The Baltimore Sun took a closer look today at Wes Moore's new book about (as he puts it) "the crucial inflection points in every life, sudden moments of decision where our paths diverge and our fates are sealed." In "The Other Wes Moore," he wonders about the factors that allowed him to leap to success from an upbringing in the rough South Bronx, while another Wes Moore grew up in rough West Baltimore and wound up imprisoned for a slaying. On Read Street this week, we noted a Sun Q&A with Moore as well as a chance to win the book.

Here's an excerpt from Michael Sragow's article on Moore, which will appear in Sunday's paper. We pick up the tale in the author's childhood, as he struggled at a private school:

His mother assessed the situation and sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy. "Writing this book, I had to think about where I was mentally, emotionally and physically, and what would have happened if my mother had not made such an aggressive and creative intervention." Her parents mortgaged their house to pay for Valley Forge. But his mother's crucial act was asking a cadet captain to look after him.

"People took time to show me things; otherwise, my life could have gone in a different direction," he says. The other Wes "never had what I had in terms of support."

When the writer asked the prisoner, "Do you think we're all just products of our environment?" he answered, "Maybe products of our expectations," or "others' expectations that you take on as your own." The writer notes in his book, "I realized then how difficult it is to separate the two. The expectations that others place on us help us form our expectations of ourselves."

Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Marylandia
        

A federal appeals court sided today (in a way) with the late J.D. Salinger in a battle to block U.S. publication of an unauthorized sequel to “The Catcher in the Rye,” the AP reports. The sequel is substantially similar to the original, and the author of “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye” is unlikely to win his fight to publish it here, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said. But the case was sent back to the lower court judge, who was told to use a different standard in ruling on it. So the court fight will continue.

Salinger, who died in January at age 91, was fiercely protective of his work. The sequel, by a Swedish author, has been available in Europe. But today's decision upholds a lower court ruling that had blocked U.S. publication, despite some criticism that it amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint. Due to constitutional guarantees of free expression, U.S. courts have been very reluctant to block publication of newspapers and books -- remember the Pentagon Papers case? Instead, courts have traditionally favored post-publication remedies such as damage awards.

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Happy Friday, Read Streeters! We've finally got a beautiful weekend coming up, and I plan to spend at least part of it enjoying a good book with plenty of sunshine. Perhaps "Jane's Fame," by Claire Harman, which follows Austen's career and her ambition to be a great writer, despite the long-held belief that Jane Austen cared more for her family life than her status as an author. 

I've always loved a bit of girl power.

And guess what Pete (or maybe his wife)? Philip Pullman's "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ." Congratulations, and we do hope you enjoy the novel.

As for the next prize: Local author Wes Moore has been all over this blog lately, and we thought it was time to let you guys in on this amazing book. You know, in case you hadn't gotten a chance to run to the book store yet. The author relates the story of his life, and how he became a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran and White House fellow; while another Wes Moore who lived nearby is now serving a life term in prison.

So let us know what you're reading, and it could be yours!

Posted by Nancy Knight at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

You also have a chance to give back Saturday.

The Baltimore Reads book bank will be collecting new and gently-used children’s books from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Polytechnic Institute / Western High Schools. That's at the intersection of Falls Road at Cold Spring Lane in Baltimore, just east of the Jones Falls Expressway (I-83). I'll be dropping off a big stack of new books gleaned from the review copies we receive at The Baltimore Sun. Hope to see you there.

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The Sun's Michael Sragow got a chance to talk with Baltimore native Wes Moore, whose new book, "The Other Wes Moore," explores the way that family, luck and other factors can determine the course of our lives. The author, a Johns Hopkins-educated Rhodes scholar, compares his life to that of another Wes Moore from Baltimore -- a guy serving a life sentence for killing an off-duty police officer. Here's an excerpt from the Q&A (Sragow will have a longer story on Moore Sunday, so check back at Read Street then):

Q: Your father died young, when you were 3. The other Wes Moore told you, "You're father wasn't there because he couldn't be; my father wasn't there because he chose not to be." Did you see the parallels as well as the differences, immediately?

A: Even when I was young, there were times I could tell my mother wasn't handling my father's death well, but she was trying to make life for us as normal as possible. She was shielding us from loss and the meaning of loss, though she ended up losing control of her own life in many ways. That was the impetus for her calling up her parents and saying, "I need help." Her kids were getting older, ready for school. We had a lot of relatives from my father's side of the family in Maryland, and she had lots of college friends; everyone was being very supportive. But she found something compelling about the idea of going to live with her parents, at the home they had lived in for decades in the Bronx.

Wes' mother Mary didn't have that option as a single parent. Her own mother died when Mary was a teenage mother herself, and that death devastated Mary's father. Mary did what she could do, moving to different neighborhoods, from Pennsylvania Avenue and Cherry Hill to Northwood and Dundee Village. But the challenge of being a mother is so daunting.

Q: The Bronx wasn't the answer for you, even when your mother sent you to Riverdale Country School in the one plush part of the borough. Isn't part of the book's point that when you're trying to course-correct the lives of "at-risk" kids, you can't just take them back and forth between some protected enclave and the streets?

A: Sometimes you think the answer is plucking kids out their communities, but that can be almost the worst thing. The Riverdale story illustrates that. It's a beautiful school, and my mother knew all about it from the time she was a girl; she knew that JFK went there. She thought that would be it: that's where I needed to go. But that's where I got lost. Unless you have help making that transition, that kind of move can be counter-productive. You need to have people who can make the ties between what you learn in a place like that and how you experience life in your neighborhood. There's got to be a more holistic way to address coming to adulthood. Transplanting is not the solution.

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Categories: Marylandia
        

The humorous, touching stories and poems of Shel Silverstein were favorite bedtime reading when my children were small. Family favorites included "A Light in the Attic" and "The Giving Tree."

So I was happy to hear that musicians including John Prine, Andrew Bird and Kris Kristofferson are joining on a new tribute album. The 15-song album, called "Twistable, Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein," is scheduled for release on June 8.

You can read more about Silverstein, who died in 1999 at the Academy of American Poets. Here's a poem that captures his imagination and whimsy: "Where the Sidewalk Ends":

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Here at Read Street, our admiration for Edgar Allan Poe -- poet, cryptographer and creator of the detective story -- is second to none. So I'm delighted to hear of the quixotic quest by Walter Skold, a former teacher from Maine, to establish Dead Poets Remembrance Day on Oct. 7. 

To publicize his mission, Skold is traveling around the eastern U.S. to the graves of famous poets in his white van, dubbed Dedgar the Poemobile. He cruised into Baltimore this week, a visit chronicled on his blog. He has collected videos of dozens of graveside poetry readings and lots of interesting photos. I hope he gets a chance to stop at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Frederick to visit the grave of another famous Marylander, Francis Scott Key, whose poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry" became our national anthem. (If we can get Skold to stand still for a while, we'll do an interview.)

Good luck, Walter.   

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NPR has an interesting interview today with Linda Gordon, the author of a new biography of photographer Dorothea Lange. "Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits," explores the life of a woman who battled polio, marital problems and professional challenges.

Lange was among the artists funded during the Great Depression by federal government programs -- an incredible assembly of talent that included Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, John Cheever, Orson Welles and Willem de Kooning. She roamed California, capturing indelible images of impoverished farm workers such as Florence Thompson, a photo that came to be known as "Migrant Mother." (Lange simply captioned it: Destitute peapickers in California; a 32 year old mother of seven children. February 1936.

Although the federal programs kept artists working, some critics objected. Baltimore's own H.L. Mencken wrote a brief letter of protest in 1934 to a Roosevelt administration official, saying: "The market for good writing is excellent at the moment, and no man or woman who can actually do it is in difficulties." Government subsidies, he feared, were apt to "go to quacks." Luckily, his opinion did not hold sway in New Deal Washington.

In a 1960 interview with Popular Photography, Lange described her encounter with Thompson in Nipomo: "I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. ... She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed.

For Depression-era readings beyond the Lange bio, I'd recommend the heart-wrenching "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck and "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," by Walker Evans and James Agee.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

In her new book, former First Lady Laura Bush finally opens up about the 1963 fatal car crash she was involved in. She ran a stop sign, slammed into another car, and the driver -- a fellow high school student -- died.

The New York Times obtained a copy of "Spoken from the Heart," which is due for release in early May, and published excerpts. Among them: an admission that she was wracked by guilt for years, in part because she did not attend the funeral or reach out to the dead teen's parents.

“I lost my faith that November, lost it for many, many years," she writes, according to the Times. "It was the first time that I had prayed to God for something, begged him for something, not the simple childhood wishing on a star but humbly begging for another human life. And it was as if no one heard."

Much of the book deals with her White House years, and her disgust with the name-calling and insults that have become a staple of political battles. She defends her husband, George W. Bush, and blasts critics such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

"Wes won­dered how two young men from the same city, who were around the same age, and even shared a name, could arrive at two com­pletely dif­fer­ent des­tinies. ... He decided to write to the other Wes Moore, and much to his sur­prise, a month later he received a let­ter back. He vis­ited the other Wes in prison over a dozen times, spoke with his fam­ily and friends, and dis­cov­ered star­tling par­al­lels between their lives: both had dif­fi­cult child­hoods, they were both father­less, were hav­ing trou­ble in the class­room; they’d hung out on sim­i­lar cor­ners with sim­i­lar crews, and had run into trou­ble with the police. Yet at each stage of their lives, at sim­ilar moments of deci­sion, they would head down dif­fer­ent paths towards aston­ish­ingly diver­gent des­tinies. Wes real­ized in their two sto­ries was a much larger tale about the con­se­quences of per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity and the imper­a­tive­ness of edu­ca­tion and com­mu­nity for a gen­er­a­tion of boys search­ing for their way."

For anyone who has lived in Baltimore, the contrast is familiar. The city has safe, prosperous neighborhoods, and some of the deadliest in America. The best book I've read about the-Baltimore-we-rarely-see was "The Corner" by David Simon. Moore's book could be another worthy example, and a potential pick for next year's One Maryland, One Book program.

The author is scheduled to appear at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May15 and at the Enoch Pratt on May 18.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Elizabeth "Libby" Post, an etiquette expert and granddaughter-in-law of Emily Post, has died at age 89.

She is the former head of the Emily Post Institute, and updated many of Emily Post's classics on manners. Along with revising “Emily Post's Etiquette” five times, she wrote several books of her own, and wrote a column for Good Housekeeping magazine for 25 years, the Associated Press said. She maintained that etiquette should not be something that is “restrictive or unpleasant,” and "is meant to smooth the path between people to better relationships.”

Emily Post, you may recall, was born in Baltimore, where her father was an architect. (He designed Christ Episcopal Church at Chase and St. Paul streets.) She lived at 14 E. Chase St. before her family moved to New York in 1878, according to the University of Baltimore's list of Maryland authors.

Rest in peace, Libby.

Photo from the Emily Post Institute

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If you're excited -- or disgusted -- by Kitty Kelley's new unauthorized bio of Oprah Winfrey, here's your chance to hear her discuss it. Kelley is scheduled to appear at the Ellicott City Barnes & Noble, 4300 Montgomery Road, this evening from 7 to 9 p.m.

Some fans of the talk show superstar are angry about Kelley's "Oprah." And today on WJZ, Richard Sher, who co-hosted a Baltimore talk show with Winfrey early in her career, took issue with a racially charged anecdote in the book. While interviewing Kelley, Sher set the record straight on a conversation that involved Winfrey and chicken magnate Frank Perdue, as Sun TV blogger David Zurawik notes. An excerpt from the blog: [H]ere's how Sher described what Perdue is quoted as saying in the book versus what he actually said:

Changing one word makes a huge difference in that exchange. I'm glad Sher set the record straight. For more, see the ZonTV blog.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

By now, everyone in America knows the story of Michael Oher, a homeless black kid who became pro football player with the Baltimore Ravens -- thanks in large part to a well-to-do white family that took him in. His story was a focus of Michael Lewis' book "The Blind Side," and made into a popular movie starring Sandra Bullock. It was a heart-warming tale of redemption but Oher did not like the implication that he was dumb, so he kept his distance from all the hype. Now, Oher will offer his own version in "I Beat the Odds: My Amazing Journey from Foster Care to the NFL and Beyond," a memoir to be published next February by Gotham Books.

The book will be written with Don Yaeger, who has had a hand in books about UCLA coaching legend John Wooden, N.Y. Mets pitcher Tug McGraw and Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton. He's obviously pumped, judging from his recent tweet: @ErinAndrewsESPN I just signed to write Michael Oher's own book. He's an amazing kid...even better than the movie!

Gotham Books publisher William Shinker had this comment: "From reading the book The Blind Side and seeing the award-winning movie of the same name millions of people think they know Michael Oher's story, but they really don't. He gave only two interviews for the book and none for the movie. This will be the first time he will be able to tell his story in his own words with details that only he knows, and to offer his point of view on how anyone, no matter their background and upbringing, can achieve a better life."

Meanwhile, the parents who took Oher in, Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, have written "In a Heartbeat," which is scheduled for a July release. Sally Jenkins, who collaborated with Lance Armstrong on "It's Not About the Bike," helped with the writing.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)
Categories: Books to Movies
        

Here's another chapter in the intersection of publishing and politics. A New York magazine article strongly hints that Sarah Palin walked away from the Alaska governor's office last summer because it was crimping her planned book tour for "Going Rogue." Here's an excerpt from the article: "Two former Palin-campaign aides—Jason Recher and Doug McMarlin—were hired to plan a book tour with all the trappings of a national political campaign. But there was a hitch: With Alaska’s strict ethics rules, Palin worried that her day job would get in the way. In March, she petitioned the Alaska attorney general’s office, which responded with a lengthy list of conditions. 'There was no way she could go on a book tour while being governor' is how one member of her Alaska staff put it."

Palin's voice is nowhere to be found in the article, and I suspect that the anecdote actually has lots of grey shadings. But it illustrates a larger point: Palin saw the opportunity to build her personal brand, and to do that, she had to spend lots of time in the Lower 48. Reality TV shows, speeches, multimillion-dollar book deals -- it all leaves little time for governing. As we've seen, the big money does not follow party lines. President Obama has benefited big time -- as have relatives such as Michelle's brother, Craig Robinson. So who's to blame Palin for her career move?

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Maybe nice guys finish first after all.

The box office returns of the ultra-violent "Kick-Ass" movie, which is based on a comic by Mark Millar, have been disappointing, fellow Sun blogger Michael Sragow points out. For those keeping score: "Kick-Ass" had a $30 million budget and appears likely to top out at $55 million in the United States. By contrast, the $15 million "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" movie, based on the funny and poignant series by Jeff Kinney, movie has already made $59 million domestically.

Is there a lesson for film-makers -- and authors -- there?

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Books to Movies
        

"Decision Points," a memoir by President George W. Bush that blends political drama such as the response to 9-11 with personal issues including his decision to stop drinking, has been scheduled for a Nov. 9 release.

Crown Publishing said the book would bring readers "inside the Texas Governor's Mansion on the night of the hotly contested 2000 election; aboard Air Force One on 9/11 in the gripping hours after America's most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; inside the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq.” The book will center on 14 decisions he made in his eight years as president, including “his flaws and mistakes, as well as his historic achievements.”

The book is certain to revive the debate over Bush's presidency, and the talk will be heightened by a release amid the Election Day fervor. The $35 book also is sure to bring a big payday for Bush. Remember, President Obama's 2009 income tax return showed that he received $5.5 million in royalties for "Dreams of My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."

The release by the Randon House subsidiary is a reminder that publishing makes strange bedfellows. Other books under the Random House umbrella include "The Lies of George Bush" and "My First persidentcy: A Scarpbook by George W. Bush."

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

It's about time. Archie Comics is getting a lot of attention because of a new, openly gay character, Kevin Keller, who will be introduced in September.

That will be a first for the Archie conglomerate -- Kevin actually arrives in Veronica #202 -- and it's hard to imagine that the Riverdale High student body has remained so out of sync with American society for so many years. I can already envision the cliched plot line, in which Veronica falls for the hot ew classmate, only to discover that he's not interested. (In case that sounds familiar, recall the "Clueless" scene where Cher tries to play footsie with Christian, only to be clued in later by her friends.)

The news about the new Archie Comics character comes as DC Comics introduces a new series featuring Batwoman, a gay woman, in the pages of 52. And there have been plenty of other gay superheroes, such as the Shatterstar and Rictor tandem, and AIDS activist Northstar.

What took Archie and the gang so long?

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

Happy beautiful Friday, everyone!

 And in case the day isn't treating you so well, take a peek at the latest Hark! A Vagrant. Who doesn't love some Great Gatsby humor? (And really, did ANYONE remember that poor baby?)

Anyway, on to the prize portion of this post: Congratulations, Johnny, you've won Kitty Kelley's "Oprah: A Biography." Please do let us know if it's as controversial as the media coverage would have us believe!

Next up, another controversy waiting to happen: Philip Pullman's "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ." While this book has already been released electronically, it isn't available in bookstores until May 4th. If you're interested on a different take on the Gospels, combining myth, history and fairy tale, Pullman says this is the book for you.

So let us know what you're reading, and it could be yours!

Posted by Nancy Knight at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

Barnes & Noble and Amazon are raising the stakes in the e-reader competition, putting pressure on Apple's iPad, the new kid on the block.

Barnes & Noble is starting to run televised ads for its nook e-reader, ending a 14-year absence from the airwaves (and cable wires). Among the targeted shows is American Idol. "Companies will have to create demand, which will take a lot of advertising," says Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research told the Wall Street Journal. The research company estimates that three million e-readers sold last year and predicts sales of six million this year. Forrester puts iPad sales—which aren't included in the e-reader figures—at three million this year. (B&N also sells the nook in its stores.)

Meanwhile, starting Sunday, Target will begin selling Amazon's Kindle. It will first be available in Target's flagship store in downtown Minneapolis as well as 102 stores in Florida, and will roll out at additional stores later in the year.

Soon, consumers will be able to test drive all three e-readers -- the iPad, of course, is available in Apple stores around the nation. That's sure to boost demand, especially among print-centric folks who are leery of the digital reading experience. When consumers get a chance to kick the tires, a significant hurdle should begin to erode.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

This week, two bookish movies are being released: "The Losers" (trailer above) and "Paper Man." The first is an explosive (literally) adaptation of the Vertigo comic about a group of secret agents who have to face off against the government. (It comes just a week after the adaptation of Kick-Ass, another popular shoot-em-up comic.) The second features Jeff Daniels playing a failed novelist who has quirky relationships with a 17-year-old girl (Emma Stone) and a superhero. Some early reviews for "The Losers" -- and for "Paper Man" after the jump:

Chicago Tribune -- "The Losers" drags you down to its level at gunpoint with its drooling fetishization of weaponry, its focus on Zoe Saldana in wee shorts, various and sundry assassinations designed with gamers in mind and more rabid mistrust of the U.S. government and its freedom-destroying institutions than you'd find at a tea party fundraiser.

Orlando Sentinel -- The movie is a stupid, over-the-top comic-booky action picture with the occasional cheesy effect, oddball casting and an utterly predictable get-that-guy-before-he-gets-us plot, but [Chris] Evans and a couple of his mates make it passable entertainment. If "The A-Team" is half this much fun, they’ll be lucky.

Village Voice -- Writer Andy Diggle dedicated his snappy DC comic books "The Losers" to ’80s screenwriting superstar Shane Black, creator of the Lethal Weapon series. But in adapting "The Losers" for film, director Sylvain White and screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Peter Berg strain to achieve the pleasurable mix of cheap laughs and expensive action that Lethal Weapon pulled off effortlessly with the help of its stellar cast.

Huffington Post -- The Losers is like The A-Team's farm squad -- call them the D-Team. Or perhaps the 2-D team, since this film doesn't exist in three dimensions in any sense -- indeed, it struggles to reach that second level.

New York Observer -- Although the filmmakers work hard to keep the mood light, Paper Man observes loneliness and isolation with increasingly dour and oppressive results. Instead of the feel-good comedy they intended, you are left with the suspicion that the movie is really about a man suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness for which there is no cure.

The Hollywood Reporter -- "Paper Man" is a bad idea, and the film, despite a few brave and good performances, never recovers from awkwardness of its premise. Theatrical potential is highly limited since an R-rated comedy about a midlife crisis and marital and mental problems doesn't seem to have any specific audience.

Orlando Sentinel -- Paper Man ... never quite finds its comic groove, and just as that tone is settling in and not working out, it shifts to something darker and more serious, thus explaining some of the odd behavior we’re witnessing. Not nearly enough of it, though.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Books to Movies
        

On Earth Day, I'm wondering: How green are Apple's iPad, Amazon's Kindle, and other e-readers? I assume that printing, binding and transporting a book to a bookstore creates a large carbon footprint -- much larger than creating a digital book and selling it through an electricity-powered e-reader.

The energy accounting gets a little messier if the manufacturing (and eventual demise) of the device itself is included. Or if the deadwood edition is passed around by a library or by a free recycling organization such as The Book Thing of Baltimore. (Remember, some e-readers such as the Kindle don't allow users to exchange books with friends.)

It would be interesting to see a true accounting, by energy experts.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, we can look back at the many ways our lives have been changed by the green movement. We drive hybrid cars, carry our own bags to the supermarket and frequent farmers' markets to take advantage of the locavore movement. The Baltimore Sun put together a list of 40 tips for living a greener life, including frequenting your public library. Another way is to recycle books by passing them among friends, or through organizations such as The Book Thing of Baltimore, which provides books for free. While you're in a green mood, here are some books on the topic.

"Food Rules," the latest from Michael Pollan, who also wrote "Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food."

"Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer.

"Dishing Up Maryland," a new cookbook by Lucie L. Snodgrass and Edwin Remsberg that contains 150 recipes featuring local fare from Maryland farmers, watermen and restaurateurs.

"Whole Green Catalog" by Michael W. Robbins.

And some old favorites:"Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, who sounded the alarm on the environment decades ago, "Desert Solitaire" by Edward Abbey and "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

I don't know about you guys, but I kinda love letterpress.

One of my favorite memories of Nashville was visiting Hatch Show Print, and I seriously want these candles I found on Etsy.

So if you're free this weekend, you might want to give Typecast Press a visit. As they explain on their Web site, they love letterpress, too.

"Through research, substantial effort, and, quite frankly, a good bit of luck, Typecast Press has rescued a number of forgotten presses from basements and old factories and restored them to working condition. We have saved thousands upon thousands of bits of old lead type, hundreds of old printing dies, and complete sets of wood type, not to mention many of the coolest widgets and tools of their time."

And this weekend, you can join Mary Mashburn and Steve St. Angelo as they lead bookmaking workshops. The cost is $225, and the studio provides the paper, supplies and lunch. And at the end of the day, you'll have your own letterpress-covered tome and bookplates. 

That's reason enough to "Get Inked," eh?

Posted by Nancy Knight at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

As promised, here's a photo of the dessert masterpiece created for the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Conn., to mark the April 21 centennial of the great writer's death. The cake, in the shape of Twain's home, was created by Geof Manthorne, the sous chef featured on the Food Network's "Ace of Cakes." (All about Duff Goldman's Charm City Cakes company in Baltimore.) In an interview with the Hartford Courant, Manthorne estimated that the cake would weigh from 70 to 80 pounds, and include 15 sheet cakes and 100 eggs.

If you get the chance, the Twain house is definitely worth a visit. It sits just outside the business district, and right next to the home of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" author Harriet Beecher Stowe -- and not too far from the West Hartford home of Noah Webster. I haven't visited a lot of author's homes -- any other recommendations out there?

Photo courtesy of The Mark Twain House & Museum

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

I frequently use an on-line thesaurus to find synonyms, and though the process isn't always precise, the near-misses are often more fun to read. That sort of service is also a boon to news aggregators that massage and repackage the prose of newspapers such as The Baltimore Sun. For some laughs, check out these examples of murdering the English language from theopca.com, a website that must run stories through an Intergalactic Proton-7 Synonym Synthesizer (or a room full of chimps with typewriters):

GLOBULAR THE RANCHO: BOOKS, PETS, TAXES AND A RESTRICTS UP. Remember a meaningful tagline — "Just when you suspicion it was protected to go behind in a water" — used to foster a classical Hollywood movie "Jaws"? you hadn't dictated to plead Friday a 13th in today's column. But carrying only had a "Jaws moment" right here in Rancho, you have a story to describe ...

THE BOOKS IN SALINGER'S INNOCENT. JD Salinger's genocide could be a commencement of a mini bullion pour out for a beleaguered American edition industry. Although Salinger published nothing after 1961, his daughter Margaret says in her discourse Dream Catcher, that her father was intensely disciplined, essay each singular morning, sometimes superfluous in his investigate all day typing as great as editing.

BOOKS: CLAIRE TOMALIN. My Five Most Important Books ... 3. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. One of the identical tiwn wealth of the English language. The other? Below. 4. The Bible. No the single can live but the Bible in the Authorized Version.

(It also applies to sports) LAKERS ABLE TO GOVERN WASHINGTON. Los Angeles, which had mislaid 6 of a prior 8 highway games, pulled to a 2-2 jot down mid by a stream eight-game swing. The Lakers had their impulse with President Obama upon Monday. The White House revisit assumingly was a great surrogate for a Jan practice. "Our altogether appetite was a lot better," pronounced Lamar ...

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

It was 100 years today that Samuel Clemens, the literary genius who wrote as Mark Twain, died at his home in Redding, Conn. Here's the headline from a Baltimore Sun article that noted his passing (and another article about his funeral.) As a fellow Connecticut Yankee, and frequent visitor to his former home and museum in Hartford, I have a soft spot for Twain. I've always admired his sense of humor and his understanding of the common man. He was an American writer through and through.

The Sun article (provided by archive expert Paul McCardell) was touching as it described him lying in "the carven bed," where he often worked. "Ranged about him were his books. Beside him was his tabouret set, with a jar of tobacco, a collection of pipes, a stand of cigars and matches in abundance. Above his head was a reading lamp." Not a bad way to go.

Another Sun article described a 1909 visit to St. Timothy's School in Catonsville, where he had some advice for the girls who were graduating: "There are three things that come to my mind which I consider excellent advice. First, girls, don't smoke -- to excess. I am 73 1/2 years old and have been smoking for 73 of them. But I smoke ... in moderation; only one cigar at a time.

"Also, never drink -- to excess.

"The third admonition is, don't marry -- to excess."

I'd love to see someone deliver that commencement address today, in our world of political correctness. But Twain was able to speak his mind -- and the truth -- in a humorous way, without insulting his audience. That was his real genius.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Author Gail Farrelly is among the Kindle owners faced with increased prices for e-books, now that big publishing houses have created a new model with Apple's iPad. In this guest post, Gail takes a closer look at the issue:

The Amazon Kindle Discussion Forum has not been a happy place lately. Higher prices, a side effect of the arrival of the iPad, dominate the discussion. In fact, the forum's been marked by a Tea Party atmosphere, with complaints, indignation, and boycott plans. Whether consumers are willing to pay the higher prices remains to be seen.

To get an idea about some specific prices, I looked at the Kindle price and availability as of this writing for each of the five top hardcover fiction and nonfiction books on the April 18 print copy of the The New York Times best-seller list. Neither the top fiction book ("Changes" by Jim Butcher) nor the top non-fiction book ("The Big Short" by Michael Lewis" -- see recent post on Read Street) is available on the Kindle at this time for U. S. customers. Huh? This is surprising, especially given the fact that the Association of American Publishers has estimated that, while book sales fell by 1.8% in 2009, e-book sales were up last year by 176.6%. Yikes! That publishers cannot develop a profitable business model to make top-selling books available to e-book users in a timely way is a sad commentary on the state of the industry. I just hope that, in a year or two, one or more of the publishers won't be asking for a bailout from taxpayers.

Regarding Kindle prices for the other eight bestsellers, five of them are priced at $9.99, traditionally the Amazon price for most bestsellers. "The Bridge" by David Remnick is $14.82; "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang" by Chelsea Handler is $12.99; "A River in the Sky" by Elizabeth Peters is $12.99.

Most buyers of e-books agree that the Kindle version should not be priced higher than the lowest-priced DTB (dead tree book) version. They balk at the fact that one can buy, for example, the mass market paperback version of M. C. Beaton's "Death of a Witch" for $6.99, while the Kindle version is priced at $11.99. A legitimate complaint, since costs like distribution, inventory and storage are so much lower for e-books. Most e-book users are horrified at the thought of "subsidizing" print books. One of the publishers did say that paperbacks are at times published by a company other than the one that published the hardback and Kindle versions, so that may explain some pricing that seems inconsistent. To be fair, I must also point out that there are some forum users who seem unperturbed by the new pricing schemes and are very quick to defend the publishers on a number of issues.

On a positive note, there have also been some terrific bargains and freebies offered on the Kindle this month. For example, about two weeks ago, for a brief time, 10 of the 13 books by Lemony Snicket ("A Series of Unfortunate Events") were free. As of this writing, "The Dark Tide" (with bonus material) by Andrew Gross is free. Two short story collections are bargain priced: "Hardly Knew Her" by Laura Lippman is $.99; and "The Price of Love and Other Stories" by Peter Robinson is $1.99. An added attraction of all these books is that the text-to-speech feature is enabled.

Like many other Kindle users, I downloaded a ton of books before the iPad invasion. Until prices stabilize, I'll be buying very little but making good use of Jungle-Search to find bargains on the Kindle. And I don't think I'll be alone!

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

George Washington, the Father of Our Country -- and the King of Overdue Books -- has made me feel better about my looming library fines. Yesterday, I dropped off a load of overdue items at the Baltimore County library, where I think they have added my photo to the 10 Most Wanted list. (But before you condemn me, consider this: If I didn't pay so much in fines each year, the county tax rate would be a lot higher.)

I don't have anything on sticky-fingered George, though. According to news reports, he borrowed two books from the New York Society Library in 1789 but failed to return them -- meaning he would owe an estimated $300,000 in fines. The library, which discovered the problem while digitizing its records, isn't filing liens against Mount Vernon or dunning George's heirs for the money. It just wants the books -- "Law of Nations" and a volume of debate transcripts from England's House of Commons -- to be returned. But no one seems to know where they are.

Makes me feel a little better (even if I'm poorer for my own fines).

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

I also got a chance to attend a poetry reading by Laura Shovan and Maryland Poet Laureate Stanley Plumly (show here in 2009). the most touching moment came as Plumly broke down during a poem about President Kennedy's funeral. He was very gracious throughout the reading --- difficult because he had to compete with reverberations from the open mike session in the main courtyard. As Plumly read, one participant seemed to be delivering his interpretation of an outboard motor, mixed in with some yodeling. It was maddening for those of us hanging on Plumly's words. Yet he persevered, at one point saying he would pretend the noise was the Atlantic Ocean.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

In case you spent the weekend outside enjoying the cool weather (or planting cherry laurel bushes, as I did), the Baltimore Sun had two interesting articles on the Maryland's literary scene. One was a Q&A with the owner of a small publishing house that has scored a coup: A new novella by Stephen King. Richard Chizmar (shown here), who runs Cemetery Dance Publications outside Baltimore, is publishing "Blockade Billy," a novella about a 1950s major league baseball player with a deep secret. It was planned as limited edition but was so popular that King's New York publishing house will print copies in addition to the 20,000 that Cemetery Dance was commissioned to do, Mary McCauley's article notes. Here's an excerpt from the Q&A:

Q: Is this his way of supporting small publishers?

A: There are other small publishers he has supported, but he's been very, very generous to us. This is our third book project, but what makes this significant is, unlike "Buick 8," where there were copies in all the bookstores from the New York publishers and we just published a limited edition for "Blockade Billy," it was all ours.

So when the press release hit, you know everyone immediately asked, No. 1: "How did they keep this book a secret?" And No. 2: "How was it that this very small publisher in the middle of Maryland - not New York, you know, they're not in a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue - how is it that they are able to promote and package this book the way they did?" ... The whole world kind of sat up and noticed.

Another story by Michael Sragow noted the publication of a new version of William Lindsay Gresham 's "Nightmare Alley," a 1940's noir novel "about the rise of a ruthless mentalist from carnival hand to spiritual guru, and his fall back to the worst possible sideshow." The Baltimore-born writer committed suicide in 1962 at age 53, but he has not been forgotten. His book is being re-issued by New York Review Classics with an introduction by novelist-biographer Nick Tosches.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Here's an annoying quirk in the iPad's e-book function: As you look over books to buy, Apple's iPad offer a helpful description. But for Herman Melville's classic "Moby Dick," the description is oddly censored: "the novel is rooted in two true stories: the 1821 sinking of whaling ship Essex and the killing of an albino s***m whale ..." (Full view at boing boing.) Maybe Apple has contracted out the summaries -- and censorship -- to China?

The prudishness also shows up in Joseph Conrad's "The N****r of the Narcissus." What will they do with the upcoming book by D**k Cheney?

In a related "Apple Protecting Us From Ourselves" matter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist says his application for an iPhone app was rejected in December because his cartoons made fun of people. Mark Fiore, a satirist for the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate.com, has received lots of media attention after noting his problem in an interview with the Nieman Journalism Lab. And that apparently has made Apple reconsider. He has been encouraged to reapply for his app, according to the Nieman site.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Michael Pollan, who has helped raise Americans' consciousness about food through books such as "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "Food Rules," appeared at Goucher College this week. I wasn't able to make it over to Towson for the lecture (too many 12-hour days at work this week). But luckily blogger Robin Shreeves has a recap. Here's an excerpt from her post: "Pollan told the students that the decisions they make about food represent a very important vote and that those decisions are expressions of their values. Therefore, students need to be conscious of what they eat and put some thought into their choices.

"Here’s what really impressed me. He didn’t tell the students what choices they should make. He suggested they pick one area to be mindful of, and he gave some examples of areas where they could begin to be thoughtful — pesticides used on food, the miles that food travels, or the way the animals they eat have been treated.

"He said that if the students do that, if they begin to be thoughtful in just one area, they’d make better choices. Those choices will ultimately benefit them, the land, and the animals."

Thanks, Robin. By the way, the next author featured at Goucher will be Gwen Ifill of Washington Week and PBS NewsHour at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20. Her topic: “Why Journalism Matters.” She is the author of "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama."

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Happy Friday, everybody!

I just finished two good books. The first, "The Help," has been on countless book clubs "must read" list, and mine was no exception. We met last night to discuss it, and I have determined that no other book has packed so much symbolism into a bathroom, and what happens therein. Also, there were more strong women characterized in that book than I've seen in a very long time, so I was a happy girl.

The second was "Guardian of the Dead," by first-time author Karen Healey. I adored her characters, and her sense of setting is amazing. She deals with many issues that other authors don't dare or bother to tackle -- sexuality, identity, race and sizeism among them -- and never falls into one-dimensional hero, villian or foil characterization. The only issue I had was keeping up with the Maori mythology, which plays a huge role in the plot, without a good sense of the culture it is based on. So! That will lead to more reading for me, and really, who doesn't like an excuse to read more?

But enough about me, how about those prizes?

First of all, congratulations to Michelle, who has won Anna Quindlen's "Every Last One." We hope you enjoy it!

And the next giveaway is this week's controversial "Oprah: A Biography," by Kitty Kelley.

So tell us what you're reading, and it could be yours! Good luck!

Posted by Nancy Knight at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)
        

President Obama released his family's 2009 federal income tax return Thursday, and it shows an adjusted gross income of $5.5 million -- and huge royalties from his two books. According to the Washington Post, royalties from "Dreams from My Father" totaled about $3.3 million, and those from "The Audacity of Hope" totaled $2.3 million. By comparison, his salary as president was $400,000.

There's a lesson here. Being president is cool, but the real money is in brand extensions. If I were Obama's business manager, I'd be thinking now about movie adaptations, a White House-based TV reality show (invite the Jersey Shore crew in for the summer) and maybe a line of home decorations for Michelle. He'll never have to practice law again -- and he may need the extra money if the Tea Party activists keep him from being re-elected.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Well, I've waited all week, and we've finally got our final two authors.

There's Edgar Allan Poe, known for his American gothic style, his invention of the detective genre and his biting literary criticism.

And the "Sage of Baltimore," H.L. Mencken: a highly prolific journalist, essayist and editor who satirized American culture and studied American English like few have ever seen.

So make your choice, and tell your friends to come vote. This one may get a little heated.

We'll announce the winner tomorrow, and then lead a discussion on all of the great Baltimore writers at the CityLit Festival. The City Sages panel will at noon, at the Central Library. Dave and I hope to see you there!

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

This week's literary adaptation -- Kick-Ass -- ain't exactly Jane Austen. But it's taken from a wildly popular work, the comic by superstar Mark Millar. The tale of ordinary kids aching to be superheroes has been done before -- isn't it everyone's wish? Yet Millar gives it an engaging, if bloody, spin. In this interview MiIlar discusses the challenges of finding supporters for his ultra-gory story, which features an 11-year-old killer named Hit Girl. Here are excerpts from reviews (and reviews of more book-to-movie adaptations):

Chicago Tribune -- I started hating this movie around the midpoint. And while Hit Girl's single usage of a c-word more commonly heard in Britain than in America has generated some controversy, the more pressing issue is how stupidly relentless the gore is, from beginning to end.

New York Times -- Fast, periodically spit-funny and often grotesquely violent, the film at once embraces and satirizes contemporary action-film clichés with Tarantino-esque self-regard — it’s the latest in giggles-and-guts entertainment.

Los Angeles Times -- This shrewd mixture of slick comic-book mayhem, unmistakable sweetness and ear-splitting profanity is poised to be a popular culture phenomenon because of its exact sense of the fantasies of the young male fanboy population.

Associated Press -- Director Matthew Vaughn has made an action comedy so bloody funny — double emphasis on bloody — fans might need to see it again just to catch the gags they missed from laughing so hard the first time.

Entertainment Weekly -- Kick-Ass, directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake), is an enjoyably supercharged and ultraviolent teen-rebel comic-book fantasy that might be described — in spirit, at least — as reality-based. ... I just wish that the film had ended up a bit less of an over-the-top action ride. It didn't need this much slam-bang when it had us at real-life superheroics.

Roger Ebert -- This movie regards human beings like video-game targets. Kill one, and you score. They're dead, you win. When kids in the age range of this movie's home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Books to Movies
        

For Muggles Who Can't Get Enough Harry Potter, here's a video about the film-makers who helped create attractions at the Harry Potter theme park in Orlando. You'll get a behind the scenes look at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter's Hogwarts Castle, along with commentary from Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Benjamin Hooks, the long-time NAACP executive director who helped bring the organization's headquarters to Baltimore (shown here at the building's opening), died today at age 85. Hooks was everywhere in the civil rights movement -- at marches, sit-ins and the "I Have a Dream" speech -- and rebuilt the NAACP as its leader from 1977 to 1992.

In an era of quickie celebrity bios, it's a tragedy that so little has been written about his life. "The March of Civil Rights: The Benjamin Hooks Story" is part of an American Bar Association series, and he's featured in another series about African-American leaders. He pops up as a Martin Luther King Jr. confidante in Taylor Branch's works. But I'd love to see a fuller treatment of his fascinating life.

And let's not forget his lasting impact on the world of books: His name graces the central library in his hometown of Memphis. For more photos of his time in Baltimore, check out this gallery.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

On the anniversary of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, it's a good day to note Baltimore's literary connections to the disaster. The closest link is "A Night to Remember," Baltimorean Walter Lord's gripping account of the sinking. His work can be considered a prototype for Sebastian Junger, Jon Krakauer and other authors who have written narratives about historic events.

"I think small boys get interested in things the way they catch colds or get chicken pox," Lord said to a Baltimore Sun reporter in 1957, the University of Baltimore notes in its summary of his life. "Nobody knows why or how they do it...I suppose if there is anything more exciting to a young boy than an ocean liner, it is an ocean liner sinking."

The sinking marked an embarrassing day for the Sunpapers -- or at least for the Evening Sun. The front page of the April 15 edition read: "All Titanic Passengers Are Safe; Transferred in Lifeboats at Sea." That reflected the shipping line's early reports, which turned out to be wildly optimistic. Remember, communications were different in those days. Now, we'd have folks tweeting non-stop: "band's really swinging tonite. excellent cod and baked alaska. what was that noise?"

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Poe, Bell, Mencken and Douglass.

I have to say, though Edgar Allan Poe wasn't much of a surprise to me, I would not have predicted this to be the Final Four. And I'm more than a little disappointed that there aren't any ladies representing this late in the game. Oh well, I guess we'll get 'em next time.

(And please feel free to bemoan the fact that your favorite author lost at any point -- either here, or in person on Saturday at the CityLit Festival!)

So get in there and vote -- and take a look at how the might have fallen in the previous rounds.

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

Saturday''s CityLit Festival at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt library promises a full day of fun for book lovers. Among the featured authors are Sam Lipsyte ("The Ask") and Elizabeth Kostova ("The Historian" and "The Swan Thieves").

The Sun's Mary McCauley wrote today about Kostova, whose first novel re-examined the legend of Dracula and was the first time a debut novel had launched at the top of the New York Times Bestseller List.

Here are excerpts from McCauley's article, which discusses Kostova's fascination with art: Her second novel, "The Swan Thieves," which was released earlier this year, goes back and forth between 19th century France and the present. In the novel, a psychiatrist tries to learn why his patient, a painter on the brink of greatness, attacked a masterpiece in the National Gallery of Art.

"Art can provoke a variety of strange reactions," says Kostova, 45, a resident of North Carolina. "There's a weird phenomenon that causes some people to faint in front of a great artwork, usually in big places like The Louvre or the Prado. Occasionally, they fall flat on the floor, there's actually a medical term for that condition."

"Then there are those people who attack paintings, either because the subject matter is upsetting to them, or they're jealous, or they're insane, or sometimes for reasons that are very particular and personal. And that doesn't even take into account the people who steal artworks, or the artists who destroy their own work. It's strange to think that an artificial object, a flat surface, can provoke so many strong emotions and weird human behaviors."

The CityLit Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday at the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral St. in Baltimore. Call 410-274-5691 or go to citylitproject.org

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series has joined Harry Potter, gay penguins and Holden Caulfield on the list of books that are most often challenged at U.S. libraries. According to the Associated Press, "Twilight" was ranked #5 on the annual report of "challenged books" by the American Library Association.

Little wonder that Meyer's novels, which include scenes of supernatural violence -- not to mention vampire-human interbreeding -- would upset some parents. But I've been amazed that so many moms and other older women have become hooked on the series too.

Topping the ALA's 2009 chart was Lauren Myracle's "IM" series, novels told through instant messages that have been criticized for nudity, language and drug references, the AP said. Last year's #1, "And Tango Makes Three," is now #2, cited again for its story about two male penguins adopting a baby. Also cited were such perennials as "The Catcher in the Rye," "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Color Purple."

Thankfully, though, there aren't a lot of self-appointed censors. The ALA recorded 460 challenges in 2009, a drop from 513 the year before, and 81 books actually being removed. Not bad, considering there are 122,566 libraries across the nation, accoding to the ALA.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

Well, I have to say I came to work this morning with a couple of surprises: Fitzgerald knocked out in the first round, and "underdog" Jessica Anya Blau's insistence that any contest against Anne Tyler could only go one way.

But it looks like the voters have spoken!

Second-round matchups include H.L. Mencken vs Nora Zeale Hurston and Edgar Allan Poe vs Gertrude Stein. Yeah, things are getting interesting.

So thanks for voting, and keep it up! I can't wait to see who ends up on the top of this literary pile ...

And if you need a little refresher on some of these writers, check it out.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

On the release day for "Oprah," Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography of the media superstar, The Sun reviewed the sections about her up-and-down experience at WJZ-TV (check out the hair styles in these photos). Oprah worked as a news anchor, was exiled to a less prestigious assignment, but then found her niche as a talk show host. As reporter Mary McCauley says, Kelley's chapters on Baltimore "contain little that's new or truly revelatory, but it does gather into one place threads of the early-day Oprah legend that have been talked about elsewhere."

Here are more excerpts from McCauley's article: A lot of ink is given to Winfrey's doomed-from-the-start love affair with Tim Watts, a long-time figure in Baltimore radio who, according to Kelley's book, was "a married man with a young son and no intention of leaving his wife." Winfrey, again according to the book, has never spoken of Watts by name publicly, but has frequently referred to an obsessive, unhealthy relationship she had while living in Baltimore. "This is a guy I used to take the seeds out of the watermelon for so he wouldn't have to spit," she's quoted as telling Entertainment Weekly.

There's also lots of talk about her appetite (voracious, apparently, especially in times of stress) and fluctuating weight, and a passing reference to her drug use, something she first admitted to on-air during a memorable edition of her show in January 1995. And Kelley quotes extensively from a commencement address Winfrey gave at Goucher College in 1981, where she urged the graduates "not to believe that Mr. Right was the answer to their prayers."

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

And so it comes to this: We have 16 authors, all featured in Jen Michalski's anthology, "City Sages," and all celebrated writers in their own right. But there can be only one winner.

Or, you know, we're just having a bit of fun in this completely unscientific and subjective poll. So if you've ever wondered what would happen if Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin collided with Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan, pay attention! Only you and your votes can make it happen.

Today's matchups include: Anne Tyler versus Jessica Anya Blau; Michael Kimball versus Frederick Douglass; and Stephen Dixon versus H.L. Mencken.

Want to plead the case for your favorite Baltimore author? You know what to do.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

As author Kitty Kelley hawks her unauthorized biography "Oprah," she says she's having a tough time getting booked on popular TV shows. She told Matt Lauer on the Today show that she believes Barbara Walters, Larry King and Rachael Ray have declined to interview her because they fear an Oprah backlash.

As her celebrity has grown, Oprah has carefully controlled access and information, requiring employees to sign confidentiality agreements, for example. (Reminds me of the way Tiger Woods limited access to favorable coverage -- until his world imploded.)

Little wonder then, that folks would be eager to read more about Oprah. And the talk show freeze-out, real or imagined, hasn't hurt book sales -- "Oprah is #3 among Amazon best sellers. 

Here's a photo gallery of Oprah thruogh the years. And you can  read more about Kelley's "revelations" -- including the issue of Oprah's  sexuality and her teenage child-bearing -- in this post.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Fiction -- "Tinkers," by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press) a powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality.

General non-fiction -- “The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy,” by David E. Hoffman (Doubleday), a well documented narrative that examines the terrifying doomsday competition between two superpowers and how weapons of mass destruction still imperil humankind.

Biography -- “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt,” by T.J Stiles (Alfred A. Knopf), a penetrating portrait of a complex, self-made titan who revolutionized transportation, amassed vast wealth and shaped the economic world in ways still felt today.

History -- “Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World,” by Liaquat Ahamed (The Penguin Press), a compelling account of how four powerful bankers played crucial roles in triggering the Great Depression and ultimately transforming the United States into the world’s financial leader.

Poetry -- “Versed,” by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press), a book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

One of my favorite free events, the CityLit Festival, is back on Saturday! And Dave and I are lucky enough to be moderating a really fun panel: City Sages, Baltimore.

The panel is the result of a new anthology edited by local author Jen Michalski, which includes the work of some of Charm City's best writers. We're talking Anne Tyler, Michael Kimball, Frederick Douglass, Madison Smartt Bell and, of course, Edgar Allan Poe.

So, in preparation of the event, I thought it would be fun to have a friendly little competition -- which Baltimore author reigns supreme in our hearts and minds?

We've selected 16 of the 36 authors featured in "City Sages," and now all we need is your opinion!

Tomorrow, the voting begins. But for today, let's introduce you to our contenders.

And don't forget to join us Saturday at noon for the panel!

For twenty years, Rafael Alvarez worked as a city desk reporter for the Baltimore Sun, which published two anthologies of his journalism, Hometown Boy (1999) and Storyteller (2001). His two collections of short fiction are The Fountain of Highlandtown (1997) and Orlo and Leini (2000). He has also published First and Forever: A People's History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore (2006.) His next publication is a collection of Baltimore Christmas stories — both fiction and nonfiction — tentively titled "Deep Fried Anchovies."

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of fourteen novels, including "Soldier’s Joy," which received the Lillian Smith Award in 1989. Bell has also published two fiction collections: "Zero db" (1987) and "Barking Man" (1990). Bell’s eighth novel, "All Soul’s Rising," was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of the 1996 Anisfield-Wolf award. Born and raised in Tennessee, he now lives in Baltimore, along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth Spires, and daughter. He is currently Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College and has been a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers since 2003.

Jessica Anya Blau’s novel "The Summer of Naked Swim Parties" (2008) was chosen as a Best Summer Book by the Today Show, the New York Post, and New York Magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle, along with other newspapers, chose it as a Best Book of 2008. Her second novel, "Drinking Closer to Home" (Harper Perennial), will be out in February 2011.

Stephen Dixon is among the most prolific authors of short stories in the history of American letters, with over 500 published. Dixon has been nominated for the National Book Award twice, in 1991 for "Frog" and in 1995 for "Interstate." He is the author of fourteen novels and numerous story collections.

Frederick Douglass (c. 1818-1895) was born in a slave cabin near the town of Easton, Maryland. Separated from his mother when only a few weeks old, he was raised by his grandparents. At about the age of six, his grandmother took him to the plantation of his master and left him there. When he was about eight he was sent to Baltimore to live as a houseboy with Hugh and Sophia Auld, relatives of his master. It was shortly after his arrival that his new mistress taught him the alphabet. When her husband forbade her to continue her instruction, because it was unlawful to teach slaves how to read, Frederick took it upon himself to learn. In 1838, at the age of twenty, Douglass succeeded in escaping from slavery by impersonating a sailor. An important abolitionist, he published his own newspaper, The North Star, participated in the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, in 1848, and wrote three autobiographies.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers. He finished four novels, "This Side of Paradise," "The Beautiful and Damned," "Tender is the Night," and his most famous, the celebrated classic, "The Great Gatsby." A fifth, unfinished novel, "The Love of the Last Tycoon," was published posthumously. When his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, was hospitalized in Baltimore in 1932, Scott rented the “La Paix” estate in the suburb of Towson, where he worked on "Tender Is the Night." Both Scott and Zelda are buried in Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville.

A novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was the prototypical authority on black culture from the Harlem Renaissance. Her novels include "Jonah’s Gourd Vine," "Mules and Men," "Their Eyes Watching God," "Moses, Man of the Mountain," "Seraph on the Suwanee," and the travelogue and study of Caribbean voodoo, "Tell My Horse." Her autobiography, "Dust Tracks on a Road," was published in 1942.

Michael Kimball’s third novel, "Dear Everybody," was recently published in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. The Believer calls it “a curatorial masterpiece.” Time Out New York calls the writing “stunning.” And the Los Angeles Times says the book is “funny and warm and sad and heartbreaking.” His first two novels are "The Way The Family Got Away" (2000) and "How Much Of Us There Was" (2005), both of which have been translated (or are being translated) into many languages. He is also responsible for the collaborative art project “Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard).”

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at the Baltimore Sun. A New York Times bestselling novelist, she is the author of the award-winning Tess Monaghan series and several stand-alone crime Baltimore novels. Her fifteenth novel, "I’d Know You Anywhere," will be published in 2010.

Alice McDermott is Johns Hopkins University’s Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities. Her short stories have appeared in Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, Th e New Yorker, and Seventeen. Her novels include "A Bigamist’s Daughter" (1982); "That Night" (1987), a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pen/Faulkner Award, and the Pulitzer Prize; "At Weddings and Wakes" (1992), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; "Charming Billy" (1998), the winner of the 1998 National Book Award; "Child of My Heart: A Novel" (2002), nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and "After This" (2006), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Henry Louis “H. L.” Mencken (1880–1956), was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a student of American English. Mencken, known as the “Sage of Baltimore,” is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the 20th century. Among his many publications are "Happy Days," "Newspaper Days," and "Heathen Days." Mencken might be best known for his reporting on the 1925 Scopes trial, which he dubbed the “monkey” trial.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, critic, short story writer, and author of such works as The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, and “The Raven.” He lived in Baltimore during the 1830s, and mysteriously died there in 1849. Poe continues to slumber in the graveyard at Westminister Church.

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) moved to Baltimore in the 1890s after the death of her parents. Th ere she enjoyed Saturday evening salons hosted by art collectors Claribel and Etta Cone, a social ritual that she replicated upon moving to Paris. While in Baltimore, Gertrude enrolled at the Johns Hopkins Meidcal School, but left in 1901 without a formal degree. In 1903, Stein moved to Paris with Alice B. Toklas, her lifelong companion and secretary. Her first book, "Three Lives," was published in 1909, followed by "Tender Buttons" in 1914. Her other influential works are "The Making of Americans" (1925), "How to Write "(1931), "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" (1933), and "Stanzas in Meditation and Other Poems" [1929-1933] (1956).

Author of eighteen novels, Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minn., in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, N.C. Her eleventh novel, "Breathing Lessons," was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. A member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, she continues to live in Baltimore.

Rupert Wondolowski recently returned to the small silver screen in Michael Kimball and Luca DiPierro’s film "60 Writers/60 Places." He is the author of "The Origin of Paranoia as a Heated Mole Suit" (Publishing Genius Press) and "The Whispering of Ice Cubes" (Shattered Wig Press). His writing has most recently appeared in the i.e. Series Reader, Lamination Colony, Fell Swoop, and Mud Luscious Press Stamp Stories. He is the editor and publisher of The Shattered Wig Press.

Joseph Young lives in Hampden. His book of microfictions, "Easter Rabbit," was released by Publishing Genius in December 2009. Stories from the book have appeared in Caketrain, Lamination Colony, FRiGG, jmww, wigleaf, Keyhole, and elsewhere. He often collaborates with visual artists, most recently with painter Christine Sajecki at Minas Gallery in March 2010.

(Bios courtesy of City Sages, edited by Jen Michalski.)

Posted by Nancy Knight at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Kitty Kelley, whose catty unauthorized bios can make celebrities quake, has turned her sights on media superstar Oprah Winfrey. The pre-release publicity for "Oprah" promises a juicy read about a woman "choked by secrets." Today's Washington Post, for example, describes a diva-like performance during an antiques gallery shopping spree. Other tidbits claim that she keeps her direct phone number from her mother. And the book will delve into private issues, including her sexuality (no bombshells here) and the baby son she bore at age 15. Oh, and did I mention the relationship with John Tesh years ago, when they both worked at a TV station in Nashville? (I was also interested to note that Kelley told Entertainment Weekly she first met Oprah in Baltimore in 1981 while promoting a book. Let's not forget that Oprah's TV career started here in Charm City.)

In preparation for Tuesday's release of "Oprah," the L.A. Times looked back at the way her previous books have been received. Ronald Reagan said of her take on wife Nancy: "While I am accustomed to reports that stray from the truth, the flagrant and absurd falsehoods ... clearly exceed the bounds of decency." And her book on Frank Sinatra led daughter Nancy to say, "I hope she gets hit by a truck."

Tough stuff. But the searing reviews could help stoke book sales.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

On Sunday, the Day of Remembrance when we honor the millions who perished in the Holocaust, I'll be discussing "The Attack," with my Jewish book group. The novel is an interesting tale about an Arab who has made a foothold in Israeli society, but finds his life shattered by a suicide bombing.

It's a sad reminder that the violence in Israel did not end with World War II. Hardly. It has dogged the young nation ever since it was born, and recent events give me little confidence that the situation is improving dramatically.

For more about the Days of Remembrance, which run from April 11-18, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a great resouce.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The Harry Potter theme park in Orlando today released a short video tour of part of Hogwarts School, the beginning of the journey for visitors.

The centerpiece of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is an impressive building -- why can't we get theme park designers to create buildings in the real world? And it should elicit lots of ooohs and aaahs from muggles, as they imagine sitting in a "Defense Against the Dark Arts" class.

The park opens June 18.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Happy Friday, everyone!

I hope you have a great weekend planned, and that there's plenty of sunshine in the works. I'm heading down to D.C. to see (what's left of) the cherry blossoms. But honestly, I'm just so glad the snow seems to be over, it could rain the whole time for all I care.

But when I have a free moment, I'm going to pick up George Mann's "Ghosts of Manhattan." The book is set in a steampunk version of the Jazz Age, in which Queen Victoria was "artificially preservered" to the age of 107, and the U.S. is in a cold war with Great Britain. The back of the book boasts superheroes, monsters, flappers and rocket boosters(!) I can't wait.

Meanwhile, we've got a new winner! Congratulations, Rachel, you've won "Beatrice and Virgil." I hope you enjoy it!

And next up, we've got Anna Quindlen's latest, "Every Last One." The novel follows a family on the verge of some very tough revelations -- including depression, violence and, ultimately, hope. So if you're a sucker for a good story about family, you'll want to pick this one up.

Or, you can tell us what you're reading, and you just might win it! Good luck, everyone!

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

I'm looking forward to Sunday's debut of "Treme," the new HBO series by Baltimore's David Simon -- though I worry about getting hooked on that and "The Pacific" at the same time. I've only visited New Orleans once, but I loved the place instantly for its architecture, food and music. It is the rare American city that has avoided the redevelopment formula so popular in the 1970s. (Waterfront -- check. Aquarium/Science center -- check. Chain stores and restaurants -- check.) "Treme" promises to take us well beyod the city's tourist quarters.

As an accompaniment, consider reaching for a good book about New Orleans or Louisiana. Here are a few I liked, As always, let me know about your favorites:

"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole captures the city's quirkiness, and is one of the funniest books I've read.

"The Missing" is a mystery wrapped in a tale self-discovery, by Louisiana native Tim Gautreaux.

"Pops" by Terry Teachout is a compelling biography of New Orleans' own Louis Armstriong, a musical genius who took the city's unique sound and adapted it for the world.

"All the King's Men," a masterful novel that Robert Penn Warren modeled after the career of Louisiana governor Huey Long. For a readable history of the Southern boss, try the Pulitzer Prize-winning Huey Long by T. Harry Williams.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

This week's movie with a literary connection is "Letters to God," a tale of a young boy who is battling brain cancer and forms a spiritual bond with those around him, including a troubled postman. Patrick Doughtie wrote the story, inspired by his son Tyler, who died in 2005. Doughtie has written a companion book, and he and wife Heather also created a kids' version. By all accounts, this seems like one of those tear-jerkers that critics will pan and fans will adore. A more religious version of a tale that Nicholas Sparks might weave, on the order of "The Last Song" or "Dear John." Here are excerpts from reviews:

Orlando Sentinel -- Good looking ... but slow and bland, this faith-based tear-jerker is a depressingly unemotional affair, with writing and some of the acting so flat that even its emotionally loaded situations can’t inspire waterworks.

New York -- A young boy with cancer writes letters to God; an alcoholic postman gets them and reexamines his life. This feel-good (or should that be feel-bad?) movie purports to be about how the power of prayer affects others in a community. Something tells us it’s not meant for a New York audience.

Variety -- Bearing echoes of "Pay It Forward," "My Sister's Keeper" and even "Miracle on 34th Street," this faith-based/fact-based inspirational weepie allows no one to escape the saintlike glow of its terminally ill protagonist.

MovieGuide -- an impressive, well-written, redemptive, powerful movie that will touch the hearts of most people who see it.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Books to Movies
        

The latest book from Tom Clancy, King of the tech-thriller, has the feel of an all-star roster. Or maybe it's like X-Men without super powers and spandex. For "Dead or Alive," scheduled for a Dec. 7 release, Clancy and co-author Grant Blackwood will bring together heroes from previous books, including president Jack Ryan, son Jack Jr. and former Navy SEAL John Clark. Add Ding Chavez and Mary Pat Foley, and you have an infield that would make any terrorist shudder.

Here's how it's described by the publisher: As "Dead or Alive" opens, the war on terror is far from won, but winning it doesn't appear to be a priority for President Kealty, Jack Ryan's successor in the Oval Office. The Emir, a sadistic killer who has masterminded the most vicious terrorist attacks on the West, has eluded capture by the world's armed forces and law enforcement agencies. Now the Campus is on his trail. Joined by their latest recruits, John Clark and Ding Chavez, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his cousins Dominick and Brian Caruso are ordered to catch the Emir and they will bring him in...dead or alive.

Clancy was last in the news when he bought a super-sized, $12.6 million condo on Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Sales of his new book should help retire that mortgage early.

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

Steve Geppi built a fortune through his love of comics, and I really admire him for making a living from something he loves. He also brought Baltimore a museum that honors Superman and the other heroes of the medium. Now, though, there are signs of financial pressure on his business interests, and his 19th Century mansion Cliffeholme (eight bedrooms and nine fireplaces) is headed for a foreclosure auction today, more than two years after he put it up for sale for $7.7 million.

The biggest threat on his comics distribution business: the iPad. Previous e-readers such as the Kindle and nook are not built for full-color graphic displays. But the iPad's clear, sharp display offers comic book fans a new way to feed their habit. that's why Marvel has developed an iPad app -- and why Apple features it on its iPad app page. Now that consumers can buy digital versions directly from the creators, middlemen like Geppi get squeezed.

As Sun business columnist Jay Hancock notes on his blog, some in the comics industry may not fully recognize the threat. "Comics are special," an industry executive told the recent ComicsPRO confab. "It's not something that can easily translate into other media."

Until now.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The talk started in England, with stories by the BBC and others that Scrabble was going to start allowing the use of proper nouns. When my co-worker Sarah Kelber (of the Reality Check blog) shrieked, I got worried. Scrabble holds a certain place of reverence in my home -- sparking fierce competition and legendary family battles. The thought of a board slathered with words such as with Jwoww or Kyrgyz gave me the shivers.

Turns out that the purists' fears are overblown. Mattel, which has international rights to the game (Hasbro controls it in the U.S.) plans a new version called Scrabble Trickster, with all sorts of gimmicks. Philip Nelkon, promotions manager of Mattel, told the Washington Post that there will be squares on the board calling on players to draw cards. The cards might instruct you to forfeit a letter to an opponent -- or permit you to spell a proper noun.

But here in the U.S., the game will remain the same, Jwoww-less. Phew.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Every year, my reading momentum stalls -- badly -- during March Madness, when I put down books and pick up nachos for the college basketball tournaments. This year, I was spared watching a lot of games when my favorite men's teams -- UConn and UMd. -- were out of contention early. But I stayed with the UConn women all the way through, and last night they beat Stanford, 53-47, to win their second straight championship and finish a second straight undefeated season.

Their phenomenal run over the past decade has made coach Geno Auriemma a mini-conglomerate. You can buy Geno Auriemma wines, eat Geno Auriemma pasta sauce, and have a meal at his Fast Break restaurant. (For all of you fellow travelers on Interstate 95, his brand may soon adorn the rest stops in Connecticut, too.) And what would an American success story be without a book? To read how way he built UConn into the nation's best women's basketball program, check out Geno: In Pursuit of Perfection, an autobiography written with Jackie MacMullen. It sits on my parents' bookshelf back in Connecticut.

Thanks, Geno (AND playrrs Maya Moore, Tina Charles et all) for another season of perfection. And now, back to my reading.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

For any of you who were disappointed to see the Charles Village Barnes and Noble was closed yesterday (like me), you'll be happy to hear they're back in business today.

According to a store employee I spoke to this morning, the store's cash register system was down yesterday, necessitating the store's temporary shut down. Which meant that I wasn't able to go there during my lunch break and test out a new app that has me kind of excited: pic2shop.

This free barcode reader scans the barcode of any item you're going to purchase, and checks other stores in the area (and on the Internet) to ensure you're getting the best deal.

While pic2shop isn't specifically designed for books, it does have one really neat feature for readers: It searches through your local library's inventory to see if the book you're eyeing is available for lending. Of course, it also gives you alternatives for buying the book, if you want to own it. But I like that it keeps your options open.

So I'm headed over again today to see how well this puppy works. Wish me luck!

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

For 52 years, Baltimore Smith College Club volunteers have been gathering and selling a yearly haul of about 50,000 used books. They wear pale yellow handmade cotton aprons, sweat shirts and very sensible shoes.

The club's annual three-day literary stampede begins Friday when the first customers swarm the sales tables at a Timonium Fairgrounds exhibition hall. The event is held throughout the weekend and ends April 11, when all that remains is substantially reduced in cost. The final hours, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., feature an all-you-can-carry price of $5. It's a Baltimore bargain-hunters' favorite. (More details on time and place here.) 

So where do all these books come from? "People in North Baltimore buy good books and treat them very well," said former Goucher College President Rhoda Dorsey, who is a Smith graduate and former club president. "They donate so much to us, and they are beautiful books." ...

The family of art collector and Smith alumna Ryda Hecht Levi donated her collection of art books to the sale this year. There is a collection donated by a curator at the Walters Art Museum and numerous works of science fiction, as well as comic books. Another donor gave boxes of books related to military history. There are huge sections devoted to fiction, mysteries, history and biography.

Club members adopted a "no-censorship" policy this year and will be offering some works of erotica. "These books were donated to us, and we're just going to put them out for sale," said Anderson.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Apple said that it sold 300,000 iPads in the first day of sales Saturday -- including pre-orders -- a stat that generally satisfied analysts. Somewhat obscured by that figure is another interesting measurement of the device's impact: Apple sold more than 250,000 e-books that day. I'd like to own a bookstore that moved a quarter-million copies in a single day.

The iPad comes loaded with a digital version of Winnie the Pooh, and the color illustrations really pop on the big screen. The "bookshelf" that holds your e-books is an interesting feature, too. (Nancy should note that "The Help" is featured on the example above -- she needs to finish it in the next few days for her bookclub. Get crackin', Nance!) We'll give the iPad a test drive later today, and have a more complete review of the e-reader capabilities. Meanwhile, here are some other iPad reviews that focus on the e-book experience.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

"Silk Parachute," the new collection by John McPhee is sitting on my coffee table, waiting for me to finish a couple of novels. Patience, patience. I hold McPhee's work ("Coming into the Country," "The Pine Barrens," etc.) in high esteem, so there's little doubt I'll read the new book. My interest was piqued even more by a Sun article. Reporter Fred Rasmussen noted that one of McPhee's pieces, "Spin Right and Shoot Left," mentions " 'The Lacrosse History of the Boys' Latin School,' whose 83,000 words, even without being read, say a great deal about lacrosse in Baltimore." The article explains the origins of the lax tome, which is still being written; some excerpts:

"I started this project 10 years ago," said [Lee McCardell "Mac" Kennedy, a 1976 Boys' Latin graduate. He is currently director of alumni affairs.] "You know, when you're not a good athlete, you find your niche doing something else," said Kennedy with a hearty laugh. A decade ago, he got the idea that he wanted to chronicle the history of lacrosse at Boys' Latin. This year marks the 81st anniversary of the interscholastic lacrosse program at the West Lake Avenue school. ...

McPhee's own lacrosse career was confined to one championship season at Deerfield Academy, from which he graduated in 1949. "I was a basketball player, and the lacrosse coach came up to me and asked me to join the team. It was a wonderful experience," he recalled. ... "Playing midfield, my job was to deliver the ball to someone who knew what he was doing."

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today's White House Easter egg roll will have a heavy emphasis on reading, featuring guests such as JK Rowling and Sesame Street's Elmo. Rowling is scheduled to read at 1:30 p.m. and you can hear her on a live webcast via the White House. There's a full schedule of events, including readings and musical performances by Justin Bieber and the Glee cast.

Other fun facts about the annual event, from the White House:

The eggs are available in four colors – purple, pink, green, yellow – and include the stamped signatures of the President and First Lady.

14,500 hard-boiled and dyed eggs will be used between the egg roll and the egg hunt, and an additional 4,500 hard-boiled eggs will be provided for the egg dying station on the South Lawn.

“Chirping eggs” will be used to accommodate guests with visual impairments.

Books used in the readings were checked out from city libraries, and will be returned on time.

Goody bags include Hershey’s chocolates and Peeps.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Read Streeter Patrick Lackey has a guest post today on whether it's wise to jump into the middle of a book series. I was thinking about the same issue, because I recently started "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," the third in Stieg Larsson's acclaimed crime trilogy. I haven't read his first two books, so I'm not sure how they relate to one another, but the opening chapters of TGWKtHN seem to include a whole lot of catching up. Sort of a print version of: "Last week on 24 ..." Here's Patrick's post:

I recently read my first Michael Connelly crime novel, "The Scarecrow." It made occasional reference to the killer in a previous Connelly novel, "The Poet." Having been immensely entertained by "The Scarecrow," I soon read "The Poet." It's also a terrific book, but the ending was partly ruined for me because I knew from reading "The Scarecrow" that "The Poet" couldn't possibly end in the way the author was leading the reader to believe. In short, by reading the books out of order, I killed some of the suspense in the second one read.

The moral of my tale is that suspense writers' books should be approached in the order they were written. Also, suspense writers should understand that their books might not be read chronologically, so they shouldn't give away too much about previous books. The list of other novels by a writer should be in chronological order.

I discovered suspense writer Laura Lippman about four years ago and have since read all her books, not always in the order she wrote them. To my knowledge, she has never revealed anything in one book that lessened the suspense in a previous one. Actually, the more of her books you've read, in whatever order, the richer the one you are reading will seem.

Lippman proves that new books needn't kill the suspense in previous ones. When half the enjoyment of a book derives from its suspense, lessening that suspense is a crime.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

With Opening Day here (Let's go O's/Mets/Bosox!) , it's a good time to pick up a baseball book. You can't go wrong with these two: "Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend" by James S. Hirsch and the 50th anniversary edition of the John Updike article on Ted Williams' last game at Fenway Park.

I just finished the Willie Mays bio, and enjoyed all 500+ pages. Mays grew up in an era when blacks and whites played separately, and was a pioneer in integrating the major leagues. Hirsch's book, written with Mays' cooperation, delves into that issue as well as other major trends that hit baseball during his career, including free agency, television and coast-to-coast travel. The book is wrenching as it describes the slights Mays felt during spring training in Florida -- and when he tried to buy a home in an all-white neighborhood in San Francisco. And it's touching as Hirsch details the family-like bonds between major leaguers: Mays and manager Leo Durocher, Mays and Mets pitcher Tom Seaver (who wore his uniform with the top button open, because he had once seen his hero do it).

The book isn't flawless. There are minor mistakes such as calculating Carl Furillo's assist-per-game ratio (he would have had to play in a 336-game season), or suggesting that Mays would lose sight of the ball while making his trademark basket catch (only if he didn't move his head). But it's a thoroughly enjoyable read. Learning about Mays' reluctance to get involved in the politics of integration reminded me of Louis Armstrong's similar stance, as described in the bio "Pops." They were both great artists, and playing (cornet or centerfield) was enough for a fascinating, fulfilling life.

The reprint of "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" offers a look at another baseball icon: Williams. The article appeared in The New Yorker in 1960, and is worth rereading -- more than once. (My closest link to Williams came as a 12-year-old at his baseball camp on Cape Cod. We got a short visit from the legend while we were practicing in the sliding pit. I can't recall what he said, but I do remember that the counselors showed us how to spike infielders' gloves by kicking our top leg out.) Two of my favorite passages:

-- Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man’s Euclidean determinations and Nature’s beguiling irregularities.

-- Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn’t tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted “We want Ted” for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Lost amid all the hype accompanying the release of Apple's iPad is this sobering fact: E-book prices are moving higher as a result. The days of seemingly endless $9.99 digital book bargains are gone, and consumers should brace for the shock. Why the change? Because publishers used the iPad to pressure Amazon, the acknowledged market leader in e-book sales. Here's a just-the-facts-ma'am summary:

Publishers have long griped about Amazon's e-book dominance, and the $9.99 prices that undercut print sales. Apple proposed a higher pricing structure for e-books that it sold -- generally between $12.99 or $14.99 -- while insisting that publishers not sell books at a lower price through a competitor. Publishers were overjoyed. And with the iPad emerging as a real competitive threat to the Kindle, Amazon announced this week that it would follow Apple's pricing model. So everyone is happy -- except consumers, who are stuck with the bill.

Of course, in the highly volatile e-book market, this could change in an instant. (And some e-books will still be priced at $9.99.) Still it's a good lesson to remember as we cheer, toot horns, light candles and otherwise celebrate the iPad's birth.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Sad news: Susan Tifft, a journalist who co-authored two books about seismic shifts in the American newspaper industry, died of cancer Thursday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 59.

She and husband Alex S. Jones wrote about the families that controlled The New York Times and the Louisville Courier-Journal. Both books -- “The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty,’’ and “The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times’’ -- provide great insight into the trend that saw prominent families cede papers to large corporations. I'd recommend them to anyone who wants to learn about that dramatic change, and I only wish that a revised edition of "The Trust" was available to explore the more recent challenges faced by the Ochs/Sulzberger family.

Rest in peace, Susan.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Obituaries
        

Nicholas Sparks churns out movies the way James Patterson mass-produces books, and this week his latest adaptation, "The Last Song," comes to theaters. Seems like just yesterday that "Dear John" appeared. (It was early February.) Sparks movies are a known commodity -- reviewers hate them for their tragedy-tinged romance, but viewers love them. Miley Cyrus' starring role is sure to attract even more fans. Here are excerpts of reviews for "The Last Song" (you can read reviews for other book adaptations here):

Los Angeles Times -- There aren't a lot of surprises in store when a film is struck from Nicholas Sparks and is called "The Last Song." There will be young love in the picturesque South, there will be a battery of contrivances keeping those crazy kids apart, and there will be tragedy and much rending of hair.

Variety -- Cyrus, alas, hasn't yet learned not to act with her eyebrows and overbite. But she does show off her considerable chops as a pianist and remains reasonably likable throughout.

Chicago Tribune -- "The Last Song" is primarily for teenagers looking for something disposable to cry about for a couple of hours, though I did find it a tad easier to take than "Dear John," which was slicker but more galling in its heartstring-yanking.

Washington Post -- Will "The Last Song" resonate with a certain generation of young women the way, say, "The Notebook" has? I'm not sure. The audience I saw it with responded with as many giggles as sniffles ...

New York Times -- Another big problem is Ms. Cyrus. Her Hannah Montana persona has a certain aggressive charm ... and she seems to be a young celebrity with a good attitude and a strong work ethic. But acting, for the moment at least, seems almost entirely beyond her.

USA Today -- When the story revolves around the romance, it's mostly predictable beach montages and goofy antics. But things improve when gears shift to probe [father Greg] Kinnear's character. His affability invests the sappy tale with some authenticity.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)
Categories: Books to Movies
        

Happy Friday, everybody! I hope you have a great weekend planned, because it is looking gorgeous! You know, unless you're not into the whole warm weather and sunshine thing.

And congratulations to Nancy Johnston, who is NOT me, and who has also won "The Devil's Star." I hope you enjoy it, Nancy!

It's a bit of a twist this week: I'm going to start reading the very same book we're giving away next Friday. Yann Martel's "Life of Pi" was an instant success in 2002, when it won the Man Booker Prize, and now he's back with "Beatrice and Virgil." I'm seriously looking forward to this one, thought I hope it's a tad bit happier than Martel's last novel.

The book follows an author, named Henry, who receives a play in the mail featuring the title characters. With it is a note, signed "Henry," with the address of a taxidermist's shop. And then the adventure begins ...

Piqued your interest? Let us know what you're reading, and it could be yours!

Posted by Nancy Knight at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
        

Apple's iPad got a hilariously favorable review on this week's "Modern Family," as dad Phil (actor Ty Burrell at left) dreams about, obsesses over, and does everything short of sleeping with his birthday gift. With the iPad's release date scheduled Saturday, more analytical reviews are coming in, too. Most note that the tablet's shortcomings for business users may prevent it from replacing the laptop. You can read more iPad coverage, and here are some non-Phil review excerpts, with an emphasis on the e-reader function. (They neglect to mention a side-effect -- the increase of e-book prices.)

Walter Mossberg, Wall Street Journal -- The iPad is much more than an e-book or digital periodical reader, though it does those tasks brilliantly, better in my view than the Amazon Kindle. ... I consider the larger color screen superior to the Kindle’s, and encountered no eye strain. ... The iBooks app also lacks any way to enter notes, and Apple’s catalog at launch will only be about 60,000 books versus more than 400,000 for Kindle.

New York Times -- You can’t read well in direct sunlight. At 1.5 pounds, the iPad gets heavy in your hand after awhile (the Kindle is 10 ounces). And you can’t read books from the Apple bookstore on any other machine — not even a Mac or iPhone.

Washington Post -- I could easily scroll along the bottom of a book to jump to a specific page, with no notable delay when doing so. And I particularly liked how the iPad showed the page number, and out of how many, you were jumping ahead to; and, how it indicated the number of pages remaining in the chapter. ... The flicker for a quick page turn bugged me--nevertheless, it was better than suffering through the multiple flashes that one endures on most E-Ink readers as they try to redraw the page.

PC Mag -- Is the iPad cheap? No. Is it flawless? Not at all. Omissions including support for multitasking, a built-in camera for video chats, and Flash support in Safari leave room for improvement, but otherwise, the Apple iPad is a very convincing debut.

USA Today -- Apple is taking solid aim at the burgeoning electronic-reader market dominated by the Kindle. Judged solely from a sizzle standpoint: There's no contest. Titles on the iPad such as Winnie the Pooh (which comes preloaded on the iPad) boast colorful illustrations. The 6-inch Kindle screen is grayscale. ... But Amazon retains some bragging points for avid readers, starting with a cheaper $259 price that I suspect will need to drop a lot further. At 10 hours or so, the iPad battery life, while impressive, falls far short of the two weeks you might get off a Kindle charge.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
        

Before April Fool's Day slips away, take a few minutes to relive the "The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch," one of the best hoaxes in journalism history -- and a lot funnier than the spaceships in War of the Worlds. This is the 25th anniversary of the George Plimpton's story in Sports Illustrated about a mysterious baseball phenom. The headline said: "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga—and his future in baseball."

Indeed, the Harvard-educated pitcher was said to throw with a perfectly straight arm, like a catapult, but his fast ball traveled at 168 miles per hour. He was touted as a potential savior for the N.Y. Mets, but his eccentricities made it just as likely that he would withdraw to a mountaintop in Tibet. It's a great piece of writing from Plimpton, whose first-hand sports experiences produced a number of books including "Paper Lion" and "Shadow Box."

A lot of folks assumed the story was true. I was a huge Mets fan at the time, but can't recall whether I was snookered. After Sports Illustrated received hundreds of letters about Finch, the magazine finally revealed the hoax. One clue was from the headline shown above: the first letters of the words spell out Happy April Fools Day.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Philip Pullman, of the His Dark Materials trilogy, has already made a name for himself among many as anti-religious, whether you think he deserves derision for it or not. And his latest novel, due in stores May 4th, will likely only further cement his religious detractors.

"The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ" tells the story of Jesus and his twin brother, Christ. Pullman, who wanted to comment on "the dual nature of Jesus Christ."

"Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories," Pullman explained in a press release.

And if the nature of this book wouldn't get publicity enough, Enhanced Editions and Canongate have released an app for the book, priced at $16.99, that includes the full text of the tale, the audiobook read by Pullman, and more than 20 minutes of interviews with the author. It was released on Palm Sunday, and is available now on iTunes.

Let the controversy, and discussion, begin.

Posted by Nancy Knight at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Gotta love the April Fool's prank that Johns Hopkins University pulled on its web site. The homepage reflects a change in the school's name -- dropping the "s" in "Johns." That would be a sensible move, because it's the preferred pronunciation among many Baltimoreans. I've also heard a lot of "John Hopskins" in my time here.

Google, which often marks holidays with an artistic flair on its main search page, also got into the act today. It changed the name on that page to Topeka -- playing off the mayor's decision to change the city's name to "Google" in a bid for the company's high-speed broadband service. (Other company services such as analytics and trends have the same tired, old Google moniker.)

A couple more funny stunts: Starbucks announces two new drink sizes: Plenta™ (128 fl oz) and Micra™ (2 fl oz); cups arrive in stores this fall. And Google (or is it Topeka?) has a new app that translates animal sounds into human speech.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

I should have suspected something was up as soon as Stephen King, master of the horror novel, was displaced on the best-seller list by a first-time novelist, a Mormon from Arizona no less. Or maybe it was the fact that her first name so closely resembled his, and that "meyer" means "king" in Romanian. Or that they had never been seen writing together. Well now the true story can be told: Stephenie Meyer is really the alter-ego of King.

When I confronted King with the truth on April 1, he crumpled like a vampire with a crucifix driven through its heart. "Dang it. I thought I had thrown everyone off the trail when I said Mey-ah was a lousy writ-ah," he said in his thick Maine accent. "But I guess you got suspicious when it was announced that all the money from the Twilight series would be used to buy the Boston Red Sox and move them to Moose River.

"Actually, I'm glad this whole charade is over. I was sick and tired of watching her go to all those Twilight movie premieres, hanging out with cool kids like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Now I can have some fun with all those Hollywood stars and get away from these long winters."

Happy April Fool's Day.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)