LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Over 1500 RSS librarian sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest headlines from journals and sites in the Non-fiction interest group. http://www.libworm.com/rss/librarianqueries.php Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:53:13 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/01/tony-blair-a-journey-booksellers Retailers predict high sales for former PM's political memoirAnd so the journey – well, A Journey – begins. Tony Blair's heavily embargoed, highly anticipated political memoir hits the shelves this morning, amid feverish predictions from booksellers.The book, running to over 600 pages, leapfrogged into top position in Amazon.co.uk's bestseller chart this morning from 11th place last night, overtaking bestselling books by Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer and Terry Pratchett. The online bookseller says it is on target to become its biggest-selling political memoir ever.Amazon.co.uk said that Blair's A Journey had generated 36% more pre-orders than Peter Mandelson's The Third Man at the same stage. It added that the book "is on target to overtake that title to become the most successful political memoir of all time on Amazon.co.uk" – news that will be welcomed by the Royal British Legion, to which Blair is donating all proceeds from the memoir, including his estimated £4.6m advance."Both books have performed very well and, perhaps unsurprisingly in a year when there has been a general election, we are encountering a strong appetite for books from the world of politics," said Amy Worth, Amazon's head of bookbuying.At Waterstone's – where Blair will sign copes of his autobiography on 8 September amid heavy security – A Journey was hovering in eighth place in its online bestseller chart this morning, while Foyles was predicting that the book would be the independent chain's bestseller of the week."Most bookshops have revised their expectations for A Journey, after such impressive sales for Peter Mandelson's book. Initial sales will be very high indeed and we expect it to be our bestseller this week, even on just four days' sales," said Jonathan Ruppin at the independent bookseller. ... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:12:35 +0100 868202 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/booksquare/~3/hTOxRIC86D0/ I’ve been thinking about the topic of the value of books a lot. Not for days. Not for months. Years. However, recently I’ve been angered by the implication that readers are cheap, that they won’t pay a proper price for books, that they don’t get it. Whatever it is. These assertions are not untrue. They are also not entirely accurate. Perspective is everything, nuance matters, and I have thoughts. Of course. What is a book worth? Well, there’s list price created by the publisher. That seems to be the value referenced by publishers. Then there’s the price consumers actually pay. That gets more complicated, of course. You have to break it down to various levels including the price for the first sale and the price for the second sale. Library patrons pay a different price; we call that “property tax”. Oh, and then there are the books acquired for free. This is what I think about when I hear publishers talking about this, that, or the other devaluing the price of content. And by devaluing content, they really mean consumers paying far less than publishers would like. This is absolutely a valid concern. Once consumers get lower price points in their minds, they might expect to pay less all the time. As noted above, the way consumers acquire books means they pay varying amounts for the same product; I’d wager the number of full retail list price sales is greatly outnumbered by all other types of sales. Resolution: the price I pay for a book has absolutely nothing to do with how I value the book. This leads me to an inescapable contention. When publishers talk about the value of books, what they really mean is the value they have assigned. Conclusion: publishers are as responsible for devaluing the content of books as anyone else in the food chain. Recently, some friends and I discussed an author we love. Or loved. ... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:10:00 +0100 868021 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/29/vs-naipaul-masque-of-africa-review VS Naipaul is often blinkered but he still sees things in Africa that others miss, says Aminatta FornaIn 2001, when the Swedish Academy awarded Sir Vidia Naipaul the Nobel prize in literature, it described him as the heir to Joseph Conrad: "The annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings… the memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished." There are plenty who would have begged to disagree, for Naipaul has regularly attracted criticism, from Edward Said among others, for his dismissive remarks on the cultures of his native Trinidad, on Islam, Pakistan and more.The Masque of Africa is his latest – quite likely last – full-length work of non-fiction. It is a quest through the continent for the spirit of African belief, the belief systems that preceded the arrival of Christianity and Islam – which is very much in keeping with the legacy of Joseph Conrad, who is referenced several times in the book. Already this feels cliched and tiresome; one yearns for the day when an author from outside can approach Africa without invoking the "heart of darkness" mythology. In 1975, Chinua Achebe published an essay attacking Conrad's best-known work as racist and already the novelist Robert Harris has described The Masque of Africa as "toxic".Naipaul's journey across the continent takes him from Uganda, where he lived for a short while in the 1960s, to Nigeria, then to Gabon via the Ivory Coast and Ghana, and finally to South Africa. Along the way, he meets and talks to people about their beliefs. His sources are virtually all African rather than aid workers and expats (you'd be surprised how rare this is).Naipaul discourses with teachers, writers, academics, pharmacists, kings, queens and chiefs, businessmen, friends of friends. That there exists an African intellectual class does not escape him. ... Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:06:08 +0100 866783 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/gLQwe8ymeKw/2010-guardian-first-book-award-longlist.html The longlist for the 2010 Guardian first book award has been announced: Fiction: * Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt (Fig Tree) * Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman (Sceptre) * Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam (Harvill) * Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman (Cape) * Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed (HarperCollins) Non-fiction * Bomber County: The Lost Airmen of World War Two by Daniel Swift (Hamish Hamilton) * Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (Portobello) * Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris (Thames & Hudson) * Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir by Basharat Peer (HarperCollins) Poetry * The Floating Man by Katharine Towers (Picador) (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Sat, 28 Aug 2010 14:43:11 +0100 866805 http://mblc.state.ma.us/jobs/find_jobs/rss.php?job_id=6359 Environment: Busy Metro-Boston public library serving a diverse community. At Malden Public Library, we place a strong emphasis on personal service. -Day to day management of personnel and library services to insure the library needs of a diverse community is satisfied; -Plan programs and services, promotes library use in the community, and serves as liaison with community groups and schools; -Supervise 8 librarians, 8 support staff and messengers; -Interact effectively with the public, staff and administration; -Communicate with administration on a regular basis; -Train professional and support staff in public service; -Oversee collection development for adult fiction and portions of the non-fiction collection; - Keep abreast of emerging technologies; -Maintains a working knowledge of contemporary issues, trends, and technology in the library profession -Ability and willingness to assume responsibility; -Generate ideas for service improvements; (Source: MBLC Job Listings) Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:20:01 +0100 866322 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/oC9jrwEMTx8/ From the Report Summary: Bowker released its much-anticipated 2009 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics and Buying Behaviors Annual Report today, providing the U.S. book industry with the most complete consumer-based research on who buys books and why. The 2009 Annual Report is culled from more 44,000 total respondents, responsible for the purchase of 118,000 books in 2009. [Clip] This year’s report provides data not available in any other source with a scope that captures the changing nature of retail channels, including the growing presence of such mass merchandisers as Wal-Mart. Further, the report captures the explosion of new electronic formats. Selected Stats from the Summary + More than 40% of Americans over the age of 13 purchased a book in 2009 and the average age of the American book buyer is 42. + Women lead men in overall purchases, contributing 64% of sales. Even among detective and thriller genres, women top 60% of the sales. Where do men catch up? Fantasy titles are purchased evenly by men and women. + Baby Boomers spend. The boomer generation is the largest purchasing generation, making up 30% of sales. Their elders – Matures – contribute 16%. + More income doesn’t mean more book purchases. 32% of the books purchased in 2009 were from households earning less than $35,000 annual and 20% of those sales were for children’s books. + Americans like people. The biggest selling non-fiction genre is biography – auto and otherwise. Access the Complete Announcement Source: Bowker Via Resource Shelf Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:02:04 +0100 864763 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/08/25/new-report-from-bowker-highlights-from-consumer-focused-research-report-for-book-industry/ From the Report Summary: Bowker released its much-anticipated 2009 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics and Buying Behaviors Annual Report today, providing the U.S. book industry with the most complete consumer-based research on who buys books and why. The 2009 Annual Report is culled from more 44,000 total respondents, responsible for the purchase of 118,000 books in 2009. [Clip] This year’s report provides data not available in any other source with a scope that captures the changing nature of retail channels, including the growing presence of such mass merchandisers as Wal-Mart. Further, the report captures the explosion of new electronic formats. Selected Stats from the Summary + More than 40% of Americans over the age of 13 purchased a book in 2009 and the average age of the American book buyer is 42. + Women lead men in overall purchases, contributing 64% of sales. Even among detective and thriller genres, women top 60% of the sales. Where do men catch up? Fantasy titles are purchased evenly by men and women. + Baby Boomers spend. The boomer generation is the largest purchasing generation, making up 30% of sales. Their elders – Matures – contribute 16%. + More income doesn’t mean more book purchases. 32% of the books purchased in 2009 were from households earning less than $35,000 annual and 20% of those sales were for children’s books. + Americans like people. The biggest selling non-fiction genre is biography – auto and otherwise. Access the Complete Announcement Source: Bowker See Also: On August 5th, We Posted Selected Stats from “Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading” (Bowker/BISG). Access via: Kat Meyer, Sue Polanka, and Paul Biba/TeleRead (Source: ResourceShelf) Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:56:24 +0100 864854 http://memphisreads.blogspot.com/2010/08/book-review-84-charing-cross-road-by.html Beth reviews 84, CHARING CROSS ROAD by Helene Hanff (Moyer Bell Limited, 1970).I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I’m not much for non-fiction. It just doesn’t draw me in the way fiction does—maybe because it is so close to life? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I fell in love with this non-fiction book when a customer called for it. After placing myself on the waiting list, I was thrilled to read it cover to cover!84, Charing Cross Road is a collection of letters written between Helene Hanff and the staff at Marks & Company of London in the early 1950s through the end of the 60s. Thanks to these letters, we are able to see friendships and compassion form for those who never meet face-to-face.Helene contacts the shop to fulfill her need for “good, clean copies” of books at a reasonable rate. Her letters, often sarcastic and witty, are at odds with the serious and proper English gentleman’s replies. Over the years she continues to purchase books by mail, but also sends gifts of food during the rationing in England after WWII. A friendship that spans decades ensues—covering children growing up, getting married, and friends passing away. Although Helene grows and changes throughout the years, she always has 84, Charing Cross Road.Beth, Highland Branch (Source: Memphis Reads) Mon, 23 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 867969 http://sciref.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/hathitrustdigitallibrary/ http://catalog.hathitrust.org HathiTrust Digital Library is a consortium of universities that have released a shared digitized collection of books. The catalog allows a search of the synopsis or full text of books. A look into the public collections is also allowed.  Both fiction and non-fiction books are included. (Source: Business & Sciences Rolodex) Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:11:50 +0100 864604 http://www.teleread.com/2010/08/04/established-authors-and-the-self-publishing-backlist-an-interview-with-patricia-ryan-part-1/ Cory Doctorow and Joe Konrath are not the only e-pushing authors with already-planted stakes in the dead tree world! A growing cohort of Smashwords authors established writers who have regained rights to some or all of their backlist titles and have chosen to e-issue it themselves. A recent encounter I had with Patricia Ryan, who is one of them, first alerted me to this growing trend. THE BEAUTY OF THE INTERNET, PART 1: AS A MATCHMAKER Ryan found her way to me through a recommendation a Mobile Read user made to me when I was looking for some new titles. I had some Paypal balance to burn and did not want to incur transfer fees, so I wanted some Smashwords recommendations. I was especially interested in books that were either part of a series (so that I could have more than one to read if I liked it) or were non-fiction or historical-based so that I might get immersed in a world and maybe learn something. Patricia Ryan’s mystery novels, set in the 19th century, fit the bill perfectly. THE BEAUTY OF THE INTERNET, PART 2: AS A PR TOOL Now, here is where the true beauty of the internet kicks in: Ryan had apparently set up a Google Alert on herself, and when her name came up at Mobile Read, she found out we were talking about her and came on over. She personally thanked each person who mentioned buying one of her books, addressed some concerns about formatting and sought feedback on what readers wanted to see next. Well-played, Patricia Ryan! This is the first time I have heard of someone using Google Alerts to run their own self-PR! We had a fascinating exchange on ebook publishing, both from the reader and writer standpoints. Some highlights of our discussion (note: this is posted with her permission!) below: MY OPENING SALVO: I really appreciate authors, especially established ones, who embrace the digital age and do not put up barriers to people getting the books. ... Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:44:33 +0100 864736 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/NV8_FvfK7TY/ Cory Doctorow and Joe Konrath are not the only e-pushing authors with already-planted stakes in the dead tree world! A growing cohort of Smashwords authors established writers who have regained rights to some or all of their backlist titles and have chosen to e-issue it themselves. A recent encounter I had with Patricia Ryan, who is one of them, first alerted me to this growing trend. THE BEAUTY OF THE INTERNET, PART 1: AS A MATCHMAKER Ryan found her way to me through a recommendation a Mobile Read user made to me when I was looking for some new titles. I had some Paypal balance to burn and did not want to incur transfer fees, so I wanted some Smashwords recommendations. I was especially interested in books that were either part of a series (so that I could have more than one to read if I liked it) or were non-fiction or historical-based so that I might get immersed in a world and maybe learn something. Patricia Ryan’s mystery novels, set in the 19th century, fit the bill perfectly. THE BEAUTY OF THE INTERNET, PART 2: AS A PR TOOL Now, here is where the true beauty of the internet kicks in: Ryan had apparently set up a Google Alert on herself, and when her name came up at Mobile Read, she found out we were talking about her and came on over. She personally thanked each person who mentioned buying one of her books, addressed some concerns about formatting and sought feedback on what readers wanted to see next. Well-played, Patricia Ryan! This is the first time I have heard of someone using Google Alerts to run their own self-PR! We had a fascinating exchange on ebook publishing, both from the reader and writer standpoints. Some highlights of our discussion (note: this is posted with her permission!) below: MY OPENING SALVO: I really appreciate authors, especially established ones, who embrace the digital age and do not put up barriers to people getting the books. ... Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:44:33 +0100 864560 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/03/burkas-bikinis-reality-afghan-lives Time magazine's cover is the latest cynical attempt to oversimplify the reality of Afghan livesReprising a legendary 1985 National Geographic cover, this week's Time magazine cover girl is another beautiful young Afghan woman. But this time there is a gaping hole where her nose used to be before it was cut off under Taliban direction. A stark caption reads: "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan". A careful editorial insists that the image is not shown "either in support of the US war effort or in opposition to it". The stated intention is to counterbalance damaging the WikiLeaks revelations – 91,000 documents that, Time believes, cannot provide "emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land".Feminists have long argued that invoking the condition of women to justify occupation is a cynical ploy, and the Time cover already stands accused of it. Interestingly, the WikiLeaks documents reveal CIA advice to use the plight of Afghan women as "pressure points", an emotive way to rally flagging public support for the war.Misogynist violence is unacceptable, but we must also be concerned by the continued insistence that the complexities of war, occupation and reality itself can be reduced to bedtime stories. Consultation with child psychologists apparently preceded Time's decision to run the image, but the magazine decided that in the end it was more important for children (and us) to understand that "bad things do happen to people" and we must feel sorry for them. The WikiLeaks revelations of atrocities and civilian deaths are evidence of some rather terrible things that are done to people but are bizarrely judged not to provide a "window into the reality of what is happening".Time is not alone in condensing Afghan reality into simplistic morality tales. ... Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:00:13 +0100 864318 http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-murdered-vets.html Yesterday at the Women's Club book sale for 50 cents I picked up a signed copy of "The Key West Reader: The best of Key West's Writers 1830-1990." Published in 1989, and edited by George Murphy a resident and writer of Key West. It's a very interesting collection by known and unknown (to me) American writers, such as John James Audubon, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and John Hersey. I've never been particularly fond of Hemingway's fiction, but the non-fiction accounts of the Labor Day 1935 hurricane (category 5) that killed over 400 people in an area with a population of a thousand or so in this book are stunning. Every governor and city mayor of the gulf states should be required to read this. If Louisiana's state and local officials knew this story and how bad FDR looked for sending unemployed and mentally addled WWI veterans to their certain death in a hurricane, maybe the outcome of Katrina would have been different. Or not. Hemingway disliked FDR intensely, so Democrats probably don't read him. This is from HNN account:"Shortly after the natural disaster had occurred, writer Ernest Hemingway was contacted by the editors of New Masses to write an account of the storm from an insider's perspective. Hemingway's response was the article, "Who Murdered the Vets?: A First-Hand Report on the Florida Hurricane," published September 17, 1935, just weeks after the event. Although billed as a personal account, in reality it was an outraged demand for accountability for the needless death of the veterans. A hostile tone was established within the first few lines. "Whom did they annoy and to whom was their possible presences a political danger?" Hemingway asked. ... Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 863956 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/emily-gould-meghan-daum-confessional Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City columns inspired some dire chick lit, but also a generation of more serious young writersEmily Gould still finds it irritating when she gets stuck behind a group of women walking four abreast along a New York pavement, intent on imitating the infamous Sex and the City line-up. "Really, two of you should walk behind and allow other people to walk past," Gould says with a groan. "It's one of many things that upsets me about Candace Bushnell."But for all that she might get annoyed by those high-heeled women on the sidewalk, without Sex and the City, there would arguably have been no Emily Gould. The 28-year-old has just published her first confessional memoir, And The Heart Says Whatever. In 11 pithily written essays, Gould, a former co-editor of the Gawker gossip website, charts her experiences as a young adult in New York, working in jobs she loathes, facing up to failed relationships and going to parties attended by people she dislikes. Her debut has already attracted praise from the likes of Jonathan Franzen, while Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of American Wife, has hailed it as a modern-day version of The Bell Jar. Gould is one of a new generation of female confessional writers who, according to Sittenfeld, "speak, in our often phoney and cheesy culture, to the truths of women's lives".Before Candace Bushnell, books like Gould's that sought to capture the dilemmas and dichotomies of modern womanhood with a wry, humorous honesty, were almost unheard of. For decades, the experiences of ordinary women had been largely overlooked by the literary world: either it was recounted in fictional terms (as in Mary McCarthy's The Group) or it was relayed anonymously by feminist polemicists and social historians (Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique). Bushnell changed all that. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:06:04 +0100 863671 http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/newpages-updates.html Publications and Publishers newly added to NewPages website:The NewPages Big List of Literary MagazinesThe Meadowland Review - poetry, fiction, photographyMused - poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, artwork, photographySurvivor Chronicles – poetry, fiction, non-fictionMelusine – poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, artStatus Hat! - fiction, creative non-fiction, articles, poetry, musicStirfry – (Source: NewPages Blog) Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 864162 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2010/07/26/library-day-in-the-life-7262010 I’m participating in today’s Library Day In The Life - it could be a good (interesting) day, but it also means I’ve been here for an hour and a half already and this is the first chance I’ve gotten to post anything - busy day. 11:00 am Arrive at work, go right to Reference Desk. Morning person is on vacation, so our Assistant Director was covering. Talk to her about how busy the morning was, problems from the weekend, and pending reference questions 11:15 - 12:30 Field a flurry of reference question, even having to press our “emergency” button (wireless doorbell) to get someone from the backroom to come out and help. These varies from looking up book titles, reserving museum passes, finding books on dream symbols, mythology, New York travel, books for middle school summer reading, check in newspapers, give newspapers to patrons, find parking map for local bike trail, and retrieve a lost cell phone for a patron We’re also doing interviews today for our Head of Circulation opening - however, interviews were scheduled after I approved vacation time for this week, so I spent some time scrambling to find someone to cover the desk while I’m in the interviews 12:30 - 1pm Transfer call from Nashua (NH) Public Library to our ILL department talk to maintenance guy about the huge mouse he caught in the library’s garage (”it was black and this big,” holding his hands about eight inches apart - I think that qualifies as rat) finally get a chance to post this A patron wanted travel books for Italy and Greece, and holy smokes, the Fodor’s and Frommer’s 2010 books for both countries were on the shelf. ... Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:49:03 +0100 862434 http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/jul/25/travel-casablanca-tahir-shah With exotic tales of JD Salinger and exorcisms, author Tahir Shah is the dream host for a literary pilgrimage to a little-known corner of MoroccoSeven years ago, exasperated by living in a tiny London flat, the writer Tahir Shah enacted the cherished fantasy of stressed city dwellers everywhere by uprooting his young family and decamping to a stunning house on the outskirts of Casablanca.The house he bought, Dar Khalifa – the Caliph's House – is a sprawling residence with vast high-ceilinged rooms, fountains and tiled courtyards shaded by trailing vines. In the entrance hall hangs a portrait of Shah's great-great grandfather – a tribal warlord from Afghanistan. A swimming pool twinkles in the back garden.Walking through the cool rooms, admiring Shah's extraordinary library – shelf after shelf filled with different editions of A Thousand and One Nights – it's hard not to feel a stab of envy, but it's tempered by knowing the travails he underwent to make the house habitable.Shah recounts the process in his 10th book of non-fiction, The Caliph's House. He'd only the slenderest of connections to Morocco, remembering it fondly from childhood holidays spent there. He got the house for a knockdown price from a British expatriate who'd left it empty for nine years and was afraid a Moroccan developer would demolish it. But after the sale went through it turned out that the deeds had been lost, putting Shah and his family in imminent danger of eviction.In addition to the usual problems associated with doing up a derelict building, Shah had to contend with Moroccan superstitions: workmen and staff believed djinns (spirits) had taken possession of the vacant house and wouldn't enter until they had been banished. At one point, a team of 24 exorcists was called in to sprinkle goats' blood in the haunted rooms."What do you think the going rate is for 24 exorcists?" Shah asks me, as he shows me round. "Four hundred euros! I thought it was a bargain. ... Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:08:45 +0100 862014 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/25/david-remnick-this-much-i-know The author and editor of the New Yorker, 51, on his memories of the Kennedy assassination, meeting Bob Dylan, and the last time he criedMy earliest memory is the Kennedy assassination. I was in kindergarten and the headmaster intoned the dramatic news over the loudspeaker. Then we were told, weirdly, to take a nap until our parents came.Language is the great human invention and to be a master of that, a real master, is to me an astonishing thing.Like every non-fiction writer, I started out thinking I'd write fiction. But I grew up with disabled parents and knew I had to make a living. I didn't have the notion that I would take two or three years on the largesse of home and see if I could become Philip Roth.I'm just as happy seeing a Godard film as I am seeing a Bruce Willis movie. But I'm very unhappy in the theatre. Nine times out of 10 I'll wonder why they are shouting and spitting so much.The last time I cried was watching The West Wing. For people like me, The West Wing was an alternate political reality in which people were working hard to do good and noble things.My worst habit is excessive work. I wake up thinking about work and go to bed thinking about it. I'm also terribly impatient, which is not a good mindset for an editor.When I was 19, I was a busker on the Paris metro. I told my parents I was studying at the Alliance Française. An Australian collected the money for me. He'd just arrived from Kenya where he'd helped reap the hash harvest and had a family-sized shampoo bottle full of hash oil. It was a good time.I met Bob Dylan once. By that time he looked like Jesus in a cowboy suit. He didn't say much. It was 10 or 15 minutes, but it seemed like three and a half hours.I know a little about a lot. That's the psyche of a journalist. I look at people who know a lot about one thing with awe.I've never fulfilled my ambitions. I'm always disappointing myself. But I don't have regrets either. ... Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:04:50 +0100 862028 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/24/silent-summer-wildlife-britain-ireland Stephen Moss surveys a timely reminder of where the wild things wereAlmost half a century ago, in 1962, the American writer and biologist Rachel Carson published a short work of non-fiction called Silent Spring. Over the next decade, it not only became a bestseller, but achieved something very rare in the book trade: it changed the world.At the 11th hour, people on both sides of the Atlantic woke up to the dangers posed to wildlife by the widespread use of agricultural pesticides. Following a major campaign, the British and US governments banned the most dangerous of them, DDT. The populations of insects, wildflowers, mammals and birds – some, like the peregrine, on the brink of extinction in both North America and Britain – began to make a comeback. The environmental movement had, in the nick of time, saved the day.Except that it hadn't. DDT may have been banned (at least in the developed world), but the drive towards higher farming yields, and the incessant clamour for cheap food, continued. Over the past 50 years, this laid waste to the countryside, which has now turned, in some parts of Britain, into little more than a food factory. Because of this, and other threats such as climate change and alien species, our native wildlife is now in even deeper trouble than before.So the appearance of Silent Summer – a doorstop of a book, whose title deliberately echoes Carson's apocalyptic warning – is timely. An impassioned foreword, from David Attenborough, hails the book as "a benchmark . . . invaluable and irreplaceable". Ironically the problem we face has become so serious, and the issues so wide-ranging, that today not one, but more than 50 people, have been involved in its authorship. Together, they have contributed 36 chapters totalling well over a quarter of a million words.Sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion from its distinguished editor, Norman Maclean, Silent Summer is in three parts. ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:06:02 +0100 861761 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/22/martin-beales-obituary Lawyer and award-winning crime writerFew writers can claim to have immersed themselves so deeply in their subject as the lawyer and prizewinning author Martin Beales, who has died of cancer at the age of 64. His book, Dead Not Buried, which won the Crime Writers' Association Golden Dagger award for non-fiction in 1995, effectively reopened the case of the Hay poisoner, Herbert Rowse Armstrong, who was hanged in 1922, and at whose very desk Beales worked as a solicitor in Wales.Shortly after moving with his family into the large Victorian house known as Mayfields, in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Beales received a manuscript which suggested that one of its previous occupants, Major Armstrong, who was executed for poisoning his wife with arsenic, might have been innocent. Intrigued and motivated by the remarkable coincidence that he was not only living in Armstrong's old home, but working for the same firm and at the same desk as the Hay poisoner had decades earlier, Beales employed all his legal skills to investigate the case.A meeting with the Armstrongs' youngest daughter, Margaret, and a re-examination of all the trial papers and unpublished documents resulted in the acclaimed Dead Not Buried, later republished as The Hay Poisoner. The book's theme was that Armstrong had not received a fair trial and there were grounds to believe that he could have been the victim of a jealous rival and small-town gossip, resulting in a miscarriage of justice.It was one of the hits of the 1995 Hay literary festival where, in front of a packed house, Beales argued the case for Armstrong in a very gentlemanly discussion with another author, Robin Odell, whose book, Exhumation of a Murder, took the opposite view. The Golden Dagger was a recognition of a book which the reviewer Jonathan Cecil described in the London Evening Standard as "masterly ... essential reading for both advocates and opponents of the death penalty". ... Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:56:42 +0100 861478 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jul/22/books-summer-holiday-reading-list We've heard what all the authors and politicians claim to be packing. Now tell us what you'll REALLY be reading on the beach this year - and upload a location-shot of you and your book to our Flickr groupThe summer holidays are here again, and this year, as every year, the great, the good and the journalists have told us what they plan to pack in their suitcases. It's been a fairly diverse spread, with no striking most-recommended titles cropping up (remember the years when every other person claimed to be lugging Jung Chang's Mao or Antony Beevor's Stalingrad to the beach?). This year, on the non-fiction front, it seems people want to get a clear view on the banking crisis by clouding their summer skies with John Lanchester's Whoops: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay. In fiction, as you might expect, prizewinners and big names are liberally invoked: Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow got a couple of mentions in our pages (a novel about sex and nubile lovelies lounging around a pool in 1970s Italy – not hard to see the appeal of that one), while Brooklyn, Colm Toibin's elegant, heartbreaking love story, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger (the latter two recently out in paperback) also get well-deserved mentions.But as ever, half the pleasure of summer books recommendations comes from identifying the ones for which you'd never willingly sacrifice luggage allowance. Will anyone, for example, be taking Margaret Drabble up on her suggestion of GA Cohen's Why Not Socialism? (granted, we did ask for that, with our coalition theme)? Or David Miliband, who chose Coalition by Mark Oaten? (Top marks for following the brief to the letter – although he also recommended it in the non-themed Daily Telegraph summer books.)What are the rest of us taking on holiday this year?Two novels in particular have been much discussed on the Guardian books desk recently: David Nicholls's One Day and Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap. ... Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:28:44 +0100 861479 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/-yUReb_C9CA/peoples-book-prize-winners-uk.html The winners of the People's Book Prize have been announced: * Fiction: Lesley Thomson - A Kind of Vanishing * Non-fiction: Brett Alegre-Wood - The 3+ 1 Plan * Children: David Walliams - Mr. Stink (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:44:41 +0100 861365 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/21/penguins-next-march At 75, the venerable old bird now faces the kind of challenge that it once posed to publishing itselfThe publishing industry is said to have been rocked back on its heels at news that ebooks have outsold US hardback books on Amazon. But the ghost of Allen Lane, publishing impresario and founder of Penguin, might raise an eyebrow at the notion that usurping hardback books via a new technology is really news at all. Seventy-five years ago he launched his paperback imprint and, as birthdays are one thing that Penguin does better than any other bird or beast in the publishing jungle, we're going to hear all about it.As early as 1956 it produced a "Penguin Comes of Age" special written by Lane himself to mark its 21st. For the 60th anniversary of Penguin Classics, in 2006, it was commissioning artists – including shoe designer Manolo Blahnik and photographer Sam Taylor-Wood – to design covers for dinky limited editions of classic texts, each in its own Perspex box. For Penguin's 70th, it treated itself to 70 short books, in all colours of the rainbow, with texts excerpted from the work of its most illustrious authors.By next week, when it arrives at the 75th anniversary of the very first book to roll off its presses it will be seven months into a celebration which began in January with a Waterstone's jamboree involving 50 writers recommending 50 titles, and frolicked into spring with the reissue of 20 novels "that helped shape modern Britain".The self-image, then, remains strong. But what exactly does that image represent? And how well will the venerable old seabird be able to swim in the age of the ebook? One senses that Lane would be relaxed. He revolutionised the industry with the commercially brilliant idea in the depressed Britain of the 1930s of producing paperbacks for the people at sixpence a copy, available at Woolworths or from vending machines. ... Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:59:36 +0100 861356 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/21/mandelson-memoirs-hit-with-bookbuyers Despite frosty reception from critics and fellow politicians, The Third Man is an immediate success at the tillsReviews have been lukewarm and his fellow politicians have hardly been complimentary, but Peter Mandelson's autobiography The Third Man has nonetheless become one of the fastest selling political memoirs ever.According to official figures, released yesterday by book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan, the book sold 14,960 copies in just three days last week, putting it at the top of this week's hardback non-fiction chart – well ahead of second-placed Bill Bryson, whose At Home sold 3,745 copies, and third-placed Peter Andre, whose My World – subtitled "In Pictures and Words" – sold 3,208. Amazon.co.uk said The Third Man had topped its overall online bestseller chart since it was released last Thursday, selling more copies than both Stieg Larsson and Stephenie Meyer."The Third Man has undoubtedly been the most successful book from the world of politics this year. As the first significant book release following the general election, we expected considerable demand for this title and the number of pre-orders we received meant that it was challenging for the bestseller top spot before it had even been released," said the internet retailer's head of books buying Amy Worth. "How long The Third Man will hold the number one spot remains to be seen but its success to date illustrates the strong appetite for political memoirs."The Bookseller pointed out that although Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years sold 23,956 in its first six days on sale in the UK, and Bill Clinton's My Life 21,690 copies in its first five days on sale, The Third Man's per-day average, at 4,987, is higher than both Campbell (3,993) and Clinton (4,338). ... Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:28:08 +0100 861216 http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/07/20/canadian-childrens-book-centre-awards/ The 2010 finalists for the awards given out by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre have been announced.  The winners will be revealed on November 9, 2010 in Toronto. TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award Dragon Seer by Janet McNaughton Home Free by Sharon Jennings The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade   A Thousand Years of Pirates by William Gilkerson Watching Jimmy by Nancy Hartry   Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award The Delicious Bug by Janet Perlman Me and You by Geneviève Côté Our Corner Grocery Store by Joanne Schwartz Timmerman Was Here by Colleen Sydor You’re Mean, Lily Jean by Frieda Wishinsky   Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction Adventures on the Ancient Silk Road by Priscilla Galloway Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors by Charis Cotter Follow That Map! A First Book of Mapping Skills by Scot Ritchie A Thousand Years of Pirates by William Gilkerson Whispers from the Ghettos by Kathy Kacer   Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People Bitter, Sweet by Laura Best Crusade by John Wilson Haunted by Barbara Haworth-Attard    Vanishing Girl by Shane Peacock Watching Jimmy by Nancy Hartry   Related articles by Zemanta Canadian children’s book award nominees announced (cbc.ca) Finalists announced for the annual TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award (newswire.ca) (Source: Kids Lit) Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 861938 http://memphisreads.blogspot.com/2010/07/book-review-this-time-together-laughter.html Non-fiction/MemoirAndrea King reviews THIS TIME TOGETHER: LAUGHTER AND REFLECTION by Carol Burnett (Harmony Books, 2010)Being sick with pneumonia for the last week of June and the first week of July, I read and slept a lot. I really didn’t have the energy to do much more than that. Not being in the best of moods, I needed a light read to improve my humor. This book by Carol Burnett was definitely a mood- lifter. In fact, I would say this has to be the best book I have read all year!First of all, I have always loved Carol Burnett. I am sure I am not the only one. I grew up watching The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970-1980’s. Her zany sense of humor, as well as her hilarious cast of characters, always kept my family rolling on the floor. And those costumes Bob Mackie made for her! Who doesn’t remember her famous “Scarlett O’Hara” (“I saw it in a window and had to have it.”) outfit? I think I always enjoyed her show because it was clean humor.Her book is just as hilarious as her television shows. The book's title is from the song she sings at the end of The Carol Burnett Show. It draws readers in as friends to whom she is telling stories. Some of these stories are downright hilarious but others are such tearjerkers. Regardless, readers feel that Ms. Burnett is a close friend who shares intimate parts of her extraordinary life.I found this memoir to be so wonderful that I was able to finish it in two nights! But, honestly, if I had been feeling better, I probably could have read it cover to cover in one sitting!If readers want to hear some of the best, funniest stories told from an amazing comedienne, this memoir from Carol Burnett is a sure thing!Andrea King, Poplar-White Station (Source: Memphis Reads) Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 861653 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/xx2f47kYT2c/finalists-announced-for-2010-canadian.html The Canadian Children's Book Centre has announced the finalists for the 2010 TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse, Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction and Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People. The winners of the English-language awards will be announced at an invitation-only gala event at The Carlu in Toronto on November 9, 2010. The winners of the Prix TD de literature canadienne pour l'enfance et la jeunesse will be announced at an invitation-only gala event at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal on November 2, 2010. Overall, $110,000 in prize monies will be awarded (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:27:47 +0100 860800 http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/clmp-classroom-lit-mag-adoption-program.html Just in time for the new school year - the CLMP has started a new Lit Mag Adoption Program for Creative Writing Students program.OverviewMost poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction by emerging writers first finds its way into print through literary magazines, yet few student writers actively engage with the spectrum of magazines published today. By integrating literary magazines into (Source: NewPages Blog) Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 860719 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/16/publishers-preview-autumn-christmas-books New offerings from top literary names likely to add lustre to autumn marketLast year, the book trade bet heavily on a flurry of C-list celebrity memoirs and got badly burned. This autumn, the focus is on quality, with Stephen Fry and Keith Richards replacing the likes of Sheryl Gascoigne and Leona Lewis on the non-fiction shelves, and the fiction market profiting from new books by a host of writers, from Booker prizewinner DBC Pierre to the acclaimed American author Jonathan Franzen.Poor non-fiction publishing and a lack of public interest in celebrity titles was blamed for drops in sales at Waterstone's and WH Smith last Christmas: memoirs from male comedians including Jack Dee and Justin Lee Collins failed to live up to expectations, lacklustre autobiographies from Gascoigne and Lewis didn't set the market on fire and the collapse of Borders added to the general malaise."Last year there were about 12 books by comedians and, great as they are, that's probably a bit too much," said Jon Howells at Waterstone's. "No one's going to buy them all. "[But publishers] are focusing on really strong stuff this year. It's a much stronger Christmas than last."At the independent chain Foyles, Jonathan Ruppin agreed. "We can safely say the celebrity book market has peaked – there are only so many Christmases in a row that you can buy someone a celebrity autobiography. This year, though, we are spoiled for choice."Alan Samson, publishing director at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, said: "I think it is going to be a more upmarket Christmas than last year." His firm is bringing out memoirs by Keith Richards and Judi Dench for Christmas. "It is mainly that the marketplace didn't have enough variety last year, and there's a bit more diversity about it this year."As they put the final touches to their Christmas plans, booksellers are tipping novels from a phalanx of top Americans coming this autumn. ... Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:41:00 +0100 860028 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/DoyRuKMIB3k/2010-prime-ministers-literary-awards.html The 2010 Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction, Non-Fiction, Young Adult Fiction and Children’s Fiction shortlists have been announced. Nine children's fiction and seven young adult fiction works, as well as seven fiction and six non-fiction works have made the 2010 shortlist, selected from more than 320 entries: Children's fiction * Cicada Summer by Kate Constable * The Terrible Plop by Ursula Dubosarsky and illustrator Andrew Joyner * Just Macbeth by Andy Griffiths and illustrator Terry Denton * Mr Chicken goes to Paris by Leigh Hobbs * Running with the Horses by Alison Lester * Star Jumps by Lorraine Marwood * Mannie and the Long Brave Day by Martine Murray and illustrator Sally Rippin * Tensy Farlow and the Home for Mislaid Children by Jen Storer * Harry and Hopper by Margaret Wild and illustrator Freya Blackwood Fiction * Summertime by J. M. Coetzee * The Book of Emmett by Deborah Forster * The Lakewoman by Alan Gould * Dog Boy by Eva Hornung * Ransom by David Malouf * Lovesong by Alex Miller * As the Earth turns Silver by Alison Wong Non-fiction * The Water Dreamers: The Remarkable History of Our Dry Continent by Michael Cathcart * Strange Places: A Memoir of Mental Illness by Will Elliott * The Colony: A History of Early Sydney by Grace Karskens * The Life and Death of Democracy by John Keane * The Blue Plateau: A Landscape Memoir by Mark Tredinnick * The Ghost at the Wedding by Shirley Walker Young adult fiction * Stolen by Lucy Christopher * The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke * Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by Bill Condon * The Museum of Mary Child by Cassandra Golds * Swerve by Phillip Gwynne * Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen * Beatle meets Destiny by Gabrielle Williams (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:41:55 +0100 859900 http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/6256 From the MediaBerkman blog: Take a look at the headlines of any major newspaper or news magazine. Check out the non-fiction bestsellers at Amazon. The net is on everyone’s minds. Or more specifically, the way the net is on our minds is on our minds. Nicholas Carr’sThe Shallows paints a bleak picture of what the net is doing to our plastic brains, cheapening our relationships, and ruining our attention spans. Clay Shirky’s recent release Cognitive Surplus on the other hand celebrates the web’s power to enable quick, smart, crowdsourced action and creativity. Hundreds of other authors and thinkers have responded with their own variations and theories on what the internet is doing to us, and what we are doing on the net. With all of this thinking on the net, we thought it was time to do some thinking on the thinking on the net. And luckily we have two great thinker thinkers in house. Our very own David Weinberger has suggested jokingly that there should be a Myers-Briggs test for net fanaticism, while memetracker and ROFLCon founder Tim Hwang has grouped net thinkers into schools. Today, they explain how different thinkers think on the net, and importantly, why the heck everyone’s so interested. CONTINUE OVER TO MediaBerkman FOR THE AUDIO AND MORE... (Source: Berkman Blog) Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0100 859861 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/15/sloane-crosley-essayist The essayist Sloane Crosley has just published her second collection of witty, personal writing. And now HBO wants to make a TV series about her. So will she give up the day job now?Sloane Crosley, publicist by day, memoirist by night, has been said to "speak for her generation", so it's lucky the 31-year-old has so much to say. Her first book of essays, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, sold 150,000 copies and is being considered by HBO as the basis for a TV series. (Marketing sell: "the lady Larry David".) Her followup collection, How Did You Get This Number?, recounts further adventures of her life in New York and she is working on a novel, her second – the first she put away in a drawer: "I should rename it Dear Grandchildren If You Publish This I'll Come Back From the Grave and Tear Your Eyes Out. A long title, but I think it works."We are in Balthazar, a smart New York brasserie which, along with taxi cabs, disgusting flatmates, small apartments, reminiscences about childhood pets, mild behavioural tics and Crosley's strongest piece in the new book, an account of her disastrous affair with a cheating scumbag, feels like a staple of the wry personal anecdote, all told with the zippy air of the 90s newspaper column. ("Some people have coke guys. I had an upholstery guy.") If her whimsy runs out of control here and there – the first essay in I Was Told There'd Be Cake is about Crosley's adorable toy pony collection – she is, for the most part, sharp enough to get away with it, enlivening the funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-the-fridge type jokes with the occasional standout image. In the new book she goes on holiday to Portugal, where she sees "ancient Portuguese ladies, their spines bobbing beneath their cardigans as they scaled the city's steep inclines". ... Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:59:05 +0100 859751 http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/survivor-chronicles-online.html Survivor Chronicles is a small independent publication dedicated to trauma release, healing and survival. We are mostly a poetry magazine, but also invite short fiction/non fiction as we acknowledge the fact that many writers/artists are more comfortable expressing themselves through other styles.We want to hear from you:•If you have survived a major trauma, or are in the process of surviving it. (Source: NewPages Blog) Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 860725 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/WBbO-t-fEgo/ Received this fascinating press release today. Despite all the talk about the majors, it’s when I see something like this that it brings home just how pervasive ebooks will be. The Backgrounder, after the break, is especially interesting, as it describes a typical small publisher’s problems and challenges in undertaking to do ebooks and gives a good overview of the state of ebooks in Canada. I would note, given my comments about Epub not being a standard, the Backgrounder’s comment: It is only now that we are beginning to see the flattening out of formats to the more uniform ePub format for most digital distributors, but there still is no one standard. “Even with ePub each book has to be tweaked for each retailer,” explains Mike O’Connor of Insomniac Press. For all these reasons I print the release, and the Backgrounder, in full: Toronto, July 12, 2010: A group of forward-thinking publishers within the Organization of Book Publishers of Ontario (OBPO) – including academic, niche, general trade and children’s publishers – are working collectively to ensure that booksellers, libraries and readers across Canada are aware that a vast and wide-ranging selection of their books are now available as e-books. With the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, the OBPO is launching a marketing campaign this summer with a series of national ads highlighting the strength, breadth and quantity of their e-book titles, which will soon number close to 5,000. The marketing campaign will target libraries primarily, with the goal of encouraging academic and public libraries across the country to expand their collections of Canadian-published e-books. It’s worth noting that having successfully entered the world of digitized books is a significant accomplishment for these smaller Ontario publishers. ... Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:10:59 +0100 859544 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/11/lost-city-z-david-grann David Grann's attempt to follow in the footsteps of an intrepid explorer of the Amazon makes for compelling reading, says Andrew AnthonyDavid Grann's quest to find out what happened to the British explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett began as a 2005 New Yorker article and last year was expanded into a compelling non-fiction book. (It's also due to be made into a film starring Brad Pitt.) Fawcett was an explorer and cartographer of the intrepid Victorian school. Fearless and determined, he made a series of trips, beginning in 1906, deep into the South American interior to map out uncharted territory for the Royal Geographical Society.At the time, even among the scientific community, the Amazon was viewed as an area of impenetrable mystery and lethal danger. Along with Antarctica, it remained beyond the reach of all but a handful of adventurers, of whom Fawcett was the most celebrated. His exploits were reported in newspapers around the world, and inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Lost World.Fawcett was convinced that the Amazon had once supported a sophisticated civilisation. He had read the tales of early Conquistadors, the El Dorado myths that had drawn men to their deaths in doomed pursuit of hidden riches. But each excursion he made led him to believe that a lost city he codenamed Z existed somewhere farther into the jungle.In 1925, amid a great flurry of media attention, he, his young son, Jack, and Jack's schoolfriend, Raleigh Rimell, set off to locate Z. The group disappeared and were never heard from again.Grann cleverly knits together Fawcett's story with his own attempts to find Z, and sets both narratives against the socio-geographical debate over whether the Amazon is and always was a "counterfeit paradise", ill-suited to large human populations.Although sympathetic to Amazonian natives, Fawcett was a product of an imperialist culture and he believed his elusive Z was created by a lost tribe of Europeans. ... Sat, 10 Jul 2010 23:05:15 +0100 858526 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/11/marlantes-matterhorn-book-review Karl Marlantes's 35-year struggle to write a true novel of the Vietnam war has finally paid off – 'Matterhorn' is a bestsellerIn the summer of 1970, Karl Marlantes, a recently demobilised Vietnam veteran posted to US Marine Corps headquarters after 13 months of highly decorated active service, found himself walking some sensitive military papers across to the Capitol. He was challenged by a group of young anti-war protesters "hollering obscenities", chanting "babykiller" and waving north Vietnamese flags."I was stunned and hurt," he recalls, speaking to me during a recent visit to London. "I thought, you have no idea who I am… yes, I wanted to shoot them. Six weeks before, I was killing North Vietnamese guerrillas in combat." As his immediate rage moderated into puzzled anguish, Marlantes found himself wanting "to explain myself to those kids. I just wanted to tell my story".So he began to work on his Vietnam novel, taking a title, "Some Desperate Glory", from a line in Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est". The national trauma of the war was dragging on and he intended to address something huge in the life of contemporary America. "The Vietnam war was a defining experience in the US," he says. "It made this incredible divide, even within families. The Democrats were anti-war and the Republicans supported our troops. It shaped a generation, at least, and conditioned our response to things like Iraq and Afghanistan."By 1977, Marlantes had completed a massive, first-person narrative, full, he says, of "psychobabble" and an unmediated bitterness that he's now embarrassed to contemplate. No publisher would touch it. ... Sat, 10 Jul 2010 23:01:04 +0100 858535 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/07/09/clay-shirky-asks-can-the-internet-save-the-book-and-a-bit-of-book-search-history/ Access Full Text of Salon.com Article This is a reprint (with additional material) of an edited transcript between Shirky, Barnes & Noble Review Editor-in-Chief James Mustich, and BNR contributor Andrew Keen. Here is One Exchange: Andrew Keen: Can we go back to the book? It occurs to me that one of the reasons the traditional book lasted so long–one of the reasons it was Russia [the Russian/Poland references refer to a theory Shirky proposes earlier in the article]–is that the form and the function went very well together, and the book was a great way of tracking talent. Take the birth of the 19th-century novel, which is the classic way of putting together a finished product, which then the Industrial Revolution was able to polish and distribute. So when Poland went, it wasn’t so dramatic. But when Russia goes, it’s going to be really dramatic. We haven’t even seen the beginning in the book revolution, have we? Clay Shirky: I think we are literally just seeing the beginning now. Just yesterday, Google says “Our negotiating position vis-a-vis the publishers has changed dramatically in the last 30 days.” Google has been doing this stuff quietly, one way or another, since 2005–Google Scholar, Google Books, digitization, negotiating digital rights, and so forth. It was because they were essentially going to be the second entrant in a monopolistic environment largely dominated by Amazon. The rise of the iPad and the at least not completely accidental renegotiation of the MacMillan-Amazon relationship at the same time has meant that supply and demand are more nearly balanced now, and that the publishers have greater leverage to use that platform. That is a two-edged sword, which is to say that the ability to engage in price competition with one another cuts both ways in a digital environment because the marginal cost of distribution is still zero. ... Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:46:17 +0100 858207 http://morriscty.blogspot.com/2010/07/author-talks.html Readers' Services has organized an excellent program of author talks from now through October. Speaking over the next four months will be:Bob Pennisi, author of 9 railroad books, slideshow of NW NJ railroads, July 19th, 7PMStar Ledger columnist Mark DiIonno will talk about his Guide to NJ's Revolutionary War Trail, which is geared particularly to families and family exploration. August 14th, 2PMDr. Michael Rockland will talk about his last two books (Stones and George Washington Bridge) and how one moves back and forth from non-fiction to fiction writing, September 25th, 2PMPoet Gail Fishman Gerwin will read from her verse collection Sugar and Sand and sign books afterwards, October 23rd, 2PM (Source: @MCL) Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 858588 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/08/richard-francis-top-10-pubs-literature After setting his latest novel in an English pub, Richard Francis drops in on his favourite literary drinking dens, from the Tabard in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica InnRichard Francis is the author of nine previous novels and three non-fiction books, and is professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University.His latest novel, The Old Spring, out this month, tells the story of a day in the life of an English pub. He chooses his top 10 literary drinking dens.1. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (late 14th century)Chaucer spends the night at the Tabard in Southwark before setting off on his pilgrimage to Canterbury. A company of nine-and-twenty sundry folk join him, and by the time the sun goes down, he has a good idea of what makes each of them tick. The landlord is a large man, bold of speech, who suggests the pilgrims have a story-telling competition on their way; he will go with them and be their judge. The pub scenario is already in place: plenty of wine, convivial company, proactive landlord, telling of tales.2. Henry lV, Parts One and Two, by William Shakespeare (late 1590s)The Boar's Head tavern is a rougher dive altogether, frequented by Falstaff and his gang of reprobates. The landlady, Mistress Quickly, has a clear philosophy: "I will bar no honest man in my house, nor no cheater; but I do not love swaggering." Falstaff's bar tab is a sight to behold, "but one half penny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!" Prince Hal exclaims. He himself frequents the place so he can get to know his subjects – "When I am king of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap," adding: "They call drinking deep, dyeing scarlet."3. ... Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:37:00 +0100 857847 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/booksquare/~3/x56Z_qpsBy0/ I’ve spent the past month listening and reading. I reminded myself of all the positive, cool, exciting projects happening in publishing today — and there are many (I’ve been asking those involved to post here to share what they are doing). I’ve considered what happens next, and focused a lot on what readers are saying, about books, digital and print. Though everybody is writing about ebooks and the digital experience these days, I find I don’t have much new to add to the conversation; I’ve said it all before. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I was wrong, sometimes I evolved. I still absolutely believe that user experience is — after the content of the book — the most important place for publishing types to focus their attention. I’ve given up on reading banal analysis and wild conjecture. I ignore anything with the word “killer” in the headline or lead. If there’s a question mark in the headline — Will the iPhone Destroy How We Cook Dinner? — I don’t even bother to click through. I presume it’s a question the writer is asking himself, not actually bothering to consider with any depth. It’s just vague punditry designed to fill the web equivalent of column inches. That is not to say there isn’t smart analysis out there, but tea leaves from a moment in time do not predict the entire future. We spend far too much time worrying about who will “win” (what this means, nobody can say) and who will “lose” (again, what does this mean?) and what people really want. This final one annoys me the most because the pronouncements often come from those who have no idea how the technology they are praising — or dismissing — is used by real people. Which leads me to an email I sent to my friend Melissa Klug, a book and paper aficionado. ... Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:31:59 +0100 857509 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/05/robin-ince-top-10-bad-books From Sign of the Speculum to How to Marry the Man of your Choice, Robin Ince picks the best of the truly bad books he's salvaged from jumble sales and skips up and down the countryRobin Ince is one of the UK's most accomplished, versatile comedians with a string of awards and media appearances to his name. He was the Chortle award winner in 2009 and won the Time Out award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy for his show The Book Club, which was also nominated for a British Comedy award and hailed by the Observer as "the outstanding literary event of the Edinburgh Festival"."Life on the road has taken me the length and breadth of the country and has allowed me to spend many an afternoon scouring second-hand bookshops, turning the yellowed pages of classics such as What would Jesus Eat?, rummaging through jumble sales, and even the odd skip, constantly on the search for the best of the truly bad. Over the last five years, my love of misguided guides and peripheral poetry pamphlets has bordered on obsession, in fact my tattered collection of "killer crab" novels currently stands taller than my child. This is my top 10 today, tomorrow it might include Mills & Boon's Rash Intruder or God is for Real, Man."1. Sign of the Speculum by Jessica Russell GaverFirst, this is one of the most enigmatic titles on my bookshelf, at first suggesting a sequel to David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. Actually, it is a romantic fiction that is also an ethical guide. What should you do if you are a Christian in love with your gynaecologist? The gynaecologist love story is one of the smaller genres in the broad world of romantic fiction.2. Temptation in a Private Zoo by Anthony DekkerThis goes in the top 10 predominantly for its fantastic title. It is a spy thriller with a little bit of bear-baiting and a brief critique on how to spoil a dinner party by offering after-dinner mints. ... Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:23:14 +0100 857193 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jul/05/lee-siegel-death-of-the-novel The US critic's attack on the novel does us good, but history will view this as a golden age of English language creativityEvery few years, some columnist in Britain or America pops up to declare the novel dead, or at the very least in the ICU.From memory, the last time anyone in the UK got any traction from flogging this elderly nag was in 2001 when Andrew Marr told readers of the Observer that the novel was deader than a dozen doornails. Sure enough, the ensuing debate ran on for days.Now, this seasonal ritual has been revived by the US critic Lee Siegel, writing in the New York Observer. Contemporary fiction, says Siegel, has become "a museum piece genre". The real creative energy today lies with non-fiction.Siegel and his editors will have been delighted at the ink generated by this unexceptional opinion. In the US, from the LA Times to the Huffington Post, everyone has weighed in. The last time this topic was so comprehensively ventilated was in 2003, when Harold Bloom denounced Stephen King as unworthy of a National Book Foundation award.The New Yorker, which provoked this latest row by publishing a "20 under 40" list of new writers, will be doubtless delighted. But once the dust has settled, and the protagonists have gone back to their foxholes, we are left with that overwhelming question: is it true?There can be no definitive answer, but these, I think, are the factors that make Siegel's provocative intervention pertinent.First, there's no doubt that literary culture in the US is going through lean times. Newspaper coverage of books no longer sets the cultural agenda in the way it did as recently as 15 years ago.As a corollary, second, literary publishers are feeling the pinch. Ignored by the mainstream media, and squeezed commercially by the innovations of the IT revolution, traditional book publishers are beginning to show signs of losing confidence in their vocation. ... Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:08:31 +0100 857099 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/04/literary-storm-lee-siegel-american-novel-dead Leading commentator says era of great novelists such as Twain and Hemingway has passedBook pundits in the United States are being urged to line up on one side or other this summer: Is the American novel finally dead or not? The row began when the controversial critic Lee Siegel wrote a piece for the New York Observer declaring that the American public no longer talk about novels and that this creative form, once so full of fire, has lost its spark for ever."For about a million reasons," Siegel claimed, "fiction has now become a museum-piece genre most of whose practitioners are more like cripplingly self-conscious curators or theoreticians than writers. For better or for worse, the greatest storytellers of our time are the non-fiction writers."As the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, awarded on Thursday in London, recognised the importance of the new book by American journalist Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, the debate Siegel has re-started raged on in books pages and on literary websites. Will American fiction ever compete again with non-fiction for contemporary relevance, critics in both camps are asking.Siegel's assault on America's novelists was prompted by the publication of the New Yorker's annual "20 Under 40" list of new writers, but it has exposed a bitterness at the heart of the world of books.Railing against "the New Yorker's self-promoting, vulgar list" of favoured newcomers, Siegel smears the whole literary pack as being damagingly self-referential and led by the nose by publicists. Calling for new talent and new genres, he laments the fact that nobody bothered to question the "20 Under 40" selection.The British critic James Wood, now perhaps the leading voice in literary journalism in America, is at the centre of the row. For Siegel, the prominence and fame of Wood – who writes for the New York Times – sums up the current crisis in fiction. ... Sat, 03 Jul 2010 23:06:06 +0100 856922 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/04/best-summer-books-reading Writers and Observer critics pick the best books to pack along with the straw hat and suncreamI love the weeks before a summer holiday. Specifically, I like planning what books I'll be taking. As I write, with three weeks to go, the floor of my office resembles a busy section of the Pennine Way, books that might make it into my suitcase stacked in wobbly heaps, like cairns. It is important to get this right. What could be worse than opening that pristine hardback only to find it's a dud, and that you wish you'd brought along an old pal – Evelyn Waugh or Dorothy L Sayers – instead?A holiday reading list should include at least one hot, new book that you haven't yet had time for: I've already read Solar by Ian McEwan, so I'm taking Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap, which tells the story of what happens after a man hits a naughty three-year-old at a suburban barbecue. Plus some non-fiction, which is so much harder to read on work days, when the eyes grow heavy too fast – in my case, Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, about daily life in North Korea; a friend has raved about it. After this, the field's open. Old favourites, neglected classics, high-class thrillers, books your friends have been nagging you to read: all can go in the mix, Ryanair's excess baggage rules allowing. In my bag – though this may yet change – will be Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (old favourite), Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson (neglected classic); The Night of the Mi'raj by Zoe Ferraris (high-class thriller); and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stroud (another book my friends have been nagging me to read).I know this sounds like quite a pile. I know, too, that some of you will wonder why I don't just buy a Kindle. ... Sat, 03 Jul 2010 23:05:44 +0100 856925 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/03/marcus-du-sautoy-apps-books Eager to find new ways to involve his readers in the mysteries of numbers, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy looked to new technology. A revolution is coming, he argues, and the whole idea of what a book can do is about to changeConsider two books: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Not the printed books, the apps – software for mobiles and the iPad. The Wolf Hall app is a thing of beauty. It contains the text, of course, but readers can also move slickly between the text, family trees of the Tudors and the Yorkists, extra articles by Mantel and a fascinating video discussion between the novelist and historian David Starkey. All of which gives a deeper and richer understanding of the novel's historical context and its characters.But this is nothing compared to Alice for the iPad. You can throw tarts at the Queen of Hearts, help the Caterpillar smoke his hookah pipe, make Alice grow as big as a house and then shrink again. You can watch as "the Mad Hatter gets even madder", and throw pepper at the Duchess. Over the 52 pages of the app there are 20 animated scenes. Each illustration has been taken from the original book and has been made gravity-aware, responding to a shake, tilt or the touch of a finger. The story is never the same twice, because users are Alice's guide through Wonderland. The Caterpillar will smoke his hookah in a new way when you tilt your iPad, or you can throw more pepper the second time around.It would have been quite simple to convert the printed files of Carroll's book and drop it straight on to the iBookstore, but what Atomic Antelope (atomicantelope.com) has done, through painstaking artistry, is to capture, for adults and children alike, the fantastical nature of the story. This is about recreating what a book is and can be. ... Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:05:58 +0100 856666 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/03/piers-paul-read-misogynist-interview 'I don't believe feminism has made women happy, and I think younger women are now seeing things differently to the Germaine Greer generation'In Julian Barnes's book meditating on death, Nothing to be Frightened Of, there is a lunch-party scene at which one of the guests, a writer identified only as P-, shocks a table of middle-aged agnostics with his concern that as a practising Catholic he was likely to be separated after death from his wife and four children, who were all unbelievers. "Yes, that was me worrying about my family going to hell," smiles Piers Paul Read, looking remarkably sanguine in the Shepherd's Bush home he shares with his wife of 43 years, Emily. "If you believe in Catholicism as I do, and a hell for unrepentant sinners, then you also have to believe that it could be your children in there. Not that it's something I have to think about every day. Catholicism is sort of regarded as 'Dad's hobby' within the family and the rest of them prefer not to talk about it too much. But even if it is more often a notional than an actual worry, it's still a nasty thought".Read has always been an explicitly Catholic novelist and from the mid 1960s through to the mid 80s his books – repeatedly dealing with vexed moral choices, often pitting an individual against explicitly or tacitly malign social systems, often featuring generous dollops of sex – ensured he progressed smoothly from interesting new voice to respected literary figure to mainstream favourite via lavish TV adaptations of novels such as A Married Man and The Free Frenchman. And while his fiction was well reviewed and enjoyed healthy sales, his excursions into non-fiction made him both rich and internationally famous, with his account of Andes plane crash survivors resorting to cannibalism, Alive (1974), going on to become a hit movie. ... Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:05:46 +0100 856680 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jul/02/perfect-holiday-read Tell us which books you'd recommend taking away this summer – Ryanair's excess baggage rules allowingI love the weeks before a summer holiday. Specifically, I like planning what books I'll be taking. As I write, with three weeks to go, the floor of my office resembles a busy section of the Pennine Way, books that may make it into my suitcase stacked in wobbly heaps, like cairns. It is important to get this right. What could be worse than opening that pristine hardback only to find it's a dud, and that you wish you'd brought along an old pal – Evelyn Waugh or Dorothy L Sayers – instead?A holiday reading list should include at least one hot new book that you haven't yet had time for: I've already read Solar by Ian McEwan, so I'm taking Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap, which tells the story of what happens after a man hits a naughty three-year-old at a suburban barbecue. Plus some non-fiction, which is so much harder to read onwork days, when the eyes grow heavy too fast – in my case, Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, about daily life in North Korea; a friend has raved about it, and of course it has just won the Samuel Johnson prize.After this, the field's open. Old favourites, neglected classics, high-class thrillers, books your friends have been nagging you to read: all can go in the mix, Ryanair's excess baggage rules allowing. In my bag – though this may yet change – will be Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (old favourite), Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson(neglected classic); The Night of the Mi'raj by Zoe Ferraris (high-class thriller); and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (another book my friends have been nagging me to read).I know this sounds like quite a pile. I know, too, that some of you will wonder why I don't just buy a Kindle. ... Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:52:17 +0100 856516 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/-1sPdOs3-j4/bbc-samuel-johnson-prize-for-non.html Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea (Granta) by Barbara Demick wins the 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. In the book Demick weaves together the stories of adversity, resilience and survival of six ordinary people living in Chongin, North Korea (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:30:35 +0100 856506 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/01/samuel-johnson-prize-nothing-to-envy Barbara Demick's 'very, very readable' Nothing to Envy scoops top non-fiction awardA journalistic investigation into the real lives of North Koreans in the 21st century has triumphed in the BBC's Samuel Johnson prize, the UK's top award for non-fiction.Praising the winning title, Nothing to Envy, by the Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick, for its ability to "open our eyes to a world which is really very closed to us", the chair of the judges, Evan Davis of Radio 4's Today programme, said the book was "very, very readable". "It's not hugely long and it's a softback – in these senses it doesn't quite look like a lot of other winners," said Davis, who announced Demick's win this evening.The book takes its title from a song taught to North Korean children that "we have nothing to envy in the world".Past winners of the award, worth £20,000, include David Cairns's 900-plus-page biography of the 19th-century composer Berlioz, and TJ Binyon's portrait of the Russian poet Pushkin. "But the Demick really moved people," said Davis. "I found myself reading bits of it to my partner and saying, 'I cannot believe this'."Demick interviewed a range of defectors from North Korea for Nothing to Envy, which tells the story of six ordinary people living in Chongjin, the country's third largest city: two lovers who dated secretly for 10 years, but were still too afraid to criticise the regime they lived under to each other; a factory worker loyal to the regime who watched her husband and son starve to death before escaping; her rebellious daughter; a homeless boy; and an idealistic doctor.Demick, who lives in Beijing as a foreign correspondent for the LA Times, and who was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize in international reporting, narrowly beat the former Guardian journalist Alex Bellos's exploration of maths, Alex's Adventures in Numberland. ... Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:00:31 +0100 856371 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/01/samuel-johnson-prize-barbara-demick Journalist Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, an investigation into life in North Korea, opens judges eyes and wins top award for non-fictionNo heavyweight biographies of long-dead artists or writers for the judges of this year's top award for non-fiction: instead, a journalistic investigation into the real lives of North Koreans in the 21st century has triumphed in the BBC Samuel Johnson prize.Praising Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick's winning title Nothing to Envy for its ability to "open our eyes to a world which is really very closed to us", chair of the judges Evan Davis said the book – which takes its title from a song taught to North Korean children that "we have nothing to envy in the world" – was "very, very readable"."It's not hugely long, and it's a softback – in these senses it doesn't quite look like a lot of other winners have looked," said the economist and presenter of Radio 4's Today programme, who announced Demick's win this evening.Past winners of the award, worth £20,000, include David Cairns's 900-plus-page biography of 19th-century composer Berlioz, and TJ Binyon's portrait of Russian poet Pushkin. "But the Demick really moved people," Davis went on. "I found myself reading bits of it to my partner and saying 'I cannot believe this'. It was that good a read, really."Demick interviewed a range of defectors from North Korea for Nothing to Envy, which tells the story of six ordinary people living in Chongin, the country's third-largest city: two lovers who dated secretly for 10 years but were still too afraid to criticise the regime to each other, a factory worker loyal to the regime who watched her husband and son starve to death before escaping, her rebellious daughter, a homeless boy and an idealistic woman doctor."Her description of a children's hospital where there's no food, no medicine ... left me very moved," said Davis. ... Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:00:30 +0100 856372 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/22/yann-martel-life-of-pi-holocaust Yann Martel has been critically savaged for writing about the Holocaust in his follow-up to Life of Pi. But, he says, artists have a right to tackle anythingTalking about the Holocaust at nine in the morning in the elegant lounge of a trendy boutique hotel in central London is not ideal. A woman packs up and moves to the other side of the room at Yann Martel's first mention of genocide. I am conscious of the fact we may be speaking too loud. There is an additional problem that my new BlackBerry keeps ringing. I have no idea how to turn it off, and eventually have to ask the concierge to dispose of it.Martel, the Canadian author who won the Booker prize for the outrageously successful Life of Pi in 2002, takes all this more or less in his stride, though he is a little put out by my incompetence and fractiousness – I rather rudely insist that the young woman who is steering him round the UK and Ireland on the publicity tour for his new novel, Beatrice and Virgil, absent herself from the room while we talk. I'd only finished his book the night before – reaching its dramatic denouement in the bath, if you must know – and feel at something of a disadvantage in talking about it, since he spent eight years labouring over it.The inescapable fact about the book, Martel's long-awaited follow-up to Life of Pi, is that it has not been very well received. In the US the reviews were what one politely calls "mixed"; in the UK they have been uniformly hostile. The general view is that pretty well all fictional treatments of the Holocaust are doomed, and that this one – about a blocked writer who meets a taxidermist writing a play about "the horrors" who is probably a former Nazi seeking some sort of catharsis – is more doomed than most. ... Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:00:13 +0100 854083 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/06/19/allthingsd-who-sells-more-ebooks-these-days-amazon-com-or-apple/ Peter Kafka writes: The introduction of the iPad and the iBooks store has lots of people forecasting doom for Amazon’s Kindle. And Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney, an Amazon bull, acknowledges that Apple will eat into the Kindle’s share: He’s convinced, quite reasonably, that Amazon needs to overhaul the Kindle very soon, and cut its price below $200, to stay competitive. From a note Mahaney published on Friday: + 88% of NY Times Fiction and Non-Fiction Best Sellers are available on Amazon’s Kindle vs. 63% being available in Apple iBooks; + The average price of the Best Selling eBooks available on both platforms is $11.23 on the Kindle and $12.31 on the iBook platform – a 10% difference; + All in, about 50% of NY Times Fiction and Non-Fiction Best Sellers are available on both the Kindle and the iBook platform; and + For the eBooks available on both the Kindle and the iBook platform, 80% had the same price, whereas Kindle prices were cheaper for 20% of the books by an average of 11%. Access the Full Text of Peter Kafka’s MediaMemo Source: AllThingsD (WSJ) (Source: ResourceShelf) Sun, 20 Jun 2010 03:29:18 +0100 853523 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/20/curfewed-night-basharat-peer-dalrymple A new star of Indian non-fiction is born with this searing memoir about the bloody struggle for justice in KashmirTwenty years ago, as a young foreign correspondent newly arrived in Delhi, I was sent up to Srinagar to cover the outbreak of the rebellion against India. It was the most beautiful place: looking out over the Dal lake, shikara canoes skimming across. Behind were the willows and the poplars, and the orchards of apricots and almonds. Beyond stretched the old Mughal water-gardens, and above them, the jagged snow-peaks of the great Himalaya. Yet almost from my first morning in this earthly paradise, I found myself reporting some of the most chilling atrocities I have ever witnessed.On the morning of 21 January 1990, several thousand Kashmiris, including much of the civil service, broke the curfew and marched peacefully out of the old city to complain about incidents of police violence during search operations the previous night. When the crowd was halfway across the Gowkadal bridge, at the centre of town, the much-feared CRPF paramilitary police opened fire on the unarmed civilians, with automatic weapons, from three directions.I went to the city hospital later that evening. Every bed was full, and the overflow lined the corridors. Farooq Ahmed, the urbane city engineer, described how after the firing, the CRPF walked slowly across the bridge, finishing off those who were lying on the ground. Ahmed had fallen flat and managed to escape unhurt. "Just as I was about to get up," he told me, "I saw soldiers coming forward, shooting anyone who was injured. Someone pointed and shouted, 'That man is alive,' and the soldiers began firing at me. I was hit four times in the back and twice in the arms." Seeing how he was still alive, another soldiers raised his gun, but the officer told him not to waste ammunition: "He will die anyway. ... Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:10:03 +0100 853496 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/20/the-privileges-union-atlantic Two beautifully written and artfully plotted novels takes readers inside the heads of reckless bankers before the crunchThe financial crisis has generated a glut of non-fiction books but, as yet, very few novels. This disparity isn't hard to explain. The overriding initial reaction to the crisis was one of incomprehension: what exactly was it that the bankers had done with those sub-prime mortgages to cause the system to implode? The hunger was for works of explication, and writers stepped forward to provide them, from Vincent Cable's The Storm to John Lanchester's invaluable Whoops! A second, slightly different desire was for works that told the inside story of the crash while fingering the culprits – books like Gillian Tett's Fool's Gold, about the invention of collateralised debt obligations and other fiendish financial instruments, and Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail, about the US government's bailout of the banks. Such works, too, met a straightforward need for information. How had we got ourselves into this mess and who was to blame?Fiction, obviously enough, isn't the ideal medium for answering these sorts of question. But it can do something that factual accounts can't, which is imagine what it is like to actually be one of those reckless, multi-millionaire bankers. How does it feel to have almost limitless money at your disposal? What kind of person is it likely to turn you into? How will it affect your relationships with those closest to you, and your interactions with the rest of the world? These are the sorts of questions explored by two new American novels that, with contrasting approaches, boldly take their readers inside the heads of their super-rich protagonists and ask what it is like to permanently reside there.Neither Jonathan Dee's The Privileges nor Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic can really be described as works of "credit crunch lit", since both were begun well before the crisis and neither deals with it directly. ... Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:04:04 +0100 853507 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/18/the-future-of-poetry What is poetry for? Who is it for? And can it really be on the ascendant? Stephen Moss (who has, sadly, not become the next Oxford professor of poetry) reports from the front lineThe winner of the election to decide the Oxford professor of poetry will be announced today, with the victor almost certain to be Geoffrey Hill. In a drunken moment, I foolishly joined this race and am very likely to come last, an excellent demonstration of hubris quickly leading to nemesis. In an effort to salvage something from the wreckage, I recently attended a poetry "slam" in Oxford with four of the other 10 candidates for the professorship – this odd election has attracted a curious collection of poets, performance artists and desperate self-publicists. I went to read a few of my own poems, but also to ask the audience a question: what is poetry for? I also crowdsourced a poem about frogs, but will spare you the results of that exercise.The answers were varied, but many embraced emotion: "to draw emotion and deepen insight"; "to enlighten in both senses of the word"; "to turn a rush of emotion into a form of music"; "to engage with emotional reality"; "to make language work as hard as possible"; "for singing out loud"; "to encourage social awakening"; "to delight so that it may inform"; "to illuminate the world"; "to clarify and express feeling". People see poetry as the means of expressing powerful emotions, but often that will rein in the imagination, and produce a one-dimensional statement rather than a representation of the world in words.I remember during the 1991 Gulf war, when the midnight bombing raids were being carried live on TV, we used to receive numerous poems at the Guardian from people expressing their horror at the grisliness of war. In times of stress – look in the bereavements column of your local paper – people turn to poetry. ... Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:30:12 +0100 853084 http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2010/06/tbr-list-for-summer.html Not sure I'll get that much read. I like to take a book down to the hotel porch, but I end up people watching and writing in my blog notebook. But here's what I've got so far. There would be more but Barnes and Noble doesn't assign anyone to watch Glenn Beck's Fox program and his book recommendations often go to number one over night. For instance, I asked for George Washington Sacred Fire, and it apparently is temporarily out of stock (or print, don't remember); then I asked for F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom, and they didn't have any but had 11 on order (the UAPL has a waiting list of 10). But I was able to find The Overton Window, and Samuel Adams; a life. I like non-fiction, but rarely read a "thriller." Also on my list to finish is Timothy Keller's The Reason for God, Larry Schweikart's A Patriot's History of the United States, and The Lutherans in North America.  Then I take along some recent JAMAs, which I'm starting to call Ojama due to the editorial slant and butt kissing of the editors, and the Spring and Summer issues of Watercolor and Watercolor Artist. (Source: Collecting my Thoughts) Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:00:00 +0100 852948 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jun/15/sports-writing-benjamin-markovits Why are there no decent British books about sports?Even though we may have been held to a draw on Saturday, it's a fairly safe bet that England are probably going further in this World Cup than the US. But despite our superiority on the football pitch, when it comes to writing about sports the Americans have us soundly beat.In his new book, Playing Days, Benjamin Markovits explores how sports have been tightly woven into American fiction since Melville wrote "possibly the best sports novel ever" with Moby-Dick. But American novelists don't necessarily dominate the playing field: scores of journalists, such as Gay Talese, George Plimpton and David Halberstam, have helped create such a rich literary tradition that the PEN American Centre recently established an award honouring the best non-fiction books about sport.The contrast between our approaches to sports journalism is remarkable. As a recent Radio 4 debate highlighted, Britain has very high standards but also rather boring ones, hemmed in by newspaper conventions and lacking much literary ambition. Sure, you can read entertaining and informative coverage of Wimbledon, but you won't find David Foster Wallace meditating on Roger Federer as religious experience.And who would we put up against writers such as John McPhee, whose highly literary sports reportage has resulted in several classic books about basketball and tennis, including the brilliant A Sense of Where You Are? John Major's clear-sighted canter through the early history of cricket may have received warm applause, but it didn't exactly quicken the pulse.So why this difference? It could just be the contrasting nature of British and American sports. Many US games are pure entertainment: points ratchet endlessly upwards, resulting in scores that make British people wonder whether the match accidentally overran by three weeks. ... Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:59:40 +0100 852409 http://mauicclibrary.blogspot.com/2010/06/uhmc-students-and-faculty-now-have.html UHMC students and faculty now have access to three new streaming media serivices: Naxos Music Library is the world's largest online classical music library. Currently, it offers streaming access to more than 43,030 CDs with more than 616,300 tracks. On average, 500 new CDs are added to the library every month. The Naxos Music Library offers the catalogs of more than 50 classical, jazz and world music labels with more labels joining every month. Among the labels whose catalogs are included in the service are leading independent classical labels such as BIS, Chandos, CPO, Haenssler, Hungaroton, Marco Polo, Vanguard Classics, VOX, and of course Naxos. World music content is provided by ARC, Celestial Harmonies and others; and there is also jazz, film music, nostalgia, classic and contemporary rock content.  Naxos Spoken Word Library - literature and poetry ranging from medieval times to the twentieth century, and many newly written texts supplement an ever-expanding range of non-fiction. Naxos Jazz Library - streaming jazz library.The Naxos libraries can be accessed from any internet enabled device. An iPhone/iPod touch/iPad application is available from the iTunes Store.The UHMC Library also provides access to Films on Demand.  This streaming media service gives UHMC students and faculty access to thousands of films online. (Source: Library News) Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:00:00 +0100 853490 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/12/life-in-writing-barbara-kingsolver "I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political. Literature is a powerful craft, so we have an obligation to take it seriously"Barbara Kingsolver, who this week won the Orange prize for fiction for her sixth novel, The Lacuna, spent two years in the early 1960s in the Republic of the Congo, where her American parents were vaccinating people against smallpox outbreaks. For a seven-year-old girl, it was simply a "grand adventure in a forest full of snakes and lions, with cobras on the doorstep". It was only later that she grasped the historical significance of that moment."We were there just after independence, but I had no idea of the political intrigue of that era," she says. Until, that is, some 20 years later, when she read of the CIA-backed coup against the elected prime minister Patrice Lumumba, his murder in 1961, and the installing of the dictator Colonel Mobutu. "I knew nothing about postcolonial Africa or Europe's role, or my own country's complicity in what went on."It took another decade before Kingsolver combined her childhood memories of place with her later awareness of history, in a far-reaching parable of responsibility and redemption, The Poisonwood Bible (1998). As an American Baptist missionary drags his family to the Belgian Congo (later Zaire), his bullying evangelism is paralleled by cold-war jockeying for mineral wealth, amid plagues of ants and floods, lethal green mamba bites and blood diamonds smuggled from breakaway Katanga. The story is told through the voices of his wife and four daughters, who are "occupied as if by a foreign power", and implicated in his pursuits without ever having chosen them. For Kingsolver, it is an "allegory of the captive witness. We've inherited this history of terrible things done, that enriched us in the US and Europe by pillaging the former colonies. How we feel about that is the question in the book. ... Fri, 11 Jun 2010 23:05:53 +0100 851508 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/12/geoff-dyer-war-reporting As bestselling reporter Sebastian Junger's account of his year spent with US forces in Afghanistan joins other first-rate books about contemporary conflicts, novelist Geoff Dyer argues that recent reportage trumps fiction in its characterisation, observation and narrative driveThat the conflict in Afghanistan wasn't an active issue in the election suggests that it is in danger of being regarded as a condition to be endured rather than a problem to be solved – much as the war in Iraq became before British troops withdrew. In their different ways, two new books – David Finkel's The Good Soldiers (Atlantic) and Sebastian Junger's War (Fourth Estate) – offer perilous insights into the nature of that condition. The Good Soldiers is the result of eight months spent with the US 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad, part of "the surge" confidently announced by President Bush in January 2007. War is an account of Junger's time embedded with a platoon of American soldiers at "the tip of the spear" in the lethal Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.Writers are not obliged to deal with current events, but it happens that the big story of our times – the al-Qaida attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – is being told in some of the greatest books of our time. These books do not, however, take the shape and form often expected: the novel. So Finkel and Junger have their work cut out if their contributions are to squeeze on to a shelf of first-rate books that already includes Steve Coll's Ghost Wars; Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower; George Packer's The Assassins' Gate; Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City; and Dexter Filkins's The Forever War.Lower the bar only slightly and room would have to be made for books by Thomas E Ricks, Jane Mayer, Evan Wright and Ahmed Rashid. And there's no sign that the supply is about to dry up. ... Fri, 11 Jun 2010 23:05:44 +0100 851515 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/06/11/canada-book-sales-down-in-first-quarter-of-2010/ From the Quill and Quire Article: According to BookNet Canada, overall book sales, including both volume and value, were down in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 2009. Fiction was the sole exception; its sales were up in both volume and value. The figures below come from BookNet Canada’s national book sales tracking system, BNC SalesData, which tracks 75% of the Canadian book market by gathering data from over 1,000 retail sources. Total market: Volume: -2.76% Value: -1.09%. The complete post has stats for the Non-fiction, Juvenile, and Fiction categories. It would be interesting to learn the impact of both e-Books and also e-Books or printed from non-Canadian booksellers. (Source: ResourceShelf) Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:33:51 +0100 851581 http://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-reading-related-book-meme-thing.html I cannot resist blogging a book related meme, so when I saw this one over at Ruminations, I had to do it. Now Constance Wiebrands, the blogger at Ruminations, is doing some crazy do a post every day for 30 days challenge. I call it crazy only because I don't have time to blog every day. Constance is a lot braver than I am at this point. Heck, I am lucky these days if I can blog once a week. Work has just taken a big toll of blogging, but one has to work to make a living, so you get the idea. At any rate, I am going to do a little something for fun for a change.The meme then:Do you snack while reading? Not really. When I am on the computer, I will eat in front of it. I often take my lunch while working, and I am often catching up on news over lunch. However, I don't usually eat while reading books. The exception is when I travel. If I am in some strange place, usually by myself, and I have a good book, I will read while I eat. What is your favorite drink while reading? A good cup of coffee. I can do tea too, or a small alcoholic drink, say Irish cream and milk. However, drinking alcohol while reading is extremely rare for me. Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? If they are college textbooks, I don't mind marking them and making notes since I would usually need those notes later, and more often than not, the books are not keepers; they are getting sold back. Otherwise, I do not mark my books. I do make notes in my personal journal if I find passages in a book that interest me or that I want to remember. Overall, I do not like writing in books. The textbook exception is mostly because I see them as disposable (and often, since I bought them used, some other person may have already marked it, thus I don't feel obligated). How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat? Bookmarks. In fact, I have a small, but very nice collection of bookmarks. ... Fri, 11 Jun 2010 04:00:00 +0100 851804 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/CUjkVMzgwYY/ From an article in The Tyee about BC Books Online, an ebook collection that was released on May 12. The database, though currently still in a one-year beta period, aims to deliver a digital collection of B.C.-published non-fiction books to the entire province, without any barriers. Unlike some digital libraries, which consider a book “checked out” when another library patron is using it, BC Books Online makes full use of digital book technology by offering unlimited copies for “borrowing” of each book in their holdings. In the BC Books Online model, readers — whether or not they are prone to procrastination — have access to any book in the collection, at any time, from any location, regardless of how many others are using the same title. … BC Books Online is the first database of its kind, and comprises approximately 1,000 non-fiction titles, focusing on B.C. history, Aboriginal culture, political commentary, arts and culture, biography and autobiography, the environment, and urban issues. The books can be accessed through a number of B.C. libraries, both public and educational, the full list of which is available here. There’s a lot more stuff in the article. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:48:29 +0100 851013 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lint/~3/4L4txAdVhHQ/ Week 1 in the #blogeverydayinJune challenge has come to a close.  It’s been an exciting and productive week to say the least! I am most impressed that all participating bloggers remain on the bandwagon to date. It seems @flexnib with her Day 6 meme about reading habits provided some light relief for a third of the blogging enthusiasts, particularly as some enjoyed a WA public holiday. The meme has provided some interesting librarian type revelations – drinking tea seems to be the favourite drink whilst reading with some very specific tea requirements – Lady Grey or green tea on Angels have the Phonebox, Madura loos in a pot for Strawberries of Integrity, Daintree white no sugar for moonflowerdragon and the very specific strong English Breakfast tea with a drop of milk and no sugar for our meme originator ruminations. Coffee made a fleeting appearance but in its generic coffee form, no grande double skinny mocha latte with a half sugar to be found! I was quite surprised to learn that perhaps I am the only librarian who regularly defaces books by marking them and making notes in them (and dare I add I have done this to a number of library books in my time – slap!).  I am grateful to Virtually a Librarian for joining in me as a confessed ‘dog earer’. With more respectable librarians it seems whilst bookmarks are preferred its more likely a receipt of some kind will be used. I must admit I have never considered the idea of being irritated by a book enough to throw it – although my mother did raise me with an immense respect for books (I cut my doll’s hair and drew all over them but I never once defaced a book – well in my childhood anyway!) But two of our meme participants admitted to it – LiberryDwarf threw Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper and whilst Feral Librarian Tales admitted to the ‘crime’ declined to share the victim. ... Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:23:19 +0100 851836 http://www.sla.org.uk/blg-summer-members-day.php Join us at Peters Bookselling Services in Birmingham for a "Focus On Facts" day, with a range of presentations on information books in the school library and a talk by author Paul Mason on raising children's interest in non-fiction. In the afternoon there will be chance to browse the showroom and purchase stock at a large discount. Lunch included. Find out more and reserve your place now. (Source: SLA Weblog) Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:21:41 +0100 852186 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/07/beatrice-and-virgil-yann-martel Canongate £14.99Henry's previous novel had won prizes. For years he had been content to enjoy his success, but now he had to write a follow up. He felt an overwhelming sense of dread. He could not shake off the feeling that he had perhaps got a bit lucky with the tiger story and he needed to find both a plot and a structure that would bolster his reputation as an experimental magical realist.After several years of deliberation, Henry thought he had the answer. He would write a book in two halves – the first a work of fiction about the Holocaust, the second a non-fiction essay to explain the fiction – which would be typeset with the back cover and the second half upside down so the reader would not know where to begin. It was an irresistible piece of postmodernism."Sorry, Yann," said his publisher. "We think it all sounds a bit crap.""The last thing anyone wants is a pretentious book about the Holocaust," said a historian, adding with an uncanny prescience, "It will end up in the remainder pile.""So my Truth, like the Holocaust, must be silenced," wept Yann."Are you mad?" asked the historian."La, la, la," said Yann. "I'm not listening."Henry was not discouraged. He would engage in a provocative act of post-postmodernism by writing a book about failing to get his Holocaust novel published. So Henry and his wife Sarah moved back to Canada where they had a baby and Henry passed the time with amateur dramatics.Since Henry was still famous for the tiger book, he continued to receive many letters from readers and one intrigued him greatly. It contained a Flaubert short story about a man who slaughtered thousands of wild animals but found redemption after he showed remorse for killing his parents, and the opening scene of a play.Beatrice: I like pears.Virgil: I don't know what a pear is. ... Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:59:50 +0100 850481 http://centeredlibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/06/portitude-art-of-learning.html I came across Portitude completely by accident. I am very glad I did. There are two sections to the site: Paper Portitude and Painted Portitude.From the site:"Paper Portitude is the library, chock full of luscious short stories, fairy tales, and even some non-fiction for good measure. Includes some of the finest authors, such as O'Henry, and Hans Christian Andersen."and"Painted Portitude, the art gallery, portrays some of the greatest works by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, O'Keeffe, and other such artists from around the world, and throughout history."There are tons of very good stuff here. It is worth a visit for the Grimm Fairy Tales alone. They are all there. You will also find Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Poe and many others. In the Painted Portitude you will find works by Cezanne, Monet, Rosseau, Sargent and more. Everything is elegantly presented and delightful. (Source: The Centered Librarian) Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:00:00 +0100 849374 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LibrariansMatter/~3/BWaxvXGRQUY/ A library’s role is not to supress ideas – not matter how dangerous or loony I may believe those ideas to be, nor how wrong I think they are. That is why I support the State Library of Western Australia’s decision to provide a venue for a talk from people of the Anti-Vaccination Network on Tuesday 1 June. I do not agree with the claim on the Sceptic’s Book of Pooh Pooh that the State Library CEO, Margaret Allen was putting the health of WA children at further risk.. I think they are shooting the messenger. My tiny, fragile baby boy stopped breathing for over a minute as I was breastfeeding him on the day I took him home from hospital. We had waited for three weeks to take him home after he was born 2 months premature, so it was a huge shock to hear from the doctors that they suspected that he had whooping cough. Tiny babies with whooping cough don’t cough, just turn blue and stop breathing. After a couple more months in hospital we took him home, but that experience clarified for me – vaccinating our children is a community issue. When a parent decides not to vaccinate they are not making a choice just for their own kids, but for mine as well. There is overwhelming good science supporting the health benefits of vaccination and I think it is a selfish and shallow to not vaccinate. I have many other personal beliefs. I choose a mainly vegetarian diet for my own health and the health of the planet. I do not believe in an afterlife. I think depictions of violence that permeate our popular culture desensitizes people and begets more violence. I think that anyone who eats beetroot is slightly addled. When I go to work as a librarian, those beliefs come with me – however a key part of my job is providing access to ideas that are in direct conflict to what I believe is right for myself and for my society. ... Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:00:22 +0100 850242 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/06/02/one-more-qr-code-story-a-jules-verne-classic-with-qr-codes-to-enhance-and-add-to-the-the-material/ This is pure cool and probably a good example of things to come. In one sentence: Ubimark enhances physical reality (books, places, objects) with stories, travel experiences, ratings or information. ubimark has published a special edition (aka a “ubitour” version”) of Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. Along with the text, the book is “enhanced with QR codes” and other material. The content is accessed via an iPhone/Touch/Pad app. The book also links Fogg’s adventure to online interactive maps. Last, but not least, each chapter of the book is linked to its audio and video versions, which can be streamed or downloaded onto the mobile phone. An AIM text group is also available. This page has ordering info (the book costs $17.99/U.S.) This page from ubimark has more information including: + Explanations of the terms + Demo Video + Several Small Demos Including a World Map Tied to the Story + Title and Table of Contents + A QR code that will take you to the mobile version of the primary info page. + Details about ubimark for the tech geek. We are very excited to order a copy and the read and take advantage of all the extra content. The possibilities are truly endless on what and where you can curate, bundle, and provide extra value for readers in a single location. This technology is similar to a Vook in terms of additional material but as of today, Vooks are limited to video as the additional content source and don’t provide additional content/features by scanning QR codes or access to online discussion like the ubimark title does. Of course, both are very exciting developments and in some cases one will be more useful than the other. We think depending on the content of a specific book, the ubimark technology will be useful with fiction, non-fiction (biographies would be very interesting) and text-books. More once our copy of Around the World in 80 Days the arrives. ... Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:24:12 +0100 849170 http://mcdermottlibrary.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-guides-for-leisure-reading-and.html The library's online subject guides now features something new for all of our recreational readers:Leisure Reading Guide -- will keep readers abreast of the latest bestseller fiction and non-fiction titles that have been received by the library. Maintained by the library's very own Chad Pearson.Reader's Guide to Genre Fiction -- a new guide to help readers struggling to answer the question, "What do I read next?" It will connect readers with valuable resources both in the library and online, including genre guides, resources for book reviews, and online book clubs. (Source: The Orbit) Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:00:00 +0100 850651 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2010/jun/01/haycast-04-gordimer-mansfield-armitage The effect of Israel's attack on the aid flotilla heading for Palestine in the early hours of yesterday morning was felt as far away as the Hay festival. Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, who was on one of the boats, had already cancelled a planned live video-linked interview; when news of the attack broke, radical lawyer Michael Mansfield, who had warned weeks earlier of the likelihood of such an event, used his time on stage to discuss the legal implications of Israel's actions. He spoke to us exclusively with a message for the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, who's due to appear at the festival later in the week.We also spoke to South African Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, whose writing has long been informed by her country's struggles against the apartheid regime, about her latest book, Telling Times, a collection of her non-fiction.Finally, Simon Armitage, here in Hay to launch Seeing Stars, read to us from the collection, and talked about the importance of titles, why he's moved away from lyric verse, and the state of poetry in the UK today.Next up, we're interviewing rare book dealer Rick Gekoski about his bibliomemoir, Outside of a Dog, and actor Joss Ackland about his publication of the diaries of his wife, Rosemary, following her death from motor neurone disease.Michael Mansfield (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:01:56 +0100 848791 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/29/hay-wye-guardian-literary-festival Britain's foremost literary festival kicked off this weekend with literary stars serving up something for every tasteFull online coverage of the Guardian Hay festivalTo Hay, for the day, they say. Wey hey. Hay on Wye on Earth would I want that? As travel plans go, a festering nightmare. Leave Rotherhithe at 6am, somehow be back in London for important thing by seven in the evening after filing by three, gives me, ooh, 12 minutes tops at the literary delight I've never been to. But I'm very glad, indeed, that I did it: partly because I got to see a lot, a lot, of Wales, but mainly for the serendipity.The papers were full yesterday morning, you see, of the iPad. Apple had just overtaken Microsoft in world global domination, a million fidget-fingered twits were salivating for the chance to show off their slabby electro-tablets (you just bought it: you didn't invent it), and, apart from the rare but insanely welcome kicking it got from Charlie Brooker, much of the papers' talk was, yet again, of the death of the book. And then you come here. Eventually. And it's all very, very good news.Not the easiest place to get to for the day, but all accommodation for the surrounding 30 miles has been booked up since, it seems, 1988, when Peter Florence started the festival with the overnight winnings from a poker game, so in a day it'll have to be: and the trip, trains to Bristol then Newport then Hereford then a little Noddy-bus the long hour to Hay, leads you deep into countryside you'd thought forgotten.Proper hedgerows, fierce high protective beasts the like of which England has all but lost: it's like a much lumpier version of the Normandy bocage, and lazy damp fields full of that specific breed of happy cattle you get around Hereford, not sure of their name. And the skies began to clear. ... Sun, 30 May 2010 12:38:30 +0100 848245 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/30/book-review-nadine-gordimer-telling-times A disappointing collection suggests the freedom fighter who became a Nobel laureate has been trapped by her prestigeThis fat selection of Nadine Gordimer's non-fiction gets off to a slightly shaky start, and has a dismaying last couple of hundred pages. In a couple of early pieces, her touch is unsure where it matters most – and in most of the late ones the crown of wisdom, as represented by the Nobel prize for literature, which she won in 1991, slips slowly over her eyes.The first piece reprinted here, "A South African Childhood" from 1954, is by far the most autobiographical – elsewhere her preference is for dry reticence, as when she refers to "the baby daughter I had acquired". Near the end of the memoir she seems to take a deep breath and then addresses her defining subject, race in South Africa, but in these terms: "In a country where people of a colour different from your own are neither in the majority nor the ruling class, you may avoid altogether certain complications that might otherwise arise in the formation of your sense of human values." I struggle to understand this sentence, whose multiple negatives resist reduction to sense. She goes on to say that one of the confusing things about her upbringing was the "strange shift", occurring every year or two when she was small, then weekly, almost daily during adolescence, in her awareness of the black Africans around her. As she looks back in 1954, this seems to have developed incredibly slowly, though she feels that such a faculty should have been part of her equipment from babyhood, like the ability to focus or make out voices. ... Sat, 29 May 2010 23:04:04 +0100 848137 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/may/29/michael-jacobs-andes-mountains Benedict Allen finds an impressive survey avoids the dreaded 'inner journey'The immense and magnificent Andean range has been the inspiration for all manner of pilgrim, many with a literary bent; indeed, among the non-fiction contingent are minor classics of every type – the historical (John Hemming's The Conquest of the Incas), the travelogue (Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express), the wonder voyage (Chatwin's In Patagonia). The Andes have also brought out some of the best in exploration (Hugh Thomson's The White Rock) and high adventure (Joe Simpson's Touching the Void). We are already well provided for, then. To these varied accounts, add those of the innumerable pioneers. Although serious scientific endeavour began only with the 18th-century geographer Charles Marie de La Condamine, there are also those of the great naturalists (Humboldt, Darwin), archaeologists (Bingham) and more besides. This being South America, charismatic politicos also surface in the Cordillera from time to time – Simón Bolívar, Che Guevara, Hugo Chávez. And beneath these rich surface layers, and the bloody heritage of the Spanish too, lies the native subsoil of magical realism and a bedrock of broken native testament from those we still, more than 500 years on from Columbus's navigational error, insist on calling "Indians".All these people, peoples and more dominate Andes; page after page of iconic and anonymous endeavour are laid over the salt-flats, volcanoes, deserts, strangling figs and pampa as Jacobs winds south through the mountains. There are, as well, the personal encounters with the generous, confused and strained indigènes, the ruling elite (sometimes even today referred to as "Spanish"), and inevitable white-knuckle bus rides and banditry. At 600 pages and with its no-frills title, this volume is the author's bold, personal attempt to knit together the range's human story. ... Fri, 28 May 2010 23:06:14 +0100 847849 http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/may/27/men-brewing-badly-world-cup The Culture Show | The Book Show | Modern Family | All At Sea | Men Brewing Badly: World Cup 2010 | Dirty Sexy MoneyThe Culture Show7pm, BBC2Any given instalment of The Culture Show features something worth watching, but this one seems to boast more than most. Among other discussions and features, Sebastian Junger and others discuss the literature inspired by the war on terror, which has (so far, at least) spawned any number of terrific non-fiction volumes, but little in the way of novels. Sarfraz Manzoor visits one of the more astute chroniclers of these times – American satirical newspaper The Onion. Westminster Abbey's imminent unveiling of a new set of gargoyles inspires a history of the art form, and the Magic Numbers play a song. The Book Show7pm, Sky Arts 1So who is "the best English novelist of his generation"? That'll be Jonathan Coe then (plaudits c/o Nick Hornby), who this week discusses his latest novel, The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim – the protagonist of which "is not involved in the media or the arts". (Fellow novelists could learn a lot.) And Professor Robert Winston talks about his new book, Bad Ideas, which points out that many scientific innovations have none- too-ethical flipsides. "I think a lot of scientists won't like it," he predicts.Modern Family8pm, Sky1Sitcoms traditionally feature families because that involves writing about frustrated people who don't want to be with each other but have to. The massive changes the nuclear family structure has gone through over the past two decades meant a drop in family-based comedy, leading to writer Steve Levitan's inspired decision to reflect this new structure with the same kind of old-fashioned sitcom humour. This week, Jay tries to take Gloria to Hawaii for romance, but everyone comes along for the ride.All At Sea9pm, ITV1Third instalment of ITV's baffling ocean-going travelogue. ... Thu, 27 May 2010 07:00:03 +0100 847376 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/rXogpHIsmFI/bbc-samuel-johnson-prize-for-non.html The BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2010 shortlist has been announced * Alex's Adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos (Bloomsbury) * Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (Granta) * Blood Knots by Luke Jennings (Atlantic Books) * Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Penguin, Allen Lane) * A Gambling Man by Jenny Uglow (Faber and Faber) * Catching Fire: How Cooking made us Human by Richard Wrangham (Profile Books) (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Wed, 26 May 2010 11:17:19 +0100 847252 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/XseuYfgd5wc/ Novelist J.A. Konrath has a hilarious satire piece in the Huffington Post, written as a support-group meeting for obsolete technologies. The group is welcoming its newest member, Print Industry, who insists despite all evidence to the contrary that he doesn’t belong there. Various members of the support group, such as Phone Company, Video Rental Store, CDs, and Cassette Tapes discuss the nature of obsolescence with Print Industry. One point that comes up is Internet piracy: Moderator: We all read on JA Konrath’s blog that the way to fight piracy is with cost and convenience. Print Industry, are you lowering your prices and making it easier for customers to download your books? Print Industry: Actually, we just raised prices on our ebooks. (all-around sighs and head shaking) Moderator: Well, far be it for you to learn from any of our mistakes. Are you making it easier at least? Print Industry: Well, we’ve begun windowing titles, releasing them months after the hardcover comes out. (collective head slapping) Funny stuff. Konrath himself has made a number of free or low-priced e-books available, from his own site, through Amazon’s Kindle store, and on Smashwords. Some of these are released under Creative Commons licenses. Konrath recently signed the latest book in his Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series with AmazonEncore rather than the publisher of the previous books in the series, Hyperion. We have mentioned him in a number of other stories as well. Independent publisher Jennifer Havenner has a sort of rebuttal, saying that printed books are not going anywhere (though bookstores might) because they provide the permanence that e-books lack. The role of the printed book is still critical, if not for the publishing industry, but for the human race. Our permanent record, whether through artistic expression in fiction, or through knowledge in non-fiction, is kept on printed books, not on electronic signals. ... Sun, 23 May 2010 11:15:00 +0100 846400 http://blog.skagirlie.net/2010/05/22/hooray-for-insomnia/ That means more books finished! My plan for summer is to have 2 books going simultaneously: non-fiction for lunch at work, and fiction for home. We’ll see how that holds up. Sometimes I lose reading time over at readthekanji.com. Man, that site sucks you in. But that’s another post. I finally finished Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein. I picked it up when it first came out, but was way too busy with school and work to find time for it. Actually, I had stopped at a good point. When I picked it back up this time around, the next chapter was all about Kabukicho, an area that I’m superficially familiar with. The gist? Well… ok, maybe Corey was right to be a lil’ weary about the neighborhood around Holiday. If you have any interest in Yakuza, I recommend it. The ending is a bit bleak, but that’s life, even when you are fighting the good fight. Jake also has a website that I will be subscribing to shortly: http://www.japansubculture.com/ I also finished Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa. I really liked her book The Housekeeper and the Professor, so I was really excited to read Hotel Iris. It’s definitely different. I didn’t not like it, but I also did not enjoy it as much as her previous work. I put in an ILL for another of her titles. Hopefully that will be more Housekeeper and less Hotel. And I finally read Kick-Ass. It’s everything you’d expect and then some more violence. Definitely a fun read! on deck: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and Horns by Joe Hill (Source: blog.skagirlie.net) Sun, 23 May 2010 02:18:15 +0100 847819 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/23/basharat-peer-one-to-watch This 33-year-old's moving portrait of Kashmir is attracting huge critical acclaim, from Salman Rushdie among othersA Kashmiri journalist who studied in America and has worked as an editor at Foreign Affairs, 33-year-old Basharat Peer is the author of the eagerly awaited memoir Curfewed Night. Drawing on both childhood memories and his experiences after returning to his homeland in 2003, the book describes the troubled life of Kashmir in lucid, detailed prose. Among the characters Peer writers about are a young man being initiated into a Pakistani training camp and a poet who discovers religion after his family are killed. The book has already won one of the top non-fiction awards in India and has been described by Salman Rushdie as "a brave and brilliant report from a conflict the world has chosen to ignore".Salman RushdieHermione Hobyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Sat, 22 May 2010 23:05:19 +0100 846243 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/22/steven-poole-nonfiction-review-roundup On inequality, injustice and the selfish societyThe Matthew Effect, by Daniel Rigney (Columbia, £17)Advantage leads to more advantage, and disadvantage is likewise self-reinforcing. This is the "Matthew effect" (named after the gospel which states "to him that hath shall be given", etc), a term first coined by the sociologist Robert Merton to describe patterns of advancement and credit-giving in academic science. Rigney's short, cogent book distinguishes between the effect's "absolute" (the rich get richer and the poor get poorer) and "relative" (the rich get richer and the poor get richer too, but not as quickly) versions, and brings under its aegis phenomena often known under other names, such as "vicious circles", "bandwagon effects" and "increasing returns". Synthesising efficiently, he shows that the Matthew effect can apply in technology, education, politics, and criminal law, as well as to economic wellbeing. To the familiar claim "A rising tide lifts all boats", he retorts nicely: "Not everyone has a boat."Rigney expresses a salutary scepticism about the popular assumption that the US is basically a fair society (equality of opportunity simply does not exist) and, while acknowledging some interesting speculation that the Matthew effect might have occurred in sexual selection of early humans, insists that increasing inequality is the product of social institutions and policies that we can choose to change for the better. It remains to be seen whether, with the general election, we just did.Injustice, by Daniel Dorling (Policy Press, £19. ... Fri, 21 May 2010 23:06:19 +0100 845944 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/22/life-henrietta-lacks-rebecca-skloot This account of a medical marvel both irritates and fascinates Hilary MantelIn old-fashioned museums you can see the unconscious benefactors of mankind, trapped in glass cases: the freaks and monsters of their day, the anomalies, sometimes skeletonised and entire, sometimes cut into parts and labelled. When we look at them, fascination and repulsion uneasily mixed, we bow our heads to their contribution to knowledge, but it is hard to locate their humanity. The thread of empathy has frayed and snapped. They have become objects, more stone than flesh: petrified, post-human.Henrietta Lacks is a medical specimen of quite another kind. No dead woman has done more for the living, and yet we can imagine her easily from her photograph, a vivacious woman who was only 31 years when she died in 1951 in a "coloured ward" in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Beloved by her family, a lively, open-hearted woman, Henrietta died in intractable pain, and at the autopsy her body's interior was pearled by tumours. Towards the end she had been given only palliative treatment, but no one had explained this to her family, who still hoped she might be cured. She left behind a husband and five children, the youngest only a baby. But she also left behind a slice of tissue, a piece excised from the cervical cancer that was her primary tumour. From this sample her cells were cultured.Previously, researchers had found it frustratingly difficult to keep alive fragile human cell lines, but these cells were robust and multiplied at an astonishing rate. In the years following Henrietta's death, the cell line, by laboratory convention known as HeLa, became an unparalleled research tool. Cells were sent to laboratories through the world, bought and sold by research teams. They could be frozen, and their development paused and restarted. Because of them, thousands of experiments on live animals were not needed. ... Fri, 21 May 2010 23:06:02 +0100 845954 http://rabid-librarian.blogspot.com/2010/05/want-to-be-dewey-lunatic.html Josh Hanagarne, the World's Strongest Librarian, has come up with a personal project, but he'd love to share, too. A Reading Project For Lunatics – Join Me! The Dewey Lunatic Project Here's the scoop: The Dewey decimal system is full of categories numbered from 000 to 999. Josh' idea is to read one book for every one of the main headings 000, 010, 020, etc. It can be a book from any of the subsets, but doesn't have to be from a particular one or from all of the subdivisions (that would take a lifetime). Still, it works out to about 1000 books, and he's going to start new, not rely on things he's already read. Are you up for the challenge? I think it's a great idea. I have so little time to read now (when I was a kid, in the summer, I read 6 books a day; now I'm lucky if I get in one a month), but this is a great incentive, and the fact is I'll learn a lot, since 1) it's non-fiction and 2) it's stuff I wouldn't normally read. What do you think? I'll at least try, and I'll post the books here. Thanks, Josh! (Source: The Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind) Wed, 19 May 2010 04:00:00 +0100 845471 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/05/18/video-resource-a-massive-treasure-chest-of-author-interviews-1988-2004/ It’s likely that some of you remember the C-SPAN series, Booknotes that aired on C-SPAN from 1988-2004. For one hour each Sunday C-SPAN Founder, Brian Lamm, would sit down for a one-on-one interview with an author of a new non-fiction title. While some archived programs have been available for years, the C-SPAN Video Libray now provides access to every program in the series. There are 799 programs available. Browse: You can browse the entire archive with final program in the series at the top of this page. To Keyword Search: A search for “World Almanac” (any field) and Booknotes (program title) provides zero results using the advanced search page. However, using a basic search box and entering ["World Almanac" booknotes] provides a 1999 Booknotes interview with the editor of The World Almanac. Of course, no method is guaranteed. The next search might not work the same way. Be ready. willing and able to use both methods to make sure you’re not missing what your hoping to find. Sources: C-SPAN Video Library, C-SPAN Video Library Blog (Source: ResourceShelf) Tue, 18 May 2010 17:11:50 +0100 845149 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/4TXCcS7VQzs/bc-books-online-canada.html "BC Books Online is collaboration between publishers and libraries to purchase electronic rights to a collection of non-fiction books by BC publishers and to make them accessible through public, school, and post-secondary libraries. It is the first time ever that publishers and libraries have come together with the objective to deliver digital content to an entire province" (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Tue, 18 May 2010 11:49:07 +0100 845092 http://caslisottawainformation.blogspot.com/2010/05/ottawa-public-library-wins-cla3m-canada.html (Ottawa, May 17, 2010) The 2010 winner of the CLA/3M Canada Award for Achievement in Technical Services is the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) for the project “New Cataloguing Strategy for World Languages Material”.In 2008 and 2009, the Technical Services department at the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) undertook several projects the objective of which was to improve our capacity to provide responsive services. One project that the department developed was a “New Cataloguing Strategy for World Languages Material”. Its aim was to address the problems encountered by newcomers when they search the catalogue for material in their native language, and how they find that material on the shelves. The new strategy involved the department taking advantage of the native language skills that the staff had for 4 of the 11, languages that were acquired during that year. These 4 languages happened to be the most in demand by newcomers which were Chinese, Persian, Arabic and Russia.The department applied the “touch an item once” policy for world language cataloguing.  Brief record templates were created for all original cataloguing. This significantly reduced the time it took for an item to reach the shelves. Cataloguers were instructed to work on 5to 10 titles every day, so that there would always be new titles showing up on the new titles list available from the website. Vernacular script was keyed in for every title, if it was not included in the copy record. A list of most popular subjects that were acquired by the library was created. Instead of a call number, every non-fiction title got a subject from that list for the call number. For other languages, and wherever possible, the technical services department requested bibliographic records with vernacular script from the vendors, which were uploaded into the database. The new titles catalogued were made available through the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) website, by linking to new arrivals by language. ... Mon, 17 May 2010 04:00:00 +0100 845822 http://rabid-librarian.blogspot.com/2010/05/trying-to-get-handle-on-my-diabetes.html Okay, so I'm a medical librarian, which means I know the complications of diabetes, have read the patient information and a few studies, know the medicines involved, and generally have a good knowledge of the disease's mechanism. The problem I have is what to eat, especially for a pescetarian (think vegetarian who eats fish and seafood) who has little time to cook and quite frankly is bad at it. I went to a diabetes education class but it was mostly on checking blood sugar and keeping meals to about 45 grams of carbs, but beyond that, I'm pretty clueless. I know how to eat healthy in general, but not how to eat healthy for good glucose control, and I've been terrible in putting any of the theory I do know in practice. But, my blood sugars have been consistently over 300 the last few days and I'm on four diabetes medications. I have to do something. I'm 130 lbs overweight and my body is breaking down, and I'm just 43 years old. Now when I was a kid, one of the diets my mother tried was a diabetic exchange one, and it's the only one I ever tried and stayed on for more than a week or two, because it's fairly easy. So I've been looking at some information on the Internet and I've ordered some books from Amazon: The Official Pocket Guide to Diabetic Exchanges by the American Diabetes Association What Do I Eat Now? by Patricia Geil and Tami Ross Diabetes Meals in 30 Minutes--or Less! by Robyn Webb They had a special deal where they were just a little over $26 for the set, which means free shipping. Since they were shipped Friday from the warehouse in Lexington (the same city where I live), I'm thinking they'll arrive tomorrow or Wednesday. ... Mon, 17 May 2010 04:00:00 +0100 845486 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/15/et-cetera-information-truth-trade On information, trade and brandsInformation: A Very Short Introduction, by Luciano Floridi (Oxford, £7.99)We live, or so we are told, in an "information economy", so we had better be sure what we mean when we say "information". Floridi's splendidly pellucid text lays out the meanings of information in the mathematical theory of communication, computing, thermodynamics, biology, and economics, offering thoughtful examples and helpful warnings against loose talk – as when he enumerates a list of commonly used verbs that do not describe what genes do with information (they don't "send", "contain", "describe", "carry", or "encode" it).Having completed his task of scrupulous exegesis, Floridi argues in favour of a global "information ethics", under which "informational systems" in general are the fundamental units of moral agency rather than (just) living beings, and "evil" appears to be defined as increasing the entropy of the "infosphere". This approach promises at least some piquant redescriptions of problems and a new angle on planetary ecology, though some details remain to be filled in. If the term didn't carry such negative connotations, I would be tempted to call Floridi's book a shining example of infotainment. But it does, so I won't.The Truth About Trade, by Clive George (Zed Books, £16.99)It is usually assumed that more international trade is good for everyone, yet what is known about the consequences has only a "minimal" effect on trade policy. So writes George, who has researched trade impacts for the EU, in this densely empirical and drily pugnacious book that suggests international economists need to "take a lesson in accountancy from the proprietor of their local corner shop". ... Fri, 14 May 2010 23:14:04 +0100 844220 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/05/14/canada-b-c-libraries-venture-into-online-reading/ From a CBC Article: British Columbia public and school libraries are making books available online for the coming year in an experiment that will test the consumer taste for online reading. All the books involved are works of non-fiction from British Columbia publishers who are participating in a collaboration with the libraries. The project went online Wednesday with 12 libraries participating, including the Nanaimo School District, Vancouver and Richmond Public Libraries, and three universities. The plan is to test it out for a year and roll it out across the province at the end of that period, says Margaret Reynolds of the Association of Book Publishers of B.C. “This is a very specific collection,” she told CBC News. “This is books about B.C., published by B.C. publishers, and it will only be available through B.C. libraries.” Access the Complete Article Source: CBC See Also: Official Announcement (Additional Details) (Association of Book Publishers of B.C.) (Source: ResourceShelf) Fri, 14 May 2010 12:03:20 +0100 843949 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/8Pkss5O493E/ Most discussions of literature on computers and mobile devices have to do with prose, or else non-fiction such as textbooks. But Victor Keegan has a piece on The Literary Platform talking about e-poetry. Keegan, a poet and 47-year veteran of The Guardian, has released a couple of poetry-related iPhone applications that link poems (classic works and his own verse) to locations that inspired them. He writes here about the challenges inherent in marrying poetry to new advances in technology and social networking. For Keegan’s first two books of poetry, he tried different experiments in technology to promote the book—a website for his first one, a launch on Second Life for his second. For his third, inspired by the way mobile phones and other devices are changing the way we interact with our culture, Keegan released the contents of all three books—over 250 poems—in an iPhone app for only £1.79 ($2.99 in the US). This may seem crazy for something that took over ten years to write but it reflects the fact that once you have uploaded the content the cost of making and delivering extra copies is zero. In theory there is already a market of several billion people out there with mobiles with no middle men between me and them – if only I could get near to them. It is good to see more people cognizant of the zero-marginal-cost advantage of distributing electronic literature, and also interesting to see technology used to make literature something more than just words on a page. Linking the poems to maps of real-world locations is a way to add some additional value that is not also an invasive distraction. I hope the apps work out well for him. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Thu, 13 May 2010 19:15:00 +0100 843797 http://engagedpatrons.org/Blogs.cfm?SiteID=4725&BlogID=41&BlogPostID=6915  In interviews with thirteen notable authors of fantasy literature for children, Leonard Marcus elicits from them answers to such questions as, "What kind of child were you?", "How did World War II (or other world events) affect your writing?", and "Do you have a daily work routine?"  A succinct but easily remembered answer to this last question was recorded by Jane Yolan.  "Yes," she answered "BIC - butt in chair."  It was of interest but not really surprising that many reported a great admiration for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  (One wonders if the present day Harry Potter books will engender similar responses from authors when they have been in existence for fifty years.)  The inclusion of photographs of the writers such as Garth Nix, Tamora Pierce, and Philip Pullman when they were children adds a human touch while facsimiles of revised manuscript pages show that the craft of creating fantasy is one that requires painstaking, exacting labor.  Especially useful to young people aspiring to be authors themselves are the answers given to "What advice do you have for youngsters who want to become writers?"  It usually boils down to . . . Read, Write, then Read more!  They might also be advised to read Marcus's other books wherein he interviews picture book creators and authors of humorous books.  This book will be welcomed by those in grade six and higher and may be found in the new young adult non-fiction collection. (Source: Teen Scene from Wright Memorial Public Library) Thu, 13 May 2010 18:00:02 +0100 843700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/12/best-childrens-books-twelve-years-over From the much-loved classic Tom Sawyer to the modern classic His Dark materials, Lucy Mangan and Imogen Russell-Williams pick their top reads for children aged 12 and overI Capture the Castle: Dodie SmithThe first entry in Cassandra Mortmain's diary ends with her feeling happier than she ever has in her life, despite her depressed father and impoverished state. "Perhaps it is because I have satisfied my creative urge; or it may be due to the thought of eggs for tea." The story of the restoration of a degree of the family fortunes unfolds in the same briskly beguiling voice and appeals to the romantic streak in every teenage heart. Trust no one who does not love this or, of course, 101 Dalmatians.His Dark Materials: Philip PullmanBleak, brutal, warm, lush and exhilarating by turns, fiercely intelligent, compassionate and compelling always, it will undo all the harm or all the good you feel was done by letting your offspring loose on Narnia. That's what reading is for.The Chaos Walking trilogy: Patrick NessAn unbelievably thrilling read that nevertheless poses profound questions – about the effects of war, the constraints of love and hate, the competing claims of vengeance and forgiveness – as the epic tale of Todd's efforts to escape various warmongering forces unfolds. Profoundly humane and utterly magnificent.Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret: Judy BlumeAt a time when the disturbingly affectless Gossip Girl series and Twilight books, with their troubling attitudes towards teenage girls' sexuality, have such a stranglehold, Blume's concentration on the lived experience of adolescence makes the books an increasingly valuable corrective to this prevailing mood, as well as continuing to be great reads. ... Wed, 12 May 2010 07:00:07 +0100 843437 http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/2010/05/cfp-journal-of-erie-studies.html CFP: The Journal of Erie StudiesThe Journal of Erie Studies is pleased to announce a call for articles, book reviews, historical fiction, and non-fiction essays. Devoted to chronicling the Lake Erie area (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, & Ontario), the Journal is inter-disciplinary in focus and dedicated to using history and ideas to better understand and improve the region. Though the journal is peer-reviewed we seek articles, book reviews, fiction, and essays that written for a wide audience. Graduate students, academics, and the educated public are invited to submit their completed work, a précis, or an idea to the editor.The fall 2010 submission deadline is November 1.journal@gannon.eduOrThe Journal of Erie StudiesDepartment of HistoryGannon University109 University SquareErie, PA 16541Email: journal@gannon.edu (Source: A Library Writer's Blog) Tue, 11 May 2010 04:00:00 +0100 844588 http://memphisreads.blogspot.com/2010/05/book-review-alex-me-by-dr-irene-m.html Non-Fiction Mary Seratt reviews ALEX & ME: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process by Dr. Irene M. Pepperberg (Collins, 2008)Unless you personally know a parrot, you might find the stories Irene Pepperberg tells about her relationship with an amazing African Grey parrot, Alex, difficult to believe. If you do have the privilege of a relationship with a feathered friend, you will find in your observations that a lot going on in that small, feathery head are confirmed.This book is full of anecdotes and has a more relaxed feel than The Alex Studies, and Alex’s personality takes center stage. After you read this, you will only be tempted to call someone a bird brain when you are complimenting them!Mary Seratt, Youth ServicesA discussion guide is available at www.harpercollins.com (Source: Memphis Reads) Tue, 11 May 2010 04:00:00 +0100 843648 http://centeredlibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/05/40-sources-for-more-free-books-online.html The following websites offer free unabridged books online. Book options include fiction, nonfiction, verse, classic works and reference books.Bartleby - Bartleby has one of the best collections of literature, verse and reference books that can be accessed online for no charge.Biblomania - A great collection of classic texts, reference books, articles and study guides.Books-On-Line - A directory of more than 50,000 (mostly free) books that are posted on the Internet. Browse by author, subject or keyword.Bookstacks - This site has nearly 100 free books from 36 different authors. The books can be read online or downloaded as a PDF.Bored.com - Read thousands of classic books and other ebooks online or transfer files to your computer. Special topics include music, games, cooking, science and travel.Classic Book Library - A free online library containing historical fiction, romance, mysteries, science fiction and children's literature.Classic Bookshelf - Electronic library of classic books with a special Java eBook reading program for easy viewing.Classic Reader - An expanding collection of classic fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children's stories and plays--more than 4,000 works by hundreds of authors.Ebook Lobby - Hundreds of free ebooks in categories that range from business and art to computing and education.EtextCenter - More than 2,000 free ebooks from the University of Virginia Library's Etext Center. Books include classic fiction, children's literature, historical texts and bibles.Fiction eBooks Online - Hundreds of plays, poems, short stories, picture books and classic novels.Fiction Wise - Free works of fiction from the top independent ebook seller in the world.Full Books - Thousands of full-text books sorted by title--both fiction and nonfiction.Get Free Books - Thousands of free books on nearly every topic imaginable. All books are available for instant download.Great Literature Online - Free, HTML formatted e-text from ClassicAuthors.net. ... Mon, 10 May 2010 04:00:00 +0100 843032 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/08/tariq-ali-life-in-writing 'It's a problem people have had to come to terms with at different times in history: what do you do in a period of defeat?'In photographs and news footage of political demonstrations of the 1960s, Tariq Ali is unmistakeable: the thick black hair and thatchy moustache; the clenched fist and characteristic surge to the foreground amid a sea of fair faces. Almost immediately on coming down from Oxford in 1966, Ali began to agitate for a workers' uprising – not just in Britain but across the world. His book 1968 and After: Inside the Revolution (1978) stressed "the key importance of the working class as the only agency of social change". His hero was Che Guevara. Meeting Malcolm X at an Oxford Union debate in 1964, he was pleased to discover that Malcolm was "a great admirer of Cuba and Vietnam". Ali was Britain's own "other", a role he took up with zeal and played with dash and style. He didn't get his revolution, but he did get a Rolling Stones anthem in his honour. Mick Jagger is said to have written "Street Fighting Man" for him. Ali returned the compliment by calling his autobiography Street Fighting Years.Ali had a strong personal presence then, and he has it still. Now 66, he lives in a roomy neogothic house in Highgate, north London – friends have been heard to call it "Chateau Tariq" – with his partner of 35 years, Susan Watkins. She edits New Left Review, to which Ali has been a longstanding contributor. They have two children (Ali has another, with a former partner). In 1974, he ran for parliament as the International Marxist candidate, but the sloganeering public persona is tempered by an erudite domestic man.He has not forsaken his opposition to "neoliberal economic policies" (capitalism, in a word) but is resigned to the fact that the predicted disintegration of the system has not occurred. ... Fri, 07 May 2010 23:18:33 +0100 842232 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/08/evil-eagleton-islamic-history-silverstein On evil, Islam and environmental disastersOn Evil, by Terry Eagleton (Yale, £18.99)Evil really exists, but the term should not be applied as loosely as it is in our culture, eg to children who kill children, or to terrorists. So argues Eagleton, attempting perhaps to do a Žižek with this zingy short work of psychoanalytic theology-cum-literary-analysis, dedicated amusingly "To Henry Kissinger". The author proceeds meanderingly, via assertion, association and obsessive punning, which sometimes leads him to skate over possibly important points. (I did like the description of the narrator's fate in Flann O'Brien's The Third Policemen as "infernal recurrence".) The book has a disorganised feel; there are too many slapdash asides about the intellectual depredations of "postmodernists", but also many winning formulations ("the perpetually affrontable British public"). The theory boils down to saying that evil is Freud's "death drive" turned on an unwilling other. This risks seeming pat, particularly given two striking moments when the text turns away from an announced difficulty. "It is hard to see the SS as merely unfortunate," Eagleton writes early on, apparently joking; but later he does acknowledge the existence of what has elsewhere been called "moral luck". Meanwhile, of Stalin and Mao he writes: "If they are not beyond the moral pale then it is hard to know who is." Indeed it is hard, but perhaps that very difficulty points towards a more "radical" (still a favourite epithet) and disturbing answer, which would be to say: no one.Islamic History: A Very Short Introduction, by Adam J Silverstein (Oxford, £7.99)In contemporary thinking about the relationship between Muslims and the west, this author points out, "a frequently overlooked piece of the puzzle is Islamic history". ... Fri, 07 May 2010 23:14:51 +0100 842239 http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/may/08/malcolm-gladwell-playlist-guide The brainiac author of Outliers and The Tipping Point has put philosophical musing on to the bestseller lists, but what does he enjoy when he's not working up a new theory?Malcolm Gladwell may well be the smartest guy in the room. The Sideshow Bob-haired New Yorker journalist has topped bestseller lists all over the globe with his intuitive investigations into how social forces change the way we live and interact such as Blink, The Tipping Point and Outliers. He's been namechecked by Bill Clinton, sold millions of books and is about to embark on a speaking tour of the UK. In his latest book, What The Dog Saw – a collection of his best New Yorker essays – Gladwell laterally thinks about what makes people employable; whether Enron's downfall was due to there being too much information available to curious journalists and stock analysts; and whether genius comes late, like Cezanne's, or early, like Picasso's. So, with so much wisdom and knowledge to explore, we asked him what ticks his pop cultural boxes ...THE MOST PERFECT POP SONG EVER IS ...Oh dear. That kind of thing is so very dependent on time and place. But I do remember the first time I heard Brian Eno's album Another Green World and thinking that I had never realised that music could be so beautiful and so intelligent. Runner-up: Marvin Gaye's version of the Star Spangled Banner which is the only time that song has ever been beautiful.Guide pop fact! The 1983 NBA All-Star Game at which Marvin Gaye performed The Star Spangled Banner was attended by 17,505 people. The Eastern Conference won 132-123. Brian Eno used his Oblique Strategies cards while working on 1975's Another Green World. A series of random commands designed to be used for inspiration, they included statements like: "Be dirty", "Try faking it!", "Put in earplugs", "Listen in total darkness", and "Tidy up". ... Fri, 07 May 2010 23:10:43 +0100 842247 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/06/puffin-70-best-books-children Everyone from Huck Finn to Angelina Ballerina turns out for publisher's anniversary roll of honourIn pictures: Puffins a-plentyHuckleberry Finn rubs shoulders with Artemis Fowl, Charlie and Lola with Fungus the Bogeyman, and Dick King Smith's Sheep-Pig with Gerald Durrell's Family and Other Animals. A reading list drawn up to celebrate 70 years of the children's publisher Puffin throws up some odd pairings, but highlights the rich heritage of the list that was founded in 1940 as a series of non-fiction picture books for children. The first fiction book published by Puffin, Worzel Gummidge, in 1941 doesn't make the cut 70 years later, but there is a good sprinkling of other classics among the 70 featured titles, which are organised in categories ranging from Best Swashbucklers and Derring-do and Best Blood and Guts to Best Weird and Wonderful and Best Weepies. Watership Down heads up the latter category while both Dracula and The Hound of the Baskervilles feature in the blood and guts section. Alice in Wonderland and Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl are also on the list. Roald Dahl is honoured with a section of his own – Best Phizzwhizzers – containing The BFG, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr Fox. "It's great that it flags up classic titles and reminds people that they are out there. It will also probably have a positive effect on sales for the books on the list – things like these lists always do if the publicity is wide enough," said Georgina Hanratty, manager of the Tales On Moon Lane children's bookshop in south London, which is holding a Puffin party in June where staff and customers will dress up as their favourite characters. "In terms of us as booksellers, there are unlikely to be any huge surprises but it's a lovely thing to be able to celebrate the classics again and give the backlist some space at the front of the shop rather than just focusing on the new big-hitters. ... Fri, 07 May 2010 07:00:42 +0100 841930 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/6vsQs4COJ8Y/ In the past few posts, I’ve had a chance to share with you lots of different library resources ranging from newspapers to government documents, handbooks and much more.  These non-fiction sources are important to know and use both professionally and personally. Today I want to share something quite a bit different.  Involving murder, mayhem, and perhaps even an adventure or two in space, I’ve found some great “pulp” fiction resources for your reading device.  Available in lots of formats and most often free, these probably wouldn’t make today’s best-seller lists, but that doesn’t take away from the spirit of adventure and intrigue that comes to mind when you read them. The pulp heroes you’ll find in these stories and sites run the gamut from space to jungle and crime-infested city streets.  Much more than the stereotypical Indiana Jones and crumpled fedora, these were heroes from a different era–with different methods of getting their message across in fighting the bad guys. Visiting BlackMaskMagazine.com, you’ll find your first introduction to just some of them.  Mostly in PDF format, you can find quite a few free adventure stories to download to your device or just read online.  With titles ranging from “Scotty Scouts Around” by Raoul Whitfield to “The Corpse in the Doorway” by James H.S. Moynahan, what’s not to like?  Top it off with great artwork and 15+ stories to read for free! Moving on to a hero known both in the Thirties and even today as The Shadow, this pulp character has come to symbolize all that is unknown and mysterious yet good.  With titles such as City of Shadows and City of Ghosts available for download, you’ll have some excellent reading the next time you find yourself in line at the bank or doctor’s office. ... Thu, 06 May 2010 21:21:18 +0100 841856 http://www.sla.org.uk/blg-english-4-11---best-childrens.php Established in 1995, the awards are presented annually by the English Association to the best children's illustrated books of the year, in four categories:  Fiction and Non-Fiction in Key Stages 1 and 2.  The winning books are chosen by the editorial board of English 4-11 from a shortlist of 12-18 books selected by a panel of teachers.The prizes are awarded at the English Association's Annual General Meeting each May, and the winning and shortlisted books are featured in a full-colour insert in the summer issue of the journal.  This insert is also circulated to libraries, children's bookshops and other interested parties.  And the winners are: Key Stage 1 Fiction, Ernest by Catherine Rayner, Macmillan; Key Stage 2 Fiction, Crazy Hair by Neil Gaiman, illus. Dave McKean, Bloomsbury; Key Stage 1 Non-Fiction, Insect Detective by Steve Voake, illus. Charlotte Voake, WalkerKey Stage 2 Non-Fiction, Charles Darwin and the Beagle Adventure by Amanda Wood and Clint Twist, illus.  Ian Andrews, Diz Wallis and Eloise A. Lambert, TemplarSpecial Award, Dracula adapted by Nicky Raven, illus. Anne Yvonne Gilbert, Templar. (Source: SLA Weblog) Wed, 05 May 2010 14:51:45 +0100 842806