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One of
the best parts about running a book review website is getting
free books before they come out. At the moment, I have a nice
little box of review copies sitting on the bottom shelf of
a bookcase, serving as my own personal slush pile. Naturally,
each one comes with a letter from the publicist, attempting
to sell me on the finer points of the accompanying book. Some
stories live up to the hype (Before I Die and Thirteen
Reasons Why spring to mind), but others fail miserably
(Chasing Windmills). Of course, that's to be expected.
After all, publicists are paid to hype books—even the
bad ones.
For my
money, the best way to pique interest has always been by word
of mouth—especially when that mouth is truly passionate
about the recommendation. A little over a month ago, while
wandering about the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
at UCLA, I found myself chatting with a couple of people from
Akashic Books. We talked a bit about some of Akashic's authors
and titles, and somewhere in the middle of singing Joe Meno's
praises, one of the Akashic employees interrupted me.
"Hey,
can I give you a book?" he asked.
Now,
readers, let's not make assumptions here. Not all books are
worth taking, even if they're free—and I'm not just talking
about that copy of The Secret that my friend Genevieve
tried foisting upon me a few weeks ago. Next to my slush pile,
I also have a smaller box of books that were so bad, they
were physically painful to read. I'm hesitant even to give
them away for fear of exposing the world to these crimes against
literature. Naturally, I'd like to avoid adding to the reject
pile as much as possible.
But when
that Akashic employee began describing The Duppy, I
knew that it would not be relegated to the reject pile or
even the slush box. He didn't ask that I review it, and he
didn't ask that I even mention it on the website. All he wanted
was to spread the word about this book that he thought was
so smart and so funny that he was determined to tell the world
about it one person at a time. When somebody—even a publisher
or publicist—speaks as highly and earnestly about a book
as he did, one can't help taking notice. And when said book
is given for free, no strings attached, resistance is futile.
Word
of mouth is, in essence, what drives the HBC. After all, we
read books so that we can tell you whether or not they're
worth your time. And some of you even contact us to tell us
what we ought to check out ourselves. Just last month, we
received an e-mail from an author who was so excited about
a certain book that he decided to spam us. And I first heard
of Lynda Barry (author of What It Is) from author/occasional
HBC list contributor Glen David Gold, who was reading Barry's
novel Cruddy at the time and convinced me to buy a
copy myself.
With
all that said, I think I can safely say that we have a nice
little cache of books to share with you this month, including
essays about HBC favorite Haruki Murakami, interviews with
some up and coming authors, and one of three books rereleased
by Penguin to support the Nature Conservancy's campaign to
restore the Brazilian rain forest. Hope you enjoy our recommendations.
If you do, definitely spread the word.
Happy
reading,
Yennie
(June,
2008)
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