After 62 Years:

Harlequin's First Personal Finance Book

by Zac Bissonnette

By the end of 2010, Harlequin Enterprises will have sold a grand total of more than 6 billion books in the company's 60-year history. But on Dec. 28, Harlequin will try to sell its first personal finance book.

The Frugalista Files, written by former Miami Herald personal finance blogger Natalie McNeal, is a diary of the year that one 34-year old spent trying to pay off her credit card debt -- "without giving up the fabulous life."

McNeal's book is written in a diary format, with all the personal details and emoticons entailed in that approach: "I admit it. My name is Natalie. I am a spending slut." It's certainly not a book that targets my college-age demographic, but many readers will find her story inspiring. If Natalie can do it, so can you.

"My book is for anyone who is a promiscuous spender and is looking for real-life tips on how to be financially chaste," McNeal tells DailyFinance. "It's highly personal personal finance."

Katherine Orr, Harlequin's vice president of public relations, sees the move into financial advice as a logical step for the world's largest publisher of romance novels.

"For 60 years, we've provided escape from problems, and now we can help solve the problems," she says. She calls McNeal's book "very prescriptive. It's clear and simple, and it's helping young singles navigate in a tough world."

Daily Finance

Kafka's Other Trial

An allegory of the fallen man's predicament, or an expression of guilt at a tormented love affair? John Banville explores the story behind Kafka's great novel of judgment and retribution

The artist, says Kafka, is the one who has nothing to say. By which he means that art, true art, carries no message, has no opinion, does not attempt to coerce or persuade, but simply – simply! – bears witness. Ironically, we find this dictum particularly hard to accept in the case of his own work, which comes to us with all the numinous weight and opacity of a secret testament, the codes of which we seem required to decrypt. The Trial, we feel, cannot be merely the simple story of a man, Josef K, who gets caught up in a judicial process – the book's German title is Der Prozeß – that will lead with nightmarish inevitability to his execution. Surely it is at least an allegory of fallen man's predicament, of his state of enduring and irredeemable guilt in a world from which all hope has been expunged. Yet the book has its direct sources in the mundane though extreme circumstances of Kafka's own life, and specifically in what Elias Canetti calls Kafka's "other trial".

It is surprising at first to learn that Flaubert was Kafka's favourite writer, yet Kafka, as a moment's reflection will show, was every bit as strong a realist as the author of Madame Bovary or (the master's work that Kafka most admired) L'Éducation sentimentale. Poor Max Brod, the friend whom Kafka on his deathbed enjoined to burn his unpublished manuscripts, has been scoffed at for his determination to present Kafka as a religious writer, but the misapprehension is understandable. The Trial, The Castle and especially the stories, feel like religious parables – the chapter in The Trial called "In the Cathedral" might be a passage from one of the more obscure books of the Bible, or a gnomic exercise out of the Talmud.

Guardian

The Changing Role

Of Libraries

by Steve Haber, Sony Corp.

"We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. ~ American Library Association

Since the founding of our country, libraries have always been important to freedom. Today we are in the midst of a tremendous shift in the way Americans consume literature and other content, but one thing has not changed -- the library must continue to play a central role in providing open and free access to information and ideas.

Exactly what that role looks like is the subject of much debate and many differing perspectives. Some believe libraries will shift into learning and information centers while others insist they will maintain their role as a physical location for cataloging and loaning books -- in addition to housing sources of information technology.

While providing books was a standalone function for libraries throughout the last few centuries, their offerings have evolved with the digital age to meet the changing needs of their patrons. In fact, according to an article in the November 2009 issue of American Libraries, more than 71 percent of public libraries provide their community's only free public access to computers and the Internet. Not surprisingly then -- due to the economic hardship -- more people are using libraries. A study sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and published by the Institute of Museum and Library Services last year found that 69 percent of Americans 14 years of age or older visited a public library in 2009.

Regardless of its exact nature, technology will play an increasing role in shaping our future libraries. For centuries, the book publishing industry has worked closely with and supported libraries, and they have done so without influencing the freedom of the institution. It is now time for the technology industry to step up and play a similar role.

Huffington Post

Bush Sells

Two Million

NEW YORK – Make that two million books sold for former President George W. Bush.  The Crown Publishing Group said on Dec. 22 that Bush's "Decision Points" passed the two million mark less than two months after its official release.

Published in early November, Bush's memoir about his key presidential decisions and other choices has topped the best-seller list on Amazon.com for weeks.  More than 2.6 million hardcover copies are in print after an initial run of 1.5 million.

The two million books sold include nearly 200,000 e-editions.

D.C. Ranks Top for

Most Literate Cities

by Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

Washingtonians are the nation's most well-read citizens, but they're reading less these days. And so, it appears, are city dwellers everywhere.

That's according to the latest findings of an annual study of the United States' most literate cities, which ranks the "culture and resources for reading" in the nation's 75 largest metro areas. The study examines not whether people can read, but whether they actually do.

CHART: Most literate cities in 2010

"What difference does it make how good your reading test score is if you never read anything?" asks researcher Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn. "One of the elements of the climate, the culture, the value of a city is whether or not there are people there that practice those kinds of behaviors."

The study, based on 2010, looks at measures for six items — newspapers, bookstores, magazines, education, libraries and the Internet — to determine what resources are available in each city and the extent to which its inhabitants take advantage of them.

USA Today

Larsson's Partner To Complete

Novel

Eva Gabrielsson, late author's partner, says the pair 'often wrote together' and she will finish the hugely successful crime series

Stieg Larsson's partner Eva Gabrielsson plans to finish the fourth novel he left uncompleted on his death. According to early details culled from Gabrielsson's memoir of her life with Larsson, Millennium, Stieg and Me, which is set for publication in France and Scandinavia next week, Larsson had written 200 pages of a fourth novel in his internationally successful Millennium series before he died. Gabrielsson wants to complete it because, she says, "Stieg and I often wrote together".

Larsson's partner has refused to reveal details of the partially completed novel's plot, but promised that its charismatic but damaged protagonist Lisbeth Salander "little by little frees herself from her ghosts and her enemies". And, she said, she will only finish the book when she gets undisputed rights to Larsson's work from his family, who inherited the author's assets when he died intestate.

Guardian

Bits & Bytes

Thousands More Listings for AmSAW PROFESSIONAL MEMBERS Today

FICTION

Debut

One of Granta's Best American Novelists and Pushcart Prize, an NEA fellowship in fiction, and a Whiting Writer's Award recipient Jess Row's THE IMMIGRANT, delving into the possibility of racial reassignment surgery and depicts a natural but scary progression of our current world, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, by Denise Shannon of Denise Shannon Literary Agency.

Mystery/Crime

Bonnie Calhoun's COOKING THE BOOKS, in which a computer forensics investigator, turned reluctant book store owner, discovers that rare books can be a deadly game, to Barbara Scott at Abingdon Press, in a nice deal, by Terry Burns at Hartline Literary Agency.

General/Other

A Rose for the Crown author Anne Easter Smith's untitled fifth novel, about Jane Shore's rise and fall as the beloved mistress of England's King Edward IV, to Trish Todd at Touchstone, in a very nice deal, by Jennifer Weltz at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency (US).

Nobel Prize-winning author Heinrich Boll's THE ESSENTIAL HEINRICH BOLL, including THE CLOWN; BILLIARDS AT HALF-PAST NINE; THE SAFETY NET; THE TRAIN WAS ON TIME; IRISH JOURNAL; GROUP PORTRAIT WITH LADY; WHAT'S TO BECOME OF THE BOY; COLLECTED STORIES OF HEINRICH BOLL, with new forewords from Salman Rushdie, William Vollmann, Hugo Hamilton, Anne Applebaum, Jessa Crispin and others, to Dennis Johnson for Melville House, in a nice deal, for publication in throughout 2011, by Jennifer Lyons of the Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency on behalf of Iris Brandt of Kiepenheuer and Witsch (NA).

Children's: Young Adult

Ellen Oh's PROPHECY: The Dragon King Chronicles, in which an elite warrior and bodyguard to her cousin, the young prince, is feared and mistrusted by all except a select few in the Kingdom who know of her power as a demon hunter, and how she may be the vanguard in the coming war against invading forces, to Phoebe Yeh at Harper Children's, in a good deal, in a three-book deal, for publication in Summer 2012, by Joe Monti at Barry Goldblatt Literary (NA).

NONFICTION

Advice/Relationships

A physician with experience from the emergency department of a major teaching hospital Dan Morhaim, M.D's THE BETTER END: How to Survive and Die on Your Own Terms in Today's Modern Medical World, demonstrating via compelling examples how advance directives allow people to control their end-of-life decisions rather than have those decisions taken away and made by someone else -- sometimes complete strangers, to Jacqueline Wehmueller at Johns Hopkins University Press, by Bob Silverstein at Quicksilver Books (World).

quickbooks@optonline.net

Health

Occupational therapist Craig Williamson's SITTING, STANDING, WALKING, showing how becoming more conscious of the everyday acts of sitting, standing, and walking can prevent and/or relieve musculoskeletal pain, to Beth Frankl at Trumpeter Books, in a nice deal, for publication in Spring 2013 (World).

bfrankl@shambhala.com

History/Politics/Current Affairs

Veteran Chilean journalist Manuel Pino Toro's ALIVE UNDERGROUND: Miracles, Negligence and Hope: The True Story of the Chilean Miners, a comprehensive account of the Chilean mining disaster and rescue, with a foreword by "Today Show" co-host Natalie Morales, to Airie Stuart at Palgrave, with Luba Ostashevsky editing, for publication in April 2010, by Diane Stockwell at Globo Libros Literary Management (World English).

Spanish rights previously to Penguin.

dstockwell@nyc.rr.com

How-To

Deputy Editor of ReadyMade Amy Palanjian's MODERN STITCHES, a how-to crochet book offering 24 gorgeous projects from crafters around the world, to Laura Lee Mattingly at Chronicle Children's, by Stefanie Von Borstel at Full Circle Literary.

lauralee_mattingly@chroniclebooks.com

stefanie@fullcircleliterary.com

Memoir

Jackie Kennedy's Secret Service agent Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin's MRS. KENNEDY AND ME, describing his intense and respectful relationship with the First Lady leading up to, during, and following the assassination, to Mitch Ivers at Gallery, in a good deal, for publication in April 2012, by Ken Atchity at Story Merchant (World).

Somali doctor and lawyer Hawa Abdi's untitled memoir, recounting her and her two doctor daughters' experiences overseeing a vast refugee camp sheltering 90,000 displaced people in civil war-torn Somalia on her 1,000 acre plot of land, on which she has built a hospital and a school, to Karen Murgolo at Grand Central, at auction, by David Kuhn at Kuhn Projects (World English).

UK: nicole.bond@hbgusa.com

Translation: billy@kuhnprojects.com

Parenting

Flavorwire.com contributing editor Margaret Eby's ROCK AND ROLL BABY NAMES, a pop culture-inspired baby name reference that defines names according to the musicians who wrote about them, including relevant lyrics and music-themed sidebars, to Cara Bedick at Gotham, at auction, by Brandi Bowles at Foundry Literary + Media (NA).