Observation, analysis, and the tingle of personal experience come together in their dispatches with a hot-off-the-typewriter quality that hasn’t cooled since they first hit newsstands between 60 and 70 years ago. ... Providing context as well as insights gleaned from his own 44-year career as a Sun correspondent, foreign bureau chief and editorial page editor, Sterne compiles and shapes their stories into a chronicle of combat, politics, social upheaval — and a newspaper’s recognition that a major metropolitan daily in the 20th century needed to be a major cosmopolitan daily to serve its readership and fulfill its journalistic responsibility.

[Sterne says,] “Think of McCardell going from the command post maybe 25-50 miles to the trenches to the front lines, then watching and observing a firefight, and coming back, and — can you imagine? — sitting down and filing a 2,000 or 3,000-word piece. Just astounding. Think of Bradley, with the 175th Regiment of the Twenty-ninth Infantry Division, bobbing up and down on a troop ship, coming ashore on D-Day Plus One, wading through the water and observing all the snafus and the dead on Omaha Beach, and somehow sitting down and writing this incredible copy. Nothing is more ephemeral than newspaper copy. I wanted to put something into a book that might preserve it from total obscurity.”

Romania is populated with technological entrepreneurs, hard-working young people and plenty of art, music and culture, Rosapepe and Kast said. Tourists might not put Bucharest at the top of their list, but a visit to the Romanian capital and the rest of the country is worth undertaking.

“Americans who visited Romania got entranced with the place,” Rosapepe said. “They speak English, they’re pro-American, they’re nice people. It’s a very interesting culture and history.”

Perhaps Romania’s most persistent myth revolves around Vlad Dracul, the basis for Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” Also known as Vlad the Impaler, the Transylvanian prince is revered by Romanians several centuries after his death, Kast and Rosapepe write. Though Vlad’s preferred punishment was impaling his victims, the legend of him being a blood-sucking demon helps boost Transylvania’s tourism trade.

“I do think since Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ the vampire legend has made Romania seem really exotic,” Kast said. “People think it’s a real adventure to go there. It is an adventure — but not a scary one.”

Photo of Romanian Athenaeum in downtown Bucharest

The mega-retailers have been battling for an early share of holiday spending, in a war that makes indie bookstores shudder. For one local bookseller’s take on the issue, check out this blog post by Lauretta at Constellation Books in Reisterstown. An excerpt: "My personal opinion as a bookseller is that this price war is not sustainable and will eventually shrink the pool of available publishers and authors. Publishers pay attention to what sells - and if all that is selling are the 5-10 different $8.99-priced titles, they won't accept or print the new authors. They can't afford to. So we get a reduction in titles, a reduction in authors, and eventually a reduction in publishers."

Maryland has been home to many beloved literary icons, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rachel Carson and Edgar Allan Poe -- and they've each left their mark in the Free State. So, with the help of our readers, we've compiled a list of the best places to relive a bit of bookish history. So here are our picks, and if you have a few of your own, let us know! (Here are more Top 10 lists from Sun bloggers.)

1. Fort McHenry, where Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that would become "The Star-Spangled Banner." By the time you reach the "and the land of the free," even the most hard-hearted cynic feels a stirring their chest. "The Defence of Fort McHenry" was inspired by the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812, though it would take more than 100 years for it to be officially recognized as our national anthem.

2. Maryland's favorite gothic son, Edgar Allan Poe, stayed in Baltimore only a short time, but left a lasting mark -- as any Ravens fan can tell you. So don't miss the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum at 203 N. Amity St, where you can learn everything about his life, and death, in Baltimore. Afterward, you can stop by the Westminster Burying Grounds and Catacombs, where tours are conducted the first and third Fridays, April through November.

3. Rachel Carson, the celebrated author and biologist, was born in Pennsylvania, but by the time she'd started work on "Silent Spring," she had moved to Silver Spring, in a one-story rancher she designed and lived in until her death in 1964. The Rachel Carson Conservation Park in Brookeville is a great place to commune with nature, just as the former Johns Hopkins student and sometimes Sun writer would have intended.

4. It's no secret that Baltimore Sun luminary H.L. Mencken and Jazz Age author F. Scott Fitzgerald loved to party. So while you can stop by the Mencken House at 1524 Hollins St., or the rowhouse at 1307 Park Ave. where Fitzgerald wrote "Tender is the Night," it'd be much more fitting to enjoy a drink or two at The Owl Bar, at 1. E. Chase St., where they threw back quite a few martinis.

5. Anyone who's read Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Anne Tyler's books can tell you about the beauty (and lovable oddballs) of Roland Park. Tyler made the upscale neighborhood famous in her critically acclaimed books, including "The Accidental Tourist" and "Ladder of Years." Check out Eddie's at 5113 Roland Ave., and if you're in the mood for French food, you can't go wrong with Petit Louis at 4800 Roland Ave.

According to the biographer, Alcott disliked writing fiction for children and preferred to secretly write pulp thrillers that featured killers and transvestites. She took opiates and smoked hash. And she was a true rags-to-riches story, moving from a commune to multimillionaire status.

But the book is not meant to be salacious. It recounts her friendship with other famous writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James. (Quite the literary neighborhood, eh?)

You know the drill: If you'd like to enter for the giveaway, leave a comment. 

As for last week's giveaway, the winner is: me! My name really did come up in the Universal Number Randomizer, but knowing that Nancy would accuse me of a conflict of interest, I am ceding Duff and Willie Goldman's "Ace of Cakes" to Marnie. Congratulations to the Divine Ms. M (all I ask is that you send me a piece of cake).

[S]ome half-dozen speakers will take to the podium Saturday to discuss "A Gallery of Rogues," the roster of bad guys and ne'er-do-wells Holmes was constantly running up against as he tried to make Victorian London a safer place. They'll be talking about the thugs, the schemers, the traitors, the suave evildoers who were always meeting their match in Holmes.

Die-hard Holmesians love to dissect the world Conan Doyle created, to try to extract tiny bits of information about the characters. (Did Holmes, for example, attend Oxford or Cambridge? Conan Doyle never said, but fans have their opinions.) And they love to try and rationalize the occasional inconsistencies that creep into the narrative. The wound Dr. Watson received while fighting in Afghanistan, for instance: Was it in his leg, as one story says, or in his shoulder?

"Conan Doyle was not a stickler for continuity," says Abdrew Solberg, in a tone more amused than critical.

Except for an appearance on Oprah the day before release, she'll skip the largest U.S. cities, and appear in reddish small towns across the nation, the AP reports. The tour starts Nov. 18 at a Barnes & Noble in Grand Rapids, Mich., and includes other stops in Noblesville, Ind.; Washington, Pa.; and Rochester, N.Y.

ABC News also plans a huge sendoff for the book -- similar to the Today shows recent touting of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Barbara Walters' interviews of Palin will air in five parts on Good Morning America, Nightline and 20/20.

Not surprising that ABC -- and many others-- would want to take advantage of Palin's book, which was on best-seller lists well before the release date.

As I mentioned Tuesday, Taylor Branch will be at the Pratt tonight, discussing his new book, "The Clinton Tapes." This man knows his history, and he's got the tapes to prove it.

Tomorrow night, Atomic Books hosts "Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys," with readings and discussions of the anthology detailing the sex industry led by David Henry Sterry and Shawna Kenney.

On Saturday, local author Mark Millikin will be at Greetings & Readings to discuss and sign his book, "The Glory of the 1966 Orioles and Baltimore," which tells the story of the era through the eyes of those who lived it.

And on Wednesday, Baltimore's own James Magruder will be at the Johns Hopkins Barnes and Noble to sign and discuss his debut novel, "Sugarless," a coming-of-age story complete with drugs, sex and born-again Christians.

Don't see anything you like? Visit the Read Street calendar for even more events. ]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/11/book_it_49.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/11/book_it_49.html Book It Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:00:12 -0500 With the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street upon us, it's a good time to look back at "Street Gang," which chronicles the humble beginnings of the show. Michael Davis, a former editor at The Baltimore Sun, has written an insightful and entertaining tale about the iconic kids' show. Here's an excerpt from a 2009 Sun review by Diane Scharper:

The show came about in a perfect storm of creativity, need, idealism, serendipity and technology. As Davis tells it, that convergence began at a dinner party in the 1960s. Lloyd Morrisette, a vice president at Carnegie Corp., was talking about his 3-year-old daughter, Sarah, and her interest in television when he attended Joan Ganz Cooney's dinner party. Sarah had been so mesmerized by television that she learned to recite cereal commercials - what goes snap, crackle and pop - by heart.

Cooney, a little-known television producer, listening to Morrisette, wondered whether underprivileged preschool kids could learn numbers, the alphabet and concepts like over, around, under and through by using a jingle. Soon Cooney, with money from the Carnegie Corp., conducted a study of children's television, which found that television could use its expertise, especially with regard to frequent repetition, clever visual presentation, brevity and clarity, to teach children the basics.

Although her report was overwhelmingly accepted, Cooney was not considered experienced enough to be offered the position of executive director. Davis also notes that several people thought Cooney's duties as a married woman would preclude her from giving the project its necessary time. But after much protest and string-pulling, Cooney was finally given the top job. She would become the person most responsible for the show's success, mainly because of her management style and her sense of inclusiveness.

You read that right -- that's one thousand two hundred dollars.

At first, I was completely flummoxed. Sure, it's made of fabric and handsewn, but what's the big deal? Then I saw the photo of the little boy with the book -- and the book is nearly as big as him!

It's a ginormous tome about everyday household monsters that move remote controls, steal socks and generally do all those pesky things sometimes kids are blamed for. In other words, perfect for your favorite little hellion.

Or, you know, me. I wouldn't mind taking a nap with that beauty.

However, I'm betting that no one I know -- or that you know, for that matter -- is going to lay down more than a grand for what amounts to a children's book, no matter who awesomely huge it is.

But someone, please, prove me wrong. If you've got a copy of "Monsters of the Household Variety," do send me some pictures!

Amazon Technologies has applied for a patent for a process that would slightly alter each copy of an e-book. That way, if someone spread it around the Internet illegally, the version could be tracked. And presumably, the offender could be shipped to a cold, distant planet.

But the best part is the way the e-book is altered: by having a computer use synonyms to alter the text ever so slightly. Sure some fussy authors might complain. But does it really matter if the sky is described as blue or azure?

As the application says: "A synonym substitution mechanism may programmatically replace selected words in textual data with synonyms for the selected words. The modification to an excerpt performed by the synonym substitution mechanism may not significantly alter the meaning of the excerpt to a human reader. By replacing one or more selected words in an excerpt with synonyms for the words, illicit copies of the excerpt may be recognized by comparing a copy of the excerpt to the original."

So, as some snarky commenter noted, the opening of Moby-Dick might become, "Phone me Ishmael."  Or the opening of "A Tale of Two Cities" might read, "It was the best of intervals, it was the worst of intervals." There's a certain ring to it, eh?

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch, who lives right here in Baltimore of course, will be at the Central Library Thursday night to discuss his behemoth of a book, "The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President."

(The evening is an installment of the library's Writers Live series, with upcoming authors including Sheila Kast, Michael Salcman, Jon Franklin and Terry Teachout.)

"The Clinton Tapes" is the result of seven years worth of conversations with President Bill Clinton, during which they discussed everything from Kosovo to Monica Lewinsky. And Thursday evening, you'll be treated to Branch's reactions and observations during these talks, leading to what is sure to be an unusually intimate account of a man who led our country for eight years.

And I hear the guy's pretty knowledgeable about Martin Luther King Jr., too.

Mattie, from Rockville, wrote six best-selling books before dying on June 22, 2004. Among his fans were former president Jimmy Carter and author Maya Angelou, who admired his message: seeking world peace. Now, his mother Jeni -- who lost four children to the disease she also suffers from -- has written "Messenger," about Mattie's slife. (An excerpt from the book is avaiable at the GMA website.)

Here's a photo gallery of the Stepaneks, including some touching images from Mattie's funeral. And for more on this extraordinary child, here's an excerpt from a 2006 Baltimore Sun story by Joe Burrirs:

Stepanek watched as her son handled going from sometimes struggling with Jamie's death (Mattie's two eldest siblings, Stevie and Katie, died before he was born) to coping with his own mortality to crafting words that would help others cope with grief. But she would discover that fame often comes with detractors, even for someone like Mattie.

"Someone once asked him, `If everything in life has choice, did you choose to have a dying body?'" she said.

"And Mattie said, `I have not chosen to have a disability, but I will choose how to live my life with a disability, and peace is a choice because being peaceful is an attitude.'"

She beat retiring TV anchor Sally Thorner to advance to the final round of The Baltimore Sun's Celebrity Smackdown, where she'll compete in a one-week runoff with seven others. Most -- Nestor Aparicio, Tom Tasselmyer, Stan Stovall, Stacy Keibler and Dave Durian -- have made their names on TV or radio. But who would have thought Tyler, BSO conductor Marin Alsop and former Gov. William Donald Schaefer would still be in the running?

So who should represent Charm City? Keibler, who's best know as a leggy pro wrestler, or Tyler, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer? Maybe we can offset Keibler's pyrotechnic personality by reviving that stirring 1840 election slogan: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too (for William Henry Harrison, hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, and John Tyler, his Vice President).

You know the drill: Vote Anne, early and often.

Photo by Diana Walker courtesy of Random House