A Year Of Selling Books

"Part of the idea of saying no is a little old-fashioned," says Judy Clain, the Little, Brown editor who bought "Julie and Julia," a year-of memoir in which writer Julie Powell made every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." "We are so overwhelmed by technology, we have so much access to so many choices, these books offer a way to deprive or limit ourselves."

Perhaps, in following the writers' attempts to lead lives pared down to the essentials, readers may be reminded of the necessity of finding a way to give their remaining years meaning, whether by not buying tropical fruit in February or letting their beards grow to their knees. "All of the possibilities in a life happen in a year," says Lorin Stein, an editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. "The idea that the year is going to be a productive year, that it will not go unmarked, is really soothing." And what could be more soothing than a year in which your options are so limited as to almost not exist? As Kingsolver's daughter Camille, who contributes recipes to the book, discovered, limiting her shopping list to local, organic produce was "actually easier. When you peruse the farmers' market for fresh produce, the options are clear. You don't miss what's not there." Similarly, Jacobs finds himself longing for the simple, Biblical life once his experiment ends: "The first day was the worst. I felt unanchored. Too many choices." However, if the fad for deprivation memoirs continues at its current pace, readers considering a packed shelf in a bookstore may not enjoy that same luxury.

© 2007