STEAL THIS BOOK

If you want to get your hands on a book from the Concord Free Press, it’ll cost you--nothing. This tiny startup publisher is making waves within the industry by re-conceptualizing the very goals of publishing. The reaction so far has been predominately positive, although some firms have grumbled about the example Concord is setting and the potential for unintended consequences.

Editor Stona Fitch, the author of Senseless and Printer’s Devil, launches this grand experiment in subversive altruism with his own book Give + Take (978-0-9817824-0-9), a deftly-crafted crime novel that he won’t earn a penny from. The press run of 1,500 numbered copies was mailed on Concord’s dime to anyone who asked for one and promised to donate to a worthy charity. Not any specific charity: gift-targets can be any entity in need judged worthy by the reader, and the amount is whatever the reader can spare. After donating, the model dictates that the reader should pass the book on to someone else (um, unless that reader can’t stand to part with it), with the understanding that successive readers make a similar donation. The catchphrase CFP operates under is: “Free their books and their minds will follow.”

The editor and designer work pro bono, while the costs of printing and distribution were paid for by an amalgam of T-shirt sales, generous well-wishers, and (if luck holds) the sale of film rights. As of January 15, 2009, known contributions totaled over five times the costs, well outperforming the average mid-list book. Donations per read have run between $3 and $500. The amounts and beneficiaries are listed online, which perhaps leads readers to give more, though the donors’ surnames do not appear. Beneficiaries range from food banks to medical research initiatives to political action committees to individual hoboes. With the recent addition of an iPhone version of Give + Take, only time will tell exactly how large the final multiplier will be. CFP’s second book, due out in May 2009, will be Wesley Brown’s Push Comes to Shove.

The unique business model is worthy of discussion and perhaps debate, but the altruistically subversive Give + Take is too good a story to be sidelined in the process. Its protagonist, Ross Clifton, is a journeyman jazz pianist without attachments who moves constantly between cities on the nightclub circuit. He’s been at it awhile. Ross sometimes zones out while playing but still isn’t reduced to pounding out the dreaded “Moondance” for drunks at Holiday Inns, the graveyard fear of musicians

Ross’s extracurricular pursuits that free him from creeping anomie are stealing diamonds from admirers, and delivering one BMW per town to a chop shop. The illicit gains are distributed to strangers in random kindness. Ross says, “Yes I steal. I make no apologies for it. Stealing is unimportant. But what you do with the money makes all the difference in the world.” Harder to understand, but still following a certain counter-stream of logic--some of the diamonds are simply reburied in a nearby patch of earth, never to be recovered.

Fitch’s plot isn’t tremendously complex, but conscience-needling questions of ethics and materialism surface over and over. From the title to the characters’ unique takes on morality to points made within natural-sounding conversation, Fitch keeps the reader engaged in self-examination. What is the point of money? What is right and what is wrong when the laws defend a status quo of increased wealth concentration?

The protagonist takes pleasure in organizing his dependent-free life intentionally. Into Ross’s comfortable routine of mid-sized gigs, trysts with drunken bejeweled fans, and hotel-living crashes his annoying sixteen year old burrito-addicted nephew, Cray. The idiosyncratic adolescent was dumped on Ross for a month by his brother, an elite counterfeiter (or “currency anticipator”) who sends taunting notes to Treasury Department officials. Cray, who is a bit the hustler himself, causes more trouble than necessary, but he’s also a sounding board Ross uses to remind himself aloud why he does what he does.

Too many publishers try to turn a dollar but go bankrupt. So what happens to the publisher who has already ruled out profit? How large an impact can two books a year make on our patterns of giving or our conception of value? It’s unlikely this outfit will start a race to the bottom for the bottom line. However, when an enthusiast on the Two Ravens Press blog mentioned his interest in duplicating the business model, Stona Fitch responded, “Feel free to steal it.” The Concord Free Press is a literary weather balloon tossed aloft during a stormy season. All anyone can do is see what kind of readings it gathers, and try to give a little more where it is most.

by Todd Mercer

The Dysfunctional Father's Guide to Pregnancy Birth and Babies The ideal gift book for expectant and/or new dads. A humorous look at becoming a father from birth classes to the first birthday party. And an opportunity for their wives to know what they really think about it all. mross@bridgeross.com http://www.bridgeross.com

AUTHOR PAGES

The Author Pages feature nearly 100 interviews with authors whose work has been reviewed in ForeWord magazine. Rigoberto Gonzalez, author of Men Without Bliss (University of Oklahoma Press, 978-0-8061-3945-6) writes:

I grew up in Mexico without books. And when my family migrated to the U.S. when I was ten we had two books: the Bible and the TV-Guide. Guess which one we consulted the most? Anyway, it wasn’t until high school that I became a serious reader, everything from Agatha Christie murder mysteries to the works of Jack London and Truman Capote—anything that our handy book mobile drove over from the public library. I don’t ever remember owning a picture book. But once I became enamored of readings, the first books on my personal shelf were “books without pictures.”

Visit ForeWord’s Author Pages to read more about the authors reviewed in the pages of ForeWord.

FOREWORD BOOK CLUB

John Milton Oskison (1874-1947) was born in Cherokee Nation Indian Territory, grew up in Oklahoma, went to Willie Haskell College (where he became friends with Will Rogers), and graduated from Stanford. He went on to become a feature writer for the New York Evening Post and a correspondent during World War I. The story presented this week in ForeWord’s Book Club was originally published in 1907 and humorously contrasts the white man’s “mission” of bringing Indians into the Church, and the Indians’ sense of what one should or should not be able to bring when one “comes to Jesus.”

“The Problem of Old Harjo” was first published in Southern Workman (1907) and was reprinted in The Singing Spirit: Early Short Stories by North American Indians (ed. Bernd C. Peyer, University of Arizona Press) in 1989. This version comes from In Beauty I Walk: The Literary Roots of Native American Writing, edited by Jarold Ramsey and Lori Burlingame (University of New Mexico Press, 978-0-8263-4369-7).

The story is available in its entirety for the whole week at the ForeWord Book Club.

This week at Editor’s Notes, Editor-in-Chief Heather Shaw offers books for Black History Month.

At Shelf Space, Rachel Jagareski talks about online reading groups, book discussions and challenges.

At Publishing Insider, Tom Christensen offers a primer on book design.

At Publishing Matters, Eugene Schwartz explores the immediate future of book publishing.

Visit www.forewordmagazine.com for publishing news, book reviews, and the ForeWord Book Club.

FAST FOREWORD

Baby Delivered in Seattle Public Library

The Examiner reports that a woman gave birth at the main branch of the Seattle Public Library on Tuesday.

“According to a library spokeswoman, a library employee spotted the woman just as she got off a bus,” Danielle Dreger-Babbitt writes. “The woman delivered a healthy baby girl inside the foyer in the east entrance of the library.

The staff at the library has been trying to track down the mother, but she left with paramedics before giving her name.

Connecticut Writer Wins 3-Day Novel Contest

The winners of the International 3-Day Novel Contest have been announced. Jason Rapczynski (New Haven, Connecticut) has won first place for The Videographer. Rapczynski received a master’s of fine arts in creative writing from Emerson College in 2005.

The Videographer (978-1-55152-252-4) tells the story of a New York film school dropout who falls into a job setting up spy cams, porn shoots, and street fights for a shady underground video producer. A young runaway claiming to be his daughter shows up at his door, triggering a series of events that are eerily similar to a movie script he wrote many years earlier, making him grow suspicious of the girl’s story and doubtful of her agenda. The novel will be published by 3-Day Books in August.

The 31st annual 3-Day Novel Contest was held in September. Out of 570 registrants to the contest, 428 managed to complete and submit a novel.

Online Memorial Created for Updike

Legacy.com, which archives newspaper obituaries and hosts memorial Web sites, has created a site for John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelest who passed away last week.

The online memorial includes a biography, obituary, and a guest book where users can leave comments.

From staff reports. Share your news and information with Whitney Hallberg, Managing Editor.

FOREWORD FOOTNOTES

Biography & Autobiography. AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS: FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT, VOL. 1 AND 2 by Anne Becher and Joseph Richey (Grey House, 8 ½ x 11, 1,051 pages, hardcover, $195.00, 978-1-59237-119-8): author of Biodiversity and contributing editor to Ecotourism and Sustainable Development present 390 biographies; included are Henry David Thoreau, Morris Udall, and Navajo Roberta Blackgoat, who believed her creator “planted” her people on their ancestral land.

Family & Relationships. YOUR PREGNANCY FOR THE FATHER-TO-BE: EVERYTHING DADS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PREGNANCY, CHILDBIRTH AND GETTING READY FOR A NEW BABY by Glade B. Curtis and Judith Schuler (Da Capo Press, 286 pages, $14.95, 978-0-7382-1275-3): board certified obstetrician and holder of a master’s degree in Consumer and Family Studies discuss taking an active role in the time leading to birth; topics include lifestyle changes, financial realities, and pregnancy problems such as depression.

History. TAKING THE SEA: PERILOUS WATERS, SUNKEN SHIPS, AND THE TRUE STORY OF THE LEGENDARY WRECKER CAPTAINS by Dennis S. Powers (AMACOM, 16-page b/w photograph insert, 320 pages, hardcover, $22.00, 978-0-8144-1353-1): previous USA Today guest and author of Sentinel of the Seas presents the story of the men who salvaged shipwrecks in the nineteenth century; includes pontoon use, methods for patching ships, and notes on “the famous wrecker” Captain T.P.H. Whitelaw (1847-1932), who salvaged ninety-seven wrecks.

Literary Collections. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE’S SUGGESTION FOR THOUGHT, Vol. 11, edited by Lynn McDonald (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 794 pages, hardcover, $150.00, 978-0-88920-465-2): professor emerita of sociology at the University of Guelph and former Canadian Member of Parliament presents selections from the book written by the famous “lady with a lamp” (1820-1910); includes “A Précis of Her life” and “Man’s Will and God’s Law.”

Literary Collections. LINCOLN LESSONS: REFLECTIONS ON AMERICA’S GREATEST LEADER edited by Frank J. Williams and William D. Pederson (Southern Illinois University, 192 pages, hardcover, $24.95, 978-0-8093-2891-8): Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and professor of political science present seventeen academics, historians, lawyers, and politicians reflecting on the importance of the sixteenth President of the United States; includes Sandra Day O’Connor’s essay “Suspension of Habeas Corpus,” which took place during the Civil War.

Nature. TOP 100 BIRDING SITES OF THE WORLD by Dominic Couzens (University of California Press, color photographs, 11 x 13, 101 maps, 320 pages, hardcover, $45.00, 978-0-520-25932-4): frequent contributor to BBC Wildlife as well as Birdwatching and author of Secret Lives of Garden Birds presents the best place to see birds from king penguins in Antarctica to cassowaries in Queensland.

Political Science. THE SPY WHO LOVED US: THE VIETNAM WAR AND PHAM XUAN AN’S DANGEROUS GAME by Thomas A. Bass (Public Affairs, maps, hardcover, $26.95, 978-1-58648-409-5): frequent contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and author of Vietnamerica presents the story of a “brilliant” Time correspondent in Vietnam and his double life as “one of the preeminent spies of the twentieth century.”

Religion. 111 QUESTIONS ON ISLAM by Samir Khalil Samir (Ignatius Press, 256 pages, softcover, $16.95, 978-1-58617-155-1): Jesuit priest at St. Joseph University in Beirut and holder of a “Master in Arabic and Islamic Studies” answers questions on the fastest-growing religion in the world; includes the question of the social and religions contexts in which Muhammad’s preaching began, and how the Qur’an was written.

Religion. CHRISTO PAGANISM: AN INCLUSIVE PATH by Joyce and River Higginbotham (Llewellyn, b/w illustrations, 7 x 9, 384 pages, softcover, $19.95, 978-0-7387-1467-7): founders of a pagan church and the council for Alternative Spiritual Traditions present how modern Pagans and Christians are incorporating each others’ practices into their own belief systems; discussions include Horus raising the dead, prayer vs. spellcrafting, the independent sacrament movement, and arcane religions such as the “Mysteries of Dionysius.”

Religion. GODOLOGY: BECAUSE KNOWING GOD CHANGES EVERYTHING by Christian George (Moody Publishers, 172 pages, softcover, $13.99, 978-0-8024-8255-6): writer, speaker, and author of Sex, Sushi and Salvation discusses facets of God, spiritual discipline, and practical expression of truth for young adults; topics include God’s power, God’s mystery, and God’s wisdom, e.g., “God’s Word is samurai sharp, slashing through armor and cutting through pride.”

by Alex Moore, Book Review Editor