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Book review of: A Pocketful of History: Four Hundred Years of America--One State Quarter at a Time

History, Sartre said, is what happens behind our backs (or something to that effect). It's also something that jangles in our pockets, if we carry or save or even spend quarters from the 50 State Quarters Program.

We know this because Jim Noles has taken the time and expended great effort to write the winsome and valuable A Pocketful of History: Four Hundred Years of America—One State Quarter at a Time (Da Capo Press).

Following Canada's lead in the mid 1990s, the US government decided to issue, over a period of ten years, commemorative quarters representing some significant and representative event or symbol or enduring attribute of each of the fifty states, issued in the order in which all fifty states came into the union. There is more than one history at work here, that being a coin's depiction of a state's historical self-definition — but, in addition, much to our benefit, Noles has taken the time to tell us the stories behind the states' decisions and debates on which events or symbols to use, and how best to depict them.

Full review here.

You know, for any other author, it'd be strange to make a movie trailer for a movie mentioned in the book. Then again, you could accuse Chuck Palahniuk of many things and normalcy really isn't one of them.

To promote his new book, Snuff, the author of Choke and Fight Club, Chuck had some folks make a trailer for a movie the character stars in. Now then, it should be noted that the character involved is an aging porn star so this trailer, while clean enough for YouTube, is so insanely not safe for work you'd be far better off watching it at home.

So pour a glass of cheap bubbly and viddy the trailer for The Wizard of Ass starring Cassie Wright, the vixen we know (not really) from such classics as Chitty Chitty Gang Bang and The Twilight Bone.

A publishing institution, faithfully mailed at least twice a year to thousands of stores and libraries for about as long as the industry has existed, may be on its way out: The paper catalog.

HarperCollins announced Monday that it was planning to make their listings of upcoming releases available only online, calling the current system both economically and environmentally indefensible.

"I think we are overdue. We produce thousands and thousands of catalogs, many of which go right into the wastebaskets," HarperCollins President Jane Friedman, who said the switch would likely begin by summer 2009, told The Associated Press. "It's such a waste of paper and so inefficient."

Everyone loves Charlie Brown worldwide. Take a listen to this NPR weekend edition on just why people have fallen in love with lovable hero.

Chicago Tribune selects Quiet, Please as this weeks editor's choice selection:
With this week's summer reading recommendations from librarians, one wonders: Who are these characters? In this cleverly written book—a set of stories, really—drawn from his perspective as a California librarian, Scott Douglas brings us into the stacks. "Libraries were the place where people of diverse backgrounds and cultures could come together for the common pursuit of discovering something new," writes Douglas. "Librarians were the people who helped them find this discovery."

Everyone follows along with the biggest box office draws, top selling games, Billboard Top 100, and best seller lists, but how can you compare them? How Iron Man was trounced by a scruffy car thief tries to quantify the GTA lucrative launch against other mediums. The book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" sold more than 10 million copies at launch. That's actually four million more than Bellic, but the Hogwarts student's final adventure cost about half as much as the game. *NSYNC beats them both, the pop quintet's "No Strings Attached" holds the record for biggest first-week CD sales with 2.4 million copies when it was released in 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's far meeker than the first-week success of "Iron Man," "Deathly Hallows" and "GTA IV."

On April 30th EarlyWord the site that bills itself as "The Publisher | Librarian connection" posted about the book Multi-Family Millions: How Anyone Can Reposition Apartments for Big Profits hitting #1 on Amazon. EarlyWord commented that "Lindahl does seminars on real estate investing. Wonder what his advice is on getting loans to buy those apartment buildings? The book has not been reveiwed pre-pub and is not owned in libraries."

Seemingly the book jumped to #1 with no reviews which raises the question of who was buying all the copies? To hit #1 on Amazon a significant number of copies need to move.

In comments to a negative review on Amazon it was suggested that the author is purchasing his own books to raise the sales rank. As of the time this is being written the sales rank is 959. Falling from 1st to 959th in eleven days seems unusual. You can see a chart of the sales ranking over time here.

Does a book hitting the Amazon top ten factor into purchasing decisions for any libraries out there? Does the fact that the sales rank can be gamed effect this? The WSJ has an article about the Amazon sales rank being gamed.

They're just wild about Harry...the Harry Potter Lexicon that is.

Publisher Roger Rapoport, of RDR Books, is waiting to set the presses a-printing on the book by author and former Grand Rapids school librarian Steven VanderArk. The decision -- possibly to be made today -- is whether RDR Books can publish a 400-page lexicon/reference book about Harry Potter; J. K. Rowling is suing to stop the work from being published.

"It's very rare to stop the press. I honestly don't know what's going to happen," Rapoport says. "My goal is to publish the (lexicon) the best way possible."

But "no matter what else happens," Rapoport has reached beyond the boundaries of his own case to help other writers, publishers, documentary producers, Internet users "and so on" who might be faced with the same kind of litigation. Rapoport says he still has accumulated a "six-figure" legal bill despite receiving aid from Stanford University Law School's Fair Use Project. Report from Michigan Live.

State prison officials have decided to allow a publisher of legal self-help books to distribute its materials in Massachusetts prisons.
The decision comes after mail-order publisher Prison Legal News sued Department of Correction Commissioner Harold Clarke. The Seattle-based publisher claimed Clarke was banning its publications in state prisons by refusing to add it to a list of approved vendors who can send books to prisoners.

A children's story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the public objects to the most.

"And Tango Makes Three," released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most "challenged" book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association. AP reports.