Halloween is just a few days away and we want to Trick-or-Tweet with all of you!

Stop by our Twitter accounts @RandomHouseCA and @McClellandBooks on October 31st between 10:00am – 4:00pm EST for some Halloween fun.

Tweet the following to find out if you’ll be tricked or treated:

“Trick-or-Tweet @RandomHouseCA #BooRHCMS“

or

“Trick-or-Tweet @McClellandBooks #BooRHCMS“

By entering the Trick-or-Tweet fun, you might win a book from our Fall Preview or a trick that will leave you scared silly.

So step right up to try your luck on October 31st and join in the Halloween fun!

Contest runs from 10:00am – 4:00pm EST on Monday, October 31, 2011. Open to Canadian residents, excluding Quebec and legal residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico). Winners will be chosen at random from the eligible entries.

HOW TO ENTER:

MORE…

We’ve launched a new series called “Random Staff Interrogation” in which you’ll get the low-down on who’s who in our offices. Stay tuned every Tuesday and Thursday for a new introduction, and some surprising answers!

Today I’d like to introduce you to Pamela Murray, who is a Senior Editor. Here’s how she handled my interrogation:

1. In one sentence, how would you describe your job?

I edit books. It’s not leaping tall buildings, but a pretty good gig all the same.

2. How long have you worked at Random House, and how did you get into publishing?

I’ve been with the company, in various editorial roles, for fifteen years. In my twenties I worked at three different booksellers, in Paris and Montreal, followed by a job in production at McGill-Queen’s University Press.

3. What does your typical workday look like?

It could be working on manuscripts, conceptualizing book covers, checking proofs, fielding bizarre requests, reading proposals — all punctuated by timed doses of caffeine.

4. What do you like best about your job?

The people I work with, and the people I meet (in person and through their writing).

5. What was your very first job?

Let’s just say that burgundy polyester was involved.

MORE…

Holy moly is this a scary book. I was in London in the spring, and the UK office gave me a sampler that they’d produced for the London Book Fair – the first chapter of The Fear Index. I devoured that, and then had to wait several weeks for the rest of the manuscript.

Max Hoffman is a legendary physicist who quit the Large Hardon Collider project in Switzerland over conflicts regarding the direction of his research. He hooks up with a suave investment banker, and using the diabiolically clever computer algorithms he has designed, they launch a hedge fund that becomes an instant success. Built around the standard measure of market volatility: the VIX or “Fear Index” – their fund generates astonishing returns for his investors. All is rolling along very nicely, until, on the eve of a very important meeting to treble the size of the fund, the security of his lakeside Geneva home is breached and he’s attacked by an intruder. Things go rapidly south from there, and Hoffman can’t decide if he’s going mad, or if the computer is actually taking over. Stripped into the storyline is the very true story of of the “Flash Crash” of 2010, when the Dow Jones plummeted more than 1000 points in a matter of seconds, and then instantly regained those points. The human story is compelling, but even more scary is the computer story – and all too true. Just read today’s financial sections. If you dare!

These egg rolls will have your teenager bragging on your behalf. Shrimp is Shelbi’s favorite, and she always loved egg rolls, so she thought this stuffing combo was a perfect match. You can prep the rolls early, or even the night before, so all you need to do before the guests arrive is drop them in the fryer.

MAKES 12 EGG ROLLS
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons roasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon crushed red- pepper flakes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1- inch piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 green onions, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1?2 head Napa cabbage, thinly sliced
3?4 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails removed, chopped
12 egg- roll wrappers (found in refrigerated section of grocery store)
1 egg, beaten
Peanut oil, for frying
Sweet and sour sauce, for dipping (store-bought)

MORE…

Widows and orphans, be gone!

This is not a cry from a hater of the bereaved (Annie is one of my favourite movies… ever), but my own declaration as a typesetter: Preventer of small words dangling alone and single lines left stranded from the others in a paragraph; fighter of continuous white spaces that run vertically and disturbingly down your page; promoter of effortless reading!

To me, typesetting is like solving a puzzle… And sometimes, a jigsaw puzzle. When I get the interior of a book to set, most of the pieces have already been laid out by the designer: the font, font size, leading, margin sizes, page extent, etc.. Once the manuscript is ready, I take all of those pieces and make them fit together just so. Design also can be compared to puzzle solving, except that you basically have to find your own pieces first.

So this summer when I was designing a book cover for the first time, Tim Lilburn’s book of poems, Assiniboia, that main difference between typesetting and design seemed a touch daunting at first. Instead of the pieces to one puzzle in front of me, I felt like I was searching through hundreds puzzles all mixed together. How do I begin??

I had a creative brief, as well as the poems to read, which gave me an overall feeling of “history reimagined.” So visually, I wanted to give that sense of the old mixing with the new but with the emphasis on the historical. Loads of inappropriate images skipped and process-talk condensed, I finally found something I could work with. Ok so, image? Check. Font? Ya, I’ll get that in a second, just let me flip through my over six thousand font choices first.

But the decisions got easier with every dismissal. I learned that there were several possible solutions to this cover, as with any cover in fact, and the best to way to come to a conclusion was to realize that the actual challenge in cover design wasn’t in the decision-making. It is creating a cover that the majority will relate to. Not solely to appease those that judge a book by its cover, which I only somewhat-shamefully admit that I do, but to feel gratified when someone can and not be disappointed.

… that a mother’s milk contains opioids? The opioids in the milk are a diluted version of one of the neuroactive molecules that make Heroin such a potent and addictive drug. Perhaps not surprisingly, a nickname for heroin is “mother”.
—Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines his Former Life on Drugs by Marc Lewis

Excerpt from Memoirs of an Addicted Brain:

The primary functions of the opioids are threefold: to provide relief from pain or stress, to produce a sense of pleasure or wellbeing that can energize any goal, and to use either or both of these feelings—relief and/or reward—as the emotional currency of human attachment. Mother’s milk contains opioids, which seems a kind of original sin when it comes to drug addiction. Babies love opioids, and presumably their mothers, because of the feelings of warmth and safety produced by these molecules…. Read more.

Want to read the first chapter of Memoirs of an Addicted Brain? Click here.

Get more fun facts like this! Download our free Conversation Starters App from iTunes! Visit www.conversationstarters.ca to learn more.

We’ve launched a new series called “Random Staff Interrogation” in which you’ll get the low-down on who’s who in our offices. Stay tuned every Tuesday and Thursday for a new introduction, and some surprising answers!

Today I’d like to introduce you to James Young, who is the Director of Sales for Random House of Canada/McClelland & Stewart. Here’s how he handled my interrogation:

1. In one sentence, how would you describe your job?

As sales director I work with our editorial, marketing and distribution teams to best determine how our sales team can get the best representation for our books in all of our accounts across Canada.

2. How long have you worked at Random House, and how did you get into publishing?

I have worked at Random House for 14 years now. (Really?!) When in university I saw a job posting in the career centre for a part-time job at a bookstore in Toronto (Book City) and somehow convinced this hip, downtown store to hire this rather square kid from the suburbs. I was extremely fortunate to work for and be mentored by Ben McNally at Book City and with him I took up a full time bookselling job at the newly opening Nicholas Hoare store in Toronto back in 1992. Through Ben I was able to make a number of friends amongst the various publishing reps who came into our store and when a sales position opened at Penguin Books I passed the audition (which included an interview with the then VP of Sales Brad Martin… and I’m still working for Brad almost 20 years later.)

3. What does your typical workday look like?

Depends on the day of course! I actually work out of all three of the Random House/McClelland & Stewart offices so every morning it is critical to determine which office is the “home base” for the day. I usually spend each morning reviewing the previous day’s sales, checking on inventory of hot titles and sending out sales reports to our publishers. As with any large company there’s often many meetings with our various teams. I travel to New York a few times each year as well as I am responsible for the sales of our Canadian published books in the USA.

4. What do you like best about your job?

Definitely the biggest thrill is seeing a favourite book (big or small) experience sales success or win an award.

5. What was your very first job?

Working at Baskin Robbins. I hated ice cream for 5 years after that.

MORE…

Have you ever wanted to print your own picture on the inside of a bottle cap? Follow these instructions to frame anything from hand-lettered notes to magazine tear outs, drawings, and vintage photographs.

Supplies
a favorite image
card stock
clear packing tape
metal bottle cap
hand punch or hammer and awl/nail
craft glue
8- to 10-mm jump ring
necklace chain
needle-nose pliers
magnet or earring-post blanks

MORE…

The Birth House by Ami McKay was one of those books that I found myself reading at the right time in my life. I was pregnant but had not told anyone at work yet so this marvelous book about women and birth and midwifery, the true magic really (for there is no other way to describe it) of the female nature was so well suited to me at that moment in time. I was riveted from page one.

My son is now six and a half years old and while I’ve been busy (to say the least) I’ve been eagerly awaiting Ami McKay’s newest book, The Virgin Cure all this time. Moth is a character who will live in your heart forever once you read this new book. She is whip-smart, educated at the proverbial school of hard knocks and yet still retains her innocent nature in spite of so many horrible experiences. Born in the slums of the Bowery district in New York City, her father abandons her mother when she is very young, she is sold into servitude by her mother when she is little more than a young girl and her life spirals out of control from there. Through the friendship of Dr. Sadie, a female physician (based in fact on one of Ami McKay’s intrepid ancestors), Moth learns to question the world around her, and to stoke her quest for true independence in a world where it’s not to be expected if you are a young poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

If you are a fan of novels with rich settings evocatively described like any of those by Charles Dickens, you will love this book. If you love books with strong female heroines who rise above adversity, you will love this book. If you loved The Birth House, you will love this book. And, like me, you will then eagerly be awaiting the third book to come from this wonderfully gifted writer. No pressure, Ms. McKay!