Road Trip with Dad

Truckin' with Sam: A Father and Son, The Mick and The Dyl, Rockin' and Rollin', On the Road is a perfect Father's Day memoir. In the book, Lee Gutkind recounts his cross-country road trips with his son, Sam, as they traversed North America talking, laughing, learning, and bonding. As one of a growing number of “old new dads” (recent studies have shown that one in ten children are born to fathers over forty), Gutkind faced challenges—both mental and physical—not faced by younger dads, not the least of which was how to bond with a son who was so much younger than himself. Gutkind’s approach to this challenge has been to spend one to two months of every summer “truckin’” with Sam, a term they define as a metaphor for spontaneity, a lack of restriction: “Truckin’ means that you can do what you want to do sometimes; you don’t always need to do what’s expected.”

ForeWord Reviews said: “Gutkind delivers according to his reputation. Truckin’ is by turns cerebral and funny. It makes for an enjoyable ride.”

Visit the book's website for more excerpts and other exclusive content, including TriQuarterly Online's interview with Lee and Sam!

Happy Father's Day!

Staid publishing world rejoices—in a dignified manner, of course

From today's New York Daily Intel:

Back in December, the staid publishing world was ruffled by the news that both Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews were to be shuttered by parent company Nielsen Business Media as part of a massive restructuring. But Daily Finance reported this morning that there's still hope for at least one of those venerable titles. Read the rest here.

Last month, the possible shuttering of Kirkus did set off yet another round of "death of publishing" missives. At the time, we enjoyed this reasoned piece on the matter, also from New York, which nicely summed up how Kirkus was(is?) viewed:

The Pepsi to Publishers Weekly's Coke when it comes to prepub press, Kirkus was always known, to the booksellers and industry reporters who relied on its write ups of forthcoming titles, as the cranky one ... Kirkus could usually be counted on to demolish the overblown writers, and to be unsparing when it came to first novels by photogenic young things. A rave in Kirkus was truly a prize; a hatchet job was an easy enough excuse for a bookstore owner, besieged by the sheer volume of books being flogged, to move on. Read the rest here.

The Kirkus story looks like an evolving one, so we'll keep our eyes on it.