much thought and care but probably with little hope they will ever make it onto a bestseller list.

Literary prizes, however, can sometimes boost a publisher’s reputation and affect sales. Take, for instance, the Nobel Prize for literature. The Nobel committee tends to bestow its awards upon relatively unknown authors, at least to readers in the United States. This, as you can imagine, generates a lot of interest and curiosity. When French writer J.M.G. Le Clézio won Read the rest of this entry »

Book-design afficionados are talking about Ox-Tales, a new four-volume set of story collections published to raise money for Oxfam. Each of the volumes takes one of the four elements as its theme. Thirty-eight British and Irish writers—including Kate Atkinson, Zoe Heller, Ian Rankin, and John le Carré—donated their work to the project.

   

In addition to looking gorgeous and supporting a great cause, the collection is also getting praise from book reviewers. Nick Rennison of The Sunday Times writes: “As a showcase for a fictional form that too often gets pushed to the back of the queue when critical plaudits are being distributed—and one that’s filled with fine exhibits—it deserves support on its own merits.” Likewise, William Skidelsky of The Observer says that the collection “would be worth reading whether or not an NGO was responsible for it.”

I wonder if they’ll distribute it in the U.S. . . .

The designer, Jon Gray (http://gray318.com/), also designed this, which you may recognize:

In light of all that has happened in publishing in recent decades, it seems that the essence of the “retro” publishing model at Europa Editions is its focus on the quality of the text itself—language, characters, and story—and a staunch belief in the inherent salability of good literature.

Some hallmarks of Europa’s retro style:

• A decorated industry veteran at the helm. Europa is headed by Kent Carroll, who served for 12 years as editor-in-chief at the legendary Grove Press (which had transformed the American literary consciousness during the 1950s and 1960s with authors like Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, and William Burroughs) before establishing his own highly esteemed company, Carroll & Graf.
• A commitment to building their readership from the ground up. Whereas the “new” (post-conglomerate takeover) publishing model is predicated on the expectation that a book should have a built-in market of thousands before it’s even released, Europa is committed to capturing the attention of reviewers and winning the respect and loyalty of independent booksellers.
• Low overhead. In the wake of the conglomerate takeovers, many publishers—who used to behave like college professors—came down with a kind of corporate fever. Midtown offices got big and glitzy, salaries and expense accounts followed suit. At Europa Mr. Carroll is the only full-time employee. He operates out of a modest office in Union Square, New York, with one freelance assistant and a couple of unpaid interns.
• Maximizing value. Another feature of the “new” publishing era is the practice of paying exorbitant advances to authors whose books are expected to sell big. A great many of these books do not reap the returns, and publishers lose out in the deal. By all comparisons, translation rights are cheap, even for some of the most acclaimed international authors. The less Europa has to spend on acquiring rights to foreign works that have already proven successful in their original languages, the more they can invest in publicity and marketing in the United States.

Next time I’ll look at another thing Europa’s doing right—not necessarily retro, just good business sense.

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