ALA Friday Night Lite

Okay... there was a "preview" of the exhibit floor, from 5:15 (opened late) to 8 PM.

First, there was a buffet (YES, an actual spread of food), but I had just eaten lunch, so I just grabbed a can of Coke.

Trina Robbins has a new book out with Lerner, so I took a quick detour to their booth. Just arrived (due out in August), she writes middle school detective story titled "The Drained Brains Caper", illustrated by Tyler Page. Then's there's the second volume of Colleen AF Venable's Guinea PIg, Pet Shop Private Eye, titled "And Then There Were Gnomes"!

Scholastic caught me off guard with Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer teaming up again for "The Odious Ogre", a picture book. I've never been a fan, haven't read the book, but the film of The Phantom Tollbooth, directed by Chuck Jones, actually put me to sleep. Now, The Dot and The Line... that is one of the ultimate nerd romances ever written! I first saw the Oscar-winning short, and then years later found the original hardcover. (It's since been reprinted.)

Then I ventured to the graphic novel pavilion, and eventually wound up at the Drink and Draw. Free wine, five artists drawing crazy suggestions from the audience (a person, a place, a situation). The three challenges:

1. Sarah Palin, cooking a bundt cake, at the Grand Canyon
2. Albert Einstein, doing the long jump, on the Moon
3. A dwarf, performing heart surgery, in the middle of a road

One drawing was raffled off, the others will be auctioned off by ALA.

Oh, and some BIG news. The Dabel Brothers have a new business, titled Sea Lion Books. Three initial authors: L. A. Banks, Richelle Mead, and...
(let me but it up in lights so you won't miss it...)

PAULO COELHO

Yeah, my jaw dropped. That's a BIG name, an author who writes regular literary fiction, not some author known for genre work. Then they showed the book cover:

The Alchemist

Yes. THAT book. A book which has been been in print since 1987, and still sells tremendously (currently #316 among all books on BN.com). A book translated into 67 languages, and which has sold over 41 million copies worldwide.

Not much information available, although it is scheduled for November, 2010.

I'll let others discuss the Dabel's previous publishing history. This graphic novel is being published via HarperOne, which has the rights to the prose novel. The other two books seem to be under the Sea-Lion name, with an EAN prefix of 978-0-9828186.

No listing yet in Books In Print, but here are the first five EANs from Sea-Lion:

978-0-9828186-0-2 Shadow Walker by L. A. Banks
978-0-9828186-1-9 (nothing in Google)
978-0-9828186-2-6 (nothing in Google)
978-0-9828186-3-3 (nothing in Google)
978-0-9828186-4-0 Storm Born by Richelle Meade

Very interesting... and this is just Friday evening!