Just learned Better World Books will be featured repeatedly on CNN today and this weekend. Check it out during the shows that air at one of these times (all times are EDT). Please pass it on!
John Perkins is the real deal. A former economic hit man, he was actually part of the problem he describes in THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. But Perkins didn’t like what he saw happening and chose not to be a part of it anymore. He literally risked his life to expose the game.
What’s great about Perkins’ books is they are written for real people like you and me who are not economists and who are not focused on this stuff on a daily basis. Each region of the world is discussed not in mind-numbing detail but with just enough information to get you up to speed. Read more…
Don’t forget to sign up for the Better World Book Club. We pick a new book each month that you can discuss with us here on the blog or take back to your neighborhood book club. We even set you up with everything you need for your meeting…. a synopsis of the book, discussion questions and even a great recipe. You can sign up by going to manage subscriptions now.
You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.
Last month I promised you a great beach read for June…so here it is. To me a beach read is not necessarily all lightness and fluff, but rather a page turner where you care about the characters and are left feeling upbeat or hopeful at the end. Wendy Wax’s latest doesn’t disappoint.
The Accidental Bestseller does for (or to) publishing what The Devil Wears Prada did for fashion mags: gives you an under the covers look into a world you wouldn’t otherwise get to see.
Wendy uses the backdrop of the publishing industry to explore friendship, marriage and career and introduces us to four unique women who struggle with all of it.
Here’s a couple of questions the book brought up for me:
Does you career define you? What would you do if you woke up one morning and it was over?
Do your friends have to know everything about you in order for them to truly be your friends?
How much would you risk to help a friend?
And here’s some trivia for you…there’s a character named after me somewhere in the book. The first person to comment here on the blog with the page number I appear on gets a $25 gift certificate!
For more discussion questions and a tasty summer recipe, check out the book club email and feel free to leave some comments and let me know what you thought of the book!
Last week, our own Xavier Helgesen sat down with Cris Valerio at Bloomberg TV to talk about our company, our mission and how the whole thing got started. Check it out!
Great news! As you probably already know, promoting literacy has always been woven into the fabric of our business. Now we’re delighted to announce we’ve given an ownership stake to our non-profit literacy partners. Yup…we’ve granted Incentive Stock Options to these partners - as far as we know, a first for social enterprise.
The purpose of the plan, put together with the help of our primary investor, Good Capital, is to ensure that our literacy partners can have a stake in and share in our financial success.
We’ve put aside roughly 5% of the company for use in stock option grants to an initial group of five literacy partners (with potential to add others in the future): Books for Africa, Invisible Children, Room To Read, WorldFund and the National Center for Family Literacy.
One of our fearless leaders Xavier Helgesen puts it best: “We created Better World Books to show that it is possible to do good while at the same time run a successful company. Our literacy partners are essential to our mission, and we want them to flourish. Today’s announcement ensures that as our company grows, our partners will too.”
Matthew Pearl barely looks old enough to have written one book, let alone three incredibly well researched national and international bestsellers. But he has…and he got some impressive degrees while doing it. A graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, Matthew actually started writing his first novel, THE DANTE CLUB while he was still in school. While most of us were rolling over and happily skipping our 8 o’clock classes, Matthew Pearl was writing.
And it has paid off. His books are a unique combination of page turning mystery and well researched historical fiction.
As a book lover, I was especially excited to meet Matthew and chat about his latest book, THE LAST DICKENS when he was in Atlanta on tour recently. I dug in to the book and got the details on what is fact and what is fiction, along with the acceptable nicknames for Matthew and a clue about what he is working on next. Read more…
One of my favorite things about working for Better World Books is the amazing people I get to meet from across the country who share Better World Books’ vision to keep books out of landfills and support global literacy.
Last month, I had the privilege of meeting Kristin Putchinski of the Baltimore based band ellen cherry. I met Kristin while she was traveling through Atlanta following a performance at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, GA.
The singer-songwriter is one of many musicians using their talent to support and spread awareness of the noble efforts of Invisible Children to end the war in Northern Uganda. I was happy to discover Kristin was already a fan of Better World Books and was eager to spread the word of how students can support Invisible Children through the Book Drives for Better Lives program at her upcoming benefit concert. Better World Books’ partnership with Invisible Children has brought in over 1.7 million books to generate unrestricted funding for Invisible Children in what is being called the largest book drive in history.
Atlanta traffic almost got in the way of my interview with Laura Lippman about her new book LIFE SENTENCES. She was scheduled to be at my office at 5PM, but had to be across town for a signing event at 7Pm that same day. When she saw the traffic, she didn’t think it would work and was on the brink of cancelling or rescheduling at least.
But I was determined to meet her. I had been reading Laura’s books since long before I ever had a bookstore or began working for Better World Books. I just had to meet her - and share her work with you.
So, I jumped in my car with all of my equipment and drove across town to meet her. Laura was gracious enough to wait for me and also allow me to interview her in her hotel room, since we couldn’t find another spot. Read more…
Don’t forget to sign up for the Better World Book Club Newsletter. Our monthly book club email includes a synopsis of the book, discussion questions and even a great recipe. You can sign up by going to manage subscriptions now.
You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.
I actually read Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea several years ago for a book club I was part of and it stuck with me, so now I want to share it with you. While clearly a literary exercise (as letters fall off a statue - they are removed from the written and spoken vocabulary of an island community by its totalitarian government), it is also a really good story and a thought provoking political statement.
I have read other books that felt like literary exercises to me. Some work and some don’t. The one that pops into my mind first is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book was very highly acclaimed but I found myself distracted by some of his literary devices, and for me that took something away for the book. I felt like it was a project for a graduate level writing class. It would get an A for sure, but I want to feel the emotion and discover the plot rather than be cleverly deviced to death.
Hello and welcome to the Better World Books Blog. Here you'll find author interviews, book reviews and general ramblings from employees of the "Online bookstore with a soul." But we didn't make this blog as a soapbox... talk back!
Just learned Better World Books will be featured repeatedly on CNN today and this weekend. Check it out during the shows that air at one of these times (all times are EDT). Please pass it on! 
One of my favorite things about working for 
Atlanta traffic almost got in the way of my interview with 
