As the editor of the Books page, I get many requests from publishers, publicists and authors for space on The Roanoke Times Sunday book page. I would like explain the process I use to choose what books will be featured on the page.

The books and reviews:

Hundreds of newly released books and advance reader copies are mailed to the newspaper each month from publishing houses, publicists and occasionally from authors (uncorrected proofs are usually discarded.) I also have access to two wire services that features book reviews as part of the newspaper’s subscription. Since we have a limited amount of space, I make editorial decisions on what books I send to our book reviewers (RT staff members and freelancers who are compensated by the newspaper) and what wire stories make the page.

Books are chosen so that a variety of genres are represented (popular and literary fiction, nonfiction, hobbies, lifestyle, young adult books, etc.) with the intent to make the page relevant, timely and appealing to readers. My goal is to feature reviews in the newspaper within six to eight weeks of the book’s release.

Occasionally I feature reviews of older titles as part of our recurring “May I Recommend” feature. We no longer feature reviews of children’s books.

The reviewers:

I match the books to the reviewers based on the reviewer’s reading preferences and their availability to read the book and write the review on deadline. While we do compensate our freelancers, it is a nominal amount –staff writers receive no extra compensation– so our reviewers write for the Books page because they love to read and share their thoughts on books.

Local authors

Continuing the policy of my predecessor, I do not consider self-published books for review. In this age of on-demand and digital publishing, there are far too many self-published works for the limited space of the page. This has disappointed many local authors who have asked me to consider their books for review, but it is necessary to ensure both fairness and the quality of the page.

When a local author (someone who resides in Southwestern Virginia or has strong ties to the area) has an edited book released and mailed to the newspaper by a reputable publishing house or university press, I try– but do not always succeed–to match that book with a local reviewer. That can be a challenge to find an impartial reviewer since the writers community in Roanoke is a well-networked group.

To ensure the integrity of the page, reviewers should not be a friend of the author and if the reviewer and author are acquainted, that will be disclosed in the review. I have used wire reviews of books by local authors to avoid conflict of interest.

Signings and readings

All authors, including those with self-published books, who have signings and readings in Roanoke and New River Valley bookstores and public libraries are encouraged to email details to events@roanoke.com to be featured in the Books and Talks calendar that runs each Monday in the Extra section of the newspaper.

Title: William Henry Harrison Publishers: Times Books

Author: Gail Collins

At some point, every schoolchild learns that William Henry Harrison was America’s briefest president, his death from pneumonia in 1841 coming just a month after a record two-hour inaugural address on a wintry day. For young minds, the message is clear: Don’t go outside without a warm coat, and don’t talk so much.

If you aren’t contemplating doctoral studies in American history, what else is there worth knowing? Author Gail Collins ably answers that question with the Harrison entry in Times Books’ noteworthy The American Presidents series, a kind of Nutshell Library for adult history buffs.

True, Harrison’s 31 days in office receive only slightly fewer pages than Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 12 years. The point isn’t length – most books in the series are around 200 pages and Harrison’s is about 150 – but presenting concise, readable portraits of the presidents to a broad audience. Indeed, the series may be at its best in its effort to make the lives of Harrison, Warren G. Harding and other lesser presidential lights more accessible and interesting.

Collins, a columnist for The New York Times, achieves that goal in spite of Harrison’s oh-so-limited legacy. Her journalistic eye for the significant fact and the engaging anecdote helps guide readers through a life of achievement and occasional controversy.

Harrison was born in 1773 into a prominent Virginia family, the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His father’s death, when William Henry was 18 and studying medicine in Philadelphia, left him without ample funds. He tapped his father’s friends, including George Washington, as he successfully sought an army commission.

The young soldier moved up the ranks while fighting Native Americans in the Northwest Territory, then the lands that would become Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota. Those exploits led to his appointment as the territory’s secretary and later as the governor of the vast Indiana Territory, all those lands save Ohio.

His lifetime of government service – military general and war hero, Ohio state lawmaker, US congressman and senator, US diplomat, county official – was devoted as much to gaining a regular and plentiful salary as building a young nation. With a wife and 10 children as well as a penchant for investments doomed to failure, Harrison always needed money.

Collins’ accounts of the presidential elections of 1836, the year Harrison lost, and 1840, the year he won, provide the slim biography its most lively pages. Lest we forget, running for president has had its silly, disingenuous and ugly sides since the early years of the republic.

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As an author, Michio Kaku is like Walt Disney with a Ph.D., patiently leading his charges from one amazing place to the next; Kaku’s Disneyland is the future. To paraphrase from the old Disney television show theme: The world is a carousel of wonder. Kaku — eminent scientist and professor, co-author of string field theory — possesses that same sense of awe and joy of discovery that made Disney such an icon.

While Disney recruited the best and the brightest to help him forge entertainment using science, “Physics of the Future” uses entertainment to explain science. The ideas expounded upon can be daunting for the layman, but Kaku’s gift is his unerring ability to render the obtuse concrete. There may be a reader to two who may complain that the material is somehow “dumbed down,” but I would argue that those readers have likely researched the subject matter thoroughly already. Besides, there is a vast difference between diluting the material for the easily distracted, and presenting a topic succinctly and clearly; Kaku does the latter.

We begin our journey with the story of the computer, the existence of which was the stuff of fantasy at the turn of the 20th century. The computer as we know it today, in fact, was virtually unthinkable even half a century ago. Moore’s law states that computer power doubles roughly every 18 months. As chips and their attendant uses become less and less expensive, they begin to appear in more and more places; so many places, and in such numbers, that we cease to realize they are even there. The author quotes novelist Max Frisch: “Technology [is] the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.” As such, computer technology will continue to blend seamlessly into the fabric of our lives; the predicted future of eyeglasses and contact lenses is astonishing, and gets more so as each iteration begets further advances.

The chapter on artificial intelligence does an admirable job explaining intelligence and consciousness as it relates to constructs: If you’ve seen too many Hollywood movies and expect your toaster to one day rear back and demand respect, you will find many of your worries eased.

ArtsBeat is a Web site devoted to culture news and reviews, and to the work and interests of the reporters and critics of The Times’s culture department and the Book Review. Come here for breaking stories about the arts, coverage of live events, interviews with leading cultural figures, critical reviews, multimedia extravaganzas and much more.

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This whole Dickens 200th anniversary thing is starting to feel a little over-saturated — to the extent that every review of a new Dickensian adaptation, or book, or film, or exhibition or mobile app is obliged to observe how over-saturated this whole Dickens thing is. Step forward John Sutherland whose crackling little book is a surprise antidote to Dickens ennui.

Presented as an “A-Z of England’s greatest novelist”, the book is really one big excuse for Sutherland to share his favourite theories and facts about Dickens. That the book opens with an A for ‘Amuthement’ and ends with a Z for ‘Zoo Horrors’ will give you a good impression of the author’s eccentric approach. This is a book built to entertain, but underpinned by a long career of scholarship. Sutherland finds his subject an ‘inexhaustible fund of entertainment,’ and bends that spirit onto his own pages.

Just a few examples… Under ‘C’, we learn of Dickens’ attitude to cannibalism. ‘H’ for Hands paints Great Expectations as a ‘masturbator’s manual’. ‘B’ for Blind Spots discusses the mysterious lack of Irish people in Dickens’ novels, and the total absence of that other iconic figure of the age, Queen Victoria. Not many authors could confidently begin a chapter by saying “I believe I was the first to point out a teasing puzzle in Great Expectations…” (a hattery matter), or get away with comparing Dickens to Michael Jackson’s doctor.

Sutherland is clearly a man who knows his subject so well that he’s able to play games with it. The result is a joyful dance of a book that even the most jaded Dickens reader will relish.

The Dickens Dictionary by John Sutherland is out now from Icon Books. Buy here.

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