Without
a Map, Meredith Hall, cloth, April 2007, $24.95, 978-0-8070-7273-8
Back to Press for second printing
New York Times Book Review Mothers Day Ad to run May 6th (2/5
page)
Media:
WNYC, Lenny Lopate Show, live Monday, April 30th at 12:40-1:00pm
Without a Map is a May Book Sense Pick: Open adoptions and
connections between birth mothers and their children were not the way of life
for a young girl who got pregnant in the '60s. Meredith Hall, in her beautifully
written, poignant memoir, tells us what life was like for a naive girl who
found herself pregnant and abandoned by her mother and father. This is a tale
of loss, of endless traveling in search of an intangible something, and, ultimately,
of forgiveness. Gayle Shanks, Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe,
AZ
People, review slated for April 23rd issue, on sale April 13th
Entertainment Weekly, review slated for April 20th issue, on sale
April 13th
Portland Press Herald, Q&A with author, Sunday, April 15th
Concord Monitor, Nashua Telegraph, and Portsmouth Herald (NH papers),
book will be covered in Rebecca Rules column, Sunday, April 15th
Maine Things Considered/Maine Public Radio, taped interview on Wednesday,
April 11th, air during week of April 16th
Acts of Faith,
Eboo Patel, cloth, July 2007, $22.95, 978-0-8070-7726-9
PBSs Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, a story about Eboo Patel
and his organization, the Interfaith Youth Core to run this weekend, check
local listings
Acts of Faith, a beautifully written story of discovery and
hope, chronicles Dr. Eboo Patels struggle to forge his identity as a
Muslim, an Indian, and an American. In the process, he developed a deep reverence
for what all faiths have in common, and founded an interfaith movement to
help young people to embrace their common humanity through their faith. This
young social entrepreneur offers us a powerful way to deal with one of the
most important issues of our time. President Bill Clinton
The Earth
Knows My Name, Patricia Klindienst, paperback, April 2007, $18.00,
978-0-8070-8571-4
Soaring with
Fidel, David Gessner, cloth, April 2007, $24.95, 978-0-8070-8578-3
Wilmington (NC) Morning Star News, review in the April 8th issue:
Gessner seldom sets out deliberately to be funny, as Bill Bryson does,
but his deadpan, self-deprecating humor ("I had vast experience in not
seeing birds") makes him an ideal traveling companion and guide. Soaring
With Fidel lets you hover for a while in the thermals of fine language,
seeing the same old world from a fresh and invigorating altitude.
Plain Secrets,
Joe Mackall, June 2007, cloth, $24.95, 978-0-8070-1064-8
Publishers Weekly, review in the April 9th issue: By focusing
on the loves and losses of one large Amish clan, Mackall breathes life into
a complex group often idealized or caricatured . . . it is a deeply respectful
account that never veers toward sensationalism.
The Bone
Gatherers, Nicola Denzey, cloth, July 2007, $27.95, 978-0-8070-1308-3
Nicola Denzeys impeccable scholarship and intimate and vivid
style of writing makes tangible and credible the power of the holy that was
mediated by women--women saints and women patrons. The Bone Gatherers allows
the reader to transcend both historical and scholarly distance to encounter
the forgotten women who also shaped Christianity. Karen Jo Torjesen,
author of When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church
and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity
"Part poetry, part scientific inquiry, this wonderful memoir is, above
all, the story of being complexly human in a world filled with fragility and
strength, shadow and light. Clare Dunsford navigates the X that has mapped
her own and her son's paths with humor, honesty, and clear-sighted intelligenceand
in prose that sings." Elizabeth Graver, author of The Honey
Thief and Awake
Clare Dunsford does much more than inform us concerning a disorder
we know too little about. Through a prose both lucid and beautiful, she is
able to communicate the strangeness, even the poetry, of fragile X.
Clara Claiborne Park, author of The Siege: A Familys Journey
into the World of an Autistic Child and Exiting Nirvana: A Daughters
Life with Autism
Now Showing:
Flashback,
Penny Coleman, paperback, May 2007, $16.00, 978-0-8070-5040-8
The book has been adapted as a play and will be showing at The West End
Theatre in NY, 263 West 86th St between West End Ave. and Broadway. Showings
are Monday, April 23rd at 7:30pm, Wednesday, April 25th at 7:30pm, and Friday,
April 27th at 3pm and 7pm. www.sixfigures.com
Caravan Project:
http://www.caravanbooks.org/.
The Caravan Project offers buyers of serious non-fiction the option to purchase
books via print and digital formats. Publicity about the project in Bookselling
This Week (4/5/07) has highlighted bookseller participation, including The
book Stall at Chestnut Court, Books & Books, Just Books, Northshire, Politics
& Prose, R.J. Julia, Tattered Cover Book Store, and Vromans Bookstore.
Booklist, starred review in the April 1st issue: Unlike many
commentators, Finan treats the villains fairly, presenting them not as wild-eyed
fanatics but as people who thought they were doing what was right. The book
is a welcome and much-needed change from the simplistic good-versus-evil treatment
this subject often gets. Could be the definitive study of a perpetually complex,
contentious issue.
Publishers Weekly, review in the March 5th issue:
Author Appearances:
Hotel ABA/BEA (NY), Friday, June 1st from 9-12pm
McNally Robinson Bookstore (NY), Wednesday, May 2nd at 7pm
Olssons Books (DC), Thursday, May 3rd at 7pm
Old South Meeting (Boston), Wednesday, May 9th at 6:30pm
Northshire Bookstore (VT), Thursday, May 10th at 7pm
Powells (Portland), Monday, May 14th at 7:30pm
Pandoras Books (Berkeley), Wednesday, May 16th
Skylight Bookstore (Los Angeles), Thursday, May 17th at 7:30pm
Tattered Cover (Denver), Tuesday, May 22nd at 7:30pm
Kings English Bookshop (Salt Lake City), Wednesday, May 23rd at 7:00pm
Books & Books (Miami), Thursday, June 14th at 8pm
Advertising:
Ads in The Nation and Columbia Journalism Review
Blurbs:
"At a time when Americas freedoms and liberties are under attack
in Washington, Finans book is a powerful reminder of why we must carry
on the fight to preserve the central underpinning of the American democratic
systemthe right to free and uncensored discourse." Senator
Bernie Sanders
American history is marred by recurrent episodes of hateRed
scares, super-patriotism, fear of sexual expression. Christopher Finan brilliantly
paints that record, and shows how courageous Americans have fought for freedom.
Anthony Lewis, author of Gideon's Trumpet and Make No Law
The Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment, but we have had
to fight for free speech. Radicals, reactionaries, feminists, religious zealots,
African Americans, Klansmen, college students, even schoolchildren, have played
a role in expanding free speech. They are all present in Chris Finan's colorful
narrative, which shows how much progress we have made-and how far we have
to go. Nadine Strossen, President of the American Civil Liberties
Union and Professor of Law, New York Law School
In this masterful work, Chris Finan deftly chronicles the challenges
to free speech in the twentieth century, weaving them through the changing
cultural milieu of the era: wartime; worldwide political upheavals; the labor
and civil rights movements; censorship within the publishing and movie industries;
and the changing composition of public opinion and the courts. An accessible,
thought provoking history that not only informs, but also engages the reader
in participating in the democratic process. Joyce Meskis, Owner,
Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver
Concisely detailed and researched, From the Palmer Raids to the
Patriot Act reads like high powered fiction. Characters as diverse as
Roger Baldwin, Bernie Sanders, Allen Ginsberg, Fatty Arbuckle, Jane Russell,
Anthony Comstock, John Ashcroft and Dwight Eisenhower share the stage to tell
the tale of a nation at odds with its Puritan heritage. A timely addition
to bookshelves as the United States wrestles with issues of privacy and personal
freedoms in an age of terrorism tied to an unpopular war. Kenton
Oliver, Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair, the American Library Association
and Executive Director, Stark County District Library
Christopher Finan has given us a marvelously readable account of the
struggle for free speech in the United States. Beginning with the birth of
the American civil liberties movement during World War I, Finan traces the
often grueling battles over free speech in wartime, book censorhip, McCarthyism,
and freedom of the press that have marked the gradual evolution of American
freedom. It is a story every American should know, for it is our nation's
greatest achievement. Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous
Times: Free Speech in Wartime from The Sedition Act of 1798 to The War on
Terrorism