When you were a kid, the first day of Spring-like weather probably meant it was time to dust off your bike and take a spin around the neighborhood.  But we’ve come a long way from those carefree days.  As cycling becomes more popular, especially in big cities, it brings with it some unexpected downsides, many of which Grant Petersen takes on in Just Ride, his book about opting out of racer culture and into enjoying your bike the way you did as a kid.  Petersen is the founder and owner of Rivendell Bicycle Works, and a well-known figure in the bike world.  His argument?  “A lot of the advice you’ve been getting ever since you became a bike rider is flat-out wrong and is actually bad for your health.”  Just Ride is against all of the following: helmets, carbohydrates, biking as a way to lose weight, and wearing silly riding outfits. Well, he’s not exactly against those things, but Petersen has some unconventional opinions about them.  If you’ve ever ridden in the bicycle lane, rode in a charity race, or watched the Tour de France (or, as Petersen calls it, the BORAF, for Big Old Race Around France), you’ll want to read what he has to say.  The book comes out in May, and until then, the Atlantic has an excerpt to tide you over.

Photo by Librado Romero/The New York Times

If you’ve ridden a New York City subway lately, maybe you’ve noticed an elongated illustration depicting a wide array of commuters. The print is by Sophie Blackall, our very own author of Missed Connections, and it’s part of the MTA’s Arts for Transit initiative. This weekend, according to news reports, one subway rider admired the illustration so much that he tried to steal it, with a screwdriver! He was quickly nabbed by a plainclothes police officer who happened to be standing nearby. Ms. Blackall was flattered by the attempted heist, but other fans should note that there are more lawful ways to obtain her work: the print itself is available at the Transit Museum’s store, and Missed Connections, a collection of illustrated love stories, can be found at bookstores everywhere.

Though it was much beloved around Workman’s editorial department, until recently To Marry an English Lord, originally published in 1989, was out of print, and, we feared, forgotten. Then, like like the appearance of a long-lost cousin or a wealthy American heiress on a soap opera to save the day, fate intervened. On January 19th of this year, the New York Times ran an article celebrating Edith Wharton’s 150th birthday as well as the cultural moment that, thanks in part to Downton Abbey, women like Wharton–late 19th century and early 20th century heiresses–seem to be enjoying. And right there in the article’s second paragraph was To Marry an English Lord, by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace, cited as one of Julian Fellowes’s inspirations for creating Downton Abbey.

Workman jumped at the chance to re-release the book, and now it’s available once more, with a redesigned cover and the same juicy stories of real American heiresses taking on the British peerage: women just like Lady Grantham, who left the nouveau riche-distaining Gilded Age United States for the greener pastures of England, and brought her fortune, which saved the estate of Downton Abbey, with her. The difference between an earl and a “mere sir,” a thorough explanation of entails, the roots of Anglomania–it’s all there, and more, in To Marry an English Lord, a sure-fire method of keeping yourself occupied until the third season of Downton Abbey airs next year. Find the book here, or check out an excerpt of the book here.

In honor of the 2012 South by Southwest festival, which starts today, we’re celebrating with a visit to the Austin, Texas studio of Austin Kleon,  frequent SXSW panelist and attendee, and author of  the new book Steal Like an Artist. Here, we ask him a few questions, speed round style.

Recent book you loved/learned from: 

Jonathan Lethem’s The Ecstasy of Influence. The original piece that book is centered around had a huge influence on Steal Like An Artist, but the book is even richer.

Favorite bookstore:

It’s hard to pick just one! BookPeople and Domy Books are two amazing stores in Austin, Texas.

Hidden talent:

If it’s hidden, it’s hidden for a reason. (Wink.)

Bookmark or dog-ear?:

Dog-eared. And underlined. And scribbled in the margins… 

Book you are most ashamed never to have read:

I have a book out on creativity and I’ve never read Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit or Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way. (Whoops!)

Most frequent form of writerly procrastination:

Twitter!

Favorite childhood book:

Ernie’s Big Mess. (A Sesame Street Start-to-Read Book)

Alternate ambition:

Beach bum.

Your perfect meal:

My mom’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, a slice of cherry pie, and a glass of milk.

Big dream:

To be unemployed and independently wealthy.

Super power of choice:

Flying. I’d be having some Grimaldi’s pizza for dinner. (Like my dachshund, I’m food motivated.)

In Steal, you recommend reaching out to creative heroes who inspire you by writing blog posts, dedicating your work to them, and writing fan letters. What was the last fan letter you wrote?

The last fan letter I wrote was Steal! It’s a public fan letter to all the artists who’ve taught me so much.

What Workman book would you like to receive as compensation for your participation?

I Will Teach You To Be Rich

If you’re in Austin, Texas come by the Austin Convention Center this Saturday from 12:30 – 1:30 to hear Austin Kleon and filmmaker Kirby Ferguson discuss creativity in the digital age, followed by a book signing.

The dreaded March SAT test date is upon us this Saturday.  Whiz kid Alan Hatfield, who scored a perfect 2400 on the test and went on to guest edit the 2011-2012 edition of Up Your Score (that’s him in red on the cover), joins us with some tips in this guest post:

It’s the week before the SAT. You’ve spent weeks, if not months, poring through reams of vocabulary flashcards and meticulously reviewing your subsection scores on practice test after practice test. By now, you should have a good idea of which sections you’ve made the most progress in and which sections are your strong suit. So how do you make the most of the final sprint?  Over the course of the next few days, take some time each night to go through practice questions from your two weaker subsections. If you have or can find some practice tests, go through individual sections each night, focusing on simulating a testing atmosphere. This means you should be giving yourself just as much time as on the real test, just to make sure that you’re ready for the rigors of fast test taking. Focus on being comfortable while working in a rushed manner, since your most valuable weapon on test day will be a clear and focused mind along with confidence in your answers.

Once you hit Thursday night, spend a couple hours going through practice questions from all three sections. You don’t have to time yourself: Just focus on developing your unique pace, answering questions only as fast as you can confidently and completely. By this point, you will be able to predict the various kinds of questions you’ll encounter, so practicing with individual questions as opposed to sections will be your best option.

On Friday night, take a half hour to go through a few individual questions from your weakest section, but make sure you don’t take a full practice test. You’ll want to save your energy for Saturday morning, so eat a full, healthy dinner and after your short review session, blast your theme song to get yourself psyched. By the time you wake up on Saturday morning, you’ll feel comfortable and confident. The rest will be history.

For a more comprehensive study plan, check out Up Your Score!  Good luck to everyone taking the test Saturday–may you hit the triple-800 jackpot.

I wish we’d had Katie Workman’s The Mom 100 Cookbook when I was growing up.

When I was a kid, there was very little I wouldn’t eat. Broccoli? Bring it on. Oysters? Okay! Something foreign and unidentifiable? Sure, I’ll try anything once. I didn’t often complain about what was put on my plate—and that’s why I’m my parents’ favorite.

My sister, on the other hand—aaargh. Every night was a battle of the wills as my mom plied my sister to eat and the girl just flat-out refused. If it were up to her, Meredith would’ve eaten fish sticks and mac and cheese for every meal of her childhood. And sure, I guess there’s something sort of appealing about that (no…no, there’s not), but it’s just not a viable option—not in terms of health (hello, vegetables?!) and not in terms of practicality, either. Because what mom has the time and the energy to whip up a healthy, tasty meal for not only herself (and potentially a spouse), but also a handful of kids all clamoring for different variations on the same old bland kids’ dinners? No mom, that’s who!

Enter Katie Workman, chef extraordinaire and savior to moms everywhere. With The Mom 100 Cookbook, Katie has assembled a hundred recipes that are guaranteed to please everyone in your family, from the budding gourmands to the pickiest of picky eaters. Every recipe is healthy and delicious, and the excellent “Fork in the Road” feature highlights ways in which moms can cater to kids of all levels of food-adventurousness.

Katie recently spoke with a few local moms about their most common cooking predicaments. How many of these have you experienced? (I’ll admit it: Even I don’t love fish.)

The Mom 100 Cookbook comes out on April 3 of this year. You can preorder copies now.

Goodbye February, hello March.  “In like a lion, out like a lamb” is the proverb we associate with this month’s weather, and it got us thinking: lions, lambs, the harsh and the soft meeting in the middle when we never thought they would (think Beauty and the Beast)–sounds like an unlikely friendship.  While we hope you’re familiar with the runaway bestseller Unlikely Friendships by now, you may not have known that the book has been adapted for younger readers.  In each book in the Unlikely Friendships for Kids series, kids can read five stories of improbable, heartwarming friendship between species.  The books come “out like a lamb” in April, and are great for animal lovers age 7 and up.

It’s Leap Day! That magical day that comes only once every four years, when we get to make up for the fact that it actually takes the Earth 365 and a quarter days to revolve around the sun by tacking a whole extra day onto the end of February. (Happy birthday, Jerry Gergich!)

In keeping with Leap Day tradition, we here at Workman are celebrating by:

1. taking leaps—i.e. doing things we wouldn’t usually do.
2. taking leaps—i.e. jumping over one another like frogs.

But—sorry—we’re not about to show you footage of us leap frogging around the office. So instead, check out these champion Leap Froggers! Eric and Ryan Buffet of Aiken, South Carolina, broke the world record for Most Tandem Leap Frogs in 30 Seconds. The previous record, set by two unknown jumpers at Burning Man, was 25. We think Leap Day William would be proud!

To read about more amazing records, pick up a copy of The Record Setter Book of World Records. And to find more records that are just itching to be broken, visit RecordSetter.com.

Ten lucky winners will each win a 11×14 framed limited edition print of one of Austin’s newspaper blackout poems (valued at $185, offered exclusively by 20×200.com).

To be eligible to win, just email a copy of your receipt for the purchase of a copy of Austin Kleon’s new book STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST by 11:59pm (pst) February 28, 2012 to promotions@workman.com.  Include your full name, address (where print would be shipped), phone number and email address when sending in the receipt. The 10 winners will be selected at random on February 29 and will be notified by March 5, 2012.  The winners names will also be posted at austinkleon.com.

Extraordinary. Remarkable. Wonderful.

You know when a book comes into your life and it renders you speechless? The kind of book that can only be summed up in exclamations? Wonder, by Workman’s own R.J. Palacio, is just such a book. And the three words above? A sampling of the heaps of praise* it has rightly earned from book critics, grown-ups, and kids alike.

What is this stunning middle grade novel about? I’ll let the cover copy do the talking:

August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He’s about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you’ve ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie’s just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, despite appearances?

Full of heart, this book will make you laugh, cry, and cheer for Auggie. It is, simply, a wonder of a book.

_______________________________________________________________________________

* Select praise for Wonder:

“A memorable story of kindness, courage and wonder.”
–Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Palacio makes it feel not only effortless but downright graceful, and by the stand-up-and-cheer conclusion, readers will be doing just that, and feeling as if they are part of this troubled but ultimately warm-hearted community.”
–Booklist, starred review

“Palacio has an exceptional knack for writing realistic conversation and describing the thoughts and emotions of the characters. Everyone grows and develops as the story progresses, especially the middle school students. This is a fast read and would be a great discussion starter about love, support, and judging people on their appearance. A well-written, thought-provoking book.”
–School Library Journal, starred review

“Few first novels pack more of a punch: it’s a rare story with the power to open eyes–and hearts–to what it’s like to be singled out for a difference you can’t control, when all you want is to be just another face in the crowd.”
–Publishers Weekly, starred review

“The breakout publishing sensation of 2012 will come courtesy of Palacio [and] is destined to go the way of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and then some.”
–The London Times, “The Top 100 People to Watch in 2012″

“Palacio is a wonderful storyteller and her characters are bright, well-rounded and intensely likable. Wonder is a beautiful book that is full of sorrow and triumph, emotional without being manipulative — highly recommended.”
–Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“Wonder is a rare gem of a novel–beautifully written and populated by characters who linger in your memory and heart.”
–Amazon Best Books of the Month for Kids, February 2012