Shelfari recently posted its most popular books among its members. And here they are:

* The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer
* Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian
* The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
* Sundays at Tiffany’s by James Patterson
* A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father by Augusten Burroughs

We at DelMio have no official affiliation with Shelfari, although some of us are members. Your editor has joined at least 100 different groups, organizations, social media in the past 18 months.

To visit Shelfari, CLICK HERE.

I ran across an interesting tidbit while rifling through various releases, newsletters, announcements, etc. It was a new (re-)release of a John McCain book, Citizen McCain. It stated, rather vaguely, I thought, that it was released May 2008. Typically they’ll give the specific date of publication, usually a Tuesday. Why is that? I’m sure there’s a standard answer that I’m just too dumb to know.

I digress. So I poked around, Googled it (God bless Google), read some reviews and discerned that this is a re-issue of a 2002 book. Which explains why it focused so much on campaign reform legislation and 9/11. I looked again, and the cover does add “new introduction by the author.” Still, it’s clear that the publisher (Simon and Schuster) was hoping to impress the would-be buyer that this is new stuff.

Then I ran into an even more-interesting item that had escaped my ever-vigilant radar (he writes, facetiously): John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which technically is not in the United States. Which, technically, could be viewed as making him ineligible to be president by constitutional rule. It seems to have only been noticed in Washington. I’m surprised there isn’t more buzz in the Conspiracy Theory Asylum. Apparently, his birth was not posted in public records (although there is a birth certificate) and his parents never filed the official paperwork supposedly required to affirm U.S. citizenship for a child born to U.S. citizens overseas. McCain’s father was serving in the military at the time. So, conspiracy theorists, who’s the blame for this fiasco if McCain is found ineligible? The Dems? The right-wingers? Both? (Wouldn’t that be something?)

The Senate passed a unanimous statement affirming McCain a U.S. citizen. Except it’s nonbinding. Chances are it’ll end up a big nothing.

See the official DelMio news feed, CLICK HERE.

Dave Wilson is the Grand Pooh-Bah of Editorial Content at DelMio.com, a site developed by SunLit Communications LLC. He also is at times janitor, chauffeur, chief cook and bottle washer. Once upon a time he was a metro editor and copy editor at the Akron Beacon Journal. Send love letters and trash talk to dave.wilson@delmio.com. Or post a comment. Whatever.

Citizen McCain, first published in 2002, is back for another run in this election year. Spiffed up with a new cover and “A new introduction by the author,” Elizabeth Drew, the book recounts McCain’s fight to push election reform through Congress in 2001, then making many high-profile appearances in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Some reviewers found the account of the various events surrounding the reform fight tedious and they thought Drew fawned a bit too much over the senator. (One reviewer mocked him as being kind to small children and puppy dogs.) Others were impressed with his maverick “can-do” attitude and desire for “change” (sound familiar?) in how Washington does business.

Folks who want a close-up look at how McCain built coalitions (seven years ago, anyway) can get it with Citizen McCain.

Citizen McCain, ISBN 9781416593171, is available in stores and online.

To learn more, CLICK HERE.

BONUS: John McCain’s citizenship, eligibility for presidency challenged. (Conspiracy theorists: Enjoy)

To buy, CLICK HERE.

Acclaimed author Salman Rushdie has a new novel out this week, The Enchantress of Florence. Already he is the author of nine previous novels, probably most notably The Satanic Verses, which so enraged the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran that he put a bounty on Rushdie.
Says the Random House Web site: “The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It is the story of two cities, unknown to each other, at the height of their powers–the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant Akbar the Great wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire, and the treachery of his sons, and the equally sensual city of Florence during the High Renaissance, where Niccolò Machiavelli takes a starring role as he learns, the hard way, about the true brutality of power.
“Vivid, gripping, irreverent, bawdy, profoundly moving, and completely absorbing, The Enchantress of Florence is a dazzling book full of wonders by one of the world’s most important living writers.”

Of course, Random wants you to buy the book.
The Enchantress of Florence, ISBN 978-0-375-50433-4, is retailing for $26.

If you’d like to comply with Random’s wishes or simply learn more about the book, CLICK HERE.

Vanita Oelschlager’s book of poetry, Air Mask, began as a personal exercise just to serve as a sort of therapy for her long days as a caregiver for her husband, Jim. Jim has multiple sclerosis, but the issues a caregiver deals with are largely universal. A friend read the poems and told her, “You have to share these with others.” This Exploration, sponsored by Summa Health System, focuses largely on caregiving and caregivers. Vanita’s poetry speaks eloquently to the emotion and soul of the caregiver. DelMio and Summa aim to address education and support for caregivers, whether a wife, son, daughter, parent or sibling or friend.

Click Here for the Exploration

Bookseller Borders, after some seven years of selling its books via Amazon.com, is consolidating and relaunching its own site for selling books and other merchandise.
“We are a bookstore – and we have to be a real bookstore online,” Kevin Ertell, Borders’ group vice president of e-business, told the Ann Arbor News. “We really tried to make (the site) feel like a Borders store.”

The struggling bookseller is staking a lot on the success of the Web site, which the company strives to make look like a bookstore. It features a virtual shelf that can be customized to suit a customer’s taste.

Visit the Web site, CLICK HERE.

Things are getting even nastier in Washington these days. Now ex-Bushies are turning on the Bush administration – this time it’s former White House spokesman Scott McClellen. His coming book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, is setting off tremors in the capital.
He’s been letting some excerpts slip out since last fall, but today he uncorked some doozies.

Five years ago, anyone who spoke in dissent of the war in Iraq was broadly painted as unpatriotic or worse, a dadgummed Liberal with a capital L. Now that 70 percent of America thinks the war was a mistake (30 percent refuse to acknowledge reality), it’s easy to disparage the Bush administration.

I take little comfort in knowing that in 2002 I said going in and toppling Saddam Hussein was a bad idea. But it was even worse than I thought. I thought they’d at least have enough sense to guard the borders!

I’m sure a lot of conservatives are disappointed, but they have to realize Bush 43 is not a true conservative. A true conservative doesn’t spend more than he earns. Cut-tax-and-spend is a recipe for disaster. The next two or three generations are going to pay for this administration’s screw-ups.

Richard Clark, another former Bush staffer who has been critical of the administration, but didn’t wait two years to pipe up, said the story sounds familiar.

“I think the difference with McClellan’s book is he’s now telling us something we all know — that the war with Iraq was a disastrous war [and] was sold with deception. It’s a little different when you say something as I did and a few other people did four or five years ago, when the war was popular and when we were unpopular for saying what we said.”

I can’t wait to see what the Bush apologists say next.

For more on the subject, CLICK HERE or HERE.

Dave Wilson is the Grand Pooh-Bah of Editorial Content at DelMio.com, a site developed by SunLit Communications LLC. He also is at times janitor, chauffeur, chief cook and bottle washer. Once upon a time he was a metro editor and copy editor at the Akron Beacon Journal. Send love letters and trash talk to dave.wilson@delmio.com. Or post a comment. Whatever.

Let the piling on begin.
The deeply unpopular Bush administration took another hit today as former White House spokesman Scott McClellan released more excerpts of his soon-to-be-published book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.
In essence, he called President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their closest advisers liars.
At the very least, Bush was ill-served by his advisers in matters from the war in Iraq; the Valerie Plame (CIA) leak case in which a working CIA operative was outed; and the botched handling of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath.
The White House responded today, saying it was “puzzled” by McClellan’s scathing memoir. “This is not the Scott we knew,” said current White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. Expect more forceful responses to discredit the longtime Bush loyalist.

For more on the subject, CLICK HERE.

To order the book, CLICK HERE.

By Anne Brennan
I enjoyed doing the review for Angela Johnson’s “Wind Flyers.” What a beautiful book. It’s fascinating to know that a MacArthur fellow lives in Kent, Ohio. Who knew? I don’t know if it’s a requirement, but author Angela Johnson seems as reclusive as Cormac McCarthy, another recipient of the “genius grant.” (For a look at the ultimate uninterested interviewee, check out Oprah’s painful session with McCarthy at www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_RpXe2Taug&feature=related

I like Johnson’s honesty about her writing process in a vistingauthors.com article:

“When I had trouble deciding what I was really doing with my days, the daylilies would bloom, a great movie would show up at the Plaza Cinemas, or children would suddenly appear and stay awhile, letting those thoughts fade away.
Through all of these distractions, who was to make me stay in my office, finish ten pages of that novel, or round out that picture book that had been staring at me each time I walked by it for a month?
The answer was no one. But miraculously, a few times a year I would indeed let some kind and patient person in another state know that I had somehow done it again. Magic. A book.
So, it came to me the other day that all of my days are what I do. All of my days have everything to do with how and why I write. You see, every time I have ever tried to sit in my office overlooking the flower garden and try to force myself to write for a couple of hours a day, I’d just end up watching an old movie or going for a walk.
I need the walks, the gardening, and the day-trips as much as my word processor to enable me to write. Now I know this.
So, I am indeed a writer, and other things too, thankfully. Thus, I happily try to make all the distinct parts work for me. They have everything to do with me being a writer.”

Contrast that with bestselling phenom Nora Roberts’ nose-to-the-grindstone style. Why it’s just like my writing habits…sorry, gotta go. “Oprah” is on.

Our newest blog – booklicious – by Anne Brennan.

John Rosemond, the family psychologist who writes a weekly parenting column, has named four books he recommends for parents. (Rosemond is not a habitual endorser: If you believe in “traditional” parenting, you’ll probably agree with him. More the Dr. Feelgood style? Don’t bother.)

They are: Have a New Kid By Friday by Dr. Kevin Leman; Confident Parenting by Jim Burns, host of the HomeWord radio show; Internet Protect Your Kids by Stephen Arterburn and Roger Marsh; and How to Behave and Why by Munro Leaf. If the last book comes across as a tad old-fashioned, there’s a reason: The original texts were written in the 1930s and ’40s.

Rosemond takes a no-nonsense approach to parenting with little concern about warping a kid’s fragile sense of self-worth; instead he expects kids to mess up, and when they do there are consequences.
The first book, New Kid by Friday, sounds a little like boot camp. Consider the subtitle: How to Change Your Child’s Attitude, Behavior and Character in 5 Days. Dog trainers say that obedience training is more for the owners than the dogs; same rules applies here to parents.

Sit!

Read!

For more on this and other Rosemond columns, CLICK HERE.

Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy by Charlie Savage has won the 2008 New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. The award, given annually since 1987, rewards journalists who bring clarity and public attention to issue.

The Award includes a $15,000 cash prize.

From the New York Public Library’s press release quotes Savage:

“The Bush-Cheney administration’s systematic effort to expand presidential power — a push that originated not with 9/11 but rather with Cheney’s experiences in the Ford administration after Watergate and Vietnam — is the most successfully implemented policy of the current White House. It is also one of the least understood. I wrote this book to explain how the system of checks and balances devised by the founders is changing as ever more power is being concentrated in the hands of the president and his top advisers — be they Republicans or Democrats — and to tell the dramatic stories behind this movement,” said Savage. “My thanks to the NYPL Bernstein Award committee for helping to direct wider attention to this fundamental constitutional issue, which transcends partisan politics.”

Charlie Savage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is a Washington correspondent for the Boston Globe.

To view the press release, CLICK HERE

As an unemployed dad (we can relate), Daniel Evans made up his mind to finish writing a book. He writes about his job loss, depression/liberation and fatherhood at length in his blog, dadgonemad.com.
The result: Rage Against the Meshugenah. (Meshugenah is reportedly Yiddish for “crazy” — though it apparently morphs easily from adjective to noun.)

In his May 10 entry, he writes about becoming An Author:

In the dream, I was an author. I wrote books. I spent my days on safari in my own imagination. I was satisfied. I was doing what I loved for a living, and that contentment permeated every hard, dark corner of my existence. Then suddenly I was awake again, and the reality that I was NOT the person in my dream washed over me like rain cloud.

So one night, about a year ago, I decided to quit dreaming. I sat down at my keyboard and began to write. I began to create the trappings of my dream in real life.

It has been the hardest year of my writing life. Rejection has reigned. Every small victory has been countered by enormous disappointment and despair. I have neglected friendships, responsibilities, family obligations. Phone calls and emails have gone unreturned. I have opened my soul to criticism, and I have convinced myself that this is my last best chance to accomplish something for myself – to escape the rut of cubicle jobs, financial desperation and career aimlessness.

Thursday morning, my agent called from New York.

“You have a book deal,” she said.
To read the post, CLICK HERE

A little boy learns the story of his great, great uncle, who loved to fly. As a child, his uncle’s dream landed him in a pile of hay after leaping from a barn, but later spurred him to become an airman with the 322nd, one of just four African-American squadrons during World War II. Author Angela Johnson’s poetic language and illustrator Loren Long’s painterly images evoke the peace of flying as well as the “magic” of soaring among the clouds and “into the wind,” as “Uncle” would say.

“It’s what heaven must be,” Uncle says to me. “With clouds, like soft blankets, saying, ‘Come on in and get warm. Stay a while and be a wind flyer too.’”

To discover more about Angela Johnson and “Wind Flyers,” CLICK HERE

Our office here at the swanky Akron Innovation Campus was burgled again last weekend. They broke through a narrow glass pane next to the door, which is kept locked at (nearly) all times. Apparently they stole two computers from the dental office upstairs. Nobody found anything missing down here. Not even the beer in the fridge! So the university is installing pass card locks on the outside doors to keep the cretins outside.

This is why I don’t leave my laptop unwatched here. We’re in a commercial area, but it’s near some pretty crappy neighborhoods. I wouldn’t leave my car here overnight.

I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but man, Northeast Ohio just keeps sliding deeper and deeper into the toilet. There are blocks of vacant storefronts and office space in Akron and Cleveland. Foreclosures everywhere — even worse here than in most parts of the country. I think about pulling out of this town full of losers, pulling out of here to wiiiiiiin. Oh, oh, oh, Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road.

I’m doing official DelMio work, having picked up a copy of Walt Disney’s Cinderella, Retold by Cynthia Rylant. Rylant is a former Kent (Ohio) resident and a pretty well-known children’s book writer. She’s no Madonna, but there’s only room in this world for one Madonna, and Madonna has it.

Anyway, a story to file under “Small World,” it turns out that two of the six books we’re exploring for the Ohio Center for the Book have authors who not only knew each other but one helped the other get started in the publishing biz. Rylant had two small children a decade or two ago and she hired Angela Johnson to watch her kids. Various bios describe the job alternately as “nanny” or “baby sitter.” In any event, Rylant eventually discovered Johnson’s writing talent and helped shepherd the young writer through the publishing jungle. And then Johnson went and bought Rylant’s house when she and her partner, “Captain Underpants” author Dav Pilkey, moved out of Kent.

Johnson has a reputation for being a recluse. No listing in the phone book. No personal Web site or Facebook entry, apparently. She has been interviewed, but does not play the publicity game much. I guess she prefers to express herself through writing.

Dave Wilson is the Grand Pooh-Bah of Editorial Content at DelMio.com, a site developed by SunLit Communications LLC. He also is at times janitor, chauffeur, chief cook and bottle washer. Once upon a time he was a metro editor and copy editor at the Akron Beacon Journal. Send love letters and trash talk to dave.wilson@delmio.com. Or post a comment. Whatever.

Melissa Gilbert has signed a book deal to tell the behind-the-scenes story from her days on “Little House on the Prairie.” (Let’s see, torrid affair with fellow cast member? Michael Landon, party animal?) She’ll also talk about her Hollywood Brat-Pack days, Rob Lowe and other people and events in her life.
The book is due out next spring, reports Publishers Marketplace.

I don’t typically do a lot of insider news about the publishing industry. But when Random House gets a new CEO, that’s worthy news. And with the German parent company making it clear that Random has to make more money, it could lead to the kind of earthshaking changes that will directly affect book consumers. The industry sold more than 3 billion books last year, according to a gov’t report. That’s a lot of freakin’ books! And a lot of consumers out there. If you figure one in three Americans bought at least one book (a totally made-up figure, I have no idea what the real number is), that would amount to 100,000 book buyers.

I had a journalism professor who, among other things, used to frequent a restaurant where I tended bar and order three manhattans (not all at once!) with dinner. From the journalism class he taught, I remember two things. 1. News is when those who are in a position to say “This is news,” say “This is news.” 2. The purpose of a newspaper is to make money! His voice would swell up two octaves and 30 decibels as he said “MAKE MONEY.” Ohio State j-school alumni from a certain era will recognize this professor immediately.

That “make money” part is happening less and less at newspapers now — which played a large role in my job description of “former” Akron Beacon Journal editor. Bitter? Me? Actually, I’m having a blast here with DelMio, holed up in the Akron Innovation Campus and at the moment overhearing some UAkron tech guys try to figure out what’s wrong with the Wi-Fi (which, as far as I can tell, is nothing).

This moment shall live on in DelMio lore.

Markus Dohle has been named CEO and chairman of Random House, the U.S. division of German media giant Bertelsmann AG. The selection of Dohle, 39, is viewed as a surprise in some circles because of his youth and lack of experience in an industry known for its tight-knit circles. Bertlesman CEO Hartmut Ostrowski said he expects better financial performance at Random House, which could signal broader change is afoot at the publisher, which could mean palpable change for everyday readers.

Dohle replaces Peter Olson as CEO at Random. Olson, who struggled to improve Random’s financial footing, said he was leaving to enter academia.

To read more, CLICK HERE.

I’m revisiting The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of our early Explorations, as we continue our move to the new host. In doing so, I am reminded that the author can come across as rather curmudgeonly. Smart guys are entitled to be, I suppose, (and he does remind you on occasion that he IS a smart guy). But then he off and quotes Yogi Berra, a globally recognized butcher of sentences, and I’m smiling again. How smart is he? Plenty. NNT, as he refers to himself, comes across as much more accessible and friendly on TV and radio. The Colbert Report bit is priceless.

He all but predicted (actually, he DID predict it) the financial meltdown triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis as he called JPMorgan’s RiskMetric jabberwocky a “phony” method of managing risk. The book was published in spring 2007. The troubles started around August. Bear Stearns had to be rescued, and major banks from Citigroup to JPMorgan Chase (So how’s the RiskMetric thing working for ya?) took huge write-downs.

Gee, this seems smart: Invite people to apply for huge variable-rate, pay-interest-only loans that they wouldn’t have qualified for five years ago on overpriced property and don’t even bother to check the applicant’s employment history, income. Watch the interest rates creep (sometimes jump) up. And then act shocked — SHOCKED! — that defaults start shooting through the roof. Idiots. If it weren’t for the carnage that letting them go down would cause, I’d like to see a few million-dollar-salary execs get their heads handed to them as they’re transported to Manhattan’s finest homeless shelter as the banks lie in ruins. Ah, we can dream.