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Darin Strauss

More Than It Hurts You

Penguin Podcast

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Penguin Books

As we round down the final few posts for our Penguin Imprint Feature, we're going to step aside and allow Nichole Morford to post about life at DK. She's going to be guest blogging for the next few entries, and will reveal what being a DK Editor actually entails.

Every DK book holds a promise of some kind-of instruction, of entertainment, of resourceful information. The best possess all of these attributes, and such is the case with one of our lead Fall titles, Real Sex for Real Women. Publishing in November, this book makes good on its title's promise in a revolutionary way.

Dr. Laura Berman is one of the world's leading experts on women's sexuality and relationships. Her secret is that she truly understands the way women think. Real Sex for Real Women is both a celebration of what it means to be female and a guide to how to renew your self-esteem, relationship, and sex life. Her main message: if you value yourself, you will value your relationship-and if you value your relationship, you have to devote time and energy to your sex life. Her advice on how to do this is practicable for women who are working, who are mothers, who have a million things on their plate. It is not "glamorized" like so many relationships guides-all of which makes it much, much sexier. This is a book that is aspirational in the best possible sense, because it is also achievable!

Look for Real Sex in late fall, and get ready for your sex life to be transformed. In the meantime, get a taste of Dr. Berman's advice by visiting her website (www.drlauraberman.com), or by tuning into The Today Show to see her bi-monthly segments on relationships. Listen, learn, and watch your relationship get hotter by the second, whether you're in year 25 of a marriage or day 25 of a summer fling.

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Penguin authors were real stars at the American Library Association annual conference, where over 21,000 librarians converged in Anaheim in late June. Greg Mortenson and Khaled Hosseini drew crowds of over 1,000 librarians, each in packed Auditorium Speaker sessions. June Casagrande author of Mortal Syntax and Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies performed with Paula Poundstone and other author/comedians at FOLUSA's (Friends of the Libraries) Laugh's on Us panel - always a big ALA highlight event. Smaller themed panels were all jam-packed with attendees this year: Dan Koeppel, author of Banana, was on an Environment panel; Anya Ulinich (Petropolis) and Kaya McLaren (Church of the Dog) stole the show at the First Author, First Book panel; and Bich Minh Nguyen (Stealing Buddha's Dinner) charmed all on an Ethnic Writers panel.

Ron Carlson and Patrick Rothfuss both spoke at the ALA Literary Tastes breakfast, where they received awards for Five Skies (ALA Notable selection for Fiction) and The Name of the Wind (Reading Council selection for Fantasy) respectively. Last but not least, Ellis Avery received the Barbara Gittings Stonewall Book award for The Teahouse Fire at ALA's GayLesbianBisexualTransgendered Round Table Book Awards program. Ms. Avery also performed a tea ceremony on the LIVE at Your Reading Stage on the exhibit floor.

And most of the above authors kept things jumping at the Penguin booth where they met, talked to and signed books for the always incredibly enthusiastic librarians. Alan Walker, Dominique Jenkins and Jim Dassise from the Academic/Library Marketing team, as well as Tiffany Tomlin from the Penguin Speakers Bureau and Fred Huber from Hardcover Sales all staffed the booth this year.

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On a hot and muggy evening last Thursday, July 17, Aleksandar Hemon and Junot Díaz took the stage at in New York's Central Park before a record crowd for a SummerStage reading. The theme was the modern immigrant experience.

Hemon, profiled in this week's New Yorker by James Wood, read first, a hilarious passage about a Bosnian Independence Day (February 29!) celebration in Chicago, from his acclaimed new novel, The Lazarus Project.

Diaz, the hometown favorite, followed with three different selections: some new material, which he introduced as "some crap;" a recently published short piece called "Alma;" and a passage from his Pulitzer Prize-wining novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

As we round down the final few posts for our Penguin Imprint Feature, we're going to step aside and allow Nichole Morford to post about life at DK. She's going to be guest blogging for the next few entries, and will reveal what being a DK Editor actually entails.

About a month ago, we held a very unconventional editorial meeting. At our publisher's invitation, we headed to "that most traditional of publishing environments"-the pub-and sat down to talk about a rather non-traditional publishing topic-the Kama Sutra. It was a cozy gathering at the Pitcher and Piano. There's something about stepping outside the office that always gets the inspirational juices flowing.

Mostly we were there to discuss new ways of presenting this classic love manual. A challenge of writing or editing sex books is that there are only so many positions that are, well, plausible. A rework of the Kama Sutra doesn't provide brand new information, so needs a clever package and spin on content to add to our already impressive sex and relationships library. We came up with several inspired possible KS routes-and then started drinking.

Yesterday, back in 7C for our typical monthly meeting, we saw the first fruits of our labor. Our art director had mocked up covers for all our best brainstorms, and as we passed them around the table, the concepts really began to take root. This is a unique attribute of a DK book: it often starts with the design. Seeing a well-designed jacket is sometimes just the trigger you need to create a well-thought-out book. In the end, this results in the best of both worlds: pictures and words that together make up a beautifully complete reference.

DK, Dorling Kindersely, Penguin books, imprint, editors, authors, guides, book publisher, books, eyewitness, dictionary, encyclopedia, publisher

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As we round down the final few posts for our Penguin Imprint Feature, we're going to step aside and allow Nichole Morford to post about life at DK. She's going to be guest blogging for the next few entries, and will reveal what being a DK Editor actually entails.

We're in the midst of starting presentations for the Frankfurt Book Fair here, which means that there is quite a lot of buzz in the office. It's also Global Week, so there are a fair number of American accents mixed in with the Brits-along with German, Australian, and the odd Canadian. One of the nicest things about working for DK is its truly global perspective and reach. Typically, our main outposts publish simultaneously, with varied DK translations following in their wake. Every month the directors of these branches come to London to compare notes and brainstorm.

This sort of globalization means that our books must appeal to a very wide market. As an editor, you start thinking about this at presentation stage, when you're compiling contents lists and collaborating with designers to decide how the book should look. The ideal product is timely and has a distinct personality, yet won't date quickly or look too British or American to be unappealing in, say, India. Of course, we sometimes do books that are designed for specific markets-but by and large, we try to make books that are compelling for everyone.

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Evan Wright is our guest blogger during the week of July 21st. If you have any questions for him, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some brief information about Generation Kill: