With summer upon us, it’s time to start assembling a list of the Best Dirty Books. Not that kind of dirty. I mean books meant to be read outdoors because they carry a whiff of salt spray or the grit of sand. For me, they’re the perfect read for a summer vacation. Here are a few classics that meet the standard. If you have other recommendations, let me know.

Dune. Frank Herbert’s science fiction tale, which started a trilogy and led to several lesser works by other authors, takes place on a planet covered by sand. Makes O.C. seem like a sandbox.

In a Sunburned Country. Bill Bryson, one of my favorite comic authors, describes in hilarious detail his travels around Australia, dodging the continent’s evolution-challenged and surprisingly lethal animals. You could read A Walk in the Woods, but this is a far sight better, mate.

Wind, Sand and Stars. Antoine de Saint-Exupery is more famous for Le Petit Prince, but his prose offers vivid descriptions of life as an airborne mail carrier in the 1930s, including a desert crash.

Desert Solitaire. Edward Abbey captures the beauty and grandeur of an unspoiled West as few people can. He voices awe for nature’s power and anger at those who try to tame it. One of the best books about nature ever written.

The Perfect Storm. If you can forgive Sebastian Junger for giving rise to one of our generation’s worst cliches, you’ll appreciate this gripping story of the Andrea Gail’s tragic 1991 trip fishing for swordfish. I read it one summer as we visited Gloucester, Mass., the boat’s home port, and was chilled by the memory.

The Summer Game. Roger Angell has always been my favorite baseball writer, and it really doesn’t matter which of his books you pick up. Each one will make you feel the rush of a hard slide that kicks up dust, the whump of a fastball hitting the catcher’s mitt.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Categories: Recommended
        

Sunday in The Baltimore Sun, frequent Read Street poster Mary McCauley will take a look at Steve Luxenberg and his new book, Annie’s Ghosts. In a profile, she describes his "struggle to reconcile the competing parts of himself, to pay his familial duty to his mother while remaining true to the values of his [journalism] profession." In this review, she takes a look at the book itself:

Annie’s Ghosts is an exhaustively researched, often moving testimony to the ties that bind families together — including connections we aren’t even aware existed. The author, Steve Luxenberg, is an associate editor at The Washington Post who has supervised two Pulitzer Prize-winning projects. He brought more than three decades of investigative reporting experience to his quest for information about the crippled and institutionalized aunt he’d never met.

Annie Cohen was born with a leg that was bent and couldn’t be straightened out, and when she was a teenager, the limb was amputated. She appears to have been developmentally disabled, with an IQ that fluctuated between 56 and 73. As she grew older, she might also have become mentally ill; one issue the book raises is the precise nature of Annie’s impairment, when it developed and whether it worsened during her decades of confinement.

In 1940, Annie was sent to a Michigan psychiatric hospital one day shy of her 21st birthday. She remained institutionalized until her death in 1972 at age 53.

But the book is only partly an attempt to reconstruct Annie’s life and examine the social forces that shaped it. Luxenberg also explores why the author’s mother, a kind and charitable woman, engaged in a lifelong attempt to hide her sister’s existence. In the end, there was much that the journalist didn’t learn about his aunt — for instance, he never was able to turn up a photograph of Annie, if indeed, one existed. Readers with a yearning for the feeling of closure provided by fiction are likely to be frustrated by Annie’s Ghosts.

Though Luxenberg began working on the manuscript full time in March 2006, and though he employed every investigative skill in his considerable arsenal, he was stymied by bureaucratic rules pertaining to patient confidentiality, even after he became the legal representative of his mother’s (and therefore his aunt’s) estate. Indeed, the author’s description of the various hoops he had to jump through to get the smallest shred of information about his aunt is reminiscent of the Circumlocution Office invented by Charles Dickens in his great novel, Little Dorrit.

There’s just one small exception to the author’s determination to do nothing for show. Chapters end on minor “cliffhangers,” presumably to inspire his audience to keep reading. Most writers use an identical technique, but the facts that Luxenberg relates don’t always support even these minor dramatics. Besides, Annie’s story is sufficiently compelling to keep most of us turning the page.

 This book’s great strength is its candor but, at times, I wished the author had gone even further and probed more deeply into his own motivations for pursuing his aunt’s story. Luxenberg asks himself all the right questions — why did he knowingly allow a false statement to be published as part of his mother’s obituary? Why didn’t he and his brothers and sisters confront their mother about her lifelong lie? The answers that he provides are persuasive as far as they go, but I sensed that there were other pieces to the puzzle that have yet to be unearthed.

And yet, Annie’s Ghosts exudes honesty. The narrative shifts back and forth between explanatory journalism and personal reminiscences, and some readers may find the resulting shifts in tone to be jarring. But those readers more interested in the journey than in its ultimate destination are likely to be intrigued by the author’s itinerary.

Perhaps Luxenberg’s most intriguing side trip is his visits to his mother’s cousin, Anna Oliwek. The decisions made by both two women (Oliwek and the author’s mother, Beth Luxenberg) provide fascinating parallels. Though Jewish, the teenage Oliwek survived the Holocaust by posing as an ethnic German of mixed blood and by working as a translator for the Nazis. After the war, Oliwek came to the U.S. and got to know her cousins. When Beth Luxenberg later pretended to be an only child — a decision that the author speculates was made out of desperation — Oliwek made no bones of her disapproval.

It appears that to survive, both women felt they had to live a lie.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A few months ago, in a funk over text- and twitter-speak, I asked: Is spelling ded? Read Streeters supplied ample evidence (even more here) that we are, in many respects, attending a long-running funeral for English as we know it.

But just when I'm overcome with despair, dozens of  eager contestants in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee step forward to restore my faith. Kavya Shivashankar, 13, of Olathe, Kansas, won the 2009 event in Washington by spelling "Laodicean," which means indifferent or lukewarm. According to my dictionary, the word is derived from an ancient city in western Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), built by the Seleucids in the third century B.C. The inhabitants were probably the ancestors of modern surfers.

I bet Kavya and her fellow contestants would collapse in laughter if they saw some of the misspellings that have appeared in Read Street comments about Twilight: arguements, dimond, jelous, pshychatic, accusitions, audiance, critizizm. Not to mention the person who, referring to vampire lore, wrote about driving "a steak through the heart."

A side note: The Times of India crowed that Indian-American children have now won the title seven times out of 10. Kavya, whose words included baignoire, huisache and ecossaise, joins fellow champions Nupur Lala (1999), George Thampy (2000), Pratyush Buddiga (2002), Sai Gunturi (2003), Anurag Kashyap (2005) and Sameer Mishra (2008). You might remember Nupur from the documentary Spellbound.

Photo from AP

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Categories: Whatever
        

I knew it wouldn't take long before Amazon's Kindle grew completely out of control. I could understand the appeal of the standard version, and even the super-sized DX, which was more friendly to newspapers and textbooks.

But why did Amazon chieftain Jeff Bezos feel the need to build the Kindle-saurus (shown here), approximately the height of a Baltimore rowhouse? Did we really need an indie-movie-house sized screen? Or memory that allows it to hold "every papyrus scroll, cuneiform tablet and book ever written." And how portable can it be if the specs call for a "Ford F-150 carrying case"?

For another take on giant Kindles, check out this hilarious video on the 9XXXD model. And have a great weekend!

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

In our continuing effort to highlight hints of Big Brotherism and mind control, we note this report from Washington State University, which bills itself as "A paradise called the Palouse."

According to stories in the Spokesman-Review and the Olympian, WSU purchased nearly 4,000 copies of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, to be distributed to incoming freshmen for a summer reading program. But WSU scrapped the entire program, saying it was too costly. Critics said the sudden shift on Pollan -- a locavore who has criticized industrial farming -- may have been triggered by political pressures within WSU, which sits in an area that is one of the world’s top producers of wheat, barley and other crops.

The debate abated somewhat yesterday, after alum Bill Marler, a prominent food safety attorney, offered to pay for Pollan to speak at WSU. The university accepted the offer. But I'd imagine that hard feelings linger on campus.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

For anyone who's cheered for the spunky blonde in the neverending Archie/Betty/Veronica love triangle, you might want to sit down.

Or you can just scoff at the silly redhead who has decided to spend the rest of his life with rich girl Veronica.

It seems the gang is graduating college, and my guess is that Mr. Andrews is feeling a little vulnerable in today's economic climate. Nothing says survival like marrying into money, I suppose.

 Of course, it's all a matter of taste, but Veronica? Really?? I couldn't even root for her as a fellow brunnette.

 And then there's always the school of thought that Archie should dump both of these ladies and set off on his own.

I just hope he knows what he's getting into, and that Betty has someone a little brighter than Jughead to support her through this difficult time.

Amazing how tied up we get into the complex relationships between fictional characters, isn't it?

Posted by Nancy Knight at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)
        

As part of a new series called My Guilty Pleasure, NPR is asking witers to "talk about the books they've loved only secretly — until now." Yesterday, Brad Meltzer confessed his love for Twilight, the mega-hit vampire series that appeals mainly to teenage fangirls. (For a sampling of their Twi-mania, just read some of the nearly 500 comments on this post.)

I thought I had exposed myself in March by acknowledging that I enjoyed Twilight -- despite its shallow writing and lack of drama. (I also noted that I had my wife check out the book from the library, so I wouldn't be seen as a creep.) But Meltzer goes much further. 

Here's an excerpt from his confession: "I love this story of the gawky, awkward girl who falls in love with the brooding vampire. And I love that she can't get sexual with said vampire because when her blood gets pumping, it'll send him into a frenzy and he'll kill her. (How's that for a prophylactic?)

"I love hearing the dark secret histories of how the other vampires were turned into vampires. And I love when Edward gets all huffy with Jacob the werewolf — oh my God, I'm on the verge of writing fan-fic here — but again, in case you missed it, I love this story."

The only thing that makes suspicious is that Meltzer says he doesn't love or understand sports. So I question his macho credentials. Still, I praise his courage in coming clean. 

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has triggered a flood of heart-warming, American Dream images, including that of a young Puerto Rican immigrant instilled with a love of reading and learning. An excerpt from the official White House briefing paper: "After her father’s death, Sotomayor turned to books for solace, and it was her new found love of Nancy Drew that inspired a love of reading and learning, a path that ultimately led her to the law." Quite a leap from The Secret of the Old Clock to the Supreme Court, but apparently she was also influenced by Perry Mason shows.

As a child in the Baby Boom generation, I never read the Nancy Drew series -- I had my own version of adventure in the Hardy Boys series. I owned a bunch of the blue-spined books, including The Tower Treasure and The House on the Cliff. (I thought I might get some insight into the other series from my Read Street partner, Nancy, but she said she was tagged with the nickname "Nancy Drew" as a kid and refused to read any of the books.) 

In truth, there probably isn't a dime's worth of difference between the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series. Both were developed by Edward Stratemeyer and his syndicate, which included a stable of writers. Both featured similar plots with similar titles: "The Secret of ... " and "The Mystery of ..." Still, they were very empowering books for kids, and it's no suprise that little Sonia Sotomayor drew small pleasures -- and big dreams -- from the tales.  

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

By now you may have heard about Kat Atreides and her illegal library. (I think Dave will be especially impressed with her Dune alias.)

The teenager explains that she is keeping a library of 62 banned books, and lending them to her classmates. The titles include:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
His Dark Materials trilogy
Sabriel
The Canterbury Tales
Candide
The Divine Comedy
Paradise Lost
The Hunger Games
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Animal Farm
Shade's Children
The Evolution of Man
the Holy Qu'ran

Since her tale has gotten a bit more media attention, there have been plenty of questions about the veracity of her story. Many cannot believe that Twain's Connecticut Yankee or Milton's Paradise Lost would be banned at any place of learning. And since she is reluctant to talk to the media, it may be impossible to find out exactly what's happening at her school.

But as a middle-schooler who was shocked to find curse words whited out in her (public!) school library books, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that these books were actually targeted. And the ones I haven't read? I'm pretty interested in them now.

So congratulations to Kat Atreides, who is becoming an inspiration to far more readers than she may have imagined.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

In honor of B'more Green, The Baltimore Sun's newest blog, here are a few books with a green living theme. If you haven't seen the new blog yet, drop by. And let us know if you've found other good green reads -- mention one in a comment here (or at B'more Green) and we'll pick a lucky soul for a giveaway.

Running the Numbers: an American self-portrait by Chris Jordan. This visually arresting book accompanies a museum show in which Jordan illustrates the immensity of our wastefulness. In one image, the artist morphs Seurat's "A Sunday on Grand Jatte" by using cans of Sprite, Coke and other drinks in pointillist style to depict the 106,000 aluminum cans used in the U.S. every 30 seconds. Other images continue the environmental theme, though some stray into topics such as handguns and the Iraq war. The traveling show is now at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History; the closest it gets to Baltimore is Haverford College next January.

Farm City by Novella Carpenter. The book begins: "I have a farm on a dead-end street in the ghetto." That's a pretty good summary of her mission to create GhostTown Farm, an unlikely agricultural outpost in Oakland. Carpenter, who studied with locavore guru Michael Pollan, writes of the contrast between gritty city and vege-topia -- what Pollan calls "a mind-meld of Fifty Cent and Wendell Berry."

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

There's nothing like a sunny, three-day weekend to help break a logjam. There's plenty of time for activities that are neglected in the average workweek: long bike rides, mowing the lawn and reading. Especially reading.

I used the break to finish The Discovery of France by Graham Robb and Eiffel's Tower, by local author Jill Jonnes. Both were enoyable social histories, loaded with colorful characters. I also took a large divot out of The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever by Mark Frost. I hope you holiday was as productive page-wise.

I'm always leery of books that claim to be about an event or moment That Changed Everything, but I'll withhold judgment until I'm done. So far, it's enjoyable tale about the beginnings of professional golf and a high-stakes, one-day competition, with character sketches of early heroes such as Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan -- a quick, entertaining read even without an overarching lesson.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

It's a good time to be a Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore fan.  Not only do you have the 11th issue of the local zine due out about the 1st of June, creator William Patrick Tandy has started his own blog.

Just two days old, the site promises to be a nice resource for Baltimoreans: It branches out beyond the literary scene to include local events and concerts, while giving behind-the-scenes details of the zine. I've already bookmarked it.

And in other news, we've got a Baltimore Sun tweetup on our hands!

For those of you who'd like to share a drink with Mr. Rosenthal and myself, tonight's your chance! And no, you don't have to be on Twitter to enjoy our company. We'll be at the Windup Space along with many other Sun readers, reporters, photographers and editors from 6 p.m. till 9 p.m. There'll be drink specials and door prizes, and I'm likely to pop on over to Cyclops while I'm in the neighborhood.

We hope to see you there!

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

I'm a sucker for coming-of-age novels, perhaps because, at age 51, I'm still stuck in my own much, much, much delayed adolescence. If you don't believe me, ask my mother.

So I gobbled up the audio book version of Francine Prose's Goldengrove. I listen to books on tape in my car, and more often than I'd like to admit, I'd arrive home after work, switch off the engine, but leave the CD player running. I'd delay going inside for 30 to 40 minutes until I reached a natural break in the story. Mamie Gummer, who narrates this audio book, is Meryl Streep's daughter. She demonstrates here that she inherited at least some of her famous Mom's acting chops.

Goldengrove tells the story of 13-year-old Nico the summer she loses her adored older sister, Margaret, in a freak swimming accident. The girls' bookstore-owner Dad and musician Mom are besieged by their own grief, and leave Nico to fend for herself. As the summer progresses, she is increasingly drawn to Margaret's 17-year-old boyfriend, a charismatic but moody artist named Aaron.

It's to Prose's credit that as the pair's relationship turns creepy, the reader never loses sympathy for either teen. They're two lost children, trying to survive however they can. The adults in their lives are either utterly oblivious to their offspring's pain or are unable to help them. The author and actress collaborate to create a pitch-perfect portrayal of a 13-year-old girl. They get just right Nico's adolescent machinations, and the guilty, helpless love she feels for both parents.

Nico will lie at the drop of a hat to get her own way. At the same time, she is acutely aware of how vulnerable her mother and father are. She will do anything in her power to protect the adults who should be protecting her. 

The audio book has a few flaws. Gummer has a small voice that has a tendency to drop off at the ends of sentences, so at times I had to turn up the volume full throttle so as to not miss crucial plot developments. Someone (the director, the sound mixer?) should have caught and taken care of this problem.

Finally, I'm not sure Prose knows how to end this story, how to create for her listeners a sense of closure. The final chapter, in which Nico ages 30 years in about as many lines, feels both rushed and tacked on. The author wants to reassure her audience that Nico will survive her ordeal intact, but I wasn't persuaded by the "the sun will rise again, and life goes on" feel to the ending.

I also wished Prose had revealed something of Aaron's eventual fate. After her readers and listeners have spent hours inside the head of this troubled young man, it doesn't seem sporting for the author to abandon him without so much as a farewell. 

The book takes its name from a strange, mysterious, and utterly gorgeous poem called Spring and Fall: to a Young Child, that was written by Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1918. You can read it here.

Posted by Mary McCauley at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Audiobooks, Reviews
        

Among the books being released this week: President Ronald Reagan’s Initial Action Project by the White House staff, intro. by Arthur B. Laffer (Pocket/Threshold, paper $9.99) When Ronald Reagan entered office, the economy was in a state of stagflation that had created a dissatisfied America. He and his staff strove to devise a plan that would save the economy, knowing that an unsuccessful  plan could cripple it beyond repair. This book, written by the staff in charge, explains the path that led to the controversial policies known as Reaganomics.

One in a Million by Kimberla Lawson Roby (Avon A, paper $12.99) As Kennedi Mason and her husband Blake arrive home one day, they begin to exchange secrets. But when Kennedi hears Blake’s secret, she decides to hold on to her own. In this poignant story, Kennedi discovers the true ingredients to happiness.

The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato (Griffin Trade, $13.99) In 1681, the Venetian island of Murano is the heart of glass craftsmen. Corradino Manin, the most skillful glassblower of the island, trades his glass-making formula to protect his daughter. When his descendant, Leonora Manin, returns to Murano hundreds of years later, however, the secret past of Corradino begins to unravel directly into her life.

Come Sunday: A Novel by Isla Morley (Sarah Chrichton/FSG, $25) Abbe Deighton, a native of South Africa, cannot find happiness within her married life in Hawaii, especially after her three-year-old daughter is killed. Describing two distinct settings, Hawaii and Africa, Morley follows Abbe as she searches for her place in the world.

101 Ways to Know It’s Time to Leave Your Mama’s House by Shawn, Keenen, and Marlon Wayans (Griffin Trade, paper $10.99) After film and television, the three brothers take their comedy to the page. Offering advice in perhaps familiar territory, they hilariously outline an important set of information. So how does one know when it’s time? When, “your mama smokes up all your weed.”

101 Ways to Know You’re a Golddigger by Shawn, Keenen, and Marlon Wayans (Griffin Trade, $10.99) The brothers continue their new series, in which the title explains it all. You know you’re a gold digger when “you divorce your rich husband but keep his last name to get into clubs.”

From wire reports

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

One of the duties of being a book blogger is bracing each day for the avalanche of pitches from publicists touting the next Da Vinci Code, Twilight or other runaway best-seller. Not that all publicists are a pain. On the contrary, I’ve found them to be very helpful arranging author interviews and guest posts, or financing my beach house. But every so often, an annoying letter or e-mail pitch surfaces, such as the recent one that noted — almost apologetically — that the first-time novelist was “a well-known author of statistics textbooks.”

Another publicist recently e-mailed, wondering why I had not yet reviewed a book she had sent. (It was nothing personal, but Read Street receives dozens of books each week, and I’m not drawn to this sort of blood-and-guts thriller.) Her e-mail said: “I realize that you may have read the book, but don’t have time to write a review so I’ve included some mock reviews below that you may find possibly fits how you feel about the book. Feel free to choose one if this helps.” Then she listed 10 plug-and-play blurbs, including phrases such as “Great page-turner,” “Couldn’t put it down," and “#1 Summer Read of 2009.”

Initially, I was incensed that the publicist thought I was not competent enough to write my own cliches. Then I realized that I was looking a gift horse in the mouth, and biting the hand that feeds me. (Which is very hard to do simultaneously.) Here was a way to be freed from the burden of creativity and high-pressure writing on deadline. So I turned back to her list of blurbs, which I had printed out. Unfortunately, they fell to the floor and were all mixed up. I tried to reconstruct them, but they got a bit garbled. Some, unfortunately, seem to read like the subject lines on emails from Nigerians who are seeking investors.

Here’s my best shot: “Don’t even think of page-turning anticipation!” ”Kept me up down.” “Filled with NY Times!” “Couldn’t put it near the water!”

Publicists should feel free to use them as needed.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Marylandia
        

It's always a good time to remember the men and women who have died to keep us free, but there's no better time than the Memorial Day weekend. Here are some suggested readings:

Leathernecks (Naval Institute Press, $60, 352 pages) by Merrill L. Bartlett and Jack Sweetman. Publishers Weekly praised this significantly updated version of The U.S. Marine Corps: An Illustrated History, noting that the illustrations have been overhauled and the text adds a chapter analyzing the corps' contributions to the war on terror. Newcomers will find even more useful the opening chapter, a survey of marine forces since antiquity, and the comprehensive overview of the U.S. Marines' history, PW said.

We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories From the Band of Brothers by Marcus Brotherton (Berkley, $24.95, 320 pages) On D-Day, Easy Company parachuted into Normandy and the Germans in a series of uphill battles. Twenty members of Easy Company recall their victories and defeats.

Easy Company Soldier by Sgt. Don Malarkey (with Bob Welch; St. Martin’s, $14.95, 304 pages) The paratrooper recalls the battles he and his fellow soldiers fought after landing in Normandy.

Iwo Jima: World War II Veterans Remember the Greatest Battle of the Pacific by Larry Smith (W.W. Norton, $17.95, 384 pages) Smith interviewed a variety of military men who were involved in Operation Detachment — wrestling a strategic island from Japanese control.

The Box From Braunau by Jan Elvin (Amacom, $24.95, 272 pages) After decades of wondering, the author explored her father’s involvement in World War II. This is father-daughter memoir at its most poignant.

Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front by Todd DePastino (W.W. Norton, $16.95, 369 pages) Mauldin spoke for the American soldier in World War II through his famous cartoon characters, the infantrymen Willie and Joe. This is his biography.

A Tale of Two Subs by Jonathan J. McCullough (Grand Central, $14.99, 304 pages) The author traces the histories and drama of sister submarines — the USS Sculpin and USS Sailfish — during World War II.

Faces of War by Mark D. Faram (Berkley, $29.95, 256 pages) The daring men of the Aviation Photographic Unit chronicled World War II via their artistic black-and-white photos. An interesting story with great photos (includes a CD).

Soldiers Once by Catherine Whitney (Da Capo, $25, 240 pages) The author’s brother was among the many young men traumatized by his military tour in the Vietnam War. Through his story — which ended in his tragic death at age 53 — she “puts a face on veterans’ policies.”

Wiser in Battle by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez (Harper, $16.99, 528 pages) The former commander of coalition forces in Iraq offers a surprisingly candid, behind-the-scenes account of the conflagration there.

From wire reports

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Reviews
        

Did you expect Sarah Palin's memoir to highlight the joys of living amid the natural splendor of Wasilla, Alaska? Judging by her pick for a collaborator, Republican Palin will use the book to come out swinging -- and keep swinging -- just as she did in her campaign for the vice presidency.

A spokeswoman for SarahPAC, the Alaska governor's political action committee, said this week that the collaborator would be Lynn Vincent, a features editor for World magazine, a conservative Christian publication. Vincent's writing credentials include several books, among them Same Kind of Different As Me, The Blood of Lambs and Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party.

The publisher's description of Donkey Cons says it "reveals ... How Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy were elected with the help of the Mob; What two eyewitnesses said about JFK's obsession with hookers [and] ... Why Democrats ignore crime victims and take the side of rapists, robbers, and cop-killers-then stump for the right of felons to vote!"

Sounds like the sort of partisan feistiness that meshes with Palin's style. The book, currently untitled, is scheduled for release next year by HarperCollins, according to the Associated Press.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Double duty this Friday: Not only are we handing out a book, we're pointing out a free e-book for all!

Tim Bete, along with mysterious co-author Capt. Billy "The Butcher" MacDougall now presents his hilarious Guide to Pirate Parenting free of charge! Of course, if you'd like to donate a bit to his rum fund, I don't think he'd say no.

So if you've always wanted to plunder the neighbor's garage, here's a good way to begin. You can teach your kids a thirst for booty; or maybe you'd just like a good laugh. Either way, this book will help.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Bill Wasik's And Then There's This. Wasik was the mind behind the first New York flash mob, and he's used this experience to detail his own theory behind the "nanostory," or the 15-minutes-of-fame bug that seems to hit just about everyone. He's got some great insights on Internet culture and how it's changing society's views of media.

But enough about  me, let's talk about Theresa. She's the lucky Read Streeter who gets to take home The Story Sisters. Thanks for sharing Not Becoming My Mother. It sounds like the type of book that would resonate with just about every woman in every age. I cannot imagine life even 50 years ago, much less 150.

Next up, let's start the beach season with Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor. This coming-of-age novel that follows one black teen negotiating his all-white prep school and his summers at the mostly black Sag Harbor has gotten stellar reviews from the Boston Globe, USA Today and the Washington Post Book World. They're usually trustworthy.

So how about it? What are you reading right now?

Posted by Nancy Knight at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Freebie Friday
        

Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of master detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle was headed for a medical career, studying at the University of Edinburgh, when he took an abrupt turn. Here's how it is described by the official Web site of his literary estate:

"The young medical student met a number of future authors who were also attending the university, such as for instance James Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson. But the man who most impressed and influenced him, was without a doubt, one of his teachers, Dr. Joseph Bell. The good doctor was a master at observation, logic, deduction, and diagnosis. All these qualities were later to be found in the persona of the celebrated detective Sherlock Holmes. A couple of years into his studies, Arthur decided to try his pen at writing a short story. ..."

The estate's biolgraphy notes that Doyle's writings are indebted to Edgar Allan Poe. The one-time Baltimore resident is often credited with creating the modern detective story with his character C. Auguste Dupin, an amateur sleuth who lives in Paris and is featured in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Purloined Letter" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget."  

What better way to mark Doyle's birthday than a re-reading of a story such as "The Hound of the Baskervilles"? Pass the haggis!

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Talk about a bibliophile's nightmare. A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty this week to forging signed copies of books by Tom Clancy, and other famous authors and selling them on eBay.

Forrest Smith III, of Reading, victimized more than 1,000 bibliophiles and netted more than $300,000 between 2002 and December, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff said in a story in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Smith, 47, bought unsigned first editions of books on eBay and had stamps made to replicate the authors' signatures. He would then stamp books with the "signatures" of Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Crichton, Norman Mailer, Anne Rice, John Irving, Tom Wolfe and others. Smith used an account created in his wife's name - bev103162smith - to sell the forged books, Dubnoff said according to the Daily News.

Prosecutors said there were more than 400 victims since December 2006; Dubnoff said the number may have topped 1,000 since 2002. I hope Read Street collectors avoided the scam.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Before I get into the four-day party going down at Marriot's Hunt Valley Inn, I wanted to mention a few events for those who haven't yet discovered how much they love science fiction and fantasy books.

Award-winning poet Bryan Walpert will discuss and sign his first collection of poetry, Etymology, at The Ivy Saturday afternoon.  Walpert, a New Zealand resident, won the 2007 New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, is poetry editor of Bravado and winner of a National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award for teaching creative writing in New Zealand.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, the Atomic Books book club will discuss Our Band Could be Your Life, which I've glimpsed on a bookshelf at home, but have not yet read. Now that it has the Atomic seal of approval, it's getting bumped up on my list.

Neil Gaiman fans will find pleasant company at Constellation Books Thursday night, as the store's book club discusses Stardust. Terrible movie, good book. Just take my word for it.

And finally: Balticon.

I won't try to do this event justice with just a few paragraphs. It's basically every party I ever had in high school and college wrapped into one big celebration.

Books? Check.

Movie marathon? Check.

Costumes? Check.

Live music? Check.

Dance party? Check.

Discussions about alien sex?

Oh come on, like that's not normal.

There will be four books launched at Balticon 43; authors and artists will sign their books and discuss their influences, inspirations and issues; and the Compton Crook Award winner will be announced.

And who can resist an event with Edgar Allan Poe named as the Ghost of Honor?

Posted by Nancy Knight at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Book It
        

Read Street regular Patrick emailed that he had thought of a good book line but had no place to use it: "A half-read, half-bad book is a curse." A bad book you can discard. A good book is a pleasure. The majority of books, though, are half bad. Discarding one partway through feels like failure. Finishing one feels like a long bad trek.

Good line -- and thought -- Patrick. I have a hard time NOT finishing a book once I've started it. Maybe I'm a little too goal-oriented. Or maybe I'm too optimistic, waiting for a shallow plot to turn to gold. Whatever. I've made the "long bad trek" too often.

In the past couple of years, I can only think of one book that I left undone -- Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch. And it's certainly not because the book was bad, or even half-bad. I just got distracted in the middle and never regained the momentum. It still sits on a shelf in my den, the bookmark a silent weight on my conscience.

Maybe the key is to make sure our expectations match our reading picks? Many of us hold beach books to a different (read lower) standard than books that are expected to carry us through the grim winter months.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Adapting a 447-page novel to the stage is not for the faint of heart, especially a tome with the sprawling nature and epic ambitions of Edna Ferber's Giant, which attempts to chronicle the entire history of Texas by examining the marriage of a cowboy landowner to a white-glove Virginian.

Still it can be done -- just witness the success of a little musical, also based on a Ferber novel, named Showboat, which will probably still be revived in American theaters until, oh, the end of time. Granted, it helps if your creative team includes Showboat's two geniuses, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, and if they punch out catchy little tunes like "Ol' Man River."

The world premiere of Giant, running at Signature Theatre, is a bit of a runaway steer. The first two acts gallop by. When you get to the third, well, let's just say that you wish someone would lasso that longhorn. Looking at the different choices made by the producers of Showboat and Giant can be instructive in the art of making the leap from page to stage.

First things first: with a running time of four hours, 10 minutes the stage version of Giant is officially longer than Hamlet. Someone, some time, should have cracked the whip and ordered at least an hour's worth of trims. Showboat the musical, for instance, clocks in at a relatively compact 2 hours 45 minutes -- and the themes it deals with are every bit as sweeping and tough as are those in Giant.

Both novels deal with racism, in the form of so-called "mixed" marriages. In Showboat, the object of prejudice is a mulatto actress named Julie, and in Giant, it is a Mexican-American teacher named Juana. Both novels use geograph features as metaphors for social changes in the U.S. -- the state of Texas, and the Mississippi River, respectively.

But the stage version of Showboat knows how to focus it's material, and the stage version of Giant does not. Kern and Hammerstein knew that telling a story on stage essentially is a different process than telling a story in a novel, and they weren't afraid to bend Ferber's novel to fit their needs. They weren't afraid to begin the musical at the equivalent of Showboat the novel's chapter 7, bypassing dozens of pages of lengthy exposition and introducing audiences immediately to the story's two central couples. 

Hammerstein (who wrote the script) wasn't afraid to elevate minor characters in the novel (Queenie) into major ones, and to take a major character in the book (Parthy) and give her a much-reduced role on stage. (Less successful was his decision to rewrite Ferber's plot to give the stage story a happy ending, but you can't win 'em all.)

Giant, in contrast, adheres closely to the book's plot, occasionally to its detriment. The main focus ought to be the triangle provided by rancher Bick, his genteel, society-bred wife, Leslie, and Jett, the sensual ranch hand who makes his fortune in oil. But for half of the third act, Sybille Pearson's script abandons this trio to recount the problems of the younger generation. The plot loses all momentum and moseys along like a hobbled and over-burdened pack-horse.

Of course, the romance between Juana and Jordy (Bick and Leslie's son) is key to Ferber's story. Lose that, and you'd lose the racism theme. But, the audience doesn't need to see the young couple's love develop as much as we need to see the effect it has on Bick, and the way his reaction strains his own marriage.

In a novel, you can ramble down twisting pathways for 447 pages. Readers will tolerate, and even relish, a few unexpected sidetriips. But in a musical or play, you better know what story you're telling, get to it right away, and stick to it.

I'm sure you have other examples of books that successfully made the transition to either stage or screen -- and those that floundered. (Harry Potter? To Kill a Mockingbird?) I'd love to know your thoughts as to which of these adaptations work, which don't, and why or why not.

Pictured are Lewis Cleale as Bick and Betsy Morgan as Leslie in Signature Theatre's new production of Giant.

Posted by Mary McCauley at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Reviews
        

Even the library is taking Dave's side in this drinking debate!

Today at 11 a.m., the Pratt is celebrating the grand opening of the Pratt Cafe at the Central Library main hall. Patrons can now pick up a cup of Seattle's Best coffee at the self-serve coffee kiosk, the first one of its kind in a public library.

Add that to the free wireless internet that's been available since September, and Starbucks has some major competition.

“One of our primary goals is to keep the Pratt Library relevant and ahead of the curve,” said Carla D. Hayden, Chief Executive Officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, in the news release. “Our patrons have always told us the Pratt is their home away from home. Now with these wonderful new services, a self-service coffee kiosk and wireless internet, the Pratt is providing more information and comfort all in one place.”

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

I guess Twitter Lit was inevitable. Considering the site's popularity, it was just a matter of time before we saw a new genre: Books generated by little blue cartoon birds.

David Pogue, who writes (and tweets) about technology for the New York Times, is developing a book from responses to questions posed to his tens of thousands of followers on Twitter. Sample question: What made your first kiss an amazing story? Answers: From ChaseClark -- First kiss in high school, in car, front of her house. Leaned on the horn as kissed--Yes, her parents were at home. From betaboy78 -- My 1st kiss, she forgot to put car in Park--slowly ran into my garage during kiss! Hard to explain to my parents.

Pogue isn't the only one to develop a book based on 140-character bits. Twitter Wit, a compilation of funny messages, is scheduled for a fall release by HarperCollins. In a larger sense, it's another example of the evolution of the book. Chris Anderson used crowd-sourcing to help hone ideas while writing The Long Tail. And Bob Stein, co-director of the Institute for the Future of the Book, has proposed a new definition of a book: "a place where readers (and sometimes authors) congregate" In a post a few months ago, I asked: Is wiki lit our future?

I didn't realize Twitter Lit would surpass it so quickly. What's next -- a rewrite of Irene Nemirovsky's novel, to be titled Tweet Francaise?

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Among the new releases heading our way Tuesday:

My Remarkable Journey by Larry King (Weinstein, $27.95) Larry King has interviewed more than 40,000 people, from Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama to Madonna and Oprah. With this autobiography, King offers personal anecdotes and glimpses of his guests when the cameras have stopped rolling.

The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith (Grand Central, $24.99) While Leo Demidov, the Russian detective from Child 44, no longer works as an MGB agent, his past continues to trail him. In this thriller, Leo battles a revenge-seeking gang leader who has taken Leo’s daughter hostage.

Lost Boy by Brent W. Jeffs with Maia Szalavitz (Broadway, $24.95). Jeffs, the nephew of former (now imprisoned) president of Utah’s Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), recently filed a sexual-abuse lawsuit against his uncle. Two of his brothers, also former FLDS members, killed themselves after leaving the FLDS community. This memoir aims to help former members cross the chasm that stands between the disparate worlds of the FLDS and American society.

Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success—and Won’t Let You Fail by Keith Ferrazzi (Broadway, $25) Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, emphasizes “lifeline relationships” in this self-help book. Ferrazzi believes all goals are achievable through teamwork. The Sign by Raymond Khoury (Dutton, $26.95) TVs around the world are focused on Antarctica, where an ice shelf is breaking. As the calamitous global warming development is being filmed, a giant symbol appears in the sky. A TV reporter and a car thief discover the meaning of the surreal sign.

The American Future: A History by Simon Schama (Ecco, $29.99). In order to form an image of where America is headed, four different historical elements are dissected in this book: American War, American Fervour, What is an American? and American Plenty. Narratives range from the career of Civil War general Montgomery Meigs to J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s perspective of American xenophobia. Schama meets complex history with optimism regarding America’s ability to react appropriately to uncertain times.

From Amazon, Publishers Weekly

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

First of all, I just wanted to let you know that if you missed Michael Pollan this weekend at the Pratt, I'm very, very sorry for you. The man is knowledgeable without being crazy obsessive and extremely funny.

Also, he shared his favorite curse word, and since I can't repeat it here, you'll now never know what it was.

While the talk was about a sustainable food system, a comment Pollan made about writers and their egos actually caught my attention to a problem I've been stewing over lately, reader's block.

I'm sure we've all encountered this issue: You're reading a book, and no matter how interesting the topic or skilled the writer, you just can't get into it.

I find this happens to me quite often whenever I read George Orwell.

I recognize his great abilities as both a writer and a thinker, but I just can't make myself connect. Why is that?

And then Pollan began talking about the process of writing a book, and watching how the public receives it.

"It's all about the writer's ego, basically," he said. He maintains that the writer is in a sense brainwashing the reader, so that they think about the subject matter through the writer's perspective. Which isn't to say that the reader can't disagree, but that in that moment, the reader's thoughts and beliefs are superceded by the writer's.  

We all become little book zombies!

And that's when I realized why I can't get through Orwell. I don't buy into his philosophy at all. And as soon as I feel myself drowning in that misanthropic world, I resist it. The same can be said of Cormac McCarthy and Charles Dickens. I just can't stand the idea of living in worlds with that much despair, and that many characters whom I just hate.

So thank you, Michael Pollan, for freeing me. The next time I can't finish a book, I can now blame the author just as much as myself.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Last week marked the first anniversary of Read Street, a significant milestone considering that Nancy and I were novices to blogging and barely knew each other when we started. Over the past year, which included about 850 blog posts, I’ve come to have a better appreciation for her literary tastes, which run to supernatural killers and strong female protagonists, or any combination of the two such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I’ve also enjoyed getting to know the Baltimore area’s fellow book lovers, who joined discussions on topics ranging from favorite reads to faked memoirs to shelving strategies (by author, genre or color-coded?).

The hottest exchange continues over Stephen King’s criticism of Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series. More than 450 comments have been made on that issue, some defending King, others blasting him (in oft-fractured grammar usually reserved for text-messages). My favorite: stephan ur a gerk!

And I’ve enjoyed experimenting with the combo of a print column and online blog. The blog provides the freedom to publish news and opinion every day, without worrying about deadlines and space restraints. We’ve developed quizzes, an events calendar and a U.S. map of favorite bookstores. And we can call on authors and others to write about topics such as the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth — for which author Marilynne Robinson did a poetic post. An excerpt: “Poe made me think about words. Which is the loveliest word, the loveliest letter? I believe I may have known that these are the kinds of almost idle questions one poses to oneself when a night seems to be unending, when the weight of sorrow is so great as to be dangerous.”

Over the year, I’ve also watched my literary tastes evolve. I was once a monogamous reader, limiting myself to a relationship with one book. Nancy and other Read Streeters have pushed me toward literary polygamy, so I now read two or three books at a time. I sought to understand the King-Meyer storm by reading Twilight, a YA book that I normally would have shunned. (And, to Nancy’s horror, I liked it.). I also stretched into poetry.

Thanks to all of you who made this a memorable year.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

For an early peek at Sunday's Baltimore Sun, here's a roundup of mystery reviews from Oline Cogdill:

Devil’s Garden by Ace Atkins (Putnam / $24.95/ 368 p.) Before O.J. Simpson and other trials of the century du jour as well as endless news of celebrities acting badly, there was silent film comic Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s 1921 rape and manslaughter trial. Atkins uses this real event as the basis for his historical mystery Devil’s Garden. Atkins’ meticulous research enhances his eighth novel, a look at the fascination with celebrities, the power of the press, dirty politics, voyeurism and the thrill that the early movies brought to audiences. Atkins doesn’t just throw real-life facts into his novel; he skillfully weaves them into a suspense-laden story that serves as a look at the early film industry, an homage to Hammett and his Maltese Falcon, and a valentine to San Francisco of the 1920s. Even if Devil’s Garden has the reader racing to the Web to learn about the real case, Atkins’ gritty take on the era is riveting.

The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books / $24.95 / 373 p.) Johnny Merrimon — a 13-year-old who looks 10 — has learned what no child his age should even begin to think about. His twin sister, Alyssa, is last seen getting into a white van, his father leaves a few weeks later and his once vivacious mother gives into drugs, alcohol and grief. Edgar-winner Hart succinctly pulls together a terrifying, emotionally heartbreaking story that lays bare the extent of human emotions. Hart is an extraordinary storyteller, and his third novel, The Last Child, surpasses his superb first two.

Intent to Kill by James Grippando (Harper / $25.99 / 356 p.) Grippando’s thrillers make the perfect marriage of well-drawn characters and realistic action. Intent to Kill’s characters seem like old friends, while the novel strongly fits in the family thriller genre, reminiscent of Harlan Coben. The past three years have been rough for Ryan James. His wife, Chelsea, was killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Ryan was consumed by grief and his career fizzled. A shock jock for a Boston sports talk radio show, Ryan has only one joy in life: his 5-year-old daughter, who was miraculously unharmed in that auto accident. But on the third anniversary of Chelsea’s death, Ryan and Emma Carlisle, the prosecutor in charge of the case, receive several anonymous tips that Chelsea’s death was no accident. The danger heightens as Ryan and Emma team up to find who’s behind these messages.

While the reader can see the burgeoning relationship between Emma and Ryan, Grippando doesn’t resort to a predictable outcome. But the most thoughtfully drawn character is Babes, Chelsea’s autistic brother. Grippando doesn’t shrink from showing the various facets of Babes and how his autism has affected him and his family.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Reviews
        

Is Dan Brown the Rodney Dangerfield of authors? The guy's book sales are recorded in the zillions (The Lost Symbol, is headed there too), and his movies are instant blockbusters. Yet he gets no respect. Author Jodi Picoult and others call his writing simplistic, and movie critics shred Angels & Demons.

The latest swipe comes from Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard, who plays the head of the Pope's Swiss guard in A&D. You might remember him from last year's Arn - Riket vid vägens slut. No? Well he also played the M.I.T. prof in Good Will Hunting.

He says he took a role only after reading the script based on the book. "I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliffhangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading," Skarsgard told Swedish broadcaster SVT. "It's like eating peanuts at a bar. You don't like them, but you keep on eating them anyway."

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. I'm sure Brown, like Dangerfield, will accept the criticism graciously. As long as the royalty checks keep rolling in.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Happy Friday, everybody! I have big plans to go see Michael Pollan speak tomorrow, accompanied by a couple of my oldest friends.

I hope they don't intend to eat anything soon afterward, because while brilliant, nothing puts me off food faster than a few thoughts from that man's brain.

I've been preoccupied lately with a little light reading based on Greek mythology, which I've adored since elementary school. Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series is great for mythology buffs, and most of the fun is simply trying to identify the different gods and creatures, such as Chiron, Dionysus, Prometheus and Medusa, before the book names them outright.

It's not nearly as satisfying as C.S. Lewis' Til We Have Faces, which was patterned after the Cupid and Psyche myth, but Riordan's books are perfect for a rainy afternoon, which we've had many of.

But moving along to the prize portion of this post, Brian is the lucky reader to get Netherland. I hope you enjoy it, sir! 

Next up, is Alice Hoffman's The Story Sisters. Described as at once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga and a love story, the plot follows three sisters through their fateful lives.

So what are you reading?

Posted by Nancy Knight at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Categories: Freebie Friday
        

Here's a great way to enjoy books, without having to actually read them. It's perfect for SAHMs, book bloggers and anyone else who doesn't have enough time to read.

This site explains the art, called fore-edge painting, and includes some amazing videos. Put simply, it involves painting the edges of a book's pages, so an image emerges when the pages are fanned out.

In reality, it's much more complicated. (Isn't everything in life?) There are interesting variations such as the two-way double and split double. I promise you'll never look at a book the same way again.

p.s. This has little to do with books, but everything to do with TGIF. If you're a Sound of Music fan, or just need cheering up, check out this video recommended by my daughter.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Whatever
        

Hey guys! Did you miss me? Or, rather, did you miss the bookish roundup? I've been terribly neglectful, but that ends now.

Let's begin with the the 3rd Friday Night PerVERSE at what will soon be my neighborhood, Hamilton. Presented by PoetryinBaltimore.com and hosted by the Hamilton Arts Gallery, the night features Ryan Coffman/Sussurus Dinn; Rupert Wondolowski (whose name you may recognize from The Signal, The City Paper and The Shattered Wig Review; James Lindsay; and Garrett Brown. Admission is $5, and the event includes an open mic for you to strut your own stuff.

Saturday night, I hope to be at the Pratt to hear Michael Pollan speak about food and our relationships with it. The talk itself at 7 p.m. is free, but if you want to shell out some money, tickets are available at $35, which include entry to the cocktail reception from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., reserved seating for the lecture and a spot in the Poe Room to watch Preakness. That's a bit classier than the infield.

On Sunday, Mike Weedle will be at breathe books to discuss his book, 2012: Under the Witz Mountain.  He will be joined by percussionist Tom Jones on the marimba as he relates his modern retelling of the Mayan creation myth, Popol Vah.

And on Wednesday, the Greetings & Readings Book Club will discuss 1984. It's not my cup of tea, but I know there are plenty of people out there who just love the dystopian theme.

Don't see anything you like? There are plenty more activities. Just check out the Read Street Calendar.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Book It
        

If you missed William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn at the Pratt last night, here's an article about their talk, which hit topics such as at-risk students, U.S. foreign policy and Americans' conspicuous consumption.

The Ayers/Dohrn tour has been bumpy. Appearances at Boston College and other places have been called off because of the pair's past links to the radical Weather Underground (see hippie-era photo at left). Ayers and Dohrn, who have been university professors in recent years, were drawn back into the public eye when Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists," a barb aimed at a reported connection to Ayers.

Outside the Pratt last night, a small group protested the Ayers/Dohrn appearance, but the audience was appreciative. Both thanked the Pratt for the invitation to speak. "In a free republic, you have to have a free library," Dohrn said.

Photo from Chicago Tribune

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Marylandia
        

On a day as grey as this one, I'd love to be reading in a cafe, with a cup of hot chocolate perched nearby. (Hold the whipped cream, I'm watching my calories.)

When I read, I usually have a drink at hand. Mornings, it's hot chocolate and at lunch, it's iced tea. At night, when most of my reading is done, it's a liqueur: sambuca or limoncello. (I've often felt that in a previous life I was an Italian fisherman.)

Nancy says reading is all about the book, so she doesn't multi-task by reading and drinking. Poor thing, she doesn't know what she's missing.

What's your beverage of choice while reading?

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

What do you call a fiery, nationally known politician without a book contract? Sarah Palin.

Until now. Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate who was a walking joke book for liberals but a darling of conservatives, has signed a book deal with HarperCollins. Her memoir is scheduled for release in Spring 2010, the year she is up for re-election.

"There's been so much written about and spoken about in the mainstream media and in the anonymous blogosphere world, that this will be a wonderful, refreshing chance for me to get to tell my story, that a lot of people have asked about, unfiltered," the Alaska governor told The Associated Press.

As a member of the nonanonymous blogosphere world, I'm not big on such memoirs, especially those written by politicians or other noted figures in their prime. They seem to be too calculated, too much the marketing device. I'd rather read the memoir of an old lion, recounted as he sits in a leather covered chair, sipping brandy. Or a gripping political/business/personal tale such as Personal History by Katherine Graham, the former head of The Washington Post.

But I can't fault Palin, 45, for cashing in. President Obama -- and everyone connected to him -- will be enriched by book contracts. He earned nearly $2.5 million in royalties last year from Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope, according to a Post report on his disclosure forms. And he added $500,000 more on Jan. 15, just before taking office, when he signed a deal for a YA version of Dreams.

Meanwhile, new books were announced for Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, Michelle Obama's brother, Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem and Bo the Portuguese water dog.  Duke University Press even plans to publish the dissertation that the late Ann Dunham, the president's mother, submitted on rural craftsmen in Indonesia.

So start typing (or dictating), Sarah!

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

While Read Street will always be home, I wanted to let you guys know about my new gig over at Second Opinion.

Today, I write about Bill Ayers and his co-author/wife Bernardine Dohrn's talk at the Central Library tonight at 6:30. I'm sure everyone's got an opinion about this guy, so go on over and give it to us.

Of course, I left a bit of news just for you guys: If you want a more intimate setting to speak to (or protest) the couple, publicist Cathy Compton let me know that Afrikan World Books is hosting a book signing of Race Course: Against White Supremacy tomorrow at 5 p.m.You'll find the store at 2217 Pennsylvania Ave.

Anyone think they'll go to either event?

Posted by Nancy Knight at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today, Nancy and I celebrate our first blogiversary, so the cake's on us.

One year ago, Read Street started with a post that promised we would highlight "the social-ness of reading. Somewhere along the way, reading stopped being a solitary affair and became just the starting point for clubs, cocktail discussions and Oprah-esque media extravagance."

Now, 848 posts and 2,697 comments later, we can celebrate a year of blogging. Thanks to all who have read and commented. It's been fun getting to know our fellow book lovers.

p.s. Nancy tells me that the proper gift for a one-year blogiversary is diamonds. If anyone can verify that, let me know.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Marylandia
        

For your reading pleasure, some literary links from The Baltimore Sun:

Television critic David Zurawik has developed a love/hate relationship with Kate Gosselin, the reality-TV headliner of Jon & Kate Plus Eight and who is hawking a new book, Eight Little Faces. He hates her kvetching but loves the passion she inspires among fans and critics. He's even gone so far as to ask: Has she replaced the June Cleaver/Donna Reed personna to become TV's new model of motherhood?  

In today's Sun, you can get Michael Pollan’s advice on healthful eating: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Pollan, whose books include The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, An Eater’s Manifesto, will give a reading at the Pratt on Saturday. He says of his pithy advice: "The deeper I delved into the whole field of nutrition science and the whole issue of what you should eat, the simpler it got. ... those seven words say it all. That was a little alarming to my publisher because she was expecting 50- or 60,000 words."

Columnist Susan Reimer chatted with Debbie Phelps, the mother of Olympic swimming hero Michael Phelps and author of the memoir A Mother for All Seasons. Ms. Phelps says a child requires a special kind of parenting when he is in his 20s. "A parent is never done. There are parents who think once a child hits 18, they are done. You learn pretty quickly that their roots might not be as deep as you think."

Photo by Karen Alquist, TLC

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

In my experience, the best part of buying a house?

The built-in bookcases.

Not only because all of my friends need a new home, and they'll look just darling on those shelves, but because it gives me the excuse to fulfill my lifelong dream of having my very own library ladder.

What do you mean that's weird?

So here's my dilemma: Should I buy a step ladder, like this one from IKEA? Or should I make one that's exactly what I want, similar to this specimen showcased.

Or do any of you have a pretty ladder you'd like to show me? Help me out, Read Streeters!

(Photo courtesy of sasa eh at stock.xchng)

Posted by Nancy Knight at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

I like fishing holes. I like holes-in-one. I like holes in doughnuts.

I do not like holes in novels.

Although it’s only May, this year I’ve already read two books that had gaping, unforgivable holes in their plots. Both would be apparent to anyone who reads even an occasional Agatha Christie mystery or watches the slightest amount of CSI. Both certainly should have been apparent to editors.

The holes left me with a sour taste for otherwise enjoyable books: Beyond Suspicion by Tanguy Viel and City of Thieves by David Benioff.

Viel’s book attracted me because I’m a hopeless Francophile and its jacket blurbs promised a tale worthy of Chandler, Hitchcock or de Palma. With the bar set that high, I probably should have walked away immediately. Instead, I dove into a story about a French couple who are down on their luck and aiming for a once-in-a-lifetime score.

Spoiler alert — key plot elements coming your way. When their extortion plan turns unexpectedly into murder, what does the now-shaken couple do? They head for the bar closest to the crime scene and have a beer. Together. In broad daylight.

Think any self-respecting flic might canvass area bars once the crime is discovered? And find out that the couple, who have been posing as brother and sister, are actually lovers? And send them off to prison?

Benioff’s book also has been highly praised in reviews. It’s about two Russians who are arrested in Leningrad during the Nazi siege, and sent behind enemy lines on an improbable, comic mission. There’s a lot to like here, including Benioff’s ability to depict the Russians’ odd mixture of nationalistic pride and cynicism.

Spoiler alert No. 2. The Nazis capture both men, and one of them hides a knife in his boot. When another prisoner uses it to kill a fellow Russian who is a collaborator, what does the Nazi guard who discovers the body do? Nothing. No search of the prisoners, no retribution for the killing. So the knife stays with the prisoner and ...

Even I wouldn’t spoil that.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

In Sunday's Sun, Cornell University professor Glenn C. Altschuler reviews Pay To Play: How Rod Blagojevich Turned Political Corruption Into a National Show by Elizabeth Brackett (Ivan R. Dee / 247 pages / $24.95). Here's an excerpt from the review:

While a grand jury was investigating him, Blagojevich was preparing to run for president of the United States. He thought he’d make universal health care and the importation of low-cost prescription drugs from Canada his signature issues. And he began to ramp up his fundraising operations. His ability as governor of Illinois to confer contracts to wealthy individuals and companies, he emphasized, made it easier "to solicit people for contributions."

According to Brackett, a correspondent for PBS’ NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, Blagojevich’s plans were eclipsed by Barack Obama’s race to the White House. They came crashing down when U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald alleged that the governor was involved in a "political corruption crime spree" that would "make Lincoln roll over in his grave."

In Pay To Play, Brackett provides a lively account of the tragi-comedy that culminated in the governor’s impeachment. She pays particular attention to the shocking traditions of corruption in Illinois politics that served as a model for Blagojevich.

Since 1974, in fact, three governors have served time in prison. Brackett also demonstrates as well that the sale of Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder was by no means the only — or the worst — of his crimes against the citizens of the state.

Illinois’ lax campaign finance laws, Brackett argues, paved the way for pay-to-play. The legislation sets no restrictions on contributions and allows unlimited donations from individuals and groups. Only this year did a new ethics law bar anyone doing business with the state from making a contribution.

Introduced to shakedowns, side-deals and no-show jobs early in his career, Brackett writes, Blagojevich, "who loved politics but hated to govern," was nothing if not brazen. He threatened to impound $8 million in state funds for pediatric physicians until Patrick Magoon, the CEO of Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital, added $50,000 to his campaign war chest. ...

Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, Brackett indicates, was up to her eyeballs in corruption as well. A licensed real estate broker and the daughter of Rod’s mentor, Alderman Dick Mell, she received hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions from political supporters, fundraising and contractors, including the soon-to-be notorious Tony Rezko.

And so, no one was surprised when the Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to remove Blagojevich from office. ...

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Diane Scharper, an author and English professor at Towson University, gives us capsule reviews of three books with a local flavor.

Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies by Michael Olmert (Cornell University Press / 277 pages / $27.95). Contrary to popular usage, outhouses are not synonymous with privies. As Olmert explains it in this lighthearted architectural history, outhouses or outbuildings include kitchens, smokehouses, dairies, dovecotes, offices, icehouses, and privies. A professor of English at the University of Maryland and an Emmy-Award-winning writer, Olmert enhances this account with gems of information from art, architecture etymology, history and literature. For starters, the term "outhouse" has been used since the 14th century, while the word "privy" originated in 1819. Privies are also called lavatories, necessary houses water closets, latrines and Cloacina temples (after the Roman goddess of sewers). Olmert’s fact-filled account liberally quotes Shakespeare, Hardy, Chaucer, Byron, Bacon, Pope and others as it describes buildings where one can cure meat, churn milk into cheese, house doves, write law briefs, chill foods and, of course, answer nature’s call. All of which this suggests that one can take a homely subject and make it, if not glamorous, at least entertaining.

The Glass House by Daniel Mark Epstein (Louisiana State University Press / 78 pages; paperback / $17.95). In his eighth collection of poetry, the prolific Baltimore author continues his tradition of formal verse (sonnets, blank verse and tercets) using slant rhyme and complex metaphors. Sometimes, as in the title poem, those metaphors take the form of a conceit — referencing a proverb with the poet spinning the adage to surprising effect. Better known for his award-winning biographies,  Epstein refers to himself as a "poet moonlighting biography." The best poem here,

"Dead Reckoning," uses "The Odyssey" as a framework to muse on the perils of everyone’s life journey. Rich with allusions to literature, the Bible and Greek mythology, these cerebral and melancholic poems nod to Homer, Alexander Pope and Walt Whitman, among others. Lewis Carroll and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Ultimately, like Edna St. Vincent Millay, Epstein attempts to connect with those he has loved and lost. More often than not, he succeeds.

Eager Street by Arlando "Tray" Jones (Apprentice House / 298 pages / $24.95). Like all good memoirists, Jones writes to tell a story, not to change the world. The story begins in a ghetto in East Baltimore and ends in a prison in Hagerstown. In between, Jones, the son of an alcoholic and drug-addicted mother, grew up on Eager Street. He lived in relative comfort in the home of his grandmother and grandfather, who operated a numbers business and who gave Jones a work ethic — albeit one connected to an illegal trade. Jones’ grandmother and aunts taught him a moral code, which insisted that he act like a gentleman and keep old people and children out of harm’s way. But when Jones’ mother and grandfather died, his grandmother fell victim to drugs. Soon, Jones was left to his own devices. By age 12, he was dealing drugs. By 14, he was a trigger man for a drug dealer. By 17, he was sentenced to life for murder. In this compelling coming-of-age account, Jones doesn’t preach against the drug trade. Instead, he offers a cautionary tale which speaks eloquently for itself.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Marylandia
        

In the latest episode of Authors Behaving Badly, Jodi Picoult calls Dan Brown's immensely popular Da Vinci Code "an error in judgment." According to the British press reports, she said, "I don't understand the hype over such a poorly written novel - and as an author who does all her own research, I know better than to consider myself an expert in the field I am writing about. I believe this was an error in judgment for this particular author."

The reports note that Brown has heard harsh words before -- in 2005 Salman Rushdie called DVC "a novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name." But I doubt Brown would have heard that over the sound of cash registers ringing up DVC sales.

Picoult's criticism isn't likely to kick up the sort of storm that hit when Stephen King called out Stephenie Meyer, saying she "can't write worth a darn." And it's not likely to slow publicity for Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, which is scheduled for release in mid-September. Still, it's entertaining.

(While we're on the topic of Picoult, I recently saw the preview for the movie adaption of My Sister's Keeper. I think half the sudience was in tears.)

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Happy Friday, everybody!

I hope you've got fantastic plans for this weekend, because it looks like the rain is letting up long enough for a picnic with your favorite book. Oh, and people, I guess.

I, for one, have been spending a lot of time with biologist Bill Schutt's Dark Banquet. Schutt's got a great conversational voice that rarely devolves into scientific jargon that I don't want to follow. And for those who DO want to follow it, there are plenty of explanatory footnotes.

Also, it's about animals who drink blood! It's creepy, funny and really, really interesting.

But on to the giveaway.

Pygmy will be finding a home with ... Eve! It's not a mystery, but I hope you enjoy it.

Next up for giveaway is Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. It's had nothing but good reviews, and was recently found in President Barack Obama's hands.

Not surprisingly, its sales immediately shot up.

But you don't have to buy it! Just tell us what you're reading, and it could be yours for free!

Posted by Nancy Knight at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Freebie Friday
        

File this one under the "If You Can't Beat 'Em, 'Join 'Em" department. 

A new, 30-minute television show that puts the focus on books and authors around the world debuts at 8:30 p.m. Monday on Link TV (DIRECTV Channel 375 and DISH Channel 9410).

Each weekly show will feature actors and other artists reading aloud from the works of authors who hail from a particular location. For instance, the premiere focuses on writers and artists who have lived and worked in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.

So Broadway actor Jeffrey Wright will read aloud from poet Walt Whitman and best-seller Ishmael Beal, while playwright and musician Carl Hancock Rux reads excerpts from novelists Henry Miller and Richard Wright. (Talk about strange bedfellows...)

The show will be hosted by Ina Howard-Parker, an editor and book publicist.

There have been television programs featuring writers before. But the producers say this is an effort to use new media to help authors reach potential readers.

And, while some of the authors excerpted will be certifiable Great Writers who already are part of the pantheon, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the show's true goal is to showcase new talents, such as poet Suheir Hammad, and singer-songwriter Nucomme. After all, how much more publicity does Walt Whitman need?

Each show will be the equivalent of a 30-minute short film shot entirely on location and combining readings, performances, and interviews. Individual segments will be released as independent, online short films available to websites, blogs, and other social media. Each short will be embedded with information about upcoming author readings, and where to buy a particular writer's work.

As Howard-Parker puts it in a news release: "Our aim is to help writers and publishers reach diverse and diffuse audiences through the media they're already consuming, and then to bring them back to books. In the new media landscape, the richness and excitement of books needs to translate to a wider range of media, whether television, iPhone dowloads or Facebook pages."

You can read more about the project here.

Can a Twitter version of Moby Dick be far behind?

Posted by Mary McCauley at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Sorry to deviate from the reading theme, but I find myself enveloped by sadness today, after learning about the fatal shooting of Johanna Justin-Jinich, a junior at Wesleyan University. You see, Wesleyan is my alma mater, and Johanna lived on the same dormitory hall as my daughter in their freshman year. Though I don't recall meeting the young woman from Colorado, I can't shake the image of move-in day in late summer of 2006, as bright-eyed students began their college years amid a sea of cardboard boxes and limitless ideals.

As I write, the campus -- about 3,000 students in Middletown, Conn., is completely locked down because the suspect is still at large. Johanna was killed yesterday afternoon as she worked in the cafe of the school bookstore, and police are searching for her former boyfriend, who was pictured on security cameras just before the shooting.

As our children grow, we hope only to shield them from the dangers of our society. We know it's impossible -- whether in a city such as Baltimore or a small town in Connecticut. Yet we try. Now every young man and woman at Wesleyan will be touched by this slaying; even for a group that grew up in a post-9/11 era, some innocence must be lost. Of course, the most devastating loss is Johnanna, by all accounts a promising young woman who was headed this summer to an internship in Washington.

And somewhere, parents woke up this morning without a daughter.

Photo from the Hartford Courant

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

In the wake of Elizabeth Strout's recent, long-shot win of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Olive Kitteridge, I'd like to say a few words in praise of the episodic novel.

Because the field this year was dominated with offerings by such heavyweights as the late John Updike, Philip Roth and former Pulitzer winner Marilynne Robinson, Strout's little book wasn't considered a front-runner.

The book's form also was thought to be a potential handicap. Olive consists of 13 exquisitely observed short stories set in a small Maine town. Each story is complete in itself and can be read out of order, but they are linked by a main character -- in this case, by the acerbic, retired schoolteacher who gives the book its title.

Though it's not unheard of for the Pulitzer to go to the author of a short story collection (past winners include Jhumpa Lahiri in 2000, John Cheever in 1979 and Jean Stafford in 2000) the nation's top literary prize is handed out far more frequently to novels. 

Yet, in its official citation, the Pulitzer board wrote that Strout's stories "pack a cumulative emotional wallop" and described Olive herself as "blunt, flawed, and fascinating."

They're right, and in my opinion, the episodic novel is an underrated literary form. Partly, my preference is pragmatic. I can read a 20- or 30-page short story before going to bed at night, and feel as though I've embarked upon, and completed, an entire journey. I don't have to worry about losing continuity if I don't pick the book back up for a day or two.

But, it's more than that. In the reader's guide at the back of the paperback edition, Strout says 

Strout also says that this structure allowed her to recount small-town life from multiple points of view. 

That got me thinking of other episodic novels with strong-willed or eccentric characters (Don Quixote and Tom Jones) and those that use this type of storytelling with multiple viewpoints to tell a larger story about a community (Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Harriet Doerr's masterful Stones for Ibarra.)

These books, even the comic masterpieces, tend to sneak up on you. It's like you're standing above an underground river that all of a sudden emerges, foaming and splashing, from its hidden cave. In a novel, readers know that a development in the first chapter will surely have ramifications later in the story. In an episodic story, cause and effect tends to be more carefully concealed.

What are some of your favorite episodic books? 

Posted by Mary McCauley at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Today, Amazon unveiled their new, ginormous Kindle DX. That name makes me think of a car, rather than a book, but I'm sure their marketing people know what they're doing.

 So what's so big about it? First off, the screen is 9.7 inches (as opposed to the Kindle 2's 6 inches); the device holds about 2,000 more books and periodicals, and, oh yeah, THE PRICE: $489.

There are some nice new perks, as well. The screen can switch from portrait to landscape as you turn it, making maps, graphs and pictures much easier to view. And the DX has a PDF reader so that your personal documents will be accessible without worrying about conversion.

Meanwhile, there's some evidence that the larger screen was definitely the way to go, since Kindle users' age demographics seem to mirror newspaper subscribers.  This unofficial poll found that, of 700 Kindle owners, more than 50 percent were 50 or older, and more than 70 percent were 40 or older.

My own age bracket of  20-29? A paltry 10 percent.

So what do you think? Are you more or less likely to buy a Kindle now? How about for Mom? Mother's Day is right around the corner...

Posted by Nancy Knight at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Today, Amazon is expected to unveil a new Kindle electronic book device with a larger screen that would be geared for textbooks, magazines and newspapers and possibly shake up the economics of multiple industries at once, according to news reports.

Leading up to its scheduled announcement at Pace University in New York, Amazon has not disputed reports in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other publications that a larger Kindle is on tap. The most recent version of the Kindle was announced in February by company head Jeff Bezos (shown here).

The current device's screen, 6 inches on the diagonal, is more suited to paperback books than larger reading material. If Amazon creates a bigger device better suited for periodicals, it could help give newspapers and magazines a better way to sell digital versions of their content, the AP said.

Everyone on Read Street knows that I am not the biggest fan of the Kindle (that would be Nancy). But if the Kindle-saurus creates a new way to monetize the content of The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers, I'm all for it. The newspaper industry -- like other mass media -- has struggled financially in the Internet era, as websites such as Craigslist siphon off classified ad divert revenue and aggregators such as Google rip off news reports. This could be a way to attract readers who like the format of a newspaper, but dislike ink rubbing off on their hands.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Congratulations to Charles W. Mitchell of Lutherville, whose Maryland Voices of the Civil War has won the Founders Award from the Museum of the Confederacy. The award is for excellence in the editing of primary source documents related to the Confederate period.

The museum said a panel of independent judges praised Mitchell’s book, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, as an "imaginative and even innovative" work and an "exceptional synthesis of a vast number of disparate sources into a narrative account of Maryland during the Civil War" a subject that is "overlooked and understudied."

Folks might not know that Mitchell comes from a mixed marriage: He has roots in the Confederacy, and his wife, Betsy, has ancestors who fought for the Union. Despite the Late Unpleasantness, they have had a long, happy marriage. (Full disclosure: My brother-in-law is related to the Mitchell family.) Here are some readings Mitchell recommended last year on Read Street.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Marylandia
        

It's a Mother's Day sale!

BookSwim is selling $50 gift cards -- the equivalent of a five-month membership at 3 books a month -- for $40, plus $20 worth of flowers from 1-800-flowers.com.

I had the pleasure of trying BookSwim out for a couple of months, and while it isn't quite the Netflix of books that it aims to be, having a package of books delivered to my door was pretty great.

If you're the type who doesn't have time to visit the library, and you don't mind waiting a week or so for your next package -- which is also a week or so to finish another book before you send it back -- BookSwim would be perfect for you.

Their selection seems to be growing everyday, and I was quite happy to find books as varied as The World Without Us, Pulitzer Prize-winner Gone with the Wind, National Book Award-winner The Hemingses of Monticello and Joss Whedon's Fray on the site.

There's also an option to keep any of the books that you rent. Simply log on to your account and indicate which book you're keeping; BookSwim will charge you a discounted rate, and you can add it to your bookshelf.

Sound like something mom (or you) would like? Give it a whirl!

(Photo by coralsea at stock.xchng)

Posted by Nancy Knight at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

A lot of attention has been focused on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series lately, because of reports of a bookstore ban and the filming of New Moon. Not to be outdone in vampire world, Charlaine Harris' latest, Dead and Gone, will be released tomorrow. Here's Chapter 1, if you'd like a sneak peek.

Harris' tales of Sookie Stackhouse have been adapted for the True Blood television series (whose second season is scheduled to begin in June), and her loyal fans are likely to stampede to the latest tale. Expect more of the horror/mystery crossover combo that she spoke about on Read Street last year.

As you wait for the new book, check out this interview with Harris from the Wall Street Journal. Topics include Southern writers who have influenced her, the series' small-town location, and differences between the books and the HBO series. Here's Harris on the popularity of vampires: "America is obsessed with youth. We all want to look young forever, and vampires do. They are caught in their prime, if that's when they've been turned. And they'll be that way forever."  

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

I don't know if you realized, but young adult titles have been cleaning house in the awards circuit.

Ursula K. Guin's Powers, the third in a children's trilogy, won the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book (along with Corey Doctorow's Little Brother) is a contender for the Hugo Award after winning the Newbery Medal, the more conventional children's award.

And Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go was honored with the James Triptree Jr. Literary Award, along with Nisi Shawl's "adult" Filter House.

So if you've been avoiding certain sections of the library or book store because you didn't want to waste your time on juvenile reads, it may be time to reassess your position. In my case, I find coming-of-age stories to be some of the most gratifying reads, and I think it's more than nostalgia that keeps my childhood favorites on my bookshelf even today.

Twilight may not be your cup of tea, but remember this: If To Kill a Mockingbird were published today, Scout and Atticus would probably be nestled right next to Harry Potter.

And if you haven't picked up anything written by Neil Gaiman, whether it be comic, childrens book or novel, I'd suggest you put that at the top of your list. He really is a magical writer.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

So you think you can guess Chuck Palahniuk's favorite books? Guess again.

The author of the blockbuster hit, Fight Club, Chuck has written nine other novels in the genre of "transgressive fiction," a literary movement dealing with taboo topics and featuring characters who live outside society's norms.

Chuck is coming to the Enoch Pratt Central Library at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to promote his newest tome, Pygmy, and took a few moments to describe some of the titles that can be found on his nightstand. (For more on Palhaniuk, check out this story.)

Favorite childhood author -- I read Erma Bombeck's humor writing like crazy when I was little, books with titles like The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, and If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? She'd write about alcoholism and the same really dark topics in suburbia that John Cheever was writing about, but she'd write about it in a really light way. Check out some of her books. You'll see.

How he became an avid reader as an adult -- I moved to Detroit in the early 1990s, and all my friends were buying houses. So, I purchased a little 500 square-foot house, but I didn't find out until after I moved in that I couldn't get radio reception or TV reception. Books were about the only things left to me, so I'd go to the library and check out stacks and stacks.

Guilty pleasure author -- I tend to re-read books again and again. One of my favorites is the little novella collection by Truman Capote that contains Breakfast at Tiffany's. When you're young, most people like reading books that made them feel special and unique. Now that I'm older, I like books that remind me that I'm part of a larger pattern, and that mistakes I've made have been made by other people in the past.

Famous author he can't bring himself to read -- Michael Ondaatje. I'm sorry, I know he has some beautiful images, but I just couldn't get through The English Patient.

Posted by Mary McCauley at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Meet the Author
        

Thanks to all who tried our literary quiz about Baltimore Sun editors and reporters who have written books. As readers noted, there are many more than those in the quiz; we'll do a second edition at some point. And congrats to Linda Dousa, who wins a copy of The Nanticoke.

Here are the answers: 1. David Simon started his post-Sun career with Homicide. 2. Michael Sragow (pictured here) recently won the National Award for Arts Writing for a biography about Victor Fleming. 3. Many of Laura Lippman’s mysteries incorporate Baltimore landmarks. 4. Tom Horton and David Harp feature the Eastern Shore, most recently in The Nanticoke. 5. Ariel Sabar won a National Book Critics Circle award for My Father’s Paradise. 6. Dan Fesperman’s thrillers take place in war-torn areas. 7. H.L. Mencken was one of the nation’s greatest social critics. 8. John Eisenberg has examined sports from football to horse racing. 9. C. Fraser Smith has written about Maryland’s political history, most recently in Here Lies Jim Crow. 10. Stephen Hunters’s thrillers overflow with machismo; Point of Impact was made into the movie Shooter.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Marylandia
        

To quote my favorite literary rat (or at least his film version) it's a veritable smorgasbord of free stuff this weekend!

I'll start it off by announcing this week's winner: Dawn. I hope you enjoy both of the new additions to your library, but don't try to operate heavy machinery while looking at First Dog. Those illustrations are potently cute.

My reading material this week was less cute and more ... unsettling. But exactly the kind of unsettling I like! Godmother, by Carolyn Turgeon. Subtitled The Secret Cinderella Story, it's full of fairies, books, tragedy and just a whiff of mystery. The end is so open to whichever interpretation you prefer, that I can't imagine one book club that wouldn't have plenty of lively discussion.

I'm not sure yet whether I loved it or hated it, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, so I can't deny it was a good read.

And what are we giving away this week, my friends? That would be Chuck Palahniuk's latest novel, Pygmy.

Oh, but that's not all! Because tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day! Just walk into your area comic book store, and you get free stuff. I mean, you could also buy something while you're there, but how can you say no to free?

In Baltimore, Atomic Books and Amazing Spiral (formerly Comics Kingdom, now found in the Rotunda) are both participating. And Atomic is using this opportunity to debut its new comic anthology, Mutant.

In Reisterstown, something really special is happening for you comics fans. Cards, Comics and Collectibles is hosting artist Frank Cho (Hulk, Mighty Avengers) from 1pm-4pm, and artist Steve Conley (Star Trek) from 11am-7pm.

Enjoy all that free stuff, folks, and have a great weekend.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Who knew Jane Austen fans had such a dark side?

According a report in the Telegraph, the management of Austen's House in Chawton has issued an unusual request: Could people please refrain from dumping their loved ones' ashes over the garden wall?

Here's more from the story, in that oh-so-British tone: "Apparently the gardener quite regularly comes across mounds of the stuff in the herbaceous borders. Collections manager Louise West has, politely, used horticulture as her excuse for banning it - not enough nutrients in a deceased Janeite, apparently."

Nancy was shocked by my recent admission that I had not read Austen. My excuse about an all-boys high school seemed shallow even to me. But this ghoulish tale makes Austen much more appealling, so maybe I'll dive into Pride & Prejudice. Or should I start elsewhere?

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)