The question is both simple and grandiose: what if everybody in the region read the same book at the same time? The notion of a community or regional book club has been gaining popularity around the country, but in Minnesota the Talking Volumes program has taken the idea several steps further than most.
Talking Volumes is an ambitious partnership between Minnesota Public Radio, the Loft Literary Center and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, with participating bookstores spread out across the Upper Midwest. Now in its second season, the Talking Volumes program has featured both popular homegrown talent such as Leif Enger, Robert Bly and Bill Holm, as well as a broad selection of authors ranging from Mona Simpson, Amy Tan and Jane Hamilton to John Edgar Wideman and Sebastian Junger.
That ambitious mix, along with the broad cross-promotional exposure provided by the partnership, has made Talking Volumes a success with booksellers, stimulating book sales and discussion in a region long known for its support of literature and the arts.
"There's no question the program sells a lot of books," said Tom Bielenberg, book buyer for Ruminator Books in Minneapolis. "We've seen a jump in sales for every title, and I'd have to say that right now Talking Volumes is having a bigger effect than Oprah, which is saying something. We sold more than 100 copies of Robert Bly's The Night Abraham Called to the Stars [HarperCollins], which is pretty astonishing for a poetry title."
Peggy Burnet, owner of the Bookcase in Wayzata, Minn., shares Bielenberg's enthusiasm. The Bookcase has been a Talking Volumes sponsor, and Burnet has seen increased sales of each of the featured titles. "From the moment a new title is announced we'll typically see a spike in the sales," she said. "MPR is probably the single biggest force for driving sales in our store," she told PW. "We immediately sold more than 25 copies of Tony Earley's Jim the Boy [Little, Brown], a book a lot of people probably weren't familiar with, as a direct result of Talking Volumes, and we also saw a carryover effect; it just kept selling long after the program."
The program presents a host of challenges and opportunities for participating authors, with a series of newspaper and radio interviews, a live event and public broadcast over MPR, as well as smaller group discussions coordinated through the Loft.
Minnesota writer Leif Enger, whose novel Peace Like a River (Grove Atlantic) was the December/January Talking Volumes selection, admitted that the program, though gratifying, was initially daunting. "There is certainly a lot of glare, and the public aspects of the program can be a challenge," Enger told PW. "But now that it's over and done with I have to admit that the experience was completely marvelous. I really suspect that this thing sells thousands of books; a lot of bookstores ran clean out of my book between my Talking Volumes appearances. Grove Atlantic had to go to a fourth and fifth printing for Peace Like a River."
The usual Talking Volumes program kicks off with advertising in the Star Tribune, followed by a week of daily excerpts from the chosen title (also in the Star Tribune). The author also does an interview on Minnesota Public Radio host Katherine Lanpher's midmorning program, followed by a public event—usually at St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater—that is broadcast live on MPR. The program culminates in a smaller public discussion of the book at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. More than 50 participating bookstores around the Midwest offer additional promotion as well as discounts on Talking Volumes selections.
The Talking Volumes idea germinated in discussions between the Loft and the Star Tribune back in 1999. "The Sacramento Bee had launched a successful book club," said John Habich, senior culture editor at the Star Tribune and the newspaper's Talking Volumes coordinator. "We'd been kicking around the idea for quite some time, and the people here were really behind it from the beginning; in a real sense the whole Talking Volumes concept underscores our basic mission, which is building community through reading."
The partnership, Habich said, made sense to everyone involved. "We had the mass market exposure, and MPR gave us access to a niche market of listeners who are really intense readers, as well as providing a broad geographic reach across the upper Midwest," Habich said. "The Loft knew the book business better than we did, and was enthusiastic about the idea right from the start."
"It's been a really great and interesting partnership," said Katherine Lanpher, MPR's point person on the Talking Volumes project. Lanpher's midmorning program, with its frequent author guests, is often credited by Midwest booksellers with having an Oprah-like effect on book sales, and her Talking Volumes role has been crucial to the exposure and success of the program.
"From a radio standpoint we obviously need an author who can communicate his or her ideas. You look for someone who has something to say, and who can address the themes of that particular book," Lanpher told PW. "At BEA last year I made a point of meeting as many authors as I possibly could, and my overriding concern is always, can they talk, can they talk, can they talk. Obviously all of us in this partnership have our own needs and things we're looking for from a book and an author, and that, I think, is what makes Talking Volumes so great, because when you satisfy all those needs you have a really great program."
Bart Schneider, author of Secret Love (Penguin), agrees. As the literary director for the Loft, Schneider works with Lanpher and Habich in selecting titles for Talking Volumes. "Obviously there are people in all of these organizations who are really active in pulling this thing off," Schneider said. "We all bring different things to the table. At the Loft we're in a position to facilitate the smaller, more intimate book discussions after the big public event."
Schneider was instrumental in convincing his cohorts to take a chance on Robert Bly's poetry title at the December event. That extended program, which included a gala 75th birthday celebration for Bly at the Loft, a packed event at the Women's Club theater in Minneapolis and the publication of a new journal—The Thousands—edited by Bly, brought renewed energy and attention to the Talking Volumes program.
"I feel like we've really hit our stride," Schneider said. "Just to see a major metropolitan daily newspaper running a poem every day for a week, with commentary by Bly, was so gratifying. People have really been engaged."
The Star Tribune's Habich noted that the success of the Talking Volumes program, which was stimulated in part by his paper's commitment to literature, has also had the effect of strengthening that commitment. "Our publisher has been tremendously supportive of what we're trying to do," Habich said, "and people here have been extremely pleased with the program." In an economic climate in which major daily newspapers all over the country are cutting back book coverage, Habich said, the Star Tribune has actually managed to allot additional space for its book section.
The second season has continued successfully with Jane Hamilton's Disobedience (Anchor Books) and National Book Award finalist Kate DiCamillo's The Tiger Rising (Candlewick Press). With a continuing lineup that will continue with Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters (Hyperion) and Rick Moody's The Black Veil: A Memoir with Digressions (Little, Brown), the Talking Volumes program continues to branch out and look toward the future.
Lanpher continues to be energized by the project, and tantalized by the possibilities. "I feel like we've grown with each event this year," she said. "As far as the future goes, obviously we all have our wish lists. I'd love to get V.S. Naipaul, Seamus Heaney or Stephen King, who is both literary and commercial. Regional authors have done so well for us, but I think it's important that we continue to look for a wide range of themes and contexts. The tremendous thing about this partnership is that so many different types of books end up in the mix."
