Postscripts

Borders Books and Music has recently filled its apparently much-desired community relations coordinator position; the store received some 300 applications from local and statewide individuals for the job from one ad alone. Does Borders tend to hire CRCs from within the company? Borders manager Dan Finn says that "it depends. We want the best person available; sometimes that's within the company, sometimes it's without." In this case, the new CRC, Anne Wick, is from rather far without the company, since she used to write "In Person"s for the Chronicle; "In Person" is the Chronicle's forum for critiquing author readings at bookstores around town. Wick is probably all the more aware, then, of what Finn means when he says that "the CRC position is such a specialized field and it requires some real specialized skills." Wick begins August 1...

Amidst the critical reception attending Modern Books' editorial board's recent release of the 100 most important works of fiction of the 20th century, Book People, under the leadership of head book buyer Tracy Tarleton, has created a list of what it believes are 25 books that ought to be on any list of the most important fiction of the 20th century. To see the list, look for the display on the first floor at Book People...

Soon there may be a solution to the annual task of finding funding for Texas Writers Month. Since the organizers of Texas Writers Month created the month as a self-initiated program for libraries, bookstores, and schools across Texas, it might seem that little funding is needed. But getting the word out in the form of posters and promotion that Texas Writers Month is in existence - this year it was May - doesn't come cheap. In the past, Texas Writers Month has been promoted pro-bono by Peggy Hubble and the forces at the now-defunct MEM/Hubble; Hubble is now at Christian- Hubble-Ozmun Media & Communications. Now, screenwriter and Texas Writers Month committee member Cary Roberts has devised the Texas Writers Project, a nonprofit foundation that would be used to fund costs associated with Texas Writers Month and other programs that highlight Texas artists. Details are still being completed...

The Austin Book Workers will hold their free annual Book Arts Fair Sunday, August 9, 1-5pm, at Laguna Gloria, 3509 West 35th St. The Book Arts Fair is Austin's only annual event that provides hands-on insight into how books are made...

Elmer Kelton was going to sign his new Hewey Calloway novel, The Smiling Country, at Barnes & Noble Arboretum on August 10, but his publisher has canceled his book tour because Kelton suffered a heart attack and underwent triple bypass surgery July 26. At press time, his condition was stable.

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New

The Texas State Historical Association has just published Don Carleton's A Breed So Rare: The Life of J.R. Parten, Liberal Texas Oil Man, 1896-1992. Carleton is the director of UT's Center for American History and his book meticulously brings to life "a quiet doer in a culture that is more likely to recognize the flamboyant gesture."...

There's a new biography of Helen Keller out by Dorothy Herrmann, the biographer of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and S.J. Perelman. It's called Helen Keller: A Life (Knopf, $30 hard) and Herrmann hopes that it "may offer new insights into the nature of society's relationship to disability."...

Also just out is Larry Tye's fascinating The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations (Crown, $27.50 hard).