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Happy Birthday Penguin Books! – 75th Anniversary

In 1935, a young publishing executive named Allen Lane started a new publishing company irreverently named Penguin that soon became a success and later revolutionized the publishing industry worldwide. And yet the rise of Penguin was not without its challenges or controversies. As part of their seventy-fifth anniversary, the publisher has put together a video with numerous Penguin executives (including its global chairman, American CEO and president) along with other Penguin staffers, discussing the origins of Penguin, how the brand and its look has changed over the years, as well as what the future may hold for publishing’s most iconic flightless bird.

Look for our Blog on Books, Penguin Book giveaway, coming soon to celebrate 75 years of Penguin Books!

via Video – Penguin Books 75th Anniversary – Penguin Group (USA).

Penguin Books Historical Timeline

Farmers Market Cookbook – JoAnn Cianciulli (Chronicle Books)

Imagine if you will, having the chance to sample some of the freshest and best cuisine from all over the world; a French Fondue Savoyarde, some Mexican Chilaquiles Verdes, Singapore’s Mee Goreng, or some Korean Kalbi. The passport and travel tickets alone might be enough to break the bank. Unless, of course, you live in Los Angeles and want to ‘meet me at 3rd and Fairfax’ where for 76 years this month, culinary patrons from the world over have gathered at the dozens of homegrown eateries that comprise L.A.’s Farmers Market.

Now, through the efforts of author and Food TV producer, JoAnn Cianciulli (and Bay Area food photographer Karl Petzke), Chronicle Books has assembled some of the best recipes from the legendary vendors into one book of international and domestic delights called “L.A.’s Original Farmers Market Cookbook.”

Unlike most cookbooks that rely on one particularly style or a single chef’s output, the Farmers Market Cookbook combines dishes for every meal – including snacks and desserts – from a veritable cornucopia of chefs, genres, styles and nationalities – all blended together to replicate what a visit through the aisles of the legendary marketplace are like in real life.

In addition to the recipes, there are the storied histories of each of the featured vendors, some of which date back to the origin of the market that now resides on the old Gilmore Oil fields and is one of L.A.’s official Historical and Cultural Landmarks (second only to Hollywood itself.) While the book serves as a great cookbook for those seeking a wide variety of casual comestibles, it also aptly describes the history of the famed location, from its origin as dairy land to its hangout status for famous names like Sinatra, James Dean, Garbo and more, to its current day adjacency to both CBS’s Television City and the high-profile shopping plaza, The Grove.

If you can’t make it around the world, or even out to L.A., the Farmers Market Cookbook is the next best thing to being there. Otherwise, ‘meet us at 3rd and Fairfax’ soon. See you there!

Stieg Larsson Passes 1 Million Kindle Books Sold

Amazon has announced that Stieg Larsson, author of the internationally bestselling Millennium Trilogy, has become the first author to sell over 1 million Kindle books and is the first member of the new “Kindle Million Club.” The “Kindle Million Club” recognizes authors whose entire body of work has sold over 1 million copies in the Kindle Store. Customers can buy the three books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy from the Kindle Store, and read them everywhere–on their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac, iPad and Android devices.

“Larsson’s books have captivated millions of readers around the world and ignited a voracious interest in the lives of its main characters Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomqvist,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. “It’s been exciting to have been a part of introducing so many people to these great books.”

All three books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy–”The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”–are now in the top 10 bestselling Kindle books of all time. These three books are New York Times and international bestsellers. Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic right-wing extremist organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” The U.S. editions of these books are published by the Knopf Doubleday imprint of Random House, Inc.

The books in Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy are available in the Kindle Store. Kindle offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 630,000 books, including New Releases and 109 of 111 New York Times Bestsellers. Over 510,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 80 New York Times Bestsellers. Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle.

The “Kindle Million Club” recognizes paid Kindle book sales.

Interview: Carl Hiaasen on his latest, ‘Star Island’

The bestselling author discusses his latest Florida caper, ‘Star Island’, a story of an ‘off-the-rails’ pop star who needs surrogates to provide cover when she can no longer handle the grind of her showbiz existence. See how Hiaasen describes it from here.

Mojo – Marshall Goldsmith (Hyperion)

Marshall Goldsmith pulls no punches. He wants to help you get back on track – get your ‘mojo’ back as he puts it, but he wont tolerate self-delusion along the way. This much is clear in “Mojo: How to Get it, How to Keep It, How to Get it Back if You Lose It.”

Goldsmith, (author of last year’s bestseller, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”) lays out a prescription for identifying what makes you tick, how you are different and what you have to offer, and then how to shape and maximize those skills to cut through life like a proverbial hot butter knife. In this short (200 pages), but powerful book, Dr. Goldsmith (who as an executive coach, advises top Fortune 500 companies regularly) quickly identifies habits and traits that hold people back (the ‘Nojo’) and how to quickly subvert them and get back on the path to success.

This easy read is anchored by a writing style that makes its points clearly through a number of streamlined examples that most readers should have no problem understanding. The linchpins of Goldsmith’s focus are identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance and the concepts are reinforced by dedicated chapters, questionaries, graphics and work sheets that far from belaboring the point, rather serve to explain and reinforce the overriding concept; are you receiving short-term gain and maximizing your long term goals through your actions, both large and small. This is the essence of the book.

It’s easy to see why Goldsmith is a best-seller in the field. His books are on target and get to the root of the matter – albeit sometimes counter-intuitively – using both the broad and specific strokes required for the reader to get back on track. His laser focus on what works vs. what we think will work is exactly what makes his work stand out in a crowded field.

For more try: Marshall Goldsmith’s website

Corn Flakes with John Lennon – Robert Hilburn (Rodale)

What a surprise. As many suspected, but couldn’t exactly put their finger on, Robert Hilburn was keeping a secret. A three decade secret. The secret, finally revealed in this ‘memoir’ of sorts, is that while we all thought he was the pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times, Hilburn was quietly on another mission. The search for the replacement Elvis.

As the pop (or more aptly, rock) music critic of one of the nation’s largest daily broadsheets, Hilburn was charged with bringing the world of rock’n'roll to the doorsteps of his avid readers weekly and he developed a solid reputation for doing so within music circles. Over the years however, many readers began to notice the critic’s seeming obsession with a small cast of characters who garnered outsized coverage often at the expense of other so-called talents. The plurality of Hilburn’s coverage seemed to center around a handful of iconic figures (Springsteen, U2’s Bono, Prince) as well as a coterie of other performers that played to the critic’s early country leanings (John Fogerty, the Band’s Robbie Robertson, and even a true country act like Waylon Jennings). While the writer certainly covered other acts (LA’s “X” was a perennial favorite as was P.J. Harvey in his latter day writings), most acts escaped much of his purview presumably due to his judgment as to their lesser cultural importance. (In these pages, Clapton, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and The Clash collectively get less mentions than a single Springsteen album, ‘Nebraska,’ while Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd simply don’t exist.)

In “Cornflakes with John Lennon: And Other Tales from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Life,” we now have the answer, the reason, the motivation for it all. Simply put, Hilburn was searching, consciously or otherwise, for the successor to Elvis Presley; an act that left an indelible mark on the young critic that proved difficult, if not impossible to dismiss. Hilburn’s quest was to find and identify the next icon to capture the imagination of the mass rock audience. Not just good bands or those who made great records, but singular performers who could rise to take the leadership of an entire genre, much the way Elvis did until his demise. To Hilburn, it is all about the message, the grand statement and the commitment needed to carry it to the world.

Along the way, the author shares stories – most rather candid and personal – from his Louisiana upbringing filled with country and blues to his time spent with his idols like John Lennon, Springsteen and even Michael Jackson. Through his unique access, we are given quite a window into many a superstar’s otherwise private moments; backstage with Yoko, coaxing reluctant interviewees like Springsteen and Dylan, and yes, even corn flakes with John Lennon.

Beyond the wall of fame, Hilburn examines his own influence on star-making (Elton John’s U.S. debut at the Troubadour) or lack thereof (John Prine’s early work). Through it all, what comes across are two things. One, that Hilburn was keenly aware of zeroing in on the artist even over and above any singular piece of musical output, and, two, that much as his critics argued for years, the writer was, at times, perhaps indeed guilty of acting as a fanboy in ‘critic’s’ disguise. And while this may have given rise to some contempt during his years as a top metropolitan arbiter of taste, it certainly makes for a great (and appropriate) read when presented in a book of reportage that is both personally insightful and a fun behind-the-scenes ride through the three most powerful decades of rock and roll as only a person of Hilburn’s stature and access could deliver.

Coming to paperback this October.
Robert Hilburn’s website

Richard Rogers + Architects: From the House to the City (Fiell)

If he did nothing else than to design and build France’s Pompidou Center, Richard Rogers (and his collaborator on the project, Renzo Piano) would be immortalized in the architecture Hall of Fame. Fortunately for us, Rogers has a large and impressive body of work that pre-dates and continues on to today. His modern, lightweight, transparent architectural design has been responsible for both residential and industrial icons from the U.K. to Japan (i.e. the famed Kabuki-Cho) to France to Korea; from houses to airports to industrial complexes and a great deal in between.

‘From the House to the City’ both exemplifies and explains Rogers impact on contemporary industrial design, particularly in the UK, where his unique creations have taken the landscape of an old world European style city and transformed sections of it into a cutting-edge modern, steel and glass metropolis. (There is even an example of his work in the ‘new town’ area near Milton Keynes in ‘Design for Manufacture Housing.’) From the Millennium Dome to the fabulous columns of the Lloyds of London headquarters to the home of Britain’s Channel 4 Television, the Canary Wharf project and beyond, Rogers and his team have assembled futuristic buildings that will no doubt remain landmarks for many years to come.

The book divides Rogers work across style functions (green, transparent, urban, systems, etc.) and explains his design and constructions in nearly poetic terms along the way. Amply filled with pictures, drawings and text, the book shows the sweeping magnitude of both Rogers’ well-known existing work as well as giving equal weight (in terms of description and illustration) to a large number of works that are on the drawing board or yet to be built. Unlike any architecture book we’ve ever seen, there is even a ‘manifesto’ which covers the firms beliefs, organization goals, charity endeavors, etc.; the factors that drive their work. To see a remarkable design career in progress (rare in these catalog style art and architecture volumes) be sure to check out ‘From the House to the City.’ It’s a sure way to see what’s coming next – and why.

Robert Altman – The Oral Biography – Mitchell Zuckoff (Knopf)

Hard to think of a director in Hollywood who’s made more of an impact but got less credit than Bob Altman. After all, his movies like M*A*S*H, Nashville and The Player were never really considered to be box-office blockbusters. Nor was Altman ever honored with a single Oscar for producing or directing, though his films received many nominations throughout the 70’s, 80’s and 90s.

No, Robert Altman was an outcast, a scalawag; a rapscallion of film directors.

That’s what makes his story so great.

In “Robert Altman: The Oral Biography,” author Mitchell Zuckoff captures it all. From Altman’s early days knocking around Kansas City (a place on which he would later base his feature film of the same name) to his war years, his roguish romantic escapades, his eventual landing in California (working for, among others, the legendary Alfred Hitchcock) Zuckoff’s assemblage of the autuer’s story covers all the bases.

As colorful as the oral history is of the director’s early dating and family life, his military service and his career beginnings in both industrial films and, once in Hollywood, television, (‘Combat,’ Whirlybirds,’ etc.) the best portions are reserved for his relationships with the actors he loved and the studio bosses he loathed. When actors would add a line to their dialogue, most film sets expected a visit from the studio brass. When Altman’s actors wanted to add a line, he openly encouraged them to add more. (M*A*S*H’s Sally Kellerman (‘Hot Lips’) practically wrote her way into the whole movie from what was originally slated as a naked shower scene.) In the final analysis, Altman was the master of the ensemble film; his indelible mark comes from the inner workings of the casts he assembled, not necessarily from the stories themselves. As Zuckoff points out in Altman’s own words, he would be the first to admit it.

Along the way, the book regales the reader with stories from all the front line players (as in ‘The Player’) in Altman’s great body of work. Legends like Paul Newman, Bob Evans, Cher (remember her red dress at the black and white ball?) Jimmy Caan, Bobby Duvall, Elliot Gould, Patricia Neal, Richard Zanuck, Meryl Streep, Harry Belafonte, Lily Tomlin, Tim Robbins, Beatty, Becall and others weigh in and reminisce about their (rather detailed) recollections of Bob’s past. The one thing that rises above it all, is that Altman worshiped the actors; always exhorting them to mix it up, speak over each other words, act like in real life. So while he may not have been Hollywood’s most successful director, in many ways, he was perhaps its most authentic.

After his passing in 2008 (and after having finally received an honorary Oscar from the Academy in 2006) Altman needed a book – not on his work, but on the man himself. It is fitting that this oral biography is comprised of many of the same ensemble players that created the Altman oeuvre itself. Well done. Fade.

Bezos: Kindle Hits ‘Tipping Point’

Amazon chief executive, Jeff Bezos, announced that sales of books in the digital Kindle format have, for the first time, eclipsed sales of hardcover books. The timing was almost certainly accelerated by a recent price drop in the Kindle device in response to market conditions brought on by the advent of Apple’s hot-selling iPad tablet and ebook reader device. Either way, this is a milestone on the path to a digital future and therefore worth bring to your attention.

Careful readers will note, however, that this does not mean that digital has passed physical print, as some outlets are implying in their coverage. It just means that at Amazon, a Digital based retailer, that digital books have outsold physical hardcover books for the first time ever. The question remains as to exactly what kinds of books this feat really covers, as we can’t imagine things like coffee-table art books, photography based books and others have surpassed their physical versions with digital sales. The data also does not pertain to paperbacks which are, of course, a huge part of the business.

More.

Chasing Goldman Sachs – Suzanne McGee (Crown) The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns – Alan Greenberg (Simon & Schuster)

In the wake of the 2008-2009 global financial meltdown, whose epicenter was found at the intersection of Wall Street and K Street, many books (Andrew Ross Sorkin’s ‘Too Big To Fail,’ Hank Paulson’s ‘On the Brink,’ etc.) have emerged to describe the macro view of how such events co-mingled to send the financial system spiraling out of control. Now, two new books have surfaced to open the kimono on the inside machinations that gave fuel to the financial meltdown fire.

In “Chasing Goldman Sachs”, author Suzanne McGee uses the ‘chasing’ metaphor to cover a whole range of issues, trends and examples of how investment banking has transmogrified over the past 30 years. Once Wall Street brokerage firms were no longer dependent on stock commissions (after the SEC’s ‘Mayday’ pronouncement of May 1975) firms began looking for ways to replace and increase profits through a variety of non-traditional methods. Everything from the creation of derivatives to voracious competition for business to the emergence into new markets proliferated throughout the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s.

Goldman Sachs was viewed by many as the leading progenitor of these new and advanced ways to make money by, in essence, shuffling or redirected money around and as such were the envy of the Street. (Or as Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfien admits in the book that Goldman began ‘rationalizing it’s pushing of the ‘risk envelope’ during the credit bubble years.”) The trouble came when less informed players ineluctably began to mimic their techniques but did so with an increasing share of gusto and in a way that would ultimately, in many cases, have them driving so far ahead that they drove off the cliff. As ‘Chasing’ aptly demonstrates, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Lehman and many others ended up in hot water trying to ape Goldman’s success.

In the process, McGee’s rendering basically serves as a history of the entire Wall Street landscape of the last thirty or so years, covering the machinations of these top financial firms and their relationships with investors, the trading exchanges, the IPO market, real estate, the Fed and all the power players that were a part of the story. (Bernanke, the FDIC, the banks, etc. all have a role to play.) As McGee describes, as deals got riskier, “bankers and traders assumed that someone else higher up the food chain was doing the worrying for them.” Unfortunately, as events have borne out, such was not the case.

For another angle on the U.S. financial meltdown we look to Alan ‘Ace’ Greenberg’s latest book (his second) “The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns.” Ace’s book is more of a memoir than a chronicle of the latest round of financial regress on the Street. The legendary Wall Street personality regales the reader with stories of his Oklahoma upbringings, his early days at Bear Stearns (where he served out his half-century career) all the way up to the days of running the company, avoiding the dot-com bust but landing head-first in the quicksand that became the mortgage backed securities, sub-prime meltdown.

Sitting and watching Bear’s stock price plummet from the high hundreds to an eventual $2 a share offer from JP Morgan Chase was both a sobering and melancholy finale for the well-respected veteran Greenberg. Though rather than crying sour grapes over this terminal ending, Greenberg saves most of his vitriol for his CEO replacement, Jimmy Cayne, who Greenberg views with unconstrained disgust as he (Cayne) appears to disregard the well-being of the company in its darkest moments, preferring to play golf or compete in bridge tournaments where he was a renowned championship player; a proverbial Nero as CEO.

The shame of the book is two-fold. One, is that Greenberg, a legend on Wall Street, shares very little of what made him the expert arbitrager of financial markets in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, and more importantly, that the book, only 197 pages in length, seems more designed to settle the score of his late period conflicts with those who took his position(s). If his purpose, as it appears, was to create what one writer described as a ‘memoir as revenge,” Greenberg has succeeded. If that is your view of success.

Read an excerpt of McGee’s book here.

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