Eric Charles May, the September BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ featured author of Bedrock Faith, will receive the 21st Century Award at the Carl Sandburg Awards Dinner, benefitting the Chicago Public Library, on October 21st. The dinner will also honor famed composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Tickets for the Awards Dinner event are $1,000 – but BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ fans got to spend time with Eric last month while enjoying luscious wine for free at our event!
I’m about to depart on a one-week trip to New York City. For many months, I’ve been organizing a first-ever global cousins gathering for my mother’s side of the family. In the internet age, the family tree has sprouted many more branches as relatives dug deep to find their roots. Most of us have never met or haven’t seen each other in decades. We cousins share a genetic predisposition for genealogy; now we’ll see what else we have in common… or not. This will be interesting!
Through the communication I’ve had with these cousins, I’m already forming images of who they are. One thing for sure: they are complex and interesting. Our family history and relationships would make a fascinating book but, were I to write it, I’d have to disguise it as a novel to protect the innocent! Would you say the same for your family?
Family relationships are great fodder for memorable books. Here’s a sampling of titles I haven’t mentioned in previous posts, from some familiar authors and some new names; how many have you read?
Eight Cousins – Louisa May Alcott
Till We Had Faces – C.S. Lewis
The Hotel New Hampshire – John Irving
The Brothers K – David James Duncan
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangaremba
In the Unlikely Event – Judy Blume
Add a couple of books for children that feature family relationships:
Beezus and Ramona – Beverly Cleary
Coraline – Neil Gaiman
10,000 Dresses – Marcus Ewert
Note: I’m taking next week off from posting on my Blog while I’m taking a bite of the Big Apple.
There’s still time to pre-order your book and get a Bonus Buy ticket for the October 22nd BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ . This will be a very special event as Amazon #1 and national bestselling author Jasinda Wilder makes her Chicago debut with her hot-off-the-press book Madame X. Meet the author who has been interviewed by major media and learn how she parlayed a seven-figure publishing deal with Penguin Random House after selling millions of self-published eBooks. In honor of the author and book, TASTE Food & Wine will featured wines in the free tasting will be a sparkling white and two scintillating red. Bonus Buy tickets get preferred position on lines, a 10% discount on all wine purchases (the tasting is free), and a special author memento. For details about the event, check the Book●ed website. Visit The Book Cellar to pre-order your book and get a Bonus Buy ticket!
Curran Bell, Acton Bell and Ellis Bell may not be names you recognize but what if I were to say Charlotte, Anne and Emily Brontë? In the 1800s, the famous Brontë sisters had to don male names in order to get their writing published after England’s poet laureate Robert Southey responded to 20-year-old Charlotte’s selection of poetry with, “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life.” Other noted female authors of the same period who disguised their gender in order to get published include George Sand (Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin) and George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans.)
A century later, Nell Harper Lee dropped her first name for the more androgynous Harper Lee. Nora Roberts, a bestselling author of romance novels under her real name, became a bestselling author of detective fiction using the pseudonym J.D. Robb.
Perhaps the best known contemporary female author to neuter her name is J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame. Her UK publisher, Bloomsbury, felt that replacing her first name (Joanne) with initials would make her book more appealing to boys. Without a middle name of her own, she used her grandmother’s, Kathleen. “They could have called me Enid Snodgrass,” Rowling told The Telegraph in an interview. “I just wanted it [the book] published.”
As long as women have written, they have had to contend with bias in the publishing industry. While some are hopeful that the growing number of female authors with successful books will open doors for more women, statistics suggest that traditional publishers still view women primarily as writers and readers of romance novels.
Two 2011 studies prove the point. They showed that The New York Review of Books reviewed 71 female authors, compared to 293 male authors; The New York Times reviewed 273 women and 520 men. Only Crown published a similar number of male and female authors; the others clearly favored men.
Women authors are not the only ones battling discrimination in the publishing world. Minorities are also largely underserved, much to the loss of booklovers. But women are not a minority, which is why I highlight this sorry aspect of the publishing world.
The emergence of self-publishing is resulting in some hugely successful female writers (see Footnotes) but traditional publishers need to step up to the plate. It makes good business sense. Car dealers, real estate marketers and political parties have awakened to the potential women offer, not only as consumers but as producers. It’s time for the white male bastions of the publishing world to make way for diversity. Let it begin with women authors.
Many female authors, facing gender bias in the publishing industry, turn to self-publishing. Producing a book is only step one. Knowing how to promote it into success is a very different art. Author Jasinda Wilder is a master of both. She is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and international bestselling author with millions of sales of self-published eBooks. One of her titles, Falling Into You, reached #1 on Amazon.
On October 6th, Jasinda Wilder’s first book in print as well as digital format will be published by Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Madame X is the first in a planned trilogy that netted a 7-figure deal for this Michigan-based mother of six.
On October 22nd, from 6-8 p.m., BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ will welcome Jasinda Wilder in one of her very first public appearances to sign copies of Madame X as she meets fans during another fabulous wine tasting event at TASTE Food & Wine in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.
For this event, BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ is offering pre-orders of the book with “Bonus Buy” tickets. Ticketholders will get preferential place in line for books and autographs, 10% discount on all wine purchases and a special author memento. “Bonus Buy” tickets will also be available at the event but I encourage pre-ordering. Book pre-orders and Bonus Buy ticket sales will be handled by The Book Cellar. Event details can be found at the Book●ed website.
This is the time of the Jewish High Holy Days. The 10 days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur are a time of introspection, culminating in Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). All major world religions exercise self-examination, judgment and repentance, often through the holiest of their holidays. For Christians, it’s the Lenten season. For Muslims, it’s the month of Ramadan. It’s a uniquely universal human quality to look in a mirror, searching beyond a flat reflection for the truth of who we are, to imagine who we might become; hoping to become more tomorrow than we were yesterday.
Introspection plays a catalytic role in some of our best literature. It crosses all genres of books.
Memoirs and biographies are most memorable when the author impresses us with their change through self-reflection. Some of the finest examples include:
12 Years a Slave – Solomon Northrup
Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
Gift from the Sea – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
The Color of Water – James McBride
Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail – Malika Oukfir
The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls
Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand
As fictional characters examine their lives, as they evolve and grow, we often see aspects of our own lives. Through them, we gain insights or confirmation about our own circumstances. This is the enduring power of great books. Here’s just a sampling; how many have you read?
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Death of Ivan Ilych – Leo Tolstoy
Siddharta – Herman Hesse
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint- Exupéry
1984 – George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
The Giver – Lois Lowry
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
13 Reasons Why – Jay Asher
The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ is excited that its September 24th event will feature Bedrock Faith, a book exemplifying great literature that comes alive in a neighborhood. Eric May’s debut novel landed on several “Top 10” lists and led to Eric winning the prestigious 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library in partnership with the Chicago Public Library Foundation. In fact our September 24th event will be a prelude celebration before the Library’s award dinner in October. Come meet Eric, get a copy of his book and have him personally autograph it for you while you enjoy some wines with great character between 6-8 p.m. at TASTE Wine & Food in Chicago. No reservations or entry fees! Find details at the Book●ed website or on our Facebook page.
One of my recurring nightmares is finding myself back in school, either unable to find my classroom or being totally unprepared for a subject I learned a long time ago, maybe trying to read something and seeing only gibberish. Sound familiar?
In the light of day, fortunately, school (especially at the start of a new year) looks a whole lot brighter. Everything is fresh and new. Books and doors are there to be opened, new people to meet, the world at one’s feet with many paths to explore. No matter how the coming year unfolds, when the cycle begins in late August or early September, there’s excitement in the air.
Our school years help form us, leaving indelible memories. The experiences, as we grow through the school years and beyond, are potent. This is why schools and the people who walk through their halls appear in so many great books. How many of these have you read?
Good-bye, Mr. Chips—James Hilton
The Blackboard Jungle—Evan Hunter
Up the Down Staircase—Bel Kaufman
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie—Muriel Spark
Sophie’s World—Jostein Gaarder
The Secret History—Donna Tartt
Infinite Jest—David Foster Wallace
Harry Potter—J.K. Rowling
The Cheese Monkeys—Chipp Kidd
Special Topics in Calamity Physics—Marisha Pessl
We all know how beautiful it can be to read a book. Brit + Co shows ingenious ways to make books look beautiful in other ways.
BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ is excited that its September 24th event will feature Bedrock Faith, a book exemplifying great literature that comes alive in a neighborhood. Eric May’s debut novel landed on several “Top 10” lists and led to Eric winning the prestigious 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library in partnership with the Chicago Public Library Foundation. In fact our September 24th event will be a prelude celebration before the Library’s award dinner in October. Come meet Eric, get a copy of his book and have him personally autograph it for you while you enjoy some wines with great character between 6-8 p.m. at TASTE Wine & Food in Chicago. No reservations or entry fees! Find details at the Book●ed website http://www.bookedwebcast.com/index.html# or on our Facebook page.
Fans of Tyrone Power who live anywhere near Arlington Heights, IL, should mark their calendars: on Friday, November 6th from 2-4 p.m., the Arlington Heights Memorial Library will screen the 1937 screwball comedy, Love is News, teaming movie idol Tyrone Power with lovely leady lady Loretta Young. Taryn Power Greendeer will be interviewed by movie historian Annette Bochenek and will autograph copies of Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power , written by Taryn’s sister Romina Power (contains several of Taryn’s photos). The book is a collectors quality limited first edition, available only at select events and by mail order. The library program is free but registration is recommended.
Ancient archeology shows that the concept of neighborhoods has been with us for a very long time, for very good reason. Neighborhoods bring people together in common purpose: safety, economy, socialization and care-giving. In other words: survive through hard times and thrive in good ones.
While the basic goal of neighborhoods is universal, the character of neighborhoods is as varied, distinguishable and fascinating as the characters in the neighborhoods. Books set in neighborhoods provide some of our most vibrant and memorable literature. They let us learn from the people and cultures that preceded us. We can travel the world today, meeting people and visiting different neighborhoods just by opening a book. We can be entertained, enlightened and inspired by stories set in or around neighborhoods.
BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ is excited that its September 24th event will feature Bedrock Faith, a book exemplifying great literature that comes alive in a neighborhood. Eric May’s debut novel landed on several “Top 10” lists and led to Eric winning the prestigious 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library in partnership with the Chicago Public Library Foundation. In fact our September 24th event will be a prelude celebration before the Library’s award dinner in October. Come meet Eric, get a copy of his book and have him personally autograph it for you while you enjoy some wines with great character between 6-8 p.m. at TASTE Wine & Food in Chicago. No reservations or entry fees! Find details at the Book●ed or on our Facebook page.
Meanwhile, here’s a sampling of other notable neighborhood novels set around cities known for the diversity and energy of their neighborhoods:
Washington Square – Henry James
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Tin Flute (orig. Bonheur d’occasion) – Gabrielle Roy
The Chosen – Chaim Potok
Time and Again – Jack Finney
The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
The Alienist – Caleb Carr
Playing for Thrills – Wang Shuo (trans. Howard Goldblatt)
The Sweet Forever – George P. Pelecanos
The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson (2004)
The Great Perhaps – Joe Meno (2009)
You can learn more by clicking the tab BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ at my Book●ed website.
Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies. – Jane Austen
I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of city streets. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I spent a lot of winters in my childhood flying kites with my brother, with my cousins, with friends in the neighborhood. It’s what we did in the winter. Schools close down. There was not much to do. – Khaled Hosseini
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. – G.K. Chesterton
Ragdale’s ninth annual Novel Affair brings together renowned authors and artists, for two evenings of creativity and conversation in support of Ragdale, the artist retreat in Lake Forest, IL. The event offers guests the opportunity to be engaged, inspired, and challenged by the artists and their work.
The weekend begins with an optional VIP champagne reception with all featured artists and authors in the private Walled Garden at Crab Tree Farm on Friday, October 2 at 5:30pm and concludes with an intimate dinner and lively discussion with one of the artists or authors at a private home of distinction on Saturday, October 3 at 6:30pm.
Fans of Tyrone Power who live anywhere near Arlington Heights, IL, should mark their calendars: on Friday, November 6th from 2-4 p.m., the Arlington Heights Memorial Library will screen the 1937 screwball comedy, Love is News, teaming movie idol Tyrone Power with lovely leady lady Loretta Young. Taryn Power Greendeer will be interviewed by movie historian Annette Bochenek and will autograph copies of Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power, written by Taryn’s sister Romina Power (contains several of Taryn’s photos). The book is a collectors quality limited first edition, available only at select events and by mail order.The library program is free but registration is recommended.
Wine, the most delightful of drinks, whether we owe it to Noah, who planted the vine, or to Bacchus, who pressed juice from the grape, goes back to the childhood of the world. — Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), French lawyer, politician and author of The Physiology of Taste.
With BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ off to a bright start, pairing quality wines with quality books, I find myself reflecting on the place of wine in literature. As far back as antiquity, wine is referenced on clay tablets and papyrus, even before the invention of paper or digital books. Clearly, wine’s potency is not limited to its level of alcohol. Whether part of the action, used as an adjective or offered as a metaphor for something else – success, romantic intoxication, life itself – wine and literature always pair well together. Fortunately for us, a wealth of literature over the centuries was made more interesting and enjoyable for the wine we read about as well as the wine we drink. See how many of these you know:
Frolic Wine — Anacreon
Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon — Li Po
The Soul of Wine — Charles Baudelaire
I Bring an Unaccustomed Wine — Emily Dickinson
Ulysses — James Joyce
A Moveable Feast — Ernest Hemingway
Ode to Wine — Pablo Neruda
Taste — Roald Dahl
A Long Finish – Michael Dibdin
A Debt to Pleasure — John Lanchester
You can learn more about BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ by clicking the tab at the Book●ed website.
Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read. ― Francis Bacon
I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines. ― Oliver Goldsmith
Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know. ― John Keats
“Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing. ― Ernest Hemingway
Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle. ― Paulo Coelho
E.L. Doctorow, master of the historical novel who mixed fact and fiction to bring history to life, died at age 84 earlier this month. Reading announcements of his passing, I learned something very interesting about the author of such mammoth best sellers as The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1975), Billy Bathgate (1989) and The March (2005). Doctorow said he never plotted out his novels in advance. “It’s like driving a car at night,” he said of writing. “You can never see further than your headlights, but you make the whole trip that way.”
In other words, Doctorow, acclaimed for historical novels that relied so heavily on facts, was a highly intuitive writer. I, too, am an intuitive writer. Despite being advised in workshops and through articles how important it is to prepare an outline before starting a long story, any skeleton I try to build collapses under the weight of characters and events as they are fleshed out. The phenomenon of characters coming alive for an author and taking off in unexpected directions is not uncommon. I hear that from writers all the time and it mirrors my experiences.
Doctorow’s words are very comforting for writers like me. It proves that lectures, workshops and tutorials about the writing craft are like shoes at a shoe shop. You will be offered many. Like seeking a good pair of shoes, you should try on different ideas and suggestions to see which ones fit best because the path from the idea of a book to the finished work is long and challenging. You never really know where the path will lead, “but you make the whole trip that way.”
Shared wisdom from the master of the historical novel, E. L. Doctorow:
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.
Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.
When you’re writing a book, you don’t really think about it critically. You don’t want to know too well what you’re doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it. The book is constructed as a conversation, with someone doing most of the talking and someone doing most of the listening.
A physical book is great technology if you think about it. Once it’s produced it doesn’t use up any energy, and if you take decent care of it, it will last forever. That’s a considerable technological achievement.
A book is not complete until it’s read. The reader’s mind flows through sentences as through a circuit – it illuminates them and brings them to life.
My darling daughter’s birthday is in August. A lot of my relatives and friends have August birthdays. My curiosity about this apparent birthday boom led me to research which months are most popular for birthdays; they are September, August and July, in that order. Actually, once you do the math, it’s really about which months are most popular for baby making. Not surprisingly, winter weather and holidays lend themselves to cozying up with someone and letting nature take its course.
This blog post is about “b”s. Not about the bird and the bees, but about birthdays. Birthdays are such potent symbols in our lives, for good or ill, for celebration or sadness. Birthdays represent, in a single day, the connection between yesterday and tomorrow. Farewell and hello. What a great source of inspiration for memorable literature. Here is a list of books where a birthday lays the groundwork or becomes the catalyst for a great story:
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
The Three Sisters – Anton Chekhov
The Fellowship of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Birthday Party – Harold Pinter
Wise Children – Angela Carter
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
The Line of Beauty – Alan Hollinghurst
Want to treat a child to a good birthday-themed book? Consider one of these:
A Bear Called Paddington – Michael Bond
Happy Birthday, Moon – Frank Asch
Scaredy Squirrel Has a Birthday – Mélanie Watt
Mr. Badger and the Big Surprise – Leigh Hobbs
The Secret Birthday Message – Eric Carle
For those of you reading this on your birthday, Happy Birthday. And to the rest, a very Happy Un-Birthday!
BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ is delighted to welcome NY Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster to a book signing and wine tasting at TASTE Food & Wine, 1506 W. Jarvis Avenue, Chicago, from 5-8 p.m. on August 20th to celebrate her newest book, The Best of Enemies, published by NAL on August 4, 2015.
Jen’s books, including Bitter is the New Black, The Tao of Martha and I Regret Nothing, received rave reviews from The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, InStyle and many more.
The Best of Enemies is told from the alternating perspectives of two women who define the term “frenemies”. It is a story of friendship, rivalry, road trips, and the glue that holds it all together—a mutual friend. Books will be available for purchase and signing. On-site book sales will be handled by The Book Cellar.
Reflecting the road trip aspect of The Best of Enemies, the wines to be featured are quality bi-coastal selections: “a voluptuous California chardonnay and a scintillating New York riesling,” announced wine maven Phoebe Snowe, owner of TASTE Food & Wine. Both selections, and others, will be available for sale.
Click on video to see the cute promo video introducing BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™.
I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust, I forgot to ask that they be years of youth. — Ovid
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. – William Shakespeare
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. — Voltaire
The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been. – Madeleine L’Engle
Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you! — Dr. Seuss
What does summer bring to mind for you? What does it look and feel like? How does it smell and taste? What changes from the other seasons does it provoke in you and others? How would you convey those thoughts and feelings to someone who never shared your experience? How would you bring the season to life that would make others experience summer in a new way? Here’s a list of books that successfully use summer as a setting, a catalyst, a symbol or even a character:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Dangerous Summer – Ernest Hemingway
Summer Sisters – Judy Blume
Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann
Find a sunny beach, a shade tree, a crisp mountaintop or a soft meadow; any place that speaks of summer to you. Take along a great summer book and experience the season anew.
For many readers, summer books should be selected like summer wines: light, bright, crisp, and refreshing. And fun, fun, fun! One author delivers this time and again: NY Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster. Her books include Bitter is the New Black, The Tao of Martha and I Regret Nothing, which received rave reviews from The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, InStyle and many more.
BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ is delighted to welcome Jen to a book signing and wine tasting at TASTE Food & Wine, 1506 W. Jarvis Avenue, Chicago, from 5-8 p.m. on August 20th to celebrate her newest book, The Best of Enemies, published by NAL on August 4, 2015.
The Best of Enemies is told from the alternating perspectives of two women who define the term “frenemies”. It is a story of friendship, rivalry, road trips, and the glue that holds it all together—a mutual friend. Books will be available for purchase and signing. On-site book sales will be handled by The Book Cellar.
Reflecting the road trip aspect of The Best of Enemies, the wines to be featured are quality bi-coastal selections: “a voluptuous California chardonnay and a scintillating New York riesling,” announced wine maven Phoebe Snowe, owner of TASTE Food & Wine. Both selections, and others, will be available for sale.
I came thisclose to disaster last year while compiling the photo images to be used in Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power. After selecting images from Romina Power’s collection that best carried her memoir forward, expediency required pulling several of the images from the internet where they had migrated over the years.
All of the photos looked perfectly fine to me on my computer screen. As I got ready to provide them to the print production people, one of my tech people caught me just in time and asked, “Have you checked the resolution of these photos?”
“What do you mean, ‘resolution’?” I asked. “They look fine to me.” Uh-oh! Had I not been pulled back from the brink, the handsome collector’s quality limited first edition of this very special book would have been a disaster!
When you go from screen to print, funny things happen. Here’s what I learned — and what you need to know, if you plan to print photo images from digital images you see on the internet or are provided to you: Resolution, printing capabilities, moiré and even paper quality can enhance or disgrace your book. Be prepared!
Pixels (short for picture elements) are tiny dots that make the digital photo images you see on your computer screen. Most monitors have hundreds of thousands, or often millions, of pixels.
Resolution refers to the number of pixels per inch (PPI) in a digital photo. The PPI is noted as one number and yields the image pixel height and width, e.g. for a 5″ by 7″ photo with a PPI of 300 yields an image of 1,500 pixels by 2,100 pixels. Images found on the internet typically have a PPI of 72, resulting in poor print quality. Generally, the higher the PPI the better the reproduction print quality.
The quality of an image also depends on the printer. DPI (dots per inch) refers to the resolution printers produce on paper. Higher quality printers mean higher production costs but they are worth the investment if your book includes photos. Rather than try to figure the mathematical formula that you need for your photo images, ask to see samples of print work before you choose your book’s publisher. Your eyes will likely tell you what is acceptable.
Another potential problem is moiré, an effect that looks like wavy stripes or a crisscross pattern. It can occur during photography or during printing. It can be avoided during photography by using certain lenses but if it appears when printed, there is a Photoshop technique that can correct it – if it is caught in time.
Paper quality affects not only the life of a book but the quality of its photos. Increasingly, publishers are producing books on groundwood, once used primarily for throwaway publications like newspapers and advertisements. Although the cost of paper constitutes only 3% of a book’s cost, it has become a popular way for publishers to shave expenses and remain competitive. For a more enduring book, one with crisper photos, use archival paper. If the book’s photos are important, consider using glossy paper instead of more porous matte sheets where spreading ink will decrease clarity.
Whether your book is self-published or published traditionally, it is your baby. Bring it up well.
My tech team carefully reviewed each of the approximately 90 photos in Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power. They photoshopped when necessary (it was often necessary) to enhance the crispness of the images and to remove moiré wherever it showed up. We went the extra step of having the photos presented in three sections on glossy paper. The result was that many of the photos that had appeared in the bestselling 1998 Italian edition of the book look even better in the 2014 centennial edition. For more information about Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power, contact Tyrone Power First Edition.
If you missed the wonderful launch of BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ last month, you have another chance to be part of the fun on Thursday, August 20th, when we host NY Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster and feature her hilarious new book, The Best of Enemies. The fun begins at 5 p.m. at TASTE Food & Wine, 1506 West Jarvis, Chicago. Another delicious tasting will pair fascinating wines with elements of the featured book and author. Reservations are not necessary. Cheers!
After months of planning the newest venture from Book●ed, I’m delighted to report that the launch of BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ was a blast! The gathering of people at TASTE Food & Wine on July 23rd mixed, mingled and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The pairing of quality books with quality wines was “a stroke of genius” said one of the guests. Oh yes, indeed!
Author Susanna Calkins captivated us with her description of the fascinating period in history, “the world turned upside down” in 17th century England, where her acclaimed Lucy Campion mystery series takes place. The Masque of a Murderer, the third book in the series, was available for sale, along with copies of the previous two books, which Susanna personalized and autographed for new and returning fans.
Wine maven Phoebe Snowe poured the featured wines that were paired with references in the book to Rhenish wine and claret. Rhenish means from the Rhine Valley in Germany; for that, we were treated to a crisp, German reisling. Claret, explained Phoebe, was the name given by the British to wines from the Bordeaux region of France; the Bordeaux we tasted was luxurious. Both selections were big hits with the guests.
Thanks to Nili Yellin, representing The Book Cellar, for expediting book sales; and to Sara Fenwick of F-Stop Photos for capturing images of the evening.
Many of the guests who attended our launch plan to return for the August 20th BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ event when we host NY Times bestselling author Jennifer Lancaster. With her latest book, The Best of Enemies, we move from the mysterious past to the hilarious present. Wait till you see what featured wines TASTE will pair with that book! We hope to see you there.
To learn more about our events, visit the Book.ed website where you can read my weekly blog or click on the BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ tab for upcoming event details and our entertaining little promo video.
If you are, or wish to be, active in the publishing industry – as a writer, publisher or service provider — mark your calendars now and start making plans for Book Expo America, coming to Chicago in 2016.
Women writers in the greater Chicago area with a penchant for poetry and playwriting should check out Jane’s Stories Annual Retreat. The workshop and lunch, featuring author, poet and dramatist Yolanda Nieves. There will be ample time for writing and networking.
The literary world was rocked this past week as news spread that Harper Lee’s sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird (actually written before the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic) reveals Atticus Finch to be a racist. Go Set a Watchman follows daughter “Scout” (now adult and using her given names “Jean Louise” and living in New York) on a return to Maycomb, Alabama to visit her father.
The shock and disillusionment Jean Louise feels as she realizes the moral compass of her world was corrupted by bigotry, that the pure remembrance she had of her father was the false idealization a child creates around a parent, has been shared by many lifelong admirers of the heroic Atticus they met in Mockingbird (both the 1960 book and 1962 movie).
So beloved was the Atticus Finch we’ve lived with for 55 years that some Harper Lee fans refuse to read Go Set a Watchman. Still others note that the Atticus Finch who emerges in the clear eyes of an adult Jean Louise is truer to the people who would have lived his life in his place and time.
It is interesting that Harper Lee wrote the actual Atticus first and then, in a more polished book, placed him in the memory of a child as a true literary hero. The timing of each book’s publication seems perfectly matched to the social conversations taking place when they came out.
Whatever you feel about the quality of the writing and the uncomfortable revelation about Atticus Finch, the pairing of Go Set a Watchman with To Kill a Mockingbird serves a purpose beyond storytelling. Together, they accomplish what few books do but which more books should aspire to: reflect the truth of what it is to be human, to acknowledge that there is dark and light in each of us. What we see in others says as much about us as about them. For this reason, Harper Lee’s only two novels to be published should be considered in tandem.