Morning Everyone,
As hinted here and there over the last few weeks, I’m pleased to announce that our weekly book- focused TV program, Books du Jour, will go on bigger things. Indeed, after our great first season partnership with NYC Media, whose participation as a co-producer added tremendous value to the production, we are now moving into syndication nationwide via PBS.
PBS is the perfect platform for our cultural program. It will give our participating authors, books featured and sponsors, a significant increase in exposure, roughly moving from our current 20 million people in the North East to a potential 80 millions statewide.
The terms and dates of future broadcast have yet to be determined, but we are looking for an early Fall roll out. The only obstacle to the whole venture will reside in our ability to pay the hefty broadcasting fees. Indeed, under the PBS categorization, Books du Jour falls under a life-style program and therefore is not entitled to any licensing broadcasting fees. To reach our goals and as many people as possible, the program must rely entirely on sponsorships. To this end, within a couple of weeks, we will launch a small fundraising campaign via Kickstarter to make this dream come true.
Books du Jour, along with its predecessor, Book Case TV, is the only weekly TV program in the American landscape completely devoted to books and the people who write them, without any restriction. A country of 300 million plus citizens deserves a nationwide weekly TV book series.
If you love books and want a chance to learn more about your favorite authors, if you believe in books’ moral and cultural values, here is your chance to manifest your voice and show us your support.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Frederic Colier, Executive Producer
The guests of this week’s episode of Books du Jour cannot emphasize enough the importance of turf. Turf is the stuff of the locals and inherent affinity with the material. In her most recent novel, “Unseen,” crime writer, Karin Slaughter, the Georgia native, does not drift too far from her roots. She sends Will Trent on a path to wrestle with his own mind along with the natives’ and to make sense of unpleasant discoveries in the process. As always, Karin’s writing is precise and festers an intense psychological tension that could not happen anywhere else.
Henry Chang’s new Jack Yu series, “Death Money,” carries the heavy whiff of a singular place seldom visited in crime fiction. In this case, New York China Town and particularly its seedy world. “Death Money,” is a form of bribe, a tradition of burning Joss money to supply deceased with goods and funds to bribe underworld officials. Using a clairvoyant as a sidekick, Jack Yu’s delve into the mystery of the death unidentified Asian man and reveals a world both compelling and mysterious.
Though originally from Russia, Maria Konnikova has lived and traveled in many foreign places. Her book “Mastermind,” explores the many fertile fields of Sherlock Holmes’s mind, using the Sir Arthur Doyle’s famous reasoner method. Exerting neuroscience and psychology, Maria offers a guideline on how to transform yourself into the next king investigator of Baker Street. Maria promises that tou will remember better, think clearer, and improve your mental powers if you keep your mind opened.
This week’s episode of “Books Du Jour” looks at “transplant” literature. Andre Aciman, who over the years has become a specialist of squares: Abingdon Square, Strauss Park (which looks like a square) and Harvard Square, his latest novel, reflects on the voice of integration. Egyptian born, Andre shares through his novel the daily struggle he encounters to define his identity, the acceptance of other precepts and values, be they moral or ethical.
Born in Sarajevo (Bosnia), Aleksandar Hemon offers a different voice, a voice of authenticity and appropriation even in the face of the corruption of language and past. His book “The Book of My Lives” is a collection of essays tracing the last twenty years of his life, from his departure from Bosnia and the irrupting war to the present day acceptance of life’s many pluralities.
Though born and raised in the states, Joan Silber’s “Fools” is a collection of short stories, which deals with the lure of foreign countries. France in this instance, where we meet a cast of drifting American characters, who really are in search of themselves as they try to fill the existential void at the core of their journey. They are idealists who have to grapple with the failures of their beliefs, the fragility of their political choices and societies’ demands, before they can fully embrace themselves.
Although it is not the focus of tonight’s episode, all the authors sharing the same table, Scott Turow, Jean Hanff Korelitz, and Stephan Talty, have had the same share of success with films.
The books discussed maybe works of fiction but their subjects are solidly anchored in reality. On the eve of the Supreme Court decision to lift off ceiling on corporate contributions, we will talk with Scott Turow and his new book, “Identical,” which deals with the abuse of money used during a mayoral election.
While Jean Hanff Korelitz, in “You Should Have Known” deals with the ironic twist a therapist experiences, when she becomes the victim of circumstances, which force her to swallow the very medicine she prescribed in her bestseller . . .