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

Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Dickens; Nonesuch Dickens Giveaway

In his final essay for Vanity Fair, the late Christopher Hitchens wrote of Charles Dickens, “He loved the idea of a birthday celebration, being lavish about it, reminding people that they were once unborn and are now launched. This is bighearted, and we might all do a bit more of it.”

Timely words, as today marks the long awaited Dickens bicentenary. If Dickens did indeed relish an extravagant birthday soirée, there’s no doubt he would be pleased with the hoopla surrounding today’s anniversary festivities. Throughout the world’s libraries, museums, and bookstores, readers far and wide are celebrating the life and work of one of history’s most beloved novelists. In New York the Morgan Library & Museum is offering free admission to their ongoing Charles Dickens at 200 exhibition, featuring a collection of Dickens’ original letters and manuscripts, while Philadelphia's Free Library continues to exhibit their “Year of Dickens” rare book collection. In the author’s home country, the British Council is hosting a global twenty four hour read-a-thon, comprised of five minute excerpts read from different Dickens texts from countries including China, Pakistan, Albania, and Russia, while over at TIME.com Radhika Jones has been counting down Dickens’ top ten greatest novels (spoiler alert: Bleak House takes the cake). Dickens devotees can test their knowledge of his life and work with quizzes hosted by The Huffington Post and USA Today, and for even more ideas Popcandy has a great list of eleven ways to celebrate, including a video tour of Dickens’ native city and a link to ten little known facts about the author.

On the occasion of Dickens’s 200^th birthday, Hitchens delivered this gift to his readers: “You can forget that sense of guilt you have. The one about being not quite sure which character is from which book. None of us really knows, and there is no shame in it. Probably Dickens himself wasn’t certain much of the time.”

While Hitchens’ generosity is well appreciated, we’d like to offer something a little more tangible as a way to commemorate Dickens at two hundred—the eagerly awaited new additions to the Nonesuch Dickens collection: The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Our Mutual Friend. Packaged in a three-volume leather and cloth bound cased set, these contemporary versions of Dickens’ classic work are based on the historic Chapman and Hall editions of 1867 that were personally supervised by Dickens himself. Available for the first time in decades, the Nonesuch editions contain full-color illustrations selected by the author and we are delighted to be giving away a complete set of all three books to one lucky winner.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this post, tweet to @OverlookPress using the #Dickens2012 hashtag, or comment on our facebook page. Contestants can enter once in each category until 9am tomorrow morning, at which point we will announce a randomly selected winner. Please leave an email address when entering so we can contact you if you’ve been selected. Good luck!

Peter Mayer Talks to Marketplace About Fiction and the Economic Crisis

Overlook Publisher Peter Mayer spoke to Ashley Milne-Tyte on Marketplace about the impact the current economic crisis may - or may not - have on contemporary fiction. From Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath to Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities to Little Dorritt, the classic Charles Dickens novel - the panelists discuss "financial fiction" in this fascinating report. Listen to the interview on the Marketplace/American Public Media website.

OLIVER TWIST on Masterpiece Classic February 15

Masterpiece Classic begins an extraordinary celebration of Charles Dickens with a bold adaptation of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist on February 15, and continuing on February 22. Hosted by Laura Linney, Masterpiece Classic will also air new productions of Little Dorritt, The Old Curiosity Shop, and an encore of David Copperfield. As the perfect literary companion to these Dickens classics, we recommend The Nonesuch Dickens editions!

Overlook Publisher Peter Mayer on THE NONESUCH DICKENS in Columbus Dispatch

Bill Eichenberger, book editor of the Columbus Journal-Dispatch, recently spoke to Peter Mayer about the publication of The Nonesuch Dickens:

"Peter Mayer, owner of Overlook Press in New York, purchased the rights to the Nonesuch catalog in 2005 and decided it was high time to revisit the definitive Dickens. The publisher recently released nine books −−available individually or in two sets. Mayer spoke recently with The Dispatch by e−mail:

Q: Why publish the Nonesuch Dickens now?

A: We issued Nonesuch Dickens first in a group of six and now with an additional three, and we have organized our publication to coincide with the BBC television shows, which are broadcast on the PBS Masterpiece Classic series, hosted by Laura Linney. (The series will run from February to May on PBS.)

Q: Is the Nonesuch Dickens an investment?

A: Well, it's probably a good investment to buy these books; they generally appreciate in value. Of theoriginal books published by Nonesuch, the edition that was limited to 877 copies, based on recent auction prices, is about $5,000. However, the Nonesuch Dickens is the most readable and beautiful edition available.The books are bound in leather and bound in linen. I love paperbacks, but this is one for physical book lovers as much as readers.

Q: Why does Dickens endure, do you think?

A: I think the thing about Dickens is he is a brilliant storyteller who creates characters who are truly unique. They appear on his pages, but they are so famous −− whether it's Pip, Oliver Twist, Scrooge or David Copperfield −− that they enter our lives. But underlying it all was Dickens' extraordinary social concerns, and, therefore, the books are loved all over the world.1

Q: Do you feel a responsibility as a publisher to keep great books in print?

A: Well, every publisher hopes his books are read, not only in the season they are published but as part of a backlist. Dickens is quintessentially backlist, as there are other editions available, in paperback, etc. What we realized as we embarked on the Nonesuch project is that we had to make the books truly brilliant examples of the bookmakers' art, and because they are hardcover they have to be so beautiful that they represented good value for the money.

Q: What other gems will you publish from the Nonesuch catalog?

A: We are thinking of publishing the Nonesuch Shakespeare and the Nonesuch Bible. These books cost a fortune to produce, so we really have to take our time when we embark on these projects.

Holiday Gift Books: THE NONESUCH DICKENS

The magnificent Nonesuch Dickens is a favorite of book editors and critics this holiday season. Here's a sampling of some recent notices:

"This six-volume set spotlights some of the author's greatest works: Bleak House, the Christmas Book series, David Copperfield, Great Expectations/Hard Times, Nicholas Nickleby, and Oliver Twist. And the books — modeled after 1937's Nonesuch Dickens collection — don't look too shabby on shelves either." - Entertainment Weekly

"As we catapult into the Age of the Kindle, it's heartening to know that there are still publishers willing to embrace the grand bookmaking projects of an earlier age. In 1937, Nonesuch Press published a limited-edition set of the complete works of Charles Dickens, using the rare woodblock and steel plates fashioned by Dickens' original printers. Only 877 copies were made - you can score a set on AbeBooks.com for $12,500 and up. Overlook Press is launching a series of facsimile editions of "The Nonesuch Dickens," beginning this fall with nine novels, including "David Copperfield," "Bleak House" and "A Tale of Two Cities." The books are handsomely made, with sewn bindings and leather spines, but they're worth the price if only for the crisply reprinted illustrations - of such legendary characters as Miss Havisham, Mr. Pecksniff and Wilkins Micawber - by Dickens' collaborators Phiz, George Cruikshank and others." - Newsday

"The Overlook Press has just published a new set of Dickens called the Nonesuch Dickens, based on an 1867 edition supervised by the man himself. The original Nonesuch Dickens, featuring illustrations selected by Dickens, came out in 1937 as a limited series and sold out fast. These new ones aren't cheap — the "Christmas Books" that include "A Christmas Carol" is $35 and "Little Dorrit," the Dickens novel for true Dickens lovers, is $40 — but they do look and feel great. " - Portland Oregonian

Overlook Press Presents THE NONESUCH DICKENS

Charles Dickens' genius extended beyond the role traditionally prescribed to novelistic talent. Dickens aggressively involved himself in all aspects of bookmaking, whether collaborating directly with his illustrators on the visual minutiae of their work, or working with publishers to make sure his novels were available to a broad readership and beautifully preserved.

Launched in 1937, the twenty-four volume Nonesuch Dickens was the most complete and handsome collection of the novelist's work ever created. Seven decades later, The Overlook Press is proud to publish these volumes produced to the specifications of the original Nonesuch design. Employing modern printing technology, each book in the revived Nonesuch Dickens replicates the enduring editorial and design excellence of its inspiration at an affordable price. The legendary Nonesuch Dickens, issued in the 1930's, presented the writing of the foremost English novelist in its most distinguished format. Upon its original publication, the set was hailed as "one of the most glorious publishing achievements of our time." Now the peerless Nonesuch standards have been revived in new editions of Dickens most beloved works, introducing a new generation of readers to these masterpieces of literature, illustration and book design. The six volume set includes a selection of Dickens' best loved works: Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, Christmas Books, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Bleak House. An additional three volume set includes A Tale of Two Cities, Little Dorritt, and Martin Chuzzlewit.