Showing posts with label Watzke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Watzke. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

A photo journey through BEA 2013

Last week, book madness descended on New York City for BookExpo America (BEA), an annual publishing conference and book exhibition extravaganza for publishers, industry experts, booksellers, librarians, and book lovers.

While educational panels, subsidiary rights meetings, and more take place throughout the conference, the most dazzling feature of BEA is always the Exhibition Hall, where publishers showcase the books they are most excited about for the upcoming fall season or that they have recently published.  JVNLA's books were featured prominently, so of course we hunted them down and snapped some photos in order to bring a part of BEA 2013 to our blog! 

To give you a sense of what the Exhibition Hall looks like, check out the photo below, showing conference attendees milling around several publishers' booths, including Algonquin and Workman.  Now, imagine this multiplied over 760,000 square feet of exhibition space! 


Clearly, many, many eyes were on the look out for exciting, new books.  We were pleased that so many of JVNLA's books were a part of the spotlight!

According to reports from the front at Sourcebooks, the line for a signed galley of Dianne Dixon's newest novel, THE BOOK OF SOMEDAY (September 2013), was long and didn't end until the last copies were given away!  THE BOOK OF SOMEDAY is the story of three women, each caught up in a web of secrets, and one haunted by a nightmare of a beautiful woman in a silver dress.  While we didn't get a picture of the galley line, we did snap one of Dixon standing beneath her cover as it presided over the Sourcebooks exhibition area.


One woman got started reading THE BOOK OF SOMEDAY right away!


The Lyons Press exhibition booth featured ONE PUNCH FROM THE PROMISED LAND: Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, and the Myth of the Heavyweight Title by John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro (September 2013).  The book is a narrative nonfiction account of the two famous boxing brothers and the divergent paths their lives took.
 

At the Skirt! Books display table, Linda Hundt's recipe book based on her award-winning bakery of the same name, SWEETIE-LICIOUS PIES: Eat Pie, Love Life (October 2013), made passersby salivate.


C.J. Sansom's newest novel, DOMINION (Mulholland Books, January 2014), was an eagerly anticipated giveaway over at Hachette's booth. DOMINION sets readers in an alternate history in which Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940, and, twelve years later, a spy for the Resistance must rescue a man with a secret from a British mental hospital and smuggle him from the country.


Soft Skull Press's booth showcased Berlin Reed's just-released part-food memoir, part-argument for sustainable living, THE ETHICAL BUTCHER: How Thoughtful Eating Can Change Your World (April 2013). 


At the Penguin exhibition area, Jillian Cantor signed galleys of her new novel MARGOT (Riverhead, September 2013).  The novel is a reimagining of the life of Margot Frank, Anne Frank's sister, had she not died in a concentration camp in 1945.


Conference attendees were so excited about snagging a copy of MARGOT that even a baby rifled through the pages to get a quick glimpse of the story!


At Smithsonian Books, YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE: A Guide to Exploring the Cosmos by Kimberly K. Arcand and Megan Watzke (April 2013) stood out on a display table.


PASSION BLUE by Victoria Strauss (November 2012), a YA novel about a seventeen-year-old in Renaissance Italy sentenced to live in a convent when all she wants is true love, graced the display tables at the Amazon Children's Publishing booth.


BEYOND THE BEAR (March 2013), a memoir about surviving a bear attack and learning to live and love again, written by Dan Bigley and co-author Debra McKinney, was featured in the display racks over at Lyons Press.


Meanwhile, Algonquin arranged its featured books on the walls of its booth.  Just to the right and below the center, you'll find A LIFE IN MEN by Gina Frangello (February 2014), a novel of a woman diagnosed with debilitating cystic fibrosis who takes up her best friend's adventurous lifestyle across many countries and with many men after her friend's tragic death.


Jeryl Brunner signed copies of her newest celebrity travel book, MY CITY, MY LOS ANGELES: Famous People Share Their Favorite Places (March 2013) at the Globe Pequot Press booth.  We snapped a photo of her (center) with her agent Jessica Regel (left) and editor Amy Lyons (right).


In addition to Brunner, Slash Coleman was another JVNLA author selected by Globe Pequot Press to sign books at this year's BEA. Below is the sign announcing the times of the signings for Brunner's MY CITY, MY LOS ANGELES and Coleman's THE BOHEMIAN LOVE DIARIES (Lyons Press, July 2013).


And, here, check out Brunner's and Coleman's books on display at the Globe Pequot Press booth.


As you can see in the previous photo, the cover of Coleman's THE BOHEMIAN LOVE DIARIES features a young boy, shirtless and shoeless, wearing a motorcycle helmet.  Well, that boy made a special guest appearance at BEA.  Here he is below, pictured with the author.  Together, they took the BEA by storm!


Thursday, March 28, 2013

Adults and kids unite in geek love for YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE!


YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE arrives in stores next week!  The book is being published by Smithsonian Books and co-authored by Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke, both of whom work closely with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Filled with breathtaking images of space alongside warm and entertaining pop-culture-relevant captions, YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE can perhaps best be summed up by the teaser trailer below:



If that doesn't do it for you, though, the book has also been receiving raves across the web in advance of publication.

Young Eyes on Science called it "a brand new treasure for our library of dreams" and lauded its ability to captivate both kids and adults ("Books that can make an adult feel like a 'wide-eyed' kid again are special indeed").  The site also noted, "The true magic of YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE is the style of writing that supports the breathtaking photography."

Cumbrian Sky praised the book for being "basically a masterclass in astronomy outreach and education. It's as if the authors got together somewhere and decided to put down on paper The Best Astronomy Outreach Presentation Ever, to show everyone else how to do it." The writer also said, "I can't recommend it highly enough."

Universe Today called the book "visually exciting and enjoyable" and stated, "This is my favorite kind of astronomy book." The site has created a giveaway contest for the book, so stop by here and enter before Monday, April 1, to win a copy!

YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE was recently featured on local TV station WPRI-12 in Providence, Rhode Island, on The Rhode Show. Watch Kimberly Arcand's interview below, in which she speaks about how she became involved in astronomy and why she and co-author Megan Watzke decided to write the book in the first place:



Other advance praise received so far follows:

"This is the 'Goldilocks' book for a reader who wants more than prety pictures but less than a treatise on astrophysics. It's just right, a great ticket to that space between a coffee-table book and a textbook. It contains just enough extra information to understand why these beautiful images of the Universe matter, to us all." --Alyssa Goodman, professor of astronomy, Harvard University

"A delightful jaunt through space and time, equal parts knowing verve and dazzling views." --Dan Vergano, USA Today

"One of the best things we humans can do is try to understand the Universe. With clear language and gorgeous imagery, YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE is more than just a ticket: it's a field guide to everything there is, and our place in it." --Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy

 Smithsonian Books, April 2013