Was an Oklahoman a CIA agent in Iran? It's part of 'Off the Radar,' featured on NPR's Diane Rehm Show

               Imagine having a father who you thought might be a CIA agent. Imagine having a father who was the “other hostage” taken during the Iranian hostage crisis. Imagine having a mother who is defending your father in a court where execution is the usual verdict.
                All of this actually happened during the childhood of Cyrus M. Copeland, who has written the recent book “Off the Radar: A Father’s Secret, A Mother’s Heroism, and a Son’s Quest.”
               The book traces Cyrus' childhood while growing up in Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis and then his investigation into whether his father, Max, was actually a CIA agent working there.
               There's also an Oklahoma connection to this intriguing story: Max is originally from Grove. Cyrus recounts in the book how he returned to Oklahoma to trace how his father grew up here and why he eventually left the state and the country.
                 "Max Copeland is a quiet, academic-minded corporate executive who has been seized by Revolutionary Guards and charged with a capital crime: espionage," the book's promotion says. "Max is a laconic Okie who might be more than the studious administrator he seems."
                 Cyrus recently was recently interviewed on NPR's Diane Rehm Show and also has written about his book for the Huffington Post. He also promised to come to Best of Books when he visits the state again.
                  The author wrote to Best of Books that the Rehm show was "great exposure, that -- more than anything else --- ... helped the book *not* to live up to its title." The subject of radars actually plays an integral part of the story and his father's work.
                   Max is the only Iranian hostage who's not part of the U.S. embassy crisis in which 66 other Americans are held hostage. He is alone, with only one person who seems to be able to help him. Max's wife and Cyrus' mother, Shanin, is an Iranian who faces the changing and challenging times in her home country while launching her own covert operation and ultimately defending her husband in court to save his life.
                  "My mother has been fairly delighted with the response to the book, but truth be told doesn't really understand why everyone is making such a fuss about her," Cyrus wrote in an email.
                  The book is a fascinating look into Iran at the time of immense change. It has several great stories within the book, including Max's attempted escape from the country, the trial and Cyrus' decision to return there despite the danger. It is even more interesting now considering the U.S.'s recent diplomatic moves there.
                  And, for Oklahomans, it's one in which you'll ask: Can one of our own become a CIA agent? You'll find out in "Off the Radar."

 

Even Sam-I-am will like this Saturday's Storytime at Best of Books with Dr. Seuss, Seussian creatures and storyteller Victoria!

        

       

       It’ll be Dr. Seuss Time at Best of Books’ Storytime at 11 a.m. Saturday!

       Our master storyteller Victoria Nelson will read the recently found and published “What Pet Should I Get?” book. It quickly shot up to No. 1 in Fiction on this week’s OKLAHOMA BESTSELLERS list, edging out Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman."

        Victoria will read “What Pet” and other Dr. Seuss books, and she is planning a Dr. Seuss activity. And there will be a Dr. Seuss costume contest. Dress up as your favorite Dr. Seuss character or “Seussian creature,” as they're called. Prizes will be given to the best-dressed ones.

         Demand for "What Pet Should I Get?" was so high that Best of Books sold out immediately, and suppliers were struggling to refill orders. However, BOB just received a new supply of books today.

           Random House has been promoting “What Pet Should I Get?” as a “never-ever-before-seen picture book by Dr. Seuss about making up one's mind is the literary equivalent of buried treasure! What happens when a brother and sister visit a pet store to pick a pet? Naturally, they can't choose just one! The tale captures a classic childhood moment -- choosing a pet -- and uses it to illuminate a life lesson: that it is hard to make up your mind, but sometimes you just have to do it!”

            And, of course, with any Dr. Seuss book, there are plenty of exclamation marks in the promotion.

             Whether you’re young or older, join us for this fun hour with Victoria and Dr. Seuss on Saturday. You'll need to bring extra exclamation marks for this one.

BOB the bookstore launches presidential campaign on Twitter, begins search for vice presidential candidates

             

                Twitter's BOB the bookstore officially launched an Indie campaign for president this week. BOB's first platform statement: "Reading more makes you smarter."
                 BOB will be tweeting occasionally about the platform and the need for more reading and literacy in our society, a topic that many candidates don't seem to address in their campaigns.
                  Tweets this week have included:
                  -- "In my campaign to be the 1st bookstore president, BOB would be willing to debate Donald Trump on any topic involving #books."
                   -- "As the only bookstore running for president, BOB will be true to my Indie roots & support #smallbiz, especially in #Edmond."
                   The campaign will have both tongue-in-cheek and serious statements. And, of course, all will be in 140 characters or less.
                   BOB is still searching for a candidate to run for vice president on the Indie ticket. Know of any possibilities?
                
                

It's official: Laura Maple becomes the new general manager of Best of Books!

     

      Laura Maple won't be reporting to school this fall, but she'll still be going to school.
      For the first time in seven years, Laura will not be working for a school, her last being as a librarian at Edmond Memorial High School.
        However, Laura will now be working with schools as general manager/main book buyer for Best of Books.
        Her first day as GM was this week, and her first task was organizing all of the book sales for the Edmond high schools. Those are ones that are required reading at Edmond Memorial, Edmond North and Edmond Santa Fe, and Laura will be among those going to the schools this week. Next week, she and Best of Books' staff members will be taking books o the Edmond middle schools.
         "Schools are very important part of what we do at Best of Books," said Best of Books president Joe Hight. "We feel fortunate in having someone of Laura's caliber leading in these efforts as well as other areas."
          Laura is succeeding Elena Hight, who became Best of Books' director of marketing and author events. Elena is stepping in the new role after being the general manager since the Hights bought Best of Books last October. Elena, who has worked at BOB, for more than a year has decided to return to school in the fall.
          "We're excited that Elena is moving in this new post. She did an outstanding job as GM, but needed more time so she could attend school," Joe said. "We think Laura and Elena will be a great team in leading Best of Books into the future."
          

Best of Books honored to be selected for Readers' Choice, Sunshine and Favorite awards! We have two words to say to you ...

                      Thank you!
                

      As you may know by now, Best of Books was named as a Readers' Choice Award winner in the balloting that was announced July 26. BOB went through two rounds of voting by readers of The Oklahoman and NewsOK.com. The first was to determine which bookstores in the state would be on the finalist list; BOB was honored to be among those five that were selected. Then voting began again to determine the overall winner.
               

      The simple boldface of our name determined that Best of Books was the winner.
       "It's a great honor to be selected as a finalist for this award, but even a greater one to win the overall vote. It means that our brand is reaching our core audience in Edmond as well as the state," said Joe Hight, president of Best of Books.

                     Thank you!
              This is the third reader vote that Best of Books has won this year.
                      First, BOB was selected by readers of the Edmond Sun for a 2015 Sunshine Award. 
                      Then, Best of Books was selected by readers of Edmond Life & Leisure as its favorite bookstore.
                      "When you look at the Edmond businesses and institutions that are among those honored for these awards, you can't help but be proud and humbled that Best of Books is among them," Joe said.
                       Best of Books also was honored early in the year as a finalist for the Edmond Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year.
                        Joe said he had two words to summarize his feelings and the way he feels about Edmond and Oklahomans who have supported BOB. He said Best of Books will continue to seek creative ways to encourage reading and for events that will appeal to different audiences.
               By the way, those two words are:
               THANK YOU!
                                      
                                             

YA authors to highlight special ODL tour in five state cities this fall; BOB named as official bookseller

        Best of Books has been named as the official bookseller for the Oklahoma Department of Libraries' Double R Author Tour featuring YA authors Sonia Gensler and Tara Hudson this October.
         The ODL received a four-year grant from The Reading Trust to place recent children's and Young Adult books that have been honored as Oklahoma Book Award medalists or finalists in libraries across the state. Also, as part of the grant, ODL will be the host of a tour each fall of authors who have been Oklahoma Book Award medalists or finalists in the Childrens'/YA category.
          Other sponsors of Double R, also known as the Reading Round-up, will be The Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma and the Friends of the Oklahoma Center for the Book.             



Sonia Gensler

Tara Hudson

             YA authors Sonia Gensler and Tara Hudson will be visiting five Oklahoma communities, said William R. Young, ODL's public information manager. In each community, the two authors will visit a local school during the afternoon and the public library in the evening.
           Sonia will also be signing her new book Ghostlight at noon Aug. 22 at Best of Books.
            In October, the five communities chosen for the first year of Double R tour and the dates of the author visits are:         
                  -- Sulphur, Oct. 7.

              -- Prague, Oct. 21.

              -- Blanchard, Oct. 22.

              -- Piedmont, Oct. 27.

              -- Lawton, Oct. 29.

                Here are Sonia's and Tara's books for the October tour:

 Sonia Gensler:

              -- Ghostlight (Available Aug. 4)

              -- The Revenant (Oklahoma Book Award Winner) (Will be placed in public libraries.)

              -- The Dark Between (Oklahoma Book Award Finalist)  (Will be placed in public libraries.)

 

             

 

 

           

Tara Hudson:

              -- Elegy (Will be placed in public libraries.)

              -- Arise (Oklahoma Book Award Finalist) (Will be placed in public libraries.) 

               -- Hereafter (Oklahoma Book Award Finalist)  (Will be placed in public libraries.)

 

 

 

 

Writer-editor collaboration emphasized at Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference in big, bold Texas

      BOB Blog note: Joe Hight recently attended the recent Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, which he calls the best in the country for nonfiction writers. He also wrote this blog.

       No one should doubt The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference is all Texan. It's big. It's bold. It's loud. And it even has a Friday night "Southwest Soiree" at a place called the Austin Ranch, a western-theme banquet hall near the Hilton hotel where the conference is held in Grapevine.
         It's also big and bold in that "The Mayborn," as it's called, brings in some of the top nonfiction authors in the country. The 11th annual one was no different with famed author Barbara Ehrenreich being among the speakers.
         One panel that was particularly interesting was called "Lessons in Collaboration: Two Nonfiction Writers Worked with a Highly Involved Editor to Produce Acclaimed Works of Literary Nonfiction." (You see, the titles of the workshops are big, bold -- and long, too.) It featured Jeff Hobbs, author of the recently published "The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace" and Helen Thorpe, who wrote "Soldier Girls: the Battles of Three Women at Home and at War." The editor of their books was novelist Colin Harrison, who's also vice president and senior editor at Scribner.
          All three don't live in Texas and don't fit the big and bold image either. Hobbs will call you "sir" and jokes he doesn't like to read Harrison's novels because they're too dark. Thorpe doesn't look at all like the former wife of a national political figure, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. She also admitted Harrison had to push her to get out of her house to see the nightlife of her book's main characters. Harrison kept deferring to the two writers to question and talk to each other during the workshop. He also seems to be the type of quiet but demanding editor every writer wants or should have.
            "Both books had an extraordinary degree of difficulty," Harrison said. However, that didn't stop him from calling for the writers to rise to "a level that cannot be faked; it must be summoned by the trumpet in the mountains."
            "A writer should be really challenged," he said.
            Hobbs' book was about Robert Peace, his best friend and roommate at Yale. Peace was an outgoing, intelligent young man who also happened to sell marijuana on the side, Hobbs said, and who was "killed violently and painfully," surrounded by marijuana in a house about a mile from where he grew up in Newark, N.J.
            His book is on the "Staff Picks" of recommendations at Best of Books.
            "I had no claim to objectivity. I cared a lot about my subject," Hobbs said about Robert Peace, who he called "Rob." But I also "had the responsibility of telling the whole story."
            Thorpe said her challenge in writing "Soldier Girls" was in organizing the shelves full of notebooks and the "mountain of material," as Harrison called it. She followed the lives of three women soldiers, who were all deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, over a 12-year period. She finally had to resort to software in which she could dictate her notebooks out loud and then refer to them later.
              Hobbs and Thorpe said Harrison likes proper usage of words, strong verbs and movement in writing. He'll push you to get precious details and to connect the flaws that propel the "human mystery."
              And, Hobbs said, he'll question you if he thinks there's too much swearing in your book.
              But, most of all, an editor of Harrison's caliber will keep encouraging you "to look for the trumpets," whether you live in Texas or not.