Costco Connection - January 2007

book
look
Business

JAY SULLIVAN

in Wiki

Also:
■ Girl comics
■ Canadian prize
■ Travel guides
■ Teen book awards

Wharton School Publishing has plans to publish the first business book written Wiki style—We Are Smarter Than Me. After the publisher sent an e-mail to 10,000 students, faculty and alumni at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, nearly 900 people signed on to help author the management book.

percent of the content from the exiting guides will be online by February 1. For more information about the travel guides, visit www. pulseguides.com.

Source: Publishers Weekly

With the goal of publishing in fall 2007,
the book will be written with Wiki technology
that gives visitors to the Web site the ability to
add, delete or edit the content. For more
information, or to become involved with the
project, visit www.WeAreSmarter.org.
Source: Publishers Weekly

A poet and
commander
DC Comics targeting girls

DC Comics has long been aware that teenage girls have typically avoided traditional comics. In an effort to break that tradition, the publisher is launching Minx, a line of graphic novels meant to appeal to female Gen-Yers. Titles from the imprint will be available in May, with The Plain Janes—about a group of teenage girls, all named Jane, who form a nonconformist “art-girl gang.” Other upcoming titles include Re-Gifters, about a Korean-American girl, and Clubbing, about a spoiled teen sleuth who solves mysteries in the British countryside.

In mid-December, Bloomberg reported that the French government gave Lawrence Ferlinghetti, beat poet and founder of City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres. The reasons why, as cited by Bloomberg, were his poetry and his publication of other Beat poets, such as Allen Ginsberg.

Peter Behrens The Law of Dreams

Teen Book Video Awards
Filmmakers and animators from across
the United States participated in a competi-
tion to create book “trailers” based on three of
2006’s hottest young-adult titles. The winners
of the 2006 Teen Book Video Awards include
Jon Haller, for his video for Markus Zusak’s
The Book Thief (see August Book Buyer’s
Pick); Katie Kosenmaki, for Libba Bray’s A
Great and Terrible Beauty; and Susan
Muirhead, for How I Live Now, by Meg
Rosoff.

Nonfiction

—Ross King for The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism

—Pierre Ouellet for A force de voir: his-toire de regards

Poetry

—John Pass for Stumbling in the Bloom —Hélene Dorion for Ravir: les lieux

Drama

In a statement to the press, DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz said, “The launch of Minx represents an opportunity for us to reach a very active reader who has only recently begun sampling graphic novels: the teenage girl. Until now, there has not been an American graphic novel imprint specifically for teenage girls. We want to reach out to this audience with creativity and offer them a line they can look to for titles designed for them.” Source: Publishers Weekly

The three winners were chosen based on screenplays and scripts they submitted for the books—which were selected ahead of time. The competition was sponsored by Random House Children’s Books and The Book Standard—a one-stop online Web site for book and book sales news. The videos can be seen on www.teenbookvideoawards.com until January 10.

—Daniel MacIvor for I Still Love You
—Evelyne de la Cheneliere
for Desordre public

Children’s Literature—Text

—William Gilkerson for Pirate’s Passage —Dany Laferriere for Je suis fou de Vava

Children’s Literature—Illustration —Leo Yerxa for Ancient Thunder —Roger Girard for

Le gros monster qui aimait trop lire Translation

The Great Write North

Night + Day offers 24/7 access Night + Day, a series of travel guides from Pulse Guides that focuses on hip cities around the world, unveiled a new Web site in December that provides updated information about the cities they profile, which can be downloaded on portable devices for free. Eight titles, including Amsterdam, Athens, London and New York City, are currently available from the publisher, with a total of 20 to be available by early 2008. Wayne Saroyan, Web director of Pulse Guides, believes that 70

—Hugh Hazelton for Vetiver
—Sophie Voillot for Un jardin de papier
More information about the awards and
the winners is available at www.canadacoun
cil.ca. C

Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award winners were announced late last year. The awards, which began in 1937, are Canada’s preeminent national literary awards and are given for one English and one French book in each category. Each winner receives C$15,000 and a specially crafted copy of the _winning _book.Coming in February The winners for 2006 include: ^Look ^for ^a ^signed-copy_Fictiongiveaway of Jim Cramer's —Peter Behrens for The Law of Dreams ^Mad ^Money: ^Watch ^TV,—Andrée Laberge for La riviere du loup ^Get ^Rich^.