2012 Overlook Holiday Gift Guide

Welcome back, book lovers. It's that time of year again. No, we're not talking about "Alfred Nobel Day" (which is a real thing that we didn't make up. According to Wikipedia, it's observed every year on December 10th). Today brings us the first installment of the annual Overlook holiday book giveaway. If you missed out on last year's opportunity to win copies of some of our favorite 2011 Overlook titles, you're in luck! We're back this month with a whole new slew of signed books, limited edition volumes, and genre themed collections, curated by the Overlook staff for all the loved ones on your 2012 holiday shopping lists.

Still searching for that perfect gift for grandma? Need some suggestions for smart-sounding books to impress your friends and co-workers? You've come to the right place. This year we'll be tailoring our suggestions to books for  all those hard-to-please readers in your life, so be sure to check back in the coming days and weeks for novel gift ideas hand picked by the Overlook team. And if you're looking for any recommendations not covered here, be sure to comment on the blog or give us a shout out on Twitter or Facebook for more suggestions. Happy hunting!

Today, publicist Michael Goldsmith shares his selection of recommended Overlook titles for that MTV-watching, Twitter-updating, book-loving teen sitting at your holiday dinner table.

If you haven't already started attending the onslaught of holiday parties that December always promises, now would be a good time to prepare yourself for the impending marathon of cocktail parties and family dinners that awaits you in the days and weeks ahead. If party-hopping's in your plans, you'll want to be ready for that inevitable moment when you have to improvise a gift for someone below the age of twenty. Between nieces and nephews, children of friends and co-workers, and perhaps even your own offspring, you're bound to encounter at least one post-adolescent this season in need of a quality gift. Can't afford that Kindle? Try a book. It's basically the same thing, and nine out of ten kids can't tell the difference. If you've passed your teenage prime and the thought of shopping for a millennial fills you with dread, don't sweat it. That's where we step in. Today's gift guide features three books that are sure to appeal to today's trendy literate teen.

If we know teenagers as well as we think we do (YOLO's still a thing, right?) then we're sure they'll love Cole Stryker's Hacking the Future. Today's teens grew up on the internet, and as such, may feel immune to some of its more sinister underpinnings. Stryker's follow up to last year's Epic Win for Anonymous is "one of the most well-informed examinations of the Internet available today" (Kirkus) and offers a primer on web anonymity, explaining why the online identity issue may be the most important decision individuals face in the coming decade. A must read for any tech-savvy teen who want to stay one step ahead of big brother in 2013.

We love Adele. Teens love Adele. It's as simple as that. Buy your teen a copy of Chas Newkey-Burden's Adele: The Biography. Inside, they'll discover fun facts including tidbits and anecdotes from the queen of pop's life, ranging in subjects from smoking and stage fright to celebrity crushes and online dating.

Everyone knows that kid's say the darnedest things. That's why they'll be sure to enjoy Jen Campbell's Weird Things Customer's Say in Bookstores, an illustrated compendium showcasing the most unusual and uproarious comments observed and overheard by booksellers around the world. Teens with an appreciation for the absurd are sure to enjoy such entries as "Did Charles Dickens ever write anything fun?" and "Do you sell screwdrivers?"

To help spread the holiday cheer, we're giving away one complete set of all three recommended books for that special teen in your life. You can enter to win the whole shebang in three different ways:

1. Comment on this post

2. Tweet at us using the hashtag #OverlookGiftGuide

3. Leave a comment on our Facebook page

You can enter once in each area until 8am tomorrow morning, and we will be announcing a winner in the next gift guide post later this week. Happy holidays to everyone from the Overlook Press!

WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSTORES

Booksellers, bookstore groupies: Rejoice! The U.K.’s bestselling Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell has crossed the pond and will be available for purchase on September 13. This collection of outrageous conversations showcasing the most unusual and uproarious comments overheard by booksellers now includes a miscellany of hilarious additions from some of the best North American bookstores. 

We would like to thank the courageous and good-humored bookish staffers that came out in droves to make submissions at our BEA booth and for those that flooded our inboxes with the most entertaining reading material. 

Inspired more than three years ago by a patron who asked whether Holocaust victim Anne Frank had ever written a sequel, Jen Campbell began taking note of the strange and wonderful questions she received as a bookseller in North London’s Ripping Yarns and Scotland’s Edinburgh Bookshop, sharing the stories she heard through a series of popular posts on her blog. Campbell decided to write a book when actor and comedian John Cleese tweeted the simple question, “What is your pet peeve,” to which she immediately knew her response, “The weird things people say in bookshops.”  Such as…

  

“Do you have any pop-up books on sex education?"

“Do you have this children’s book I’ve heard about? It’s supposed to be very good. It’s called Lionel Richie and the Wardrobe.”

“Do you have a copy of Tequila Mockingbird?”

In celebration of the upcoming publication, we’d like input from you all—bookseller, librarian, bibliophile—no matter!  We hope you will share any delightfully despicable comments you've overheard in bookstores by tweeting at us @overlookpress with the hashtag, #weirdthingsbook. Every week, we will highlight the best quotes you send in!

You can also follow author Jen Campbell on twitter at @aeroplanegirl.

 

Announcing A New Release and Call for Entry: WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSTORES

You know it has happened to you.  You're blissing out inside your favorite bookstore, wrapped up in another world within the crisp pages of a new book—or the crinkly ones of an old favorite—when suddenly it happens.  Another customer single-handedly destroys your literary wanderlust with words that sends you reeling.  Perhaps something like:

"You know, I'm not sure I've ever really read a whole book before..." or maybe, "Do you have any books by Jane Eyre?"

Do you laugh? Do you cry? Do you heave multiple books in their direction? Regardless of your impulses, we sympathize with you.  So much so that hundreds of these "Weird Things" heard in bookstores will now occupy a book of their own. Overlook Press is thrilled to announce publication of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores, a collection of outrageous conversations showcasing the most unusual and uproarious comments seen and heard from booksellers around the world.

Based on writer Jen Campbell’s firsthand experiences working as an independent bookseller in North London’s Ripping Yarns and Scotland’s Edinburgh Bookshop, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores collects a miscellany of hilarious and peculiar conversations overheard between bookstore staff and customers. Inspired more than three years ago by a patron who asked whether Holocaust victim Anne Frank had ever written a sequel, Campbell began taking note of the strange and wonderful questions she received as a bookseller, sharing the stories she heard through a series of popular posts on her blog. Campbell decided to write a book when actor and comedian John Cleese tweeted the simple question, “What is your pet peeve,” to which she immediately knew her response, “The weird things people say in bookshops.”

Stocked with pitch perfect comedic exchanges gathered from booksellers around the globe, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores features real-life remarks ranging from the obvious and the oblique to the abstract and the absurd. 

“Did Charles Dickens ever write anything fun?”

“Do you have this children’s book I’ve heard about? It’s supposed to be very good. It’s called Lionel Richie and the Wardrobe.”

 “Do you have any pop-up books on sex education?"

Following the release this month in the UK by Constable & Robinson of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops, Overlook’s North American edition will contain content selected from that version as well as new material gathered from booksellers in the United States and Canada. Beginning this month and continuing through the end of the industry trade show, Book Expo America (June 7^th, 2012), North American booksellers are encouraged to submit their most irreverent customer conversations to sales@overlookny.com for an opportunity to be included in the fall release. To be eligible for inclusion in Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores, participants must include their first and last names as well as the name of the store in which their conversation took place. Submissions selected for inclusion will be announced in July.

For those of you not in the bookselling business, we want to hear from you, too! Starting May 1st, we hope you'll share any delightfully despicable comments you've overheard in bookstores by tweeting at us @overlookpress with the hashtag, #weirdthingsbook. Every week, we will highlight the best quotes you send in!

With accompanying illustrations from renowned animator Greg McLeod, this testament to the boggling and the bizarre celebrates weirdness in all its forms. Proving that the customer isn’t always right, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores is dedicated to heroic booksellers everywhere. 

Connect with Jen Campbell on Twitter, Facebook, and her blog.

"So funny. So Sad...Read it and sigh."--Neil Gaiman