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Beacon Press: Weekly Report

Beacon Weekly Report

April 10, 2007

Publicity, Reviews, and Praise:

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 Mother’s 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 Rule’s 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

  • PBS’s 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 Patel’s 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.”

  • NH Union Leader, review in the April 7th issue: “This probing investigation of the migratory flight of the osprey embraced several unexpectedly, exciting adventures . . . I found Gessner’s book a most interesting read.” (http://www.newhampshire.com/article.aspx?headline=New+book+offers+fascinating+journey+to+track+ospreys&articleid=648)

  • Nature Conservancy Magazine, review to run in the Fall 2007 issue

  • Martha Stewart Radio (Sirius 112) book will be mentioned on “Naturalist’s Datebook” week of April 16th

  • WGBH-FM (Cape Cod) interview on “The Point” to air Thursday April 12th

  • WBUR-FM “Here & Now” (NPR nationally syndicated) taping interview May 23rd

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 Denzey’s 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

Spelling Love with an X, Clare Dunsford, October 2007, $24.95, 978-0-8070-7279-0

  • "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 intelligence—and 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 Family’s Journey into the World of an Autistic Child and Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter’s 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 Vroman’s Bookstore.

Just Released:

From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act, Chris Finan, cloth, May 2007, $25.95, 978-0-8070-4428-5

Print:

  • 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

  • Olsson’s 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

  • Powell’s (Portland), Monday, May 14th at 7:30pm

  • Pandora’s Books (Berkeley), Wednesday, May 16th

  • Skylight Bookstore (Los Angeles), Thursday, May 17th at 7:30pm

  • Tattered Cover (Denver), Tuesday, May 22nd at 7:30pm

  • King’s 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 America’s freedoms and liberties are under attack in Washington, Finan’s book is a powerful reminder of why we must carry on the fight to preserve the central underpinning of the American democratic system—the right to free and uncensored discourse." —Senator Bernie Sanders

  • “American history is marred by recurrent episodes of hate—Red 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

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