Perigee Bookmarks is run by the editors of Perigee, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA). Like our books, every post offers useful, useless, curious, or creative insights on everyday life.
Wreck This App
The endlessly fun and creative app based on Wreck This Journal.
Reporting on the truth about our fellow creatures is a lonely job. Despite my best efforts to expose their bad habits and character flaws, they still seem to get nothing but good press. One day, yet another book about a puppy hits the best-seller list. The next, another cute animal photo goes viral. And last week, we had a story by the Associated Press about gift-buying plans for the holiday season.
The article contained the results of a poll revealing that pet owners have budgeted an average of $46 for gifts for their pets—more than the average $41 they reported spending last year. Yes, unemployment is at nine percent and governments everywhere are cutting basic services, but if you’re a dog or a cat, don’t worry. The odds are good that you’ll find even more in your Christmas stocking this year than last.
I admit that I’m as guilty of this sort of thing as anyone. My cats get hairball-medicine treats that cost as much per pound as Kobe beef. My pugs dine on kibble made of locally sourced free-range chicken and wild-caught fish, and go on vacation with me to nice hotels. They certainly do get Christmas presents, and homemade birthday cakes, too.
What have our pets done to deserve this kind of treatment? Sure, they’re cute and cuddly. But did you know that over 86,000 Americans end up in the emergency room each year because a pet caused them to fall? Or that pets start about a thousand house fires a year?
And you may believe that you’re doing all these nice things for your sweet furbabies of your own free will when, in fact, these creatures are manipulating us at a completely unconscious level. Those puppy-dog eyes trigger the same neurotransmitter involved in pair-bonding with your mate and maternal behavior toward your offspring. And cats use a special combination meow-purr to demand service that’s acoustically similar to the cry of a human infant, a sound that we’ve evolved over millennia to respond to without fail.
So let’s get a grip on ourselves, people. Times are tough. Spending going UP on presents for our pets makes no sense, because even leaving aside whether they deserve it, they’d be just as happy with stuff that costs nothing. Let your pet’s worst qualities work in your favor for a change. Cats, for instance, may be beautiful, but they’re no geniuses: Their tiny brains can get hours of entertainment out of an empty box or paper bag. Just give them what the human presents came in and their holiday fun is all set, at no extra cost.
And what will make this the Christmas your dog will always remember? Just think about whatever you’re constantly yelling at him for, and go with it. Let him dive into the kitchen trash, just this once. It’s free, and there’s nothing money can buy that he would enjoy more.
I just had the pleasure of editing a very funny new manuscript based on the website FMyLife.com, which collects painfully honest snapshots of life's awkward, embarrassing, or otherwise disappointing little moments, submitted by readers around the world. If you haven't seen the site, I encourage you to check it out (and I hasten to mention that it's often a teensy bit NSFW.) (And if you don't know what NSFW means, then maybe it's best to just skip the whole thing.)
In the spirit of F My Life World Tour (coming from Perigee next June), I humbly present this list of FML entries from the point of view of a hypothetical book editor. That's right, they're composites—inspired by real moments experienced by me and some of my peers, but...edited a little.
With no further ado...
Today, a book that I turned down appeared on the bestseller list. For the fifth week in a row. FML
Today I read yet another proposal that misspelled the word foreword. It was a proposal for a writing guide. FML
Today one of my authors turned in his manuscript. He met the contracted delivery date—but doubled the word count. FML
Today I looked at some financial reports, and I was reminded that the profitability of my books often seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of time I spent editing them. FML
Today, I mentioned to a friend that I'm thinking of buying some new bookshelves. She replied, "I love bookshelves—but I never know what to put on them." FML
Today, I loaded seven proposals onto on my jump drive to read at home in the evening, in advance of our editorial meeting in the morning. Then I left it on my desk. Along with the key to my locked office. FML
Today I heard someone in the industry use the phrase “dead-tree editions.” Without being ironic. FML
Today we heard that an account was passing on one of our titles. The reason: “It has too many words.” FML
Today I turned down three collections of children’s poetry. We don’t publish children’s books. Or poetry. FML
Today, a major newspaper gave one of our books a rave review. And misspelled our imprint’s name. FML
I’d love to hear your publishing-related FMLs (I think…). Comment below, or email me at Marian.Lizzi@us.penguingroup.com. I’ll share the best ones (that aren’t NSFW, of course).
Sometimes I think wine should be the official beverage of the publishing industry. It’s certainly my first choice of drink at any work function or even just a quiet night of working at home. (To all my authors: don’t worry, I do edit your manuscripts with a clear head!) A nice bottle of wine can be an expensive habit, though. So I was definitely excited when we acquired Natalie MacLean’s new book Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines. MacLean, an acclaimed sommelier and journalist, spends the book exploring the far corners of the globe for great, affordable wines and the colorful vintners who make them. Along the way she offers some useful advice for spotting a good bargain:
Look for labels that have illegible gothic script and impossibly long names that are difficult to pronounce. Few people can read them, so they don’t buy the wines, and demand doesn’t push up prices.
Check your perceptions about which regions can make wine. South Africa benefits from the confluence of the oceans as well as the cooling breeze of the Antarctic, creating ideal conditions for growing wine. So try a South African brand.
Go for wines from regions where the currency gives you an advantage. Canadian and American dollars are much stronger than Argentina’s pesos, so that builds in another discount on the import cost.
No longer does a screw cap necessarily mean that the wine is plonk. Many good producers are using this effective closure to protect their wine.
Some of my personal favorite wines at prices that will appeal to everyone:
Charles Smith Wines “Kung Fu Girl” Riesling Columbia Valley
As the 2012 election cycle heats up, it’s popular to interpret the current election in terms of the past. One of the themes of my book Slinging Mud is that there’s nothing new in politics, so I’m not surprised that the politically astute think they spy familiar territory. But exactly which territory is it? Several contradictory narratives are currently making the rounds.
Many compare the continuing economic slump with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Elections during that time were all about the economy. But will 2012 have more in common with 1932 or 1936? Voters in 1932 blamed incumbent Herbert Hoover for their monetary woes and went heavily for relatively unknown newcomer Franklin Roosevelt. On the other hand, although the Depression still dragged on in 1936, Americans decided to give FDR another four years to sort things out.
The elections of 1980 and 1996 are also invoked frequently. Again, these two stories had opposite endings. Which ending you predict for 2012 depends on which parallels you think are more significant. Some see a Jimmy Carter-like scenario, with a weak economy leading to a one-term presidency. Others remember that Bill Clinton won a second term easily, although Republicans had decisively captured the House only two years earlier, just as happened in 2010. Will the upcoming election see a backlash against incumbents, or did voters get that out of their system at the midterms, as they apparently did in 1994?
An election that I haven’t yet heard mentioned, but that may turn out to be relevant, is 1972. That year the Democrats engaged in a brutal, protracted fight for the nomination. They eventually chose a candidate who excited the base, but went on to lose in a landslide to a not especially popular incumbent.
With the election a year away, it may be a while before we know which story we’re in, much less its likely ending. Still, crystal-ball gazing into the electoral past has its uses. Disaffected voters now clamoring for a third party might want to take a look back at the 1912 election. That’s when ex-president Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moosers not only lost by a wide margin, but siphoned off enough votes from their former Republican colleagues to take them down too. In American political history, third-party stories have always had the same ending so far—and it isn’t happy.
I have long since lost count of the number of books that I have published in the self-improvement category.
I’ve learned many a kitchen secret from Graham Kerr, Jean Anderson and JoAnna Lund, and although I wouldn’t call myself a master in that domain, I manage to put a meal on the table most nights.
I’ve read far too much about living longer and stronger and staying in my prime with this singular result: for the past decade or so I have started my day with a power shake with protein powder and flax meal thanks to a long out-of-print guide to eating according to the circadian rhythms.
And with a half dozen sign language books under my belt, the best I can conjure up is “I love you”—not always the most appropriate phrase in the work place.
All the parenting books have been passed along to my siblings whose children I hope have benefited.
And those volumes dedicated to language – spelling and grammar – occasionally see the light of day when spell check or the online synonym finders fail me.
At the risk of playing favorites, I will take this leap to declare my gratitude for Dan Solin’s series of personal finance books. His The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read (2006) saved my financial butt during those years of tumult in the stock market and the resulting recession. Sure I lost a little, but nothing compared to what I might have without the help of his book. We published The Smartest 401(k) Book You’ll Ever Read in 2008 but I, of course, had a year’s jump on this before it hit the marketplace and was able to re-jig my own pension plan to some notable advantage just as things in the financial sector were imploding. In 2009, as I entered my seventh decade of life on earth, The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read captured my interest. (It is often said in my professional circles that we publish subjects in which we are personally interested and hope that there are enough consumers sharing those interests to make the investment pay off.) I learned pretty quickly that one can’t start to plan too early for this sort of thing. I encourage my younger staff members to heed the advice that I wish had been available in my 20s and 30s. But still, Dan’s book assured me that late is better than never.
Now, as The Smartest Portfolio You’ll Ever Own hits the market, I find myself embracing heretofore enigmatic notions of the Fama-French three-factor model (market, size, and value), the perils of stock picking and marketing timing, the meaning of standard deviation, passive management (which is so much more powerful than the term might imply), asset allocation, and rebalancing. But, what’s most important to me is that my level of anxiety about money is manageable since I don’t find myself subject to the whims of the stock market or succumbing to the dire news that spews forth from CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, and other financial media on a daily basis.
I promise all the other authors who we publish that in future blogs I’ll be sure to tell readers how I choose to be happy, why I know that dyslexia is a gift, how to make wrinkles disappear without surgery, why hoarding starts – and how to stop it, and the countless other self-improvement techniques that have added immeasurably to my life – and to the tens of thousands of readers of their books.
The term “labor of love” gets thrown around a lot in publishing circles. It can mean anything from “the advance orders are disappointing” to “the editor who acquired this book has left, and the rest of us don’t quite get it.” It can be a euphemism, a battle cry, or a way to flag an unlikely seller for special attention.
But as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I’m very proud to be part of a project that is a true labor of love—written from the heart, filled with emotion, and benefitting a very worthy cause.
The book, The Legacy Letters, collects the voices and remembrances of one hundred 9/11 family members, sharing not just their pain and sorrow, but their deeply held hopes for the future. The letter-writers are adolescents, teens, and young adults; they are spouses, sons and daughters, parents, siblings, and grandchildren. They are first-generation Americans, citizens of other nations, and lifelong New Yorkers.
Collected by Brian Curtis and the nonprofit support organization Tuesday’s Children, the book is a reminder of the human faces behind an event that changed the world—but it’s also a project that has challenged and stretched me as an editor. Selecting the letters (out of several hundred) was the first hurdle. How do you say no to any of them? Editing the letters was another challenge. How do you edit things like private jokes, personal references, and those bits of secret language that only loved ones share? How does an editor approach a letter that starts out “Dear Sweetheart,” or one that ends with “Love, Me”?
Even deciding on the order in which the letters would appear was intense: Should we put all the teenagers together? What about the 9-year-old, who barely missed being held by her father? Or the letter written from one twin sister to another?
It would have been easy to say “no thanks” to this project. Wouldn’t it be simpler to avoid all the emotions, the challenges, the immensity of loss and pain? But the letters themselves made it impossible to turn away. They were too vivid, too honest, too full of love, too forward-looking, too hopeful to put down.
After working on this incredible project, I think I’ll retire the phrase “labor of love.” Unless we decide to publish a sequel.
Read an excerpt from The Legacy Letters that ran in Parade magazine, and watch a video from WNBC-NY News. For media updates, visit the book’s Facebook page. For more on Tuesday’s Children, visit their website.
Writing and illustrating are often solitary endeavors. Sometimes I catch myself not leaving the house for a few days at a time other than walking to a nearby market for one of those vegan noodle box things you can now find all over the city. I sit huddled over my laptop or paper with lo mein hanging out of my mouth and a glazed, expressionless look in my eyes and Dune playing in the background over and over. I mean, I assume my look is glazed and expressionless. Nobody is around to tell me either way.
When words and pictures leave my desk, however, things completely change. Writing and illustrating becomes a collaboration. Editors, marketing and sales people, designers, publicity reps, etc. Everyone has eyes on the work and input to give. There are emails and PDFs and CC'd conversations and quick changes and big decisions. You misspelled exercise (I always do). Is there maybe a better way to phrase the text on page 64? What do we think is the best red for the cover? There's no bleed on page 126. What do you think about this page order? What if this page said something like, "Who's licking Billy?"
I've worked with editors in comics and for other books, but The Monster Doodle Book took things to another level for me. The book started as a zine I gave out to trick-or-treaters in 2008. It was 32 pages long with no words in the interior. When it was acquired by Perigee, I originally figured it would be mostly an expansion of what I had already done. My editor and I starting corresponding by email about adding instructions here and there, and other ideas to make the book more dynamic. I talked with friends and solicited ideas ("How about a tank?", "LOBSTER CLAWS, dude!", etc. - those friends are included in the acknowledgments at the front of the book). It became much more than just something I created alone in my studio.
I made a promotional video where I raced around Manhattan and Brooklyn having friends draw pages in a copy of the book. I melted my Metrocard (slight exaggeration) and ate at some of my favorite places along the way. I saw friends that I hadn't seen in almost a year. Books. BOOKS. Am I right?
And since The Monster Doodle Book is a collaboration between me and readers, I wanted to come up with something that I could do at events that would involve attendees AND allow me to see doodling in action (and keep me from having to write and give long book talks). I created blowups of pages from the book and framed them in lightweight poster frames with plexiglass on top. Then I found some AMAZING dry erase markers called AusPens. They're refillable and don't dry out (in the pen or on boards) and wipe clean easily. I took the blowups and markers to my book release at WORD in Greenpoint, and later to a Story Time event for kids at Greenlight Books in Fort Greene (both in Brooklyn). I loved hearing adults defiantly say "No, I can't draw" and then catch them doodling half an hour later. And seeing a young child draw an EPIC PUKE for the first time was a highlight of my career.
Pictured: my friend Nate, one of the most talented artists I know. Not pictured: an adult who said they couldn't draw.
I was then offered a two-month book tie-in gallery show back in my hometown, Abilene, TX. I doubled my number of page blowups and hung the pieces with the markers attached by string. I had an opening and signing full of family, friends, and assorted Abileneans. It will hang until the fall, and it's a show that will change over time. During the opening, there was a phase where every piece had some sort of reference to a giant jelly donut. YES. If you went there now, it would be gone (unless that little girl returned). Evolving, shifting collaboration. Whoooooaaaaaaa.
I continue to do events for The Monster Doodle Book, but I'm also working on upcoming and hopefully-upcoming projects. I'm back at my desk in that noodles-hanging-from-my-mouth phase again, and I can't wait to get some new conversations going.
I’m traveling to our nation’s capital this week (a decidedly inopportune time considering the blisteringly hot temperatures in Washington, DC, lately), and as a history buff I’m pretty excited to spend a few days gazing at the White House and roaming the Smithsonian, the Newseum, and the Library of Congress – yes, I am a huge nerd.
Luckily I will be armed with a vast array of knowledge that will serve me well in our capital city. Thanks to Perigee’s extensive collection of trivia and reference titles, I already know that:
The Pentagon was built with about twice as many bathrooms as would have been expected for a building of its size to comply with Virginia’s then-legal code that required racial segregation of public buildings. (from Sorry, Wrong Answer)
Foggy Bottom is not, in fact, a highly amusing insult, but the name of one of DC’s oldest neighborhoods, dating back to the 1700s and prone to river fog from the nearby Potomac. (from Wicked Good Words)
Rosa Parks was the first woman to ever lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda when she died in 2005. The catafalque that is used for anyone who lays in state there is the same one that was hastily constructed in 1865 to support the casket of Abraham Lincoln, and is stored in the never-used Washington’s Tomb when not in use. (from Morbid Curiosity)
The Washington Monument is still the tallest building in the city thanks to a 1910 building height restriction, and is also the tallest stone structure in the world. (from The Book of Useless Information)
Wherever your own travels take you, I hope you find them relaxing, affirming, and enlightening!
Kathie Lee Gifford's handshake was cold and clammy, and the "Today” show host knew it.
"It's hand sanitizer. I was petting a lemur!" she told us.
Of course. Of course you were. That is perhaps only the third weirdest thing that happened to us the day we discussed our book on NBC’s “Today” show.
Both of us are trained in journalism, so even when the national talk show booked us to discuss Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the 70s and 80s, we weren't sure it would actually happen. Things fall through all the time in the harried world of daily TV, and we didn't want to brag about it to our friends and family and then have to explain why we weren't on. It wasn't until our plane tickets from Minneapolis to New York were actually booked that we started to spread the word. Not everyone was impressed. Gael's mom asked "What's the Two Day Show?"
As the taping date approached, we worried about everything—from the colors of our outfits to defending against bedbugs in our Manhattan hotel room to whether it was possible to lose 30 pounds before stepping in front of cameras beaming our images to 5.5 million viewers. But our number one worry was how to get our cumbersome props, which included a 1972 Mystery Date board game and easily crushable retro Doritos, to the show. We were just planning on packing the largest suitcases we could find until the day before the trip. Standing in the parking lot on a 100-degree Midwestern day after just filming a local TV appearance, we received an email from the helpful "Today" producer who offered to let us FedEx two boxes of props to the studio overnight. First problem solved!
One prop that wasn't possible to ship was the very item in our title—frozen pudding pops. The prepackaged ones aren't easy to come by, so at the last minute, we sent the show a recipe and some plastic ice pop molds from Target.
And just to cover all our bases, we kept a few of the smaller props out of the shipment, figuring if FedEx failed us and lost both boxes, we'd still have a few things to discuss with Kathie Lee and her partner, Hoda Kotb.
We flew in on a Wednesday, and there was little time for exploring the city or a Broadway show—we were taping on Thursday for a show to air Friday. (In the summer, Kathie Lee and Hoda pretape their Friday shows so they can enjoy longer weekends.) Fortunately, each of us had a good friend in the city so we met for a group dinner and discussed the absolute weirdness that was about to occur.
Of course, there was some last-minute monkey business. Turned out we'd forgotten to pack one of the toys we'd promised, so on Thursday morning, Brian was the first customer at the Times Square Toys R Us, dashing in just as the opened the doors, buying a Barrel of Monkeys (and some extra Pop Rocks—you can never have too many), and heading back to meet Gael at 30 Rock, where the “Today” show tapes.
Friendly faces helped ease our nerves. First we met up with some of Gael's colleagues from MSNBC.com, who took a photo of us standing in front of Brian Williams' NBC Nightly News desk. And then outside the "Today” show" studios we met our fabulous and friendly editor, Meg Leder, and charming publicist, Jennifer Bernard, for the first time!
After being greeted by a page (sadly, not played by Jack McBrayer), the four of us were taken to the green room. On our way, we were serenaded by a group of teenagers singing Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” in a very Glee-like fashion. We would later meet them again in hair and makeup—yes, unlike the local TV shows we were used to, "Today" glammed us up professionally before sending us out on stage. (Gael noted that Kathie Lee's dressing room nametag read "Maestro Gifford.")
Those singing kids were there, too, and we finally figured out that they were Glee-like for a reason: they were from Oxygen network’s “Glee Project” reality show, one of whom would eventually win a recurring role on “Glee.”
Then, off to the studio. We stood backstage with crew members and also two women who had been plucked from the crowd and given Ambush Makeovers. They looked great—all the more so when their "before" photos were shown—and if you watch as one of them is brought on stage, you can sneak a peek of Brian hiding behind the door.
The props we'd so worried about had all arrived safely, and they were beautifully arranged across two wheeled tables. Most of it was stuck in place by invisible tape, so everything—even the little cars on the Game of Life board—stayed put. And at the last moment, someone pulled a crystal bowl of homemade pudding pops fresh from the freezer as a centerpiece.
And then, in swept the very friendly Hoda and Kathie Lee. They introduced themselves, made sure they could pronounce Gael’s often-tricky last name correctly, and then thanked Brian for having a relatively easier-to-pronounce one. “You’re trying to remember the ‘70s and ‘80s?” Kathie Lee deadpanned. “I’m trying to forget them.”
We joked around and chatted for a few seconds while they dealt with a camera issue (we didn’t break it, we swear), and then they launched into the segment. After we talked a bit about why we wrote the book, we led them from item to item, touching on everything from Connect Four to candy cigarettes to Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo. Hoda expressed her undying love for Quisp, so Kathie Lee scooped up a huge serving of it in a trowel-sized spoon, and jammed it into Hoda’s mouth—dry, no milk.
Then, it was over. The segment felt like it was about 30 seconds long, but we’d been talking for almost four minutes. Hoda and Kathie Lee thanked us, and we left—the Teamsters were going to pack up our props and ship them back to us. After meeting back up with Meg and Jen and hearing that we didn’t embarrass ourselves on national TV, we headed to the NBC Experience store, where Brian bought—what else?—a mug with Hoda and Kathie Lee on it.
In nearly 100-degree heat, we rushed back to the hotel, grabbed our things, and high-tailed it to the airport to catch our flight home. Due to stormy weather, we ended up sitting on the tarmac for five hours before we took off. As you’d probably expect, tensions and frustrations were running high on the plane. But two people were sitting there with goofy grins on their faces, recounting a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Can you guess who they might have been? Hint: Their hands smelled a bit like lemur.
We at Perigee have published our share of trivia books. From our #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Useless Information to our colorful new release Learn Something Every Day, we are big fans of little facts. Who isn’t?
One of my personal favorites in the genre is Tom Cutler’s recently published compendium The Gentleman’s Bedside Companion. Intended for the last fifteen minutes of the day – “before the snoring starts,” as Tom puts it – the book is jam-packed with tidbits of history and culture that will add panache to the cocktail-party chatter of any aspiring gentleman (or lady).
Like his fellow Brits, Tom has a knack for collecting arcane facts. We Yanks prefer simplicity, clarity, and a bright, shiny future (along with winning at everything, and ice-cold beer, but I digress). Brits, on the other hand, seem to favor obscure, historical, and often highly debatable notions that can be batted around over a pint on a rainy day (if you’ve seen the movie or BBC series The Trip you know what I’m talking about).
With Independence Day behind us, I give you a sampling of bits and bobs courtesy of The Gentleman’s Bedside Companion. I hope it will make you smile, or at least not compel you to shoot off limb-endangering fireworks while singing “Born in the USA” at the top of your lungs. Let’s all try to be gentlemanly.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was banned in China in 1931 for anthropomorphism.
During WWII, the British government outlawed cuffs on trousers, to save cloth.
The modern sewing machine was invented after Elias Howe dreamt of being chased by warriors wielding spears (with holes in their tips).
TV remote controls come in six basic shape profiles, including the Captain Kirk, the Darth Vader, and the Ironing Board.
Tom Selleck wore a chevron mustache in Magnum P.I.
North America is comprised of 38 countries. (Don’t forget Saint Pierre and Miquelon.)
