Richard, Judy and Oprah

For an author (with an exception or two), having a book picked by Oprah's book club is like winning the lottery. Being chosen by Queen Oprah almost guarantees an author royalty checks that will make them wealthy plus enough name recognition that their next couple of books will sell in numbers that would have seemed impossible pre-Oprah.

The same thing happens in the U.K. with the Richard & Judy book club. Richard and Judy have taken it one step further and now have a book club devoted exclusively to "summer reading," Richard & Judy's Summer Read. Ciar Byrne, in The Independent's book section details the impact, both good and bad, that these TV book clubs are having.

Since James Bradley's Gothic thriller The Resurrectionist was first published a year ago it has, to be kind, enjoyed modest sales. The tale of Edinburgh body-snatchers in the murderous era of Burke and Hare has sold fewer than 300 copies.

But that is apparently about to change. The title has been selected to feature on every author's holy grail: Richard & Judy's Summer Read. And unless he is very unlucky, Mr Bradley can expect can now expect to be selling 250,000 copies – much more than if he had won the Booker Prize.

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Following in the footsteps of the success of Oprah Winfrey's book club in the US, Richard & Judy now wield unrivalled clout in the publishing world, with its annual Book Club and Summer Read delivering a sales boost of more than 300 per cent. Featuring on the list does not come cheap, however. Publishers have to be prepared to discount their books heavily – typically by around 65 per cent – to get them into the front of book stores, and are also required to contribute towards steep marketing costs.

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Hazel Cushion, managing director of the Welsh independent publisher Accent Press, said: "They all come from large publishing houses, which shows how very hard it is to be selected.

"From an independent publisher's point of view, it's really ruined the fiction market. So many people only buy two or three books a year and now they're from the Richard & Judy selection and they're not prepared to look outside that."

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"The average Richard & Judy book has sold a quarter of a million copies, which is higher than the average Booker Prize-winner. A spot on Richard & Judy is better than winning the Booker."

I was particularly struck by the fact that The Resurrectionist, a book that has sold only 300 copies in a year, will now become such a huge publishing success. Think about that for a minute. It's still the exact same book although I suspect that now it will be repackaged to include one of those tacky Oprah-type stickers on its cover. And, although it's the same novel it was before winning the Richard & Judy lottery, it will now make millions and the author will become rich and famous. It's a crazy world.

Belong to Me

Three or four times a year, despite the odds against it happening, I end up really enjoying a book that in theory just should not have worked for me at all. Belong to Me was one of those books, the first one in that category this year, in fact. Two words sum up the reluctance I had about reading the book: Chick Lit. The book synopsis screamed “Chick Lit” to me loudly and clearly but the novel seemed to have such a good word-of-mouth buzz going that I took a second look at it. And, yes, it probably is Chick Lit, but at the same time it is the kind of novel that will appeal to readers of both sexes.

This is a book about relationships and what holds them together. It is about parents and children, husbands and wives, old friends and new friends, and the ever changing combinations that evolve from those relationships. It asks whether or not a person can ever really “belong” to another and whether it is selfish to expect that of anyone. It is a character-driven novel filled with enough interesting and quirky people to keep the reader turning pages until its gradually developing plotline reaches the point of making it impossible to put the book down. It is, in other words, a very good book.

Cornelia and Teo, her physician husband, have moved from New York City to a quiet Philadelphia suburb that reminds them of the neighborhood in which they spent their childhoods. The young couple might be a little wary of the lifestyle change they are making, but they want, and expect, to fit neatly into their new neighborhood. Cornelia, though, learns almost immediately that it won’t come easy for them when she meets Piper (rhymes with viper), the Queen of the Neighborhood, who doesn’t bother with much tact when explicitly pointing out to Cornelia what is expected of any neighbor of hers.

Lake Tremain and her son, Dev, enter the picture just in time to throw Cornelia a lifeline when she needs it most. The two have moved from California so that Dev can attend a prestigious high school while his mother tries to make ends meet by working as a waitress. Lake and Cornelia quickly become friends, giving Cornelia the ally she needs when it comes to dealing with Piper the Viper.

Dev is one of those characters I will remember for a long time. He’s a fifteen-year old genius with a great sense of humor and an even greater sense of ethics and morality. I really liked this kid and was happy to see him emerge as one of the book’s main characters. But this book is simply filled with likable characters, among them Dev’s new girlfriend, Claire, an almost perfect, but not trouble free, match for him. Even Piper, a character whose first impression was far from positive, evolved into someone I could respect and like by the end of the story.

Belong to Me is a sequel to Love Walked In but I am proof that it is not necessary to read that one first. I believed that I was reading a standalone novel the whole time and had no idea that many of its characters had been introduced in an earlier book until after I finished it. This one was fun, a nice change-of-pace for someone like me who came to it so reluctantly.

Rated at: 5.0

Penguin CEO David Shanks on State of the Industry

Fritz Lanham of the Houston Chronicle caught up with Penguin CEO David Shanks at L.A.'s Book Expo where they had an interesting conversation (some highlights are shown below).

Q: And you still see a demand for books? Do you worry about the trend lines there?

A: I don't worry about it as long as the baby boomers are still here. They are, without any question, the biggest population of readers.

When somebody has a really good book, it can still sell 6, 8, 10 million copies. If you look at Harry Potter — that was 12 million copies of each book. Now they're few and far between. But the great news publishing should take out of this is you can still find 12 million people who will buy a book.

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Q: You said earlier you're not concerned about readership as long as baby boomers are still reading. That suggests you are concerned about reading habits of younger readers.

A: I am concerned about it. We're going to have to find a way to bring them in. If you think about it, they're reading — they're reading text messages, they're reading blogs, they're reading stuff on the social networks. So they are reading. They're just not turning pages as we know them. So there has to be a way to market to that. There are already books coming out — we're doing some — from the bigger bloggers who have a built-in base. I think that's where it's going to come from.

Keep turning those pages, Boomers...but you need to get those grandkids as enthusiastic about books as you are. We won't be here forever, guys.

When the Day of Evil Comes

When the Day of Evil Comes is book one of the Dylan Foster series and, with Dylan Foster, it introduces a literary character whose company I think I would enjoy in the real world. Dylan, a Southern Methodist University psychology professor, is one of those down-to-earth types not easily impressed by status symbols and those who flaunt them, someone who never quite loses her sense of humor about herself and those around her no matter what crazy turns her life might take, including the discovery that a demon from the spirit world is determined to destroy her.

That particular demon, who calls himself Peter Terry, is a bald, emaciated and very white-skinned man with an ugly horizontal wound across his back who makes contact with Dylan at a faculty outing that she is attending with fellow SMU professors. Spooky as the man is from the start, Dylan does not realize his intentions (or his true nature) toward her until she makes the connection between him and the student who suddenly files a formal complaint that Dylan made sexual advances toward him during his visits to her office for psychological counseling.

Dylan is removed from the classroom pending a formal investigation of the charges against her and, just when she thinks that things could not possibly get any worse, they do. She knows, of course, that she cannot defend herself by explaining to the investigative committee that her problems are being caused by harassment from a local demon. But when a second student’s sanity is threatened by the same Peter Terry, Dylan realizes that she has to move quickly and heads for Chicago hoping to learn more about the young man whose complaint started all of her problems.

When the Day of Evil Comes is a mystery and thriller combination that will satisfy fans of both genres. In order to defend herself in Dallas, Dylan Foster has to delve into the secrets of a Chicago family that has kept them hidden for decades, and she has to do it while enduring psychological tricks and physical threats from Peter Terry. Dylan defends herself from this demon through prayer, help from one little girl’s personal angel, and by covering herself with the spiritual armor described in Ephesians, chapter six.

This struggle between the forces of good and evil fits firmly into the Christian fiction genre but Melanie Wells makes her religious points in a way that are not so obvious or preachy that they intrude on the story being told. Dylan Foster is the kind of Christian that most of us probably are: a little bit lazy about the whole thing at times but quick to ask for help when we find ourselves over our heads in some kind of panic situation. The message is that there are bigger and better weapons on the side of good than on the side of evil – if we remember to ask for them.

I have not read the second novel in the series yet but my first exposure to Dylan Foster and Peter Terry was with book three, My Soul to Keep. After reading that one, I was a little surprised to learn that I had just finished something in the Christian fiction genre, a type of reading I rarely do, because its religious references are so much more subtle than in this first book. But now that I have read When the Day of Evil Comes it is easy to see why these books have been embraced by the Christian community, and I suggest that they be read in order if at all possible in order to get their full impact.

Rated at: 4.0

Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found

Either there are more memoirs being published today or my eye has become better attuned to picking them from the stacks and stacks of new books I am exposed to every month. But, while there may be more memoir choices than ever before, finding an honestly written one is still the challenge. And why anyone would want to waste time on memoirs that are less than honest is beyond me.

Marie Brenner’s Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found is definitely one of the honest ones. In fact, in its frank discussion of family relationships it reminds me of Mary Gordon’s Circling My Mother: A Memoir, perhaps the bluntest, most honest, memoir I have ever read. Neither of these books could have been easy for their authors to write.

The title of Brenner’s book is an apt description of the relationship she had with her only sibling, Carl, for so many years. Marie and her older brother simply could not have been more different from one another. Carl, a loner who seems to have been a conservative almost from birth, joined the John Birch Society at age thirteen in their hometown of San Antonio, Texas. Marie, on the other hand, was outgoing and her politics were the polar opposite of Carl’s. As Marie describes it, their childhood relationship was a tension-filled one that continued into adulthood even though they were eventually divided by a geographic distance as wide as the one between their political and social views.

Carl gave up the legal profession at age 40 and became a Washington apple grower. Marie became an investigative journalist and “writer at large” for Vanity Fair in New York City. Carl saw her lifestyle and her political views as stand-ins for everything he hated most in the world and he was never reluctant to remind her of that. The two were never really close, and it seemed impossible that they ever would be.

Then came news from Carl that, at age 55, he was suffering a type of glandular cancer with a survival rate of only 11% and that he needed her help. Marie, sensing that she might be running out of time to reconcile her differences with her brother, quickly joined Carl at his Washington orchard where she diligently employed her investigative skills in a quest to find a cure for his illness. At the same time, she tried to connect with Carl in a way, and to a degree, that would lead to the kind of brother-sister relationship she so badly wanted for them.

Apples and Oranges is about family relationships, especially those between siblings, and it explores the strengths and weaknesses that a family can pass from generation to generation. Brenner speaks of the frustrations, hurt feelings and anger that define her lifelong relationship with her brother but, just as importantly, she exhibits the type of love, compassion and understanding that would survive the worst that her brother could throw her way. It is a remarkable book for its honesty and the insights it offers into the nature of sibling relationships and why some work so well while others are doomed to fail.

Rated at: 4.0

The Economy Bookstore

Perfect for those who only buy the classics to impress their friends...