Tuesday, June 19, 2007

A Busy Day of Buying

I had two buying appointments today, at pretty wide ends of the spectrum--Simon and Schuster Children's in the morning, university presses in the afternoon.

My big highlight of the morning was The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E. L. Konigsburg. We have in the store a bookcase filled with our staff "Essential Reads"--pretty much our desert island books-- and as Ms. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is one of my essential reads I am super-eager for this new novel (which, like From the Mixed-Up Files.., also involves art and a mystery).

As for the afternoon, Iowa is reprinting a book James Thurber published in 1939 called The Last Flower, which is both beautiful and heart-breaking as it imagines a world destroyed by war. And Reaktion Books (distributed by University of Chicago) is adding to its wonderful series of books on animals with titles dedicated to swans and ducks (I doubt I'm the only one to appreciate that they are coming out at the same time. I wonder which one will discuss The Ugly Duckling?)

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