Hawthorne fall 2011 intern Olivia Croom's iPad.

Part of the problem, in terms of format glitches within e-books, is that designing them requires some knowledge of HTML and CSS, which few people have the inclination or patience to learn. The normal business model for converting e-books goes something like this: the publisher hires a company to convert their books to e-books; the company runs the files through a program that spits out an EPUB file (or whatever e-book format has been requested), and if the “book” loads on an e-reader, they consider their job done. There’s no proofing, no checking for formatting errors by a human.

If a publisher finds mistakes, or gets enough complaints from customers about mistakes, the converting company charges the publisher $50 to go back through and fix any garbled text or anything totally unreadable. This does not include formatting like, say, starting chapters on a new page or differentiating chapter titles from the body text. That will cost publishers an additional $100 in most cases. In a business where the profit margin is already small, this puts small and medium sized publishers at a disadvantage.

Conversion companies like Digital Bindery are trying to fill in this hole in the market by charging more upfront to convert book to e-books, but the products are beautiful, designed and proofed (by a human) for readability. Chapters start on fresh pages, titles are formatted to stand out from the body text, and there are even drop caps available.

The e-book has already changed the publishing industry, and as design starts to catch up with the hardware, the word “e-book” could come to mean something that’s completely detached from what most people think of as a book. Cookbooks, textbooks, and children’s books are already on their way to being more like applications with interactive elements and tools that go beyond e-books and don’t even resemble printed books. The publishers than make attractive digital design can command a better price and survive to see the full impact e-books will have on the publishing world.

Further reading:

Comics Lead Top Grossing iPad Book Apps List

eBook Newsletter

How Should Publishers Respond to eBook Errors?

Joshua Tallent, eBook Architect founder, on e-readers versus tablets

Kindle Has Best Black Friday for Kindle Sales

Kindle Fire Revealed as Loss-Leader

Seven Gadgets That Won’t be Around in 2020

When eBooks Attack, Mass Paperbacks Die

Real life doesn’t end when the credits roll or the last page turns. There is always the slow, quiet drive home from the movie theater as we try to realign our own expectations with the temporary thrill of a good story. We did not just save the world from aliens or overcome all odds to find our soul mate. Instead we are left lingering in the stillness of our own choices, the anticlimactic wake of reality.

It is in this space that author Scott Nadelson introduces us to the characters in his new collection of short stories, Aftermath. A man trying to rediscover who he is after calling off his engagement with a fiancé who cheated on him, a teenage boy coming to terms with the abandonment of his father, a married couple struggling through a trial separation—each trying to understand exactly where they are suppose to go from here.

But Nadelson finds the beauty in that struggle, that stillness. He infuses a seemingly mundane reality with such heartbreaking authenticity that the truths uncovered by his characters are both touching and discomfiting in their applicability to our own lives.

In the collection’s title story, Richard Weintraub and his wife Alana have separated after almost seven years, and the reader follows Richard between alternating desires for freedom and the comfortable life he has become accustomed to.

When he finally called to arrange a meeting, the day after he visited Dawn in Philadelphia, Alana sighed and said, “Okay. I guess so,” as if he were asking her to help with some tedious chore, taking plastic bottles to the recycling center or scrubbing mold from his shower wall. Our Versailles, he called the meeting as they were making arrangements, and instantly regretted it. It was a stupid comparison, making him the defeated German, ready to accept all blame, all responsibility. Why did he feel like the wrongdoer, the one who deserved punishment?

The lives of the characters in Nadelson’s book are not wrapped up in neat little packages. The answers do not come easy, if at all, because things just don’t happen that way. We are left to wonder, along with the characters, whether or not they have made the right decisions, not knowing what will happen next but hoping for the best.

Aftermath: Stories
by Scott Nadelson
www.scottnadelson.com
www.hawthornebooks.com

Great interview with Lidia Yuknavitch over at Chuck Palahniuk's site The Cult.

Mid-April I posted a slew of reviews (that has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) for Lidia Yuknavitch’s hot-off-the-presses The Chronology of Water. It was impressive then with the likes of Bookslut, HTMLgiant, Bookslut, Shelf Awareness, The Oregonian, PNBA Northwest Book Lovers, Pank Magazine, Eugene Magazine, Portland Mercury, Brain Candy Reviews all loving the memoir.

In the past month since that post there have been a lot more fantastic reviews for the book. Here are some highlights…

Molly Labell, Bust Magazine, June/July 2011:
“She takes us on a journey through addiction, sexual exploration, and perhaps most intriguing of all, through creation: of literature, of memories, and of life. Her sharp prose—witty, jarring, worthy of dog-earing—alternates between gleeful postmodern exercise and wrenching elegy. So honest and unapologetic is her writing that you can practically hear her sigh in catharsis as you turn the pages.”

Alison Barker, Chicago Reader, May 2011:
“Lidia Yuknavitch is a self-proclaimed language bandit. Other writers purposely disturb their readers’ comprehension, because, well, they want to change language as we know it. Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water plays with language, but it also brings an extra dimension to the wordsmith memoir: it’s a sputteringly good read.”

Amy McDaniel, Paste Magazine, May 2011:
“Speaking of water…as its title suggests, Lidia Yuknavitch’s fierce new memoir, The Chronology of Water (blurbed by Shields, among several eminent authors) takes place entirely off-shore, metaphorically speaking. Nothing about her life has followed the map. Yuknavitch gives new, rich meaning to the by-now-familiar idea of a fluid sexuality.”

Jen Graves, The Stranger, April 2011:
“I love how physical the book is, both in its writing and in its point of view. Her body threatened to rise up from every single page I read. It’s war in there. I’m going back in.”

Richard Thomas, The Nervous Breakdown, April 2011:
“Lidia Yuknavitch is an inspiring woman. Her story brought me to tears several times. The abuse she survived, ingested, and spit out in order to transform herself into the swan that she is today…was indeed a life-changing upbringing. Her story is haunting, touching, and heart breaking.”

Publishers Weekly, May 2011:
“This isn’t a memoir ‘about’ addiction, abuse, or love: it’s a triumphantly unrelenting look at a life buoyed by the power of the written word.”

Vanessa Nix Anthony, Portland Woman Magazine, May 2011:
“The most compelling thing about this story is not its raw palpability, but rather the pure hope and unabashed joy infused in its last chapters. Chronology is about the resiliency of the human heart and its ability to piece itself back together, over and over.”

Portland Monthly, May 2011:
“Lidia Yuknavitch’s unsparing memoir The Chronology of Water includes tragedy, abuse, oceanic booze consumption, and rated-X sexiness. And Ken Kesey, of course.”

Renee E. D’Aoust, The Collagist, May 2011:
“It’s rather a relief that this is not an addiction memoir or a book about too much sex, although there’s lots of great randy sex on these pages. The Chronology of Water is simply an unapologetic story about life.”

KLCC interview with Laura McCandlish

The New Yorker Book Bench

As review copies go out, reviews come in!

This Friday is the big day — The Chronology of Water launch date. We have so many fantastic reviews for this one already out there and plenty more lined up for the near future. There are also loads of great books events coming up for The Chronology of Water as well including the Portland launch party. Here’s the scoop…

SOME RECENT COVERAGE FOR THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER
OPB’s Think Out Loud
Addl. coverage Think Out Loud
Eugene Magazine
HTMLgiant
Science+Religion Today
The Rumpus

BOOK LAUNCH PARTY
The Chronology of Water launch party
9-11pm, Friday, April 8th
Mississippi Pizza Pub
More details here

UPCOMING EVENTS

Thursday, 31 March 2011 :: 4.00 pm
Lake Forest College | Meyer Auditorium, 555 North Sheridan Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045. T: (847) 234-3100 :: For the Lake Forest Reading Series Lidia Yuknavitch and Andy Mingo together. Lidia talks about her work and reads from her memoir, The Chronology of Water. Andy Mingo will show his film Georgie’s Big Break based on a Monica Drake short story as well as the book trailer he created for The Chronology of Water.

Saturday, 02 April 2011 :: 7.00 pm
Outer Space Studio | 1474 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL :: Red Rover Series {readings that play with reading} Featuring:Cris Mazza, Davis Schneiderman, and Lidia Yuknavtich Suggested donation $4

Monday, 04 April 2011 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Barbara’s Bookstore | 1218 S Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60607. (312) 413-2665. :: For the Uncalled For Reading Series Lidia Yuknavitch reads from her memoir, The Chronology of Water.

Wednesday, 06 April 2011 :: 7.30 – 8.30 pm
Powell’s Books | 1005 W. Burnside, Portland, OR 1005 97209. (503) 228 4651. :: Lidia Yuknavitch reads from her memoir, The Chronology of Water.

Friday, 08 April 2011 :: 9.00 – 11.00 pm
Mississippi Pizza Parlor | 3552 North Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR.T: (503) 288-3231. :: Join us for the book launch of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, The Chronology of Water. Pizza, beer, entertainment!

Saturday, 16 April 2011 :: 7.00 pm
Avenue 50 Studio | 131 N. Avenue 50, Highland Park, CA 90042. T: (323) 258 1435 :: As part of the Strophe Reading Series Lidia Yuknavitch reads from her memoir, The Chronology of Water

Thursday, 05 May 2011 :: 7.00 pm
Elliott Bay Bookstore | 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122. T: (206) 624-6600 :: Lidia Yuknavitch reads from her memoir, The Chronology of Water.

Monday, 09 May 2011 :: 7.00 pm
The Rumpus :: Lidia Yuknavitch and Cheryl Strayed to read from their work for The Rumpus Monthly Reading Series.

Thursday, 09 June 2011 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Richard Hugo House | 1634 11th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122-2419 T: (206) 322-7030 :: Lidia Yuknavitch, Rebecca Brown and Stacey Levine read together. Not to be missed!

Lidia Yuknavitch with Ken Kesey and the other University of Oregon students that collaboratively wrote the novel Caverns.

Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water still has five weeks till launch date but that’s not stopping the current coverage. Check out the latest press release here if you haven’t already. There’s some serious buzz building around the book and here’s just a snippet of media over the past year…

Publisher’s Weekly
The Oregonian
HTML GIANT
Reading Local Portland
NorthWest Book Lovers
Chuck Palahniuk’s forum
Indie Literature Now
The Rumpus
More on The Rumpus
AuthorScoop
YA Highway
Molly Gaudry blog
Register Guard

All sorts of media attention building...

It’s been an exciting month for Hawthorne Books as we move closer to the April 1st, 2010 pub. date for Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead. In the past two weeks there have been all sorts of developments and we’d like to keep you in the loop.

Reviews Already In

The Rumpus:

“Frank Meeink is the most famous ex-skinhead in America, his life the basis for the character
of Derek Vinyard, the neo-Nazi portrayed by Edward Norton in American History X… Amazingly brutal and difficult to digest, Autobiography follows Frank from childhood through his involvement with the white supremacist movement.” — Caleb Powell

Booklist:

“Here’s a memoir guaranteed to generate a high amount of interest. Stories of personal redemption don’t get much more interesting than this one… Unflinchingly straightforward: some of the language is quite raw, and imagery quite graphic. But there’s no point in telling this story if you’re going to whitewash it first.” — David Pitt

Kirkus Reviews:

“Indelicate and harsh, but never preachy or whiny, this is an intimate, uncompromising memoir. Though it hits some predictable notes-mostly because of Edward Norton’s familiar character in American History X-it speaks forcefully from experience. Fearless, enduring story of human fragility and strength.” — Molly Brown

The Portland Mercury:

“And while a behind-the-scenes look at the neo-Nazi movement provides the book’s most fascinating moments, Autobiography is equally a tale of alcoholism, drug addiction, and recovery… Autobiography reads like an alcoholic’s fourth step—’a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves’—because that’s essentially what it is…remarkable evidence that people really can change.” — Alison Hallett

Upcoming Media

Fresh Air interview
People Magazine review
Utne Reader review
Huffington Post story
Publishers Weekly review
ABC Channel 6 Action News interview
Kirkus Reviews interview
Iowa Public Radio interview

Book Tour

March 30, 2010 Ames
April 7, 2010 Chicago
April 12, 2010 Phoenix
April 15, 2010 Tempe
April 21, 2010 Detroit
April 29, 2010 Albuquerque
May 4, 2010 Boston
May 12, 2010 Omaha
May 18, 2010 Orange County
May 20, 2010 Los Angeles
May 26, 2010 Las Vegas
June 1, 2010 Seattle
June 5, 2010 Portland
June 11, 2010 Denver
June 14, 2010 New York
June 21, 2010 Washington, DC

Social Media

Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead Facebook
Hawthorne Books Facebook
Hawthorne Books Twitter

Check out David Shields' newest title.

Review by Scott Nadelson

For several years now, since he first published an essay in The Believer that would form the seed of his new book, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, I have been arguing in my head (and once or twice in person) with David Shields.

In that original essay, and far more expansively in the book—released this month—Shields makes an argument for a new literature that strives toward a “deliberate unartiness,” that embraces authenticity, that avoids contrivance at all costs. He champions collage over linear narrative, meditation over invention, lyric essay over the well-plotted novel. He challenges long-held notions about the primacy of fiction in the literary universe, calling instead for work that is self-reflective, confessional, messy. He encourages writers to borrow and recontextualize passages from others’ work the way hip-hop artists sample beats and riffs. He does so in a series of essays built on collage, aphorism, and appropriated quotation, few of which he attributes, except in a series of notes at the book’s end—these the publisher added against the author’s will, and he encourages readers to cut them out and throw them away.

In the private, imagined arguments we’ve been having, Shields is intelligent and articulate, saying things like, “Story seems to say that everything happens for a reason, and I want to say, No, it doesn’t,” and I answer with something less intelligent or articulate, something along the lines of, “But I like stories.” And it’s true. I do. I’m a sucker for the way a story can cast a spell, can draw me into the world of people I don’t know, can make me feel things other than the dull ache of boredom and anxiety I feel when I’m going through the motions of daily tasks, can allow me to experience things (or at least imagine the experience of things) I’ll never experience in the limited boundaries and duration of my “real” life.

And while I love much of the work Shields discusses in Reality Hunger—Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, for example, or Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, or Gregoire Bouillier’s The Mystery Guest, or Leonard Michaels’ Journal, or John Cheever’s journals—I also still long for stories with intricate plots and invented characters and beautiful language; I want to read “Goodbye, My Brother” at least as often as I dip into Cheever’s Journals. While reading Reality Hunger, I find myself nodding along with all the brilliant things Shields has to say, and yet…

And yet, this, I believe, is the point of Shields’ book.

What’s wonderful about Reality Hunger is that it asks you to argue with it, it demands dialogue and wrangling in a way that few books do. In the classic tradition of art manifestos, it is forceful, fiery, sometimes belligerent, but its main goal is to challenge readers to think deeply about preconceived notions, to defend their own artistic choices, their own aesthetic tastes. From now on, whenever I choose to read or write a linear narrative, I have to ask myself, what is the artifice hiding? What does it obscure? Is the work as honest as it can be, or does its construct keep me at a safe distance from the messiness of life and the ugly complexity of human nature?

Shields’ book is a guide for those of us hungry to connect with each other in a world that does all it can to keep us apart.

I finished it yesterday, and a few minutes after I put it down, I picked it back up and started reading it again. I have a feeling that my argument with Shields will continue for a long time to come.

Hawthorne Books author Scott Nadelson is author of The Cantor’s Daughter, winner of the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Fiction Prize for Emerging Jewish Writers and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, winner of the Oregon Book Award for short fiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and the forthcoming Aftermath: Stories.
Visit Scott Nadelson’s website @ www.scottnadelson.com