2007 National Book Festival

Book World staffers Alan Cooperman, Ron Charles and Rachel Shea were online Friday, Sept. 28 at Noon to discuss the 2007 National Book Festival and the best books of the fall season.

A transcript follows.

Fall Books Preview

The National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, takes place Saturday, Sept. 29, on the National Mall. About 70 authors will be on hand to talk about their work and interact with readers.

2007 National Book Festival: Full Coverage.

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Baltimore, Md.: Of all the new books, I am most excited about "The Zookeeper's Wife." Have you had a chance to read Diane Ackerman's latest and, if so, were you pleased?

Rachel Shea: Thanks for joining us to chat about the National Book Festival and all things bookish! "The Zookeeper's Wife" looks fascinating. I edited our very positive review of it, and frankly, while I was checking quotes, I had a hard time pulling myself away from the book to get back to editing the piece. Ms. Ackerman will be at the book festival, and I think it will be very interesting to hear what she says about how she came across these two amazing zookeepers who saved over 300 people during World War II.

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Reno, Nev.: I've noticed at past festivals that some of the biggest draws are people who have never been reviewed in your pages. Diana Gabaldon, for instance. How do you explain that?

Ron Charles: Lately, Diana's name has appeared more frequently in our pages as a fiction reviewer, and she's done great work for us! But we cover her books, too. Just last Monday we reviewed her latest "Lord John" novel.

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Encino, Calif.: How come George Crupper's book "Americans the Stupid" is missing from the review?

Alan Cooperman: Would the answer, "Because we're just stupid Americans!" satisfy you? Honestly, we get in up to 200 books a day; we can review only a small portion of them; choosing which ones to review is hard; we don't claim infallibility or omniscience; we really like semicolons.

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Denver, Colo.: I loved "The Ominvore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. It was a great non-fiction read, along the lines of "Guns, Germs and Steel" (Jared Diamond) and "Tipping Points" (Malcom Gladwell). Can you suggest any other good books along these lines?

Rachel Shea: This Sunday, we're running a review of the very compelling "Two Lives" by Janet Malcolm. It's about how Gertrude Stein (the stream-of-consciousness writer who used to hang out with Hemingway in Paris) managed to survive (as a Jew and a lesbian) in occupied France under the Nazis. Apparently, she had some very powerful and unsavory friends. Malcolm is such a good writer and really draws the reader along as she explains how she researched the book.

As for those kinds of big think books, there's one coming out soon called The Secret History of the War on Cancer and also Alex Ross's "The Rest of Noise" about how what was going in the 20th-century has been reflected in modern classical music. Oliver Sacks has a new one as well, called Musicophilia, about music and the brain.

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Annapolis, Md.: Do you have any advice for first-time visitors to the festival, whether it's what to bring, where to eat, or where to wait in line?

Rachel Shea: Wear comfortable shoes!

Some of the tents get very crowded so if you are dying to see someone, snag a seat early. Ditto for the book signing lines. And the authors do take questions so get yours ready.

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Chicago, Ill.: I can't be at the Festival, but I hope someone will ask Jan Crawford Greenburg (author of a book on the Supreme Court) why her book was so biased. It's clear she is a big fan of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, and doesn't hold David Souter in very high regard. It's also clear that Souter was not one of her sources for the book, which may have contributed to the way she wrote about him.

Alan Cooperman: Greenburg is the person who should answer the charge of bias in her book. I'd just point out that there are lots of books on the Supreme Court with differing points of view, and as just one reader, I enjoy the thrust and parry; it's a healthy debate. We just ran a review by Edward Lazarus (who wrote "Closed Chambers") of Jeff Toobin's "The Nine," which contains an unflattering portrayal of Justice Anthony Kennedy. And Clarence Thomas' own book is coming out next week. That should stir up more debate.

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Boston, Mass.: How healthy is the book industry today in the U.S.? Are there good vintage years for books and how do these 70 books stack up?

Ron Charles: The Book Industry Study Group estimates that total publishers' net revenues in 2006 reached $35.69 billion, up 3.2 percent over 2005's total. They project revenues reaching nearly $42 billion by the end of 2011.

That said, individual publishers and editors tell me, "There is no money in book publishing." Probably what that means is that the books they want to publish and we want to review -- serious literary fiction and nonfiction -- are not the industry's money makers. A few block-busters ("Harry Potter," Patricia Cornwell, religious books, et al) probably carry most of the industry.

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Alexandria, Va.: What do you hear about the upcoming Margaret Mitchell estate-authorized book, "Rhett Butler's People," by Donald McCaig?

Rachel Shea: All I know is that the book is coming out in a month and that Donald McCaig is a very well-respected historical novelist. His latest, Canaan, takes place after the Civil War and is sweeping and apparently chock-full of ripping scenes. So, who knows, Rhett Butler's People could be good. But will it be as good as Sebastian Faulks's take on James Bond?

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Ron Charles: Donald McCaig is a good historical novelist, so it'll be interesting to see what he does with that. We reviewed his "Canaan" earlier this year.

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St. Louis, Mo.: What's it like working with Ron Charles? I've heard he's just brilliant.

Alan Cooperman: Yes, Mrs. Charles, he is brilliant and irreverent, kind, witty, conscientious to a fault. Not a great dresser, though; today he's wearing tuxedo pants and a blue checked shirt. He does miss his mom. I'll tell him to call right after the chat.

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Latvia: What do you do with all the free books you are sent? Do you donate them to retirement homes or libraries, or do staffers get to keep them? Can I have them?

Rachel Shea: Most of our extra books are put out in carts in the newsroom or the cafeteria, where Washington Post staffers descend on them like a plague of locusts. But the childrens' books go to local childrens' homes. Latvia may be beyond our shipping budget, sorry to say....

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Chicago, Ill.: Did Book World review the recent book about Blackwater? I haven't read it, but after seeing the author on Cspan, I am going to. He seemed very intelligent and well spoken.

Rachel Shea: We didn't, unfortunately. One of the many worthy books we just don't have the space for. And since it published last winter, we'll just have to add it to the list of the ones we missed.

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Ron Charles: Most people go through the same pattern when they come to work at a book section: At first, I was hoarding everything, taking truckloads of books home, stuff I wouldn't read if I lived to be a 200 years old. Stacks and stacks of them piling up in the living room, bedrooms, basement. The kids built forts out of them; we burned them during a bad winter, etc. (One of my colleagues rents warehouse space to store them!) But gradually you get more discriminating -- you've simply got to be. Now, after about 12 years at this, I only take home one or two a week.

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Chicago, Ill.: Is there anywhere the random citizen (not in the publishing industry) can go to find out how many copies a book has sold? This seems to be very tightly held information.

Ron Charles: Isn't that odd how publishers treat sales data like a state secret -- while movie studios instantly release their stats? I think two things are going on there: 1) The numbers are shockingly low. Depending on the week and what else is being published, even a bestseller might only move 10,000 or 15,000 copies. 2) The publisher might be trying to sell paperback or overseas rights and doesn't want to give anything away. The best source for sales data that we have access to now is Nielsen's BookScan, but it's not open to the public.

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Elmwood Park, Ill.: Hot diggety dog, I am a big Elizabeth Drew fan, ever since her days on Agronsky and Company. I hope her talk will be rebroadcast on Cspan?

Rachel Shea: Oh, I hate to break your heart, but Elizabeth Drew has canceled her appearance for health reasons.

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Silver Spring, Md.: From the New York Times review and listening to Jeffrey Toomer himself I got the impression that his book contained a flattering impression Justice Kennedy.

Would you recommend the Festival to a 6 and 8 year old? Both do like to read.

Rachel Shea: There will be some great kids' authors there, including Rosemary Wells and Megan McDonald. I expect some of the authors in the childrens and teens/children tents will aim their talks at adults and some of them will aim them at children. I'd take the kids to see any authors that are already favorites, for instance poet Jack Prelutsky for my three-year-old.

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Finding the new books: Other than book reviews, which I love to read (both BW and the NYTBR), is there any way to find out what books are coming out? They all can't be reviewed, so I'm thinking of the not-so-popular, not-to-be-reviewed selections? I'm more curious about non-fiction than fiction in that regard. Is there such a list?

Ahem, also, what do you do with the free books publishers send you? Do you have to send them back, or do you just dump them off on friends and relatives?

Ron Charles: What is this "NYTBR" you're referring to? Beats me....

But anyhow, you might see if you're library subscribes to Publishers Weekly or Library Journal. Both those industry magazines review many more books than any newspaper could -- about two to three months before the books appear. We use those magazines (and Kirkus and many other sources) to help us get a handle on what we should be looking for.

We give most of our books away to the staff here at the WP, but books are also given to various area charities.

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washingtonpost.com: This concludes our Book World discussion today. Thank you for joining us.

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