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Our crystal ball predicts your next great read Reader name: Shawntaye Hometown: Lexington, KY Favorite genre: literary fiction and creative nonfiction Favorite books: Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen); Unbroken (Laura Hillenbrand); The History of Love (Nicole Krauss); Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert)
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Like so many BookPage readers, Shawntaye is passionate about the written word. “I love when a book is so beautifully written I have to stop often and re-read a passage over and over and over again,” she wrote. “I also enjoy reading books with various themes and lots of symbolism: a book I can analyze in my mind or with others for days after finishing it. And I enjoy work that is reflective. If a book manages to be all three, I’m in heaven.” That’s a tall order, but I believe there are many books that will appeal to this thoughtful reader. In particular, I recommend Heft by Liz Moore, which is now available in paperback. (It would be perfect for book clubs!) Moore weaves the first-person narrative of a morbidly obese man in Brooklyn with the story of a poor baseball prodigy in Yonkers. The novel is both sad and lovely, and I found myself underlining many lyrical passages (when I wasn’t wiping away tears). Like the best fiction, it unfolds in surprising and satisfying ways. As far as creative nonfiction, a fan of Eat, Pray, Love should enjoy two recent memoirs that detail transformative experiences abroad. Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli is about the author’s experience in Bhutan (a country that measures its success in “Gross National Happiness” instead of GDP). After traveling to the capital city of Thimphu, a place remarkably untouched by outside media, Napoli advises a youth radio station and meets many charming
Book FortuneS
THE author enabler
by eliza borné
by Sam Barry
people—of course, changing her own life along the way. In Sideways on a Scooter, author Miranda Kennedy quits her job in New York City and moves to Delhi. Though her own candid coming-of-age story is fascinating, readers will be especially interested in Kennedy’s depiction of the challenges women face in contemporary Indian society. Reader name: Larry Hometown: Acton, MA Favorite genres: historical fiction, history Favorite books: Caleb’s Crossing (Geraldine Brooks); Sarah’s Key (Tatiana de Rosnay); Those Who Save Us (Jenna Blum); Truman (David McCullough); Mayflower (Nathaniel Philbrick) Ah, historical fiction. There are so many wonderful choices! Chief among any list of recommendations should be the four historical novels written by Hilary Mantel—with a particular emphasis on Wolf Hall, a portrait of Thomas Cromwell. Both this novel and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, won the Booker Prize. Read these books and be fully immersed in Henry VIII’s court. Another good bet is The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, a novel set in France and Hungary during the 1930s and ’40s. Though a 600-pluspage story of the Holocaust may sound like difficult reading, Orringer’s old-fashioned epic is beautifully written and a powerful tale. We also loved The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean, a story of trauma, love and hope set during the 1941 siege of Leningrad. In the story, a museum docent takes refuge in the Hermitage and creates a “memory palace” in her mind. Finally, readers interested in American history should not miss two recent books about our third president. Master of the Mountain by Henry Wiencek confronts Jefferson’s relationship with slavery and Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power is an elegant biography by Jon Meacham. BookPage reviewer Roger Bishop wrote that it is “surely one of the best single volumes about him written in our time.” For a chance at your own book fortune, email bookfortunes@bookpage.com with your name, hometown and your favorite genre(s), author(s) and book(s).
Practical advice on writing & publishing for aspiring authors
JUDGING A BOOK Dear Author Enabler, It seems that many times the layout, typeface and artwork of new books are very similar to one another. As a retired graphic designer, it surprises me that a professional assumes that a successful cover for one book would work just as well for another. I’ve also noticed that many self-published eBooks have the same type of covers copied over and over. Why does this professional “laziness” (IMHO) occur? Do new authors have any input on the cover art of their book? How do new/young cover designers break into the business? MiLee Belasto Winter Springs, Florida There are trends and fads in the design of book covers. Publishers imitate the covers of successful books, hoping that some of the magic will rub off. And there is another, more practical reason for repetition: With only a few moments to capture consumers’ eyes, the cover needs to communicate instantly “this is a thriller” or “this is a cookbook.” This need for a clear message often results in imitation. Given these constraints, I am struck by the number of beautiful covers I see. There are a lot of creative people engaged in designing books today. In general the author isn’t in a position to insist on a particular cover design, or for that matter, title. Art directors make the best decisions on creating attractive, effective covers. I suggest that new artists offer their services on a freelance basis to self-published authors; this can lead to revenue in the present and the chance of future work with established publishers. And of course there is the traditional route: reaching out to art directors at publishing houses and asking them to take a look at your portfolio.
TRIAL & ERROR Dear Author Enabler, Having worked for over 30 years in a job that involved a lot of proofreading, I am increasingly frustrated by the number of errors I find in the many books I read. The impression is that no one bothers with proofreading; they just run the text through a
spell-checker and think that takes care of the problem. I am a very fast and accurate proofreader— do you know of any way I could offer my services to authors who seem uninterested in doing it for themselves? Penny Mason Columbus, Ohio There certainly is a need for proof readers. Books, especially self-published books, are increasingly riddled with errors and inconsistencies. As a writer, I don’t know what I would do without capable people like Lynn Green, my editor at BookPage, or the editors of my books, Michelle Witte and Brendan O’Neill. To find clients in need of your proofreading skills, I would suggest advertising in journals that writers read—such as BookPage, Writers Digest, Poets & Writers—and getting the word out to publishing people via bookstores, libraries, social networks, creative writing departments and writers’ conferences. Correction: Several professional proofreaders were disappointed by an answer in my November column, in which I advised that it was acceptable to have “someone close to you proofread your work.” Ceil Goldman of Ormond Beach, Florida, writes, “Your thoughts on ‘proofreading’ make it seem more like an editing function. The term in the last few decades has been conflated with editing and copyediting, but a proofreader does not give critiques, honest or not; their job is to compare the current draft with the previous production draft and mark errors.” Cliché alert: In response to our reference to the hair-tucking explosion in fiction, many vigilant readers reported similar complaints. “I’ve noticed that most of the striking characters in novels have an ‘aquiline nose,’ ” writes Mary Warren of Worth, Illinois. Jean Lamoureux of Villa Park, Illinois, observes, “Too many books have a character with green eyes. Seriously, how many green-eyed people does anyone know?” [At least one—your Author Enabler has green eyes.] Send your questions about writing and publishing to authorenablers@gmail.com.