I just posted a news item (click on news and scroll down to May 16) about the so-called YA (young adult) reader, readers age 12-18. Ask me, that’s a pretty vast gulf in readers. What appeals to most 12-year-olds is unlikely to appeal to most 18-year-olds. But it’s a growing segment, much to the delight of book publishers everywhere. And they’re starting to cater to the YA crowd, finding talented writers, setting up book groups and library/bookstore sections devoted to YA readers.

As I noted in the news feed, “The Kids Are Alright,” shamelessly stealing the phrase from The Who — one of my favorite all-time bands, by the way. Other faves are the Beatles, Stones, Led Zep, U2, R.E.M., (Akron’s own) The Black Keys, the White Stripes, and a quirky bunch out of Canada, The Arcade Fire. But I digress.

The feed quoted a recent Newsweek story about the resurgent YA book sector, and while that’s kind of biz-oriented, the real story is that teens are ignoring all the hand-wringing that nobody reads anymore, that we’re raising a generation video game zombies and that this country’s going to hell in a handbasket! Well, the kids are reading. At least some of them are, and they’re reading a lot.

Exhibit A: My son, Matt, who turns 13 in June, plowed through the entire Harry Potter series in two weeks. It was spring break. How much of it he absorbed, I can’t say. But still. There are times we have to pry the PlayStation controls out of his clenched hands to get him back to reading. Ya do what ya gotta do. Daughter Lindsey, 9, is following suit. She just finished her first Harry Potter book.

But it’s not just Harry. Matt loved the Series of Unfortunate Events, following the endless series of disasters bestowed upon the Beaudelaire children. He’s into the Chronicles of Narnia (yes , we plan to see the second movie, which is getting good reviews).

My wife, DeAnne, is especially persistent in making sure the kids read, and early on we read to them.

Curiously, my boy, the son of a writer, doesn’t much care for writing. Which kills me, of course. Then again, why would he want to follow in a family biz that had me working nights, weekends and holidays, and then laid me off? Maybe he’s the smart one.

Damn you, muse!! Damn youuuuuuuuuu!

To borrow the title of an old song by The Who, “The kKids Are Alright.” Folks who desparage the current generation of kids as slack-jawed video game junkies aren’t seeing the whole picture (My son-to-be 13-year-old son is both a rabid gamer and voracious reader — he tore through the entire Harry Potter series in two weeks — ed.).

Says Newsweek: “Contrary to the depressing proclamations that American teens aren’t reading, the surprising truth is they are reading novels in unprecedented numbers. Young-adult fiction (ages 12-18) is enjoying a bona fide boom with sales up more than 25 percent in the past few years, according to a Children’s Book Council sales survey. Virtually every major publishing house now has a teen imprint, many bookstores and libraries have created teen reading groups and an infusion of talented new authors has energized the genre. ”

If you give them something besides dreary and often dreadfully written textbooks, many tweens and teens will read. Sometimes they just need a little encouragement, as in hitting the off button on the TV/game set.

Swiss business consultants Philippe Rothlin and Peter Werder, Swiss business consultants noticed a common thread among workers whom their bosses tended to think were lazy.
“One might easily call them lazy,” Rothlin tells the Chicago Tribune, “but that’s not true. People suffering from boreout want to do something. They want to work, but their company won’t let them.”
Put simply, they’re bored stiff.
To answer that syndrome, Rothlin and Werder published Boreout: Overcoming Workplace Demotivation, a best-seller in Europe that’s being published in the United States in September.
In the book, they explain that managers who are reluctant to delegate tasks leave their staffers with little to do more than menial tasks. At first they kill time surfing the Web, checking e-mail, etc., but eventually they find the leisurely pace unbearable. In some minds, boreout is worse than burnout. It’s a form of underemployment that can lead to apathy and depression.
But enough on that subject. Don’t you have work to do?

To read more about boreout, CLICK HERE

This beach book is the kind of quick, absorbing read that goes down as easily as a glass of iced lemonade (double sugar) after a day in the sun. But that’s not to say author Jan Goldstein doesn’t try to insert some serious issues into the bathos. At book signings, Goldstein has learned that the novel resonates with readers whose lives have been touched by Alzheimer’s and those raising teen-agers, he says.
“Many people who come are moms and wives who are caught between the crunch of taking care of a parent or taking care of a teenager,” Goldstein says.
His protagonist does both while campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat from California. In the waning days of his primary campaign, candidate Teddy Mathison is summoned to his boyhood home on Nantucket, where his estranged mother, Kate, is dying from Alzheimer’s disease. Worse, Mathison is forced to take along his sullen teenage daughter, Zoe, who despises her father for abandoning her.

To learn more about The Prince of Nantucket, CLICK HERE

Wine lovers might experience conflicting thoughts about “The Wine Trials,” a book that explores the phenomenon of “wine snobbery” and how the taste of “experienced” or expert wine tasters varies from everyday wine drinkers.
One blind taste test with 500 people in some cases rated the cheaper wines higher than expensive ($150 a bottle) wines. When they narrowed the group to include only “experienced” oenophiles, the expensive wines fared much better, suggesting that the experienced tasters had a more trained palate and nose.
Author Robin Goldstein also found that price, marketing and other factors influenced preferences.
“The book suggests that if you take away all of these factors and make buying decisions strictly on the grounds of what tastes best in the glass, everyday wine drinkers prefer cheaper wines to more expensive wines,” writes Eric Asimov on his New York Times blog, The Pour.
Subtitled “100 Everyday Wines under $15 That Beat $50 to $150 Bottles,” the book also provides an in-depth listing of wines that did well in the trials.

“The Wine Trials,” ISBN 9780974014357, is on sale now, although some sellers are out of stock.

Read the blog.

Read the editorial.

And now we’re running with the big dogs! That Peter Gabriel tune “Big Time” is bouncing through my head. We have a deal to produce content for MSN.com’s shopping pages. We’re in the Ask the Expert section. There are some T’s to cross and an i or two to dot, but it’s basically a done deal. It’s already online. All we need is to get paid. This was a long time in the making — not as long as some others, but long enough. You have to first contact the right people, negotiate the labyrinthine bureaucracy (we’re talking Microsoft here) , wait for the lawyers to dissect the deal, make an appealing pitch and (sales talk time) overcome objections. And now, I ask you , dear and humble blog reader, to visit that site (see link below) and maybe purchase a product advertised on the site. Why? So that we can continue to exist as a Microsoft vendor. Crass commercialism? It’s the American way, baby! Thank you, thank you.

http://shopping.msn.com/content/shp/?ctid=4695

I found this quite amusing:

For many would-be entrpreneurs, one of the more distasteful things involved in a startup is fundraising, or dialing for dollars. Unless you hit the lottery (one in 20 million chance) or a sugar daddy/mama comes through (not likely), you’re gonna need to raise funds. And as you do that, figure for a year’s worth of labor, lawyers, accountants (assuming you’re not one yourself, and we’re not), office space (maybe), supplies, labor/salaries (maybe) — add all that up, then triple it, and you’re getting close to a realistic startup cost. Have a concrete business plan, in writing, and be prepared to revise it. A lot. Thank God for modern software. 30 years ago that rewrite meant spending untold hours hunched over the IBM or Smith-Corona typewriter, clack-clack-clacking away. Now, you just boot up your laptop and delete and insert. What could be more fun than that?

And so, with business plan and 30-second pitch ready to go, start dialing. Ask for money and ask for referrals.

Diane Evans, “the boss,” has been dialing for dollars for something like two years. She’s at it again today. She enlisted my wife to assist. It’s hilarious, they carry on like sisters. Through trial and error, Diane’s gotten really good at pitching. And we’ve made some amazing connections. I’ve made some small contributions, getting our foot in the door at the Cleveland Clinic and a connection with world’s most connected guy, Daniel Moneypenny. If you don’t know Daniel Moneypenny, you don’t know squat. Cuz he said so.

Prospecting leads to meetings and, sometimes, a deal. It all takes a lot of time and stomach-churning moments. But when it works, it is awesome.

One success story: MSN.com. More on that later (above).

Author Catherine Friend tries to strike a balance between her carnivorous desires and humane treatment of the animals we eat. A farmer herself, she practices what she we preaches in The Compassionate Carnivore - Or, How To Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald’s Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, And Still Eat Meat.
Friend raises sheep for meat, and in doing so has developed relationships with the sheep, and feels a sense of gratitude for their sacrifice. It might strike some people as an odd paradox, but a similar ethic was applied by Native Americans hundreds of years ago: respect and gratitude for the animals they hunted.
She compares her small sustainable farm to the factory farms you’ve probably seen vilified in PETA commercials.
The Compassionate Carnivore, ISBN 9781600940071, was published in April by Da Capo Press.

See a Blog Critic’s take on The Compassionate Carnivore.

To buy the book, CLICK HERE

Before you roll yours eyes thinking, “Great, another celeb book,” let us tell you: This guy can write. His latest effort, Swine Not?, is the story of Barley, a 9-year-old boy whose family moves from Tennessee to a New York City hotel with their pet pig, Rumpy. As they move in, a sign bodes ill: “No Pets Allowed.” Strictly enforced.

In addition to keeping a squealy pig out of sight, they have to dodge the hotel’s carnivorous chef. This story is based on true events in the life of the book’s illustrator, Helen Bransford. Buffett, also author of A Salty Piece of Land and A Pirate Looks at Fifty, brings a charming storytelling style to Swine Not?

Swine Not?, ISBN 9780316114028, is on sale now.