Publishers Weekly articles from August 1990

Publishers Weekly archives from August 1990

Mint leaves Penguin; division heads named. (Morton Mint)
August 31, 1990... Mint Leaves Penguin; Division Heads Named Ten months after leaving Penguin Canada, where he was president and publisher, to become chief executive officer of Penguin USA, Morton Mint has resigned the post. Peter Mayer, Penguin USA executive...

Simon & Schuster reorganizes U.K. trade operation.
August 31, 1990... Simon & Schuster Reorganizes U.K. Trade Operation Simon & Schuster is taking a number of steps to help its three-year-old U.K. offspring, still relatively small by competitive standards, to grow and eventually become self-supporting. Simon...

Charlotte Zolotow to retire.
August 31, 1990... Charlotte Zolotow to Retire Longtime children's book editor Charlotte Zolotow has announced that she will retire January 1. She is currently v-p and director of Charlotte Zolotow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, and editorial consultant to...

The bargain basement: remainder and promotional houses, flourishing despite the economy, are gearing for a gala Christmas season. (survey of the remainder book business)(includes related listing of book being offered)
August 31, 1990... The Bargain Basement PW's annual survey of the remainder business began with a bang this year at W. H. Smith, where Donn Westervelt, v-p for sales and marketing, sounded a jubilant note about the state of the business. "Our business is up...

Books, bibles & bibliotherapy. (41st annual Christian Booksellers Association)(includes related information on various social projects and book awards)
August 31, 1990... Books, Bibles & Bibliotherapy High in the thin air of Denver, where the 41st annual Christian Booksellers Association International Convention was being held from July 14-19, conventiongoers gasped. Jesus had lost his head . . . or so it...

Children's book sales: past and future.
August 31, 1990... Children's Book Sales: Past and Future In the world of publishing, children's books have indusputably been one of the most noticeable success stories of the 1980s. The decade's sales boom is particularly noteworthy when compared to the...

Highlights launches children's book publishing program. (Boyds Mills Press)(includes listing of ten books not recommended by the National Library Association)
August 31, 1990... Highlights Launches Children's Book Publishing Program With the startup of Boyds Mills Press, Highlights--publisher of the well-known magazine for children--will venture into the world of book publishing. Three as-yet-unnamed imprints are...

A famous engine's birthday - and its mysterious origins. (The Little Engine That Could)(includes related information of the formation of an annual 'I Think I Can' award)
August 31, 1990... A Famous Engine's Birthday--and its Mysterious Origins Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. I think I can, I think I can. This is the story of a little blue engine who chugged and puffed up a mountain of book sales so high that no one...

Donald Fine to issue two Thurber classics. (The 13 Clocks, The Wonderful O; James Thurber)
August 31, 1990... Donald Fine to Issue Two Thurber Classics The reissue by Donald I. Fine Inc. of two of James Thurber's classic fairy tales, The 13 Clocks and The Wonderful O, came about almost by accident--from a conversation that Fine v-p and associate...

Princeton's Nabokov biography: a tale of two publishers. (Vladimir Nabokov)
August 31, 1990... Princeton's Nabokov Biography: A Tale of Two Publishers Late in 1983, Brian Boyd, a young New Zealand scholar who had already spent about a dozen years studying the life and works of Vladimir Nabokov, signed a contract with Simon & Schuster to...

Two presses plant for the future.. (Jeremy Tarcher, Antelope Island Press; environmental books) (column)
August 31, 1990... Two Presses Plant for the Future Since last fall's surprise success of 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth, there've been dozens of publishers quick to knock off environmental titles. While many of these have been pure imitations,...

Tower Books takes on Manhattan.
August 31, 1990... Tower Books Takes On Manhattan Don't be mistaken--Russ Solomon means business. It's just that, on the surface, he seems to be having so much fun. Zipping along in his little Mercedes convertible, cruising back to his modern, art-filled...

The marketing of 'The Plains of Passage': a lot of anticipation.
August 31, 1990... The Marketing of 'The Plains of Passage': 'A lot of anticipation In Jean M. Auel's fourth Earth Children novel, The Plains of Passage, cave couple Ayla and Jondalar set out across Ice Age Europe on horseback, surviving, as they gradually...

Marketing to the libraries in the 1990s.
August 31, 1990... Marketing to Libraries in the 1990s More than 500 publishers, librarians and vendors met at the June American Library Association convention to "identify trends, preferences, problems and solutions regarding marketing to libraries in the '90s."...

Barbara Kingsolver: her fiction features ordinary people heroically committed to political issues. (PW Interviews)
August 31, 1990... Barbara Kingsolver Across the scorched desert toward the lower Tucson Mountains, up a gravel-covered dirt road identifiable only by two weather-bleached yellow pillars, lies a house almost hidden by native cacti and scrub. Here Barbara...

Time Bomb.
August 31, 1990... TIME BOMB After a sniper opens fire at an elementary school in an L.A. suburb, LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis calls in his friend, child psychologist Alex Delaware (see last in Silent Partner). None of the children is hurt, but the shooter, a...

The Light Possessed.
August 31, 1990... THE LIGHT POSSESSED In this fictionalized life of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, Cheuse (The Grandmother's Club) examines the artist's place in the world. As a young girl, Ava Boldin persuades her older brother to let her sketch him in the...

Orrie's Story.
August 31, 1990... ORRIE'S STORY Weak vision appears to be Berger's (Little Big Man; the Reinhart series) hamartia in this muddled modernized take ont he Oresteia. A pun-happy narrative casts. Agamemnon as small-town loser Augie Mencken, returning home after WW...

Best English Short Stories II.
August 31, 1990... BEST ENGLISH SHORT STORIES II Twenty-five English-speaking, non-American authors have been selected from a wide range of media for representation in this fifth annual collection. Many of their stories have contemporary political backgrounds or...

Undue Influence.
August 31, 1990... UNDUE INFLUENCE Attorney Yastrow's slow-starting first novel takes place in Chicago's law offices, a quack cancer clinic and a judge's chambers. But just when readers may be ready to give up, the author's detailed knowledge of the legal...

Near Canaan.
August 31, 1990... NEAR CANAAN When N.Y.C. filmmaking student Buddy Gates turns up in Naples, Va., ostensibly to make a short documentary as a class project, he has actually come to his mother's home town searching for an explanation of her death in far-away...

Splinters.
August 31, 1990... SPLINTERS Poor Stevie, the female narrator around whom this pretentious and self-indulgent first novel revolves: Early on she informs the reader of her great looks, wit and brains ("My IQ was at least 18 times my shoe size and I was certainly...

The Shepherd.
August 31, 1990... THE SHEPHERD The Jesus figure, central to Girzone's earlier bestsellers, Joshua and Joshua and the Children, is once again introduced into a contemporary setting. This time he first appears as a young man dressed in baggy khakis, beckoning...

Lieutenant Kije; Young Vitushishnikov.
August 31, 1990... LIEUTENANT KIJE; YOUNG VITUSHISHNIKOV Two glittering novellas from a Russian master (1894-1943) satirize the abuses of 18th- and 19th-century czarist regimes, none too obliquely implicating Stalin himself, in full power when both were written...

The Wager: Aires' Journey.
August 31, 1990... THE WAGER: Aires' Journal De Assis (1839-1908) displays in his ninth novel the dry wit and measured understanding of human nature that earned him his reputation as Brazil's first major writer. Avoiding the explosive political situation in...

Malina.
August 31, 1990... MALINA This demanding work contains flashes of great beauty and insight but is ultimately marred by Bachmann's cryptic, fragmented prose and internalized story line that is based entirely on the narrator's emotional responses to events conveyed...

The Argon Furnace.
August 31, 1990... THE ARGON FURNACE Graves's latest action-adventure novel (after C.L.A.W.), is set in 1942. The Japanese have developed a new steel alloy, fired in an argon furnance, that will allow them to build jet engines. A team of American saboteurs...

Sea of Lentils.
August 31, 1990... SEA OF LENTILS The approaching 500th anniversary of the discovery of America has occasioned a rash of novels that debunk the myth of Columbus as a great visionary and explorer. Cuban emigre author and academic Benitez-Rojo has chosen a...

Bradovich.
August 31, 1990... BRADOVICH At heart, Herrick's (Hermanos!) exemplary and timely novel is The Trial rewritten in Hemingwayesque prose. Stephen Wizard Bradovich is a 50-ish, widowed, renowned New York sculptor who suddenly finds himself under surveillance by The...

The Dwarfs.
August 31, 1990... THE DWARFS British playwright Pinter's semi-absurdist novel of stunted lives in 1950s London is a story of friendship, love and betrayal. As in his plays, the characters often talk past one another into an existential void. The precarious...

A Constant Lover.
August 31, 1990... A CONSTANT LOVER F. Scott Hoch, "just a low-class Brooklyn bawdy boy," is footloose in Florence, having ditched his earnest feminist historian wife, two teenage kids and his career as head of a window-and toilet-cleaning firm. So named because...

The Land God Made in Anger.
August 31, 1990... THE LAND GOD MADE IN ANGER In this potboiler by the author of Seize the Wind, Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller has been dispatched to South Africa at the end of WW II to establish the Fourth Reich amidst the ethnic German and sympathetic Afrikaner...

Death's Darkest Face.
August 31, 1990... DEATH'S DARKEST FACE Symons becomes a character in his own novel here when the central character, Geoffrey Elder, entrusts him with a manuscript revealing family secrets that have obsessed Elder since his youth. In his most engrossing work to...

Encore Murder.
August 31, 1990... ENCORE MURDER Encore Murder marks the encore appearance of the comedic duo Trixie Dolan and Evangeline Sinclair, who first flung rapid repartee at each other and everyone in their vicinity in Reel Murder. Now, real arrows rather than witty...

Dead Ahead.
August 31, 1990... DEAD AHEAD This mystery debut, an unremarkable entry in the burgeoning field of mysteries featuring female detectives, introduces Junoesque Nikki Trakos of the NYPD. On her first homocide investigation, her chauvinistic chief gives Trakos...

The Society Ball Murders.
August 31, 1990... THE SOCIETY BALL MURDERS Much of the self-consciously "clever" dialogue in Anderson's first novel is as tasteless and as banal as the society people who fill its pages. Overweight Patty Nottingham, the main character, is a Bay Area gossip...

The Devil Is Dead.
August 31, 1990... THE DEVIL IS DEAD When he finds the butchered remains of a wandering gypsy at the site of an abandoned church in the English town of Kentside, planning officer and architectural authority Arnold Landon suspects homicidal Ranging Wolf cult....

The Players Come Again.
August 31, 1990... THE PLAYERS COME AGAIN Writing as Amanda Cross, English professor Carolyn Heilbrun introduced her female professor sleuth in 1964, endowing Kate Fansler with a gift for urbane conversation, sophisticated taste, literary expertise and a mind for...

The Suspense Is Killing Me.
August 31, 1990... THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME The title is apt--suspense is present throughout this atmospheric fourth mystery by the author of Kiss Me Twice. Manhattanite Lee Tripper is struggling to come to terms with the fact that his soul has been on...

Fade to Black.
August 31, 1990... FADE TO BLACK Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is arguably one of the two or three most beloved detectives in fiction, and this fifth volume of Goldsborough's authorized re-creations of the series hero provides yet another opportunity for purists to...

Kiet and the Opium War.
August 31, 1990... KIET AND THE OPIUM WAR Luongian Police Chief Bamsan Kiet (Kiet and the Golden Peacock) is back to outsmart the agents of evil in this witty police caper. Alexander's fictional Southeast Asian nation is beset by an opium war that provides both...

Orion in the Dying Time.
August 31, 1990... ORION IN THE DYING TIME Bova (Voyagers III) presents the third in his series about the hunter Orion, endowed by the Creators with superhuman powers. The Creators are the godlike beings into which mankind has evolved 50,000 years from now....

Yamato: a Rage in Heaven.
August 31, 1990... YAMATO: A Rage in Heaven This debut novel, the first of a projected series of five, recasts the defeat of the Spanish Armada with a Japanese motif in a World War II-like setting that takes place in a putative 25th century. Here sailing ships,...

Nightfall.
August 31, 1990... NIGHTFALL This collaboration by two masters of the genre expands on Asimov's classic short story first published in 1941. Kalgash is a planet with six suns, a world where darkness is unnatural. Scientists realize that an eclipse--an event...

The Imperial Middle: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Class.
August 31, 1990... THE IMPERIAL MIDDLE: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Class In a ringing indictment, DeMott (Survivig the Seventies) attacks the myth that the U.S. is a classless society. Denying that class differences exist, that we all belong to the...

The Colonel: the Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867-1950.
August 31, 1990... THE COLONEL: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867-1950 Henry L. Stimson was secretary of war under Taft, governor-general of the Philippines under Coolidge, secretary of state under Hoover and secretary of war again under FDR. The atom...

Road Show: In America, Anyone Can Become President. It's One of the Risks We Take.
August 31, 1990... ROAD SHOW: In America, Anyone Can Become President. It's One of the Risks We Take Baltimore Sun syndicated columnist Simon covered the 1988 presidential campaign, and his detailed report is both informative and wickedly funny. Fairly easy on...

A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race.
August 31, 1990... A PATH WHERE NO MAN THOUGHT: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race High-altitude dust particles and smoke generated by even a "limited" nuclear war could plunge the Earth into cold and darkness. The ensuing "nuclear winter," as Sagan and...

Narcoterrorism.
August 31, 1990... NARCOTERRORISM Ehrenfeld contends that Soviet client states and various terrorist organizations are the world's dominant narcoterrorists, using the ill-gotten gains of drug trafficking to undermine democracies. Judging by the evidence she...

Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish.
August 31, 1990... FRIDA KAHLO: The Brush of Anguish The work of Kahlo (1907-1954), a Mexican painter of painful, irresistible power, comes to life in the brooding self-portraits, potent parables of nature, and politically charged mythologies reproduced here in...

Et Cetera Et Cetera: Notes of a Word-Watcher.
August 31, 1990... ET CETERA ET CETERA: Notes of a Word-Watcher These short essays by the author of Lives of a Cell reflect Thomas's fascination with the origins of words and their historical percolation. By tracing certain words in common use millennia ago...

Hidden Agendas: What's Really Going on in Your Relationships, in Love, at Work, in Your Family.
August 31, 1990... HIDDEN AGENDAS: What's Really Going On Your Relationships--in Love, at Work, in Your Family "What is really going on, and what's happening to me?" some ask when experiencing frustrations with romances, careers or family relationships. Using...

Why Catholics Can't Sing: the Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste.
August 31, 1990... WHY CATHOLICS CAN'T SING: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste Day, head of the music department at Salve Regina College in Rhode Island, accurately and wittily skewers what passes for culture in American Catholicism,...

In the Time of the Tyrants: Panama, 1968-1989.
August 31, 1990... IN THE TIME OF THE TYRANTS: Panama, 1968-1989 This scathing indictment of U.S. Central American policy by an American novelist and a Panamanian journalist chronicles 21 years of misrule from the advent of Omar Torrijos to the fall of Manuel...

Coming Out: an Act of Love.
August 31, 1990... COMING OUT: An Act of Love Clinical psychologist Eichberg has written a practical, step-by-step self-help guide for lesbians and gay men who wish to come out of the closet. Co-founder of a weekend coming-out workshop and of National Coming-Out...

Ever Green: The Boston Celtics, a History in the Words of Their Players, Coaches, Fans and Foes, from 1946 to Present.
August 31, 1990... EVER GREEN: THE BOSTON CELTICS: A History in the Words of the Their Players, Coaches, Fans and Foes, from 1946 to the Present From 1959 to 1966 the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association won eight consecutive championships, a...

African Ark: People and Ancient Cultures of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
August 31, 1990... AFRICAN ARK: People and Ancient Cultures of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa Two talented photographers focus on the Horn of Africa--an "ark" that shelters an astonishing variety of landscapes and human societies. Starting with the Christian...

The Sculpture of Donald Delue: Gods, Prophets and Heroes.
August 31, 1990... THE SCULPTURE OF DONALD DELUE: Gods, Prophets and Heroes In the heroic tradition of Michelangelo and Rodin, Donald Delue's (1897-1988) monumental sculpture adorns such sites as Valley Forge (Washington at Prayer) and Gettysburg (Peace and...

Widow's Journey: a Return to the Loving Self.
August 31, 1990... WIDOW'S JOURNEY: A Return to the Loving Self The widow of reowned cellist Leonard Rose, who died in 1984, universalizes the experience of a spouse's bereavement in this self-help book. When her 20-year marriage was ended by death, Rose had...

The English-Only Question: An Official Language for Americans?
August 31, 1990... THE ENGLISH-ONLY QUESTION: An Official Language for Americans? The movement to make English the official language of the U.S. at federal and state levels arouses strong feelings, both pro and con. In a valuable, dispassionate study, University...

Wild by Law: the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and the Places It Has Saved.
August 31, 1990... WILD BY LAW: The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and the Places It Has Saved Clifton's (California: Magnificent Wilderness) panoramic color photographs reveal what is at stake in the effort to preserve U.S. natural resources, while Sierra Club...

Good Intentions: How Big Business and the Medical Establishment Undermine the Fight Against AIDS.
August 31, 1990... GOOD INTENTIONS: How Big Business and the Medical Establishment undermine the Fight Against AIDS Buseinss Week writer Nussbaum blames the failure to find a drug effective against AIDS on an unholy alliance forged among the National Institutes...

A Forest of Kings: the Untold Story of the Ancient Mayas.
August 31, 1990... A FOREST OF KINGS: The Untold Story of the Ancient Mayas The classical Maya world of Yucatan and Guatemala (200-900 A.D.) was organized into 50 or more independent states. Literate, warlike kings, with names like Smoking-Frog, Lady ZacKuk,...

City Play.
August 31, 1990... CITY PLAY A paean to play by a husband-and-wife team of folklorists, this hodgepodge of facts, quotes, scholarship and stories traces New York City frolics from the Triassic period (origin of the brownstone) through the introduction of...

Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century.
August 31, 1990... POWERSHIFT: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century Knowledge, not violence nor money, is the essence of power in the information age, claims Toffler (Future Shock) as he observes "info-wars" raging in such arenas as...

Countdown!
August 31, 1990... COUNTDOWN! The author, when a "very unsophisticated 20-year-old" from Texas, flew 35 missions in the European theater as a B-17 bombadier, the worst of them targeting Merseburg in Germany, an oil-refinery complex with heavy anti-aircraft...

Enough's Enough (and Other Rules of Life).
August 31, 1990... ENOUGH'S ENOUGH (And Other Rules of Life) In these 77 wide-ranging essays, selected from his syndicated column "Uncivil Liberties" and dating from 1987 to 1990, Trillin is clever and funny much more than half the time--a remarkably high...

Napa.
August 31, 1990... NAPA Conaway (The Kingdom in the Country), here tells the history of Napa Valley wines and the development of wine-drinking in America. He relates the stories of those colorful individuals who settled in the California valley for its beauty...

Art into Life: Russian Constructivism 1914-1932.
August 31, 1990... ART INTO LIFE: Russian Constructivism 1914-1932 Russian constructivism aspired to bring "art into everyday life" and to de-fetishize the art object. Although Stalinism shattered these dreams in the late 1920s, Valdimir Tatlin, Alexander...

A Neutral Corner.
August 31, 1990... A NEUTRAL CORNER Liebling (1904-1963) was an impeccable stylist, whether covering the vagaries of the American press, the glories of France or the simple pleasures of good food. He may have reserved his best literary efforts, however, for...

Down and Dirty: the Life and Crimes of Oklahoma Football.
August 31, 1990... DOWN AND DIRTY: The Life and Crimes of Oklahoma Football Thompson was a gifted athlete whose talents were first recognized when he was in junior high school in Oklahoma; he received statewide attention while a high school student and was...

In Silence: Growing up Hearing in a Deaf World.
August 31, 1990... IN SILENCE: Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World. This autobiographical tour of the world of the deaf is conducted by the hearing offspring of a deaf couple. At the center of Sidransky's chronicle are Benny and Mary, the parents whose busy hands...

XXV: the Super Bowl.
August 31, 1990... XXV: The Super Bowl The Super Bowl may have produced some of the most excessive hype--and some of the least dramatic games--of any championship contest in any sport. The hype continues with this lavish silver-anniversary volume, its text...

Bachelor Bess: the Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919.
August 31, 1990... BACHELOR BESS: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919 Early in this century, a person with determination could change the course of a life by heading west to homestead in places like South Dakota--and, as Elizabeth Corey...

In Their Own Words: Letters from Norwegian Immigrants.
August 31, 1990... IN THEIR OWN WORDS: Letters from Norwegian Immigrants This moving collection of letters composed between 1870 and 1945 by nine Norwegian settlers keenly depicts the day-to-day experiences of immigrants in this country. Zempel, a translator and...

Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches and Diatribes.
August 31, 1990... DREAMS OF AN INSOMNIAC: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches and Diatribes In this stirring, thought-provoking collection, poet and essayist Klepfisz (coeditor of The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Woman's Anthology; also see review below) examines issues...

A Few Words in the Mother Tongue: Poems Selected and New (1971-1990).
August 31, 1990... A FEW WORDS IN THE MOTHER TONGUE: Poems Selected and New (1971-1990) Her father was gunned down during the Warsaw Ghetto resistance, and Klepfisz (coeditor of The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Woman's Anthology; also see review above), aged three,...

Refuge.
August 31, 1990... REFUGE Waring's poetic voice in this first collection is both startlingly original and reassuringly familiar. Using brassy, no-nonsense imagery, the poet jolts readers awake to the harsh realities of the souls inhabiting these poems, yet there...

The Best American Poetry: 1990.
August 31, 1990... THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 1990 Now in its third year, this series again showcases the dizzying vitality of celebrated and little-known American poets. Graham (The End of Beauty) salutes work that is singularly American in its "signature...

Living in Time.
August 31, 1990... LIVING IN TIME Hadas (Pass It On) reflects on time in these two sections of essays and the long poem they enclose: "The Dream Machine." Her essays approach the meaning of time from a variety of perspectives. In "Morning in Ormos" Hadas...

The 1002nd Night.
August 31, 1990... THE 1002ND NIGHT Greger (And) could rightly be called a decadent poet. Her latest collection swells with florid description and easy assonances, glorifying in the delights of the senses. While seeming to affirm the Western poetic and cultural...

The Diary of A.O. Barnabooth.
August 31, 1990... THE DIARY OF A. O. BARNABOOTH The second novel by this all but forgotten French writer (who edited the French translation of Ulysses) was first published on the eve of World War I, and the aristocratic society it depicts is so fragile and...

Far Afield.
August 31, 1990... FAR AFIELD A compulsively readable novel of enormous charm by the author of Asa, As I Knew Him, this stakes out the Faroe Islands, an isolated, autonomous Danish territory in the North Atlantic that Harvard anthropology graduate student...

Dolcissimo.
August 31, 1990... DOLCISSIMO Bonaviri, a Sicilian novelist and poet, is known for sending his characters on metaphysical quests that transcend time and mortality. The translator chose this novel, published in Italian in 1978, as the work most representative of...