John Lithgow talks to Harry Smith about his new children’s book, I Got Two Dogs. This is Lithgow’s eighth children’s book. Robert Neubecker is the book’s illustrator. Lithgow says this book skews younger than his previous children’s book. He sings part of the song from the book in the clip below. Lithgow is still busy in acting and theatre as well - he is currently working with Katie Holmes on Broadway.

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Here’s a video that show how paper engineer Sam Ita created part of his pop-up book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at his studio in Brooklyn, New York. The pop-up book looks amazing. (via Boing Boing)

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Warner Books © 2006, 436 pages

In his twelfth novel David Baldacci weaves a complex plot involving assassinations, scarce books, con artists, and high-stakes gambling. The story is told on three fronts. Roger Seagraves is an assassin, trained by the CIA, who’s no longer working with the best interests of the government in mind. Annabelle Conroy is a formidable con artist for whom sleight of hand and deception are second nature. And “Oliver Stone” is a former CIA guy turned leader of a group of eccentrics, the “Camel Club,” who act as an informal government watchdog group. The three threads of Baldacci’s story eventually come together. Annabelle, fresh off of an ungenerally lucrative “long con,” finds herself drawn into the Camel Club’s current case.

Baldacci’s story is a bit uneven, but mostly very entertaining. The hyper-competence of both Seagraves and Annabelle is fun to watch. The story is complex but told well, so that it’s not hard to follow once you’ve digested the large number of characters that are thrown into the mix at the beginning of the book. The Collectors is a sequel to Baldacci’s 2005 novel The Camel Club. I did not read the earlier book. (Indeed, I was not aware when I started it that The Collectors was a sequel, because the fact isn’t mentioned on the jacket copy of my edition.) I did feel, reading The Collectors, that the backgcircular and raison d’être of the Camel Club were insufficiently explained, though following the book’s storyline was not difficult for that reason. The other problem I had with the book is also related to the fact that The Collectors is part of series: while two of the three storylines in the book are concluded at the book’s end, it’s clear that there’s more to come for Annabelle and the victim of her long con. This isn’t a problem if you’re reading the books in a series, but if you read The Collectors as a stand-alone novel you may find yourself disappointed at the lack of closure.

Original post by Debra Hamel

Doubleday Publishing has laid off
10% of its workforce.

The group, which is owned by Bertelsmann, the German media group, laid off people from its editorial, publicity, advertising, marketing and administrative staffs.
“It’s not a awesome year,” said David Drake, a Doubleday spokesman. “We’ve had a lot of best sellers, but does that translate into the numbers that we need and that everyone is looking for? Obviously not.”



Mr. Drake said the decision was not related to the delay in the delivery of the next novel by Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code, the blockbuster best seller published in 2003.
Back in 2004, Doubleday said the target release date for the next book was 2005, but Mr. Brown has yet to deliver a manuscript. Sales from even a single title - if it is as significant as The Da Vinci Code - can make a substantial difference to a publisher’s sales.



Nevertheless, “the changes we’ve made are quite separate from anything to do with Dan Brown,” Mr. Drake said.

And speaking of Dan Brown, we’ve heard rumors that The Solomon Key is nearing completion. Angels and Demons will come out as a feature film in May, 2009 — we’re thinking that would be a logical release date.



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog