Best Book of the Year So Far: Paul Kozlowski

Paul Kozlowski is truly one of the smartest and most passionate people in publishing. You haven’t been sold a book until you’ve heard Paul preach about a favorite book; it's an experience. Paul is an Associate Publisher at Other Press helping publish their truly impressive books.

 Here is Paul's pick for best book of the year (so far):

The best book I've read this year was first published — posthumously — in 1981. It is G. B. Edwards' The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. The edition I read was published by New York Review Books in 2007. It's hard to believe that it was out-of-print and unavailable for any length of time. It's a longish and frighteningly ordinary novel and it made me cry, the last three chapters did, which I rarely do. Ebenezer Le Page is an old Guernseyman writing his reminiscences, covering the period from the end of the 19th century through the mid-1970s on his beloved island in the English Channel. He loves but never marries, lives through two World Wars, endures multiple friendships and enmities, and bemoans the slow desecration of Guernsey by the inexorable forces of modern life — the car, the phone, the television, and the abandonment of religious faith for something far more irrational: monetary faith. The part that made me cry was toward the very end, when Ebenezer goes around the island to visit people he has long known to see if any of them are worthy of inheriting his legacy. He has no heirs of his own and a considerable sum of money that he has accumulated down through the years. No one is deemed worthy until he meets a young man with whom he'd once had a legal run-in. The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a book that made me feel glad to be alive. Alive and yet mournful — almost inconsolably so — at the passing of so many loved ones and at the passing of a way of life. G. B. Edwards found the universal in the particular and I dare anyone to read his novel without recognizing oneself in his protagonist. 

Good and Cheap (Books)! Day 3

Both of the regular followers of our little blog know that I'm a fan of the Canadians. I also love Russia. I can't get enough of that country in my books. Maybe it's the red military uniform thing--Mounties, Stalin, what's the difference? (Email Gianna with complaints. She likes the attention.) So, when I heard that the new John Boyne novel from Other Press was set during the time of the Soviet Revolution, I lunged for a copy.

John Boyne, you may recall, is best known for writing The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. He also wrote a terrific World War I novel called The Absolutist. This new book is called The House of Special Purpose and, as I said, takes place in Russia around the time of the revolution. The story kicks off with octogenarian Georgy Jachmenev taking his wife Zoya back to St. Petersburg for the first time since they fled the country decades earlier. The trip triggers Georgy's memories of his youth. He was a poor villager thrust into Tsar Nicolas II's royal guard after saving a Grand Duke from an attempted assassination. For his bravery, Georgy is given the job of personal bodyguard to the heir to the throne, Alexei Romanov. In the Winter Palace, Georgy learns the family's secrets, meets and becomes friends with the Romanov sisters (including Anastasia, about whom there was speculation for decades after the Communists came to power), and observes the royal family's interactions with Rasputin.

The Winter Palace

Russia at the turn of the 20th century was a powder keg of class warfare and tradition butting against modernity. Even while Nicolas II was hoping to help his country modernize, he recognized the precarious position he'd inherited and the threats to his family that hovered from all sides. The House of Special Purpose blends history and fiction into an accessible narrative appropriate for both young adult and adult readers. And who doesn't love a story set in the palaces of the richest family in the world, where Easter is celebrated with Faberge eggs? Who doesn't love the stories about Rasputin and the Tsarina? Or Anastasia? Or the people's revolution? Or World War I? John Boyne has written a winter fairy tale.

Generally Horrible Questions: Katie Adams

The giant beer is a dead giveaway that this woman
is an editor....

I met Katie a few years ago, when Other Press became a distribution client for Random House (which means that the RH sales force handles the rep duties and our warehouse ships the books) and Katie attended sales conference.  I find the Other Press list of titles and staff invigorating--new voices, fresh perspectives, and a lot of energy make them a joy to represent.  Katie is one of those people who starts talking about the book she's working on and her enthusiasm is contagious; because of this infectious joy I'm willing to overlook that she roots for the Red Sox and has never made me brownies.  She doesn't know that she's supposed to make me brownies, mind you, but why should I have to state my needs so explicitly?  She reads this blog (She's our fan! Possibly the only one remaining!).  She knows I'm not right in the head.  Anyway, in the last year Katie left Other Press to accept a job with Liveright, a newly re-formed division of Norton, but in spite of her abandonment she was still good enough to answer our horrible questions.  She's our first editor....she might have been drunk when she agreed.

Generally Horrible Questions: Katie Adams

1. How’d you become an editor? Tell us your life story.
The long story is a boring one: lifelong reader, naturally bossy, etc. But the crucial lucky break came when I was a senior at Columbia. I was taking a graduate seminar on Dickens, and one of the grad students asked me about my plans after graduation. I murmured vague thoughts about publishing, and she said, “Oh, I used to be an editorial assistant at FSG, give them my name and get an internship there during your final semester.” At the time I’d never even heard of FSG (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the absolute best houses in the business, as I quickly learned), but after a few days of typing out permissions forms for Robert Lowell poems and photocopying Michael Cunningham’s new novel, I was hooked. [For those keeping track, Katie has mentioned Columbia University, graduate seminars, Dickens, FSG, and Robert Lowell.  We love a woman who embraces her nerdiness so openly.]

What book do you point to with pride and think “I worked on that?”
Well, I’ve been so lucky – I’m proud of all the books I’ve had a hand in, whether as an editorial assistant, desk editor, or acquiring editor. But my first real pinch-me moment was probably when Claire Messud wrote a glowing full-page of Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, my first acquisition, in the New York Times. An intellectual endorsement from Messud (a genius) about a book on Virginia Woolf (possibly the greatest English writer since Shakespeare): “an absorbing and complex portrait of Woolf’s particular relation to domestics and domesticity.” Heaven. [Here's the problem--there's too much we like about this statement to mock it.  Virginia Woolf?  LOVE.  Claire Messud?  LOVE (and she has a new novel coming next spring!).  Katie's really short.  We're also starting a rumor that she has six toes on her left foot.  Spread the word.]

What are the best and worst moments in your editorial career?
The absolute worst (so far) was probably when I was an editorial assistant. I sent a deal memo, which contains all of the nitty gritty – and might I add, confidential – details about an author’s book deal, to the wrong person. I meant to send it to the foreign publisher with whom we’d done the deal, but instead I sent it to a fierce literary agent with the same first name, who must have thought she could do even better by the author, because she later picked him up as a client! That was a lay-face-down-on-the-office-floor moment. But really one of the hardest parts of the job is the books that get away, for whatever reason, and then it’s death by a thousand cuts as they come out to rave reviews. ["The books that get away"--is this code for Fifty Shades of Grey?]

Bests, I’ve had a few. Michael Crummey is one of my favorite authors, and when I found out that he hadn’t read Moby Dick (the horror – his latest book features a whale for God’s sake!) I immediately rushed him a copy. Not only did he love it, he wrote a beautiful essay  about reading it. I felt I’d given a little something back to him after his book had given me so much. But there are smaller moments as well. Just last week an author from my last job emailed to say that his daughter had been accepted to her first choice college. I love these personal tidbits I get as the relationship deepens, and I was so thrilled for this proud papa. [Zorro pooped in his litter box for the first time in four years last week!  Send me brownies!]

Any author gossip that you’re willing to reveal? Don’t worry—no one reads this blog.
Ha! If there’s one thing I know about authors, it’s that they find any and every mention of themselves online. [Exactly!  We need the hits from people other than the ones searching Google for free porn!  Tell tales!  Make stuff up.  We certainly do.  Gianna and E.L. James are the same person.]

As a Red Sox fan, describe in detail how much you hate the Yankees. Feel free to rationalize the designated hitter rule for us too; we’re National League fans.
The Yankees are the guy at the bar who hits on you so loudly and so publicly that you can’t tell if he’s actually serious. His ego is performance art. Depending on your answer, he’ll either perform the swaggering jerk that gets the girl, or he’ll perform the impervious couldn’t-care-less reject, but regardless it will be ALL ABOUT HIM. That’s the Yankees. [We were just going to say that they're assholes.]

As an impartial sports fan of New England descent, Astros or Cubs?
I used to empathize with the Cubs, but now I’m kinda mad at Theo Epstein [former Red Sox GM who is now the Cubs GM], plus the Astros no longer suffer under the curse of Roger Clemens, so…Astros. [And Liz's love for Katie lives on....]

What book(s) made you squeal with delight and led you into the dark world of publishing?

The true first would have to be Mickey Mouse’s Picnic, which my sainted mother read to me thousands upon thousands of times. Then it’s a straight line through Where the Red Fern Grows, Mrs. Mike, The Thorn Birds, Persuasion, To the Lighthouse, Bartleby the Scrivener, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Hours, Olive Kitteridge. Or so I say today. [First, Mickey Mouse is the evil overlord that has oppressed the maligned Donald Duck for decades.  Liz is quite serious about this topic.  Curse you for your duck bigotry.  The other books on your list, though, make us happy.]

What are you working on now that has you excited?
Oh so much good stuff. There’s a work of history called For Adam’s Sake, slated for next spring, which reads like Downton Abbey set in 17th century Connecticut. There’s a beautiful, crushing memoir coming next April called My Foreign Cities, about a young couple who, due to illness, have to live their whole marriage in the ten years they know they’ll have together. And a truly fabulous novel called The Last Summer of the Camperdowns about a young girl, a long summer, and a big secret. [Spoiler: she has cooties?] It’s the perfect summer book: “That dear old house. If there is a heaven, I will spend eternity on the back porch, sipping ice tea and eating radish and mayonnaise sandwiches, listening to the birds chirp, watching the mulberries ripen, hearing the waves roll in, reading Sun Tzu when my father is looking; Trixie Belden when he isn’t.” I have the best job in the world. [And cooties.]

You’re married to an editor. Tell the truth: are you better?
It really depends on what you mean by better. I’m definitely more emotional/obsessive about work (and everything), which can drive my authors crazy or make them feel like centers of the universe. But my brilliant husband is utterly unflappable, a crucial piece of the job for which I’m still searching. Also, when we took a sample Wonderlic test (given to college athletes to determine intelligence before they turn pro) my husband scored higher. And he’s also taller. I appreciate this question because it gets at the goal of marriage, which is to determine a winner and a loser. [Exactly.  We're sure you're aware that the Liz and Gianna battle for supremacy rages on.]

Liz or Gianna?
Liz picked Galore as her favorite book of 2011. For that, Liz would also win against either or both of my parents. [Excellent.  And the answer, of course, is always Liz.]

Gilda?  She's a bitch.  How could one NOT choose Zorro?

Liz’s cat Zorro or Gianna’s dog Gilda?
Gilda! Cats are too judgmental. [...You're dead to me (liz).  Unless you send brownies.]

What are your biggest grammatical pet peeves? And what’s your position on the Oxford comma?
Your/you’re. Its/it’s. Two complete sentences joined by “and” but no punctuation. YES to the Oxford comma. Long may it reign. It’s one thing to cast aside these rules in an email, but in your manuscript…for heaven’s sake! [Most of our emails disregard all punctuation and are typed as abbreviations...like "TWSS" for "That's what she said.  Most of our email correspondence is a violation of multiple codes of conduct.  Or involves poop.]

Will you edit Liz and Gianna: A Joint Memoir? We guarantee nudity and violence.

Liveright published this book.
I think it's about a dump
or something.

Only if the book jacket can look like the movie posters for Face/Off. [Absolutely!  GIANNA IS JUST LIKE JOHN TRAVOLTA...or rather, just like his masseur.  She confessed that if Travolta offered her $400, she'd make him a regular client.  She's classy like that.  Also the Face/Off cover would be ideal since we look so much alike.]

Tell us about Liveright, the new line at Norton.
Liveright is the rebirth of one of the great names in publishing. Boni & Liveright (later just Liveright) had a remarkable heyday in the 1920s and 30s. Led by boozy, chorus-girl chasing, literary savant-whisperer Horace Liveright, they published a remarkable array of stars including T.S. Eliot, Anita Loos, Theodore Dreiser, Dorothy Parker, Hart Crane, early Hemingway, early Faulkner etc etc etc. W.W. Norton bought it decades ago and decided to re-launch it this year in order to bring back some of the Liveright classics (books like My Life by Isadora Duncan and The Theater of E.E. Cummings) and to recognize and further draw upon the talents of my amazing boss – a legend in his own right – Bob Weil. [With the Liz and Gianna memoir on the list, you'll be legendary yourself.  What is the record for fastest career-ender for an editor?  Judith Regan with the OJ Simpson book?  We can top that. Gianna's even a boozy, chorus girl.]

Thanks Katie!

(By the way--the best thing about harassing an editor?  All of her answers were spelled properly.  Gianna would never send in a blog post with such polish.)

Best of 2011 Countdown: #1

We've arrived at our #1 books of 2011!  Pop the bubbly and raise a glass (of Diet Coke, of course, as it sure as hell tastes better than champagne).

Gianna:

The Tiger's Wife
Tea Obreht
Random House

Okay, so you’re not surprised. You had to be a little surprised that a first novel is at the top of my list (or at least surprised that so many first novels were in the list to begin with). 

Tea Obreht

I’ve talked about this book so much that I almost thought it was a 2010 book. I know I’ve said this before but I rarely read a book more than once, and certainly don’t read a book more than once in the span of just a few months. But that is exactly what I did with The Tiger’s Wife. I don’t know if I did it because I wanted to check myself; I had been going on and on about this book to anyone who would listen and maybe wanted to verify it before I looked like a complete idiot. Yeah, turns out I missed so much of this magical, layered, rich, beautiful book the first time around that a second reading just made me talk about it even more. Annoying right? [Incredibly.] In short, this novel is about a young doctor trying to navigate her way after the death of her beloved grandfather who was once a well respected doctor himself. It is filled with amazing stories, fables, and history. This is a novel that you will never forget; it will live on your shelf forever (and I am sorry but this is a book you must have in physical form, some books are just too good for e-readers only…and I will die on that hill).

Tea Obreht is an extraordinary writer, a genius.

This was one of the last books I sold when I was with Random House, and I just can’t help but think how incredibly lucky I was to have that opportunity.


Liz:


Galore
Michael Crummey
Other Press


For those people not in the book industry or unfamiliar with the various alignments of publishing houses, allow me a moment of explanation.  In my capacity as a district sales manager for Random House Inc, I sell both publishing groups owned by Random House--Knopf, Doubleday, Vintage/Anchor, etc--and I also sell books from independent presses that contract with Random House for distribution services.  Other Press is one of those smaller presses, one that specializes in literary fiction and nonfiction.  The press publishes books that challenge readers as well as entertain and educate, and the team working for Other Press regularly manages to find surprising, wonderful books from around the world.  My top pick for 2011 is one of those books.

Michael Crummey

Sometimes as a reader you just have to let go of the reins and go where the story takes you.  In the case of Galore, that place is Paradise Deep, a remote fishing village in Newfoundland so removed from the rest of the country that the only Bible in town is half a book that was found inside a fish that was obviously hungry for the Word.  Galore starts with a beached whale, and as the citizens of Paradise Deep begin to break down the beast, they find a man, naked and bleached, inside of the belly.  While they stand around making fun of the size of the man's genitalia (and you know that's what Gianna and I would be doing), the man moves.  He is alive, he smells like rotten fish, and he has no back story.  The people name him Judah--after a debate about whether Jonah or Judas was the biblical whale bait and a compromise--and he becomes a constant in this story of multiple generations and diverse characters.  I compare Galore to other favorite books--the storytelling magic of The Hakawati, the folklorish charm of Maritime Canada in The Shipping News.  The wonderful cast of characters reminds me of the town people in the Dutch movie Antonia's Line, one of my favorite movies ever.  


While Galore was published in the United States in 2011, it was an earlier release in Canada. There it won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book, the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award, and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.  It's full of mythology and sea yarns and terrific characters.  It's a book that I would love to see illustrated because Michael Crummey creates so many amazing images that have lingered in my mind all year. Oh, and you know I love my Canadian fiction.  Galore is my favorite book of the year.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #26

...Awkward.

You know what's fun about associating with Gianna?  The various ways such a connection pops up in my life.  Random House recently launched a cool book recommendation site called Everyday eBook, and our RH pals asked if they could use some of our blog's reviews on their site.  Who are we to say no?  However, it was a real delight for me to discover that the site also pulled Gianna's biographical statement off of our blog, and it reads:

i am the sales manager for the university of texas press. previously i worked as a sales manager with random house for about 8 years or so until liz sullivan made my life so miserable i had to change jobs. we are now married, have 9 children and vote republican. we are not happy.

It's my fervent hope that everyone I know now knows of my miserable love with Gianna, so you should follow Everyday eBook (even if you don't read eBooks; they have great picks that are available as print books too).  Anyway, moving on to our picks....

Best of 2011 Countdown: #26

Gianna:

Close Your Eyes
Amanda Eyre Ward
Random House

This dark novel was inspired by an actual double murder that happened in the author’s neighborhood when she was a teenager. Ward grew up in a small, quiet town (Rye, NY where I have attended a couple of Random House sales conferences…I could have been killed!), and the fact that such a brutal (and for many years, unsolved) crime could happen would be enough to shake you. As it would turn out, the crime was committed by a drunk teenager that Ward and her group of friends actually knew. The specifics of that crime are bizarre enough that you will want to read about it, trust me, so here is a link to Amanda Eyre Ward’s website where she explains the murder (and there is a picture of Amanda at the tender age of 17…worth the trip to the website).

http://www.amandaward.com/Close_Your_Eyes_For_Readers.php

Amanda Eyre Ward
(the adult version)

Close Your Eyes doesn’t use that plot exactly; it takes that idea and makes it more intimate. Young Lauren and Alex are sleeping in their tree house when their mother is brutally murdered. Their father is convicted of the crime and their lives are forever changed. The books moves ahead twenty years and while the sister and brother remain close (who else would understand this kind of life?), Lauren is convinced that her father is guilty while her brother is sure he is not.  While it would of course be easier for Lauren to try in some way to move forward with her life--her attempts at normalcy--she begins to dig into the past, and things get…interesting.

Amanda has hit a home run with this novel. It's dark, it's creepy, the characters are rich, and the story is perfect. A good comparison is Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places or Sharp Objects…and if you didn’t like those two books, well, what the heck is wrong with you?

Liz:

Your Voice in My Head
Emma Forrest
Other Press

I admit that I am fascinated by memoirs that are heavily psychological.  Just like I'm drawn to damaged characters in fiction, I am most intrigued by memoirs that are more internal, and at the risk of being flippant, the crazier the better.  It's the same reason that I love the HBO series In Treatment, too.  What can I say?  I've got my issues.  So there was no question that I'd be reading Your Voice in My Head when I heard the editor discusses it at our sales conference.  It didn't disappoint.

Emma Forrest

Emma Forrest has composed an intimate--sometimes uncomfortably so--memoir about the two major relationships in her life at a time when she was most vulnerable.  She was 22, living a furious existence in New York that spiraled out of control and toward depression and suicide.  Salvation came in the form of a psychiatrist, a man who became her touchstone as she began to dig herself out of the psychological hole into which she'd slipped.  In the meantime, Forrest meets and falls in love with another man, her "Gypsy Husband," an A-List Hollywood actor (Google Emma Forrest and you'll find out who it is).  Their romance is intense and idyllic...and then troubled.  One day Forrest attempts to make an appointment with her psychiatrist, only to discover that he's died.  The Jiminy Cricket on her shoulder, this man who'd seen into her darkest thoughts without flinching, the voice in her head, was gone, and she realized she'd never known anything about him.

Your Voice in My Head belongs in the same category as Girl, Interrupted and The Glass Castle, though I think that Emma Forrest is a more talented writer.  It's unsettling, loving, moving, and brilliantly written.  I love this book.

 

30 More Days Book Challenge: Day 17

Tag Siebzehn: Favorite Books from Non-English Speakers

Gianna:

A different person would pick Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Leo Tolstoy, or even that Stieg Larsson fellow. However I wanted to choose a book that doesn’t get much attention, but that I count as one of my favorite reads.

Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director born in Saigon in the early 1900’s. After her father’s death, Marguerite and her family lived in near poverty in Indochina. Both her mother and one of her brothers abused Duras, in fact her story is quite dark (she battled terrible alcoholism most of her life). At an early age, perhaps 15 years old, she became sexually involved with an older Chinese man. Her story is recounted in her award-winning book The Lover (L'Amant) written in 1984. While her life is obviously compelling, it is her writing that sustains the book. Her writing is sparse, dreamlike, almost detached (incredibly effective when recounting her sexual encounters with her older lover), and most of all it is beautiful.

Duras continues her story in three other books: The Sea Wall, Eden Cinema, and The North China Lover. The Lover remains my favorite; in fact, The North China Lover actually contradicts bits of The Lover. I predict if you read Duras you will want to dip into at least one or two of her other books.

If you are inclined an excellent film adaptations was made of The Lover in the 1990’s.

Liz:



Other Press



I am a big fan of the Russian masters.  I love Dostoevsky, I love Turgenev, I love Gogol.  Most of the reading I've done by non-English speakers before about five years ago came with from my Russian buddies.  Since I joined Random House a few years ago, however, I have had the pleasure of also selling an independent publisher that Random House distributes, Other Press.  I quickly learned to trust the press's selections, particularly when it comes to foreign language fiction.  If Other Press selects a book for publication, you can rest assured that it has something to offer.  Theirs are books for smart readers who appreciate psychological complexity as well as beautiful writing and a good story.  They have published several of my favorite books of the last few years, including The Glass Room and Galore.

A couple of years ago, Other Press published a Spanish novel (Spanish the language and Spanish as in "from Spain") by Manuel de Lope called The Wrong Blood.  Set right before the Spanish Civil War in the Basque Country, two women--one a newlywed and the other a barmaid brutally raped--both find themselves alone and pregnant when war erupts.  Years later, the grandson of the newlywed returns to the village to spend the summer studying for law school exams.  His presence there, though, digs up the buried past and the ghosts that haunt the earlier generation.  I love the writing in this book, and I love the way the story unfolds.  I also love that this is a book a window into a region and historical period I don't read about every day.