One of our deepest, darkest secrets

I probably shouldn't admit this here, but we do have a secret plan in mind when we mail out each new volume of Select Editions. Simply put, we want to grab you the minute you open the carton. As soon as you see the collection of books in that volume, we want you to drop everything and start reading. And there's a method to our plan.

First of all, we need some big names. Authors like Michael Connelly and James Patterson who practically own the bestseller lists. Then we need somebody new and good that you might otherwise have never heard of, like Patrick Taylor. We fill out the bill with one of our personal favorites, the deliciously romantic Elizabeth Adler.

Next, we need to mix up the stories. They've got to be different, and they've got to work together, like the courses of a meal. They've got to be complementary to each other. And it's nice if there's something in each volume to appeal to everyone in the family when they open the carton. So there's a police procedural (The Overlook), a love story with exotic settings with a undercurrent of suspense and a dash of humor (Meet Me in Venice), a mind-boggling crime-of-the-century caper (Step on a Crack), and a tender tale of a young doctor learning the ropes in rural Ireland (An Irish Country Doctor). Something for men, something for women, something for everybody.

So maybe that's our biggest secret. We're trying to find something for everybody, to create a volume you just can't wait to read and share. Our January 2008 volume is, we hope, a winner on all counts.

—Jim

Let’s hope the apple falls far from the tree

When I read the climactic final action scene in James' Patterson's Step on a Crack,which takes place in the famous Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York, a small, soft bell rang in my head. Hadn’t my mother-in-law once said that a relative of hers was imprisoned there a long time ago?

I asked my mother-in-law recently about this, and she confirmed that, yes, her grandfather had been imprisoned there for a few years. She doesn’t know the nature of his crime; she doesn’t know the exact dates or duration of his imprisonment; but she does have one letter that her grandfather wrote to her grandmother while he was incarcerated. Using this letter, which includes his prisoner number, she plans to investigate the matter further.

So now I’m connecting the dots: this means that my husband’s great-grandfather was a convicted criminal! My mother-in-law is a lovely woman who has been supremely law-abiding her entire life. And by all accounts, her own mother, the daughter of the convicted man, was of a similar disposition. But what if the outlaw gene strikes only the male members of the family? Should I worry that I’ll one day be visiting my husband in Sing Sing?

If so, he’ll follow a long line of famous prisoners, including mobster Lucky Luciano, bank robber Willie Sutton, and spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The prison has been featured in several well-known films, including Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). In fact, according to the prison superintendent, so many movies have been filmed there that several staff members have Screen Actors Guild cards. There’s even a Sing Sing museum down the street from the local high school.

Click here to visit a terrific history of the prison.

—Barbara

Weekly doses of Lisa Scottoline

If you can't get enough Lisa Scottoline, check out her "Chick Wit" column which runs each week in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer's Image section (and can be accessed here online, along with all her past Chick Wit columns). Lisa's uniquely sassy, urban voice takes on subjects such as her diet, her FICO score, her visit to the White House ("I just got back from the White House. I stole nothing of value. More accurately, the thing I stole didn't cost anything"), and holiday shopping. It's all very funny and will keep you busy until Lisa publishes her next great Philly novel.

—Laura

The art of condensation

Did anyone see the article entitled “The Corrections” by Adam Gopnik in the October 22, 2007, issue of The New Yorker? We here at Select Editions read it with interest, because it concerns “abridgement, enrichment, and the nature of art,” according to the subtitle. Unfortunately, The New Yorker hasn’t put the article on-line, so I can’t provide a link. But if this is a topic that interests you, it’s worth a trip to the public library to get your hands on a paper copy.

Most heartening to us was Gopnik’s endorsement of the excellent job done by the editors at Orion, a British publishing house, who put out a line of condensed versions of classic literature, such as Melville’s Moby-Dick and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. We also agree with Gopnik’s assessment that a condensed book is a valid work of art in its own right. It will never be exactly the same as the original, but people read for a variety of reasons, and every reader should be offered a choice.

I take issue, however, with Gopnik's conclusion:

“The real lesson of the compact editions is not that vandals shouldn’t be let loose on masterpieces but that masterpieces are inherently a little loony. They run on the engine of their own accumulated habits and weirdnesses and self-indulgent excesses . . . What makes writing matter is not a story, cleanly told, but a voice, however odd or ordinary, and a point of view, however strange or sentimental.”

Maybe the reason that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century masterpieces seem a little unwieldy or "loony" to us today is because they were written so long ago. Cultural perceptions and expectations of language have changed over the centuries, and maybe the editors of those books weren’t obliged or accustomed to asking an author to cut his work. Today’s editor might ask Melville to take huge hunks out of Moby-Dick—cuts that wouldn’t necessarily jeopardize its status as a masterpiece. Maybe what Gopnik perceives as looniness or weirdness or self-indulgent excess is just a product of the times, a style that was tolerated by earlier readers just as a certain type of loony, weird prose is tolerated by today’s readers of literary fiction. Maybe it has nothing to do with quality.

Gopnik would probably argue that the works of Jane Austen, although economically written, have nevertheless attained masterpiece status because of their unique voice and point of view. But that seems to contradict his assertion that masterpieces are “inherently” loony.

What do you think? What books will be designated the masterpieces of tomorrow, whether "loony" or not?

—Barbara

Enter Lisa Scottoline's book club contest to win an invitation to her home

While many authors are very good to their fans, Lisa Scottoline may take the prize for fan appreciation—via her book group parties. She recently hosted her 2nd annual Book Club Party for 200 happy fans at her Pennsylvania home. She loaded up her guests with tasty treats, regaled them with entertaining stories, and then signed books, of course. Next fall, Lisa plans to host her 3rd annual Book Club party, featuring her upcoming novel Lady Killer (to be featured in an upcoming Select Editions). If your book group would like to attend, be sure to visit Scottoline's website to learn how to enter her random drawing next spring.

—Amy

The fix is in

There seems to be a trade journal for every occupation. For editors, it's Publishers Weekly. Without fail, on Monday mornings this week's edition arrives in our mailboxes, and we eagerly grab it and read it practically cover to cover. Personally, I'm most interested in the reviews. I've usually read the books they're evaluating, and it's interesting, and often surprising, to compare their evaluations to my own. It's especially gratifying to see a book that I've loved similarly lauded by PW. It's nice to know that you're not alone in the world.

You'll notice, though, that I said the magazine arrives on Mondays almost without fail. Sometimes it arrives a day late, or, heaven forbid, a couple of days late. The Monday morning fix has failed to arrive. That's when you see editors biting their nails, pacing their offices, grabbing extra cups of coffee (better make that decaf). If PW doesn't arrive on time, my advice to you is to steer clear of the editorial department until the problem is solved. I refuse to be responsible for anything untoward that may occur in that hostile environment.

—Jim

It's a pleasure

I was having lunch with a colleague from another publishing house recently, and as we talked I began faintly to detect traces of envy. She, herself, has a job a lot people in the industry would kill for, at great offices in central Manhattan, and at a firm that puts out some of the most respected fiction and nonfiction in the business. But as I described what I do all day—hunt for book treasure among the best of the best of current publishing for our discerning readers, and then read and condense these gems—she was clearly musing about what it was like on my side of the fence.

Then I really laid it on. “I’m also the project editor for the World’s Best Reading collector’s series, and I have to read the great classics like Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth or Robinson Crusoe and then write introductory essays for each one we select. Actually, I usually just listen to audio versions of each novel in the car driving to work.” That’s when she said: “You have a great job!”

I do. And one of the things I really like about it is not just a chance to work on the cream of the crop, but also the serendipity that goes with the job as I learn about the authors we publish. Just this morning, I stumbled on a web site for the Edith Wharton Society. And I was reminded that there are a lot of information-packed fan clubs out there devoted to favorite writers. Which brings me to another thing I like about my job—I get to share what I enjoy directly with you. For fun, try these links:

Edith Wharton
Edgar Allan Poe
Jane Austen
Daniel Defoe

—Tom