Shine A Light

The finalists for the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize have been announced.

Fiction:

• A Postcard from the Volcano by Lucy Beckett (Ignatius Press): Beginning in 1914 and ending on the eve of World War II, this epic coming-of-age story follows a Prussian aristocrat as he confronts the ideologies that threaten the annihilation of millions of people.

• A Good Fall by Ha Jin (Pantheon Books): In this stark and insightful collection, acclaimed writer Ha Jin depicts the struggle of Chinese immigrants in America to remain loyal to their traditions as they explore the freedom that life in a new country offers.

• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Knopf): A young Ethiopian doctor is forced to flee revolution in his homeland for New York City in this enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.

• The Book of Night Women by Marlon James (Penguin Group; G. P. Putham’s Sons/Riverhead Books): Born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century, a woman with dark, mysterious powers finds herself at the heart of a slave revolt plotted by the women around her.

• The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim (Henry Holt and Company): In early-twentieth-century Korea, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher struggles to choose her own destiny while her country crumbles under Japanese occupation.

• The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Adiche (Knopf): Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie turns her penetrating eye on both her native country and America in twelve dazzling stories that explore the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.

Nonfiction:

• Enough: Why the Worlds Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman (Public Affairs): This powerful investigative narrative shows exactly how, in the past few decades, American, British, and European policies have conspired to keep Africa hungry and unable to feed itself.

• In the Valley of the Mist by Justine Hardy (Free Press): A personal, moving, and vibrant picture of the Kashmir Valley, one of the most beautiful and troubled places in the world — described through the experiences of one family, whose fortunes have changed dramatically with those of the region.

• Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson (Penguin Group, USA): From the author of the #1 bestseller Three Cups of Tea, the continuing story of this determined humanitarian’s efforts to promote peace in Afghanistan through education.

• Tears in the Darkness by Michael and Elizabeth Norman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux): Using the perspective of a young American soldier, this account of World War II’s Bataan death march exposes the myths of war and shows the extent of suffering and loss on both sides.

• The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe (Knopf): From the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart, a new collection of autobiographical essays—his first new book in more than twenty years

• Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s): The meticulously researched story of a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four who chose to stay in New Orleans through Hurricane Katrina and protect his house and business—but then abruptly disappeared.

To be eligible for the 2010 awards, English-language books must be published or translated into English in 2009 and address the theme of peace on a variety of levels, such as between individuals, among families and communities, or among nations, religions, or ethnic groups. A winner and runner-up in fiction and nonfiction will be announced on Sept. 22. Winners receive a $10,000 honorarium and runners-up receive $1,000.00. They will be honored at a gala ceremony hosted by award-winning journalist Nick Clooney in Dayton on Nov. 7.

The Guardian has announced the longlist for its First Book Award. The shortlist will be announced in late October, with the winner revealed at the beginning of December.

The longlist:

Fiction

Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt (Fig Tree)

Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman (Sceptre)

Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam (Harvill)

Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman (Cape)

Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed (HarperCollins)

Non-fiction

Bomber County: The Lost Airmen of World War Two by Daniel Swift (Hamish Hamilton)

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (Portobello)

Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris (Thames & Hudson)

Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir by Basharat Peer (HarperCollins)

Poetry

The Floating Man by Katharine Towers (Picador)

Forbes reveals the 10 highest paid authors. At the top? James Patterson.

From Shelf Awareness:

Three finalists have been selected for the 2010 Thurber Prize for American Humor. The winner … will be named October 4.

Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo by Jancee Dunn (Villard): Thurber Prize judge Bruce Tracy called it “funny and warm and irresistibly irritating, like the best family get-togethers.”

How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely (Black Cat): Judge Sloane Crosley called Hely “a magnificent satirist, a real storyteller, and a creator of a narrator who is both charmingly familiar and original. [Hely] has such enviable reserves of humor and made me laugh out loud with humiliation, hope and shame.”

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen (Holt): Judge Laurie Notaro said, “Rhoda made me laugh right out of the gate, first page. Atta girl! She’s a skilled storyteller and mixes tragedy with gut-busting laughter like it was brownie mix from the box.”

From the New York Times:

The new Time magazine is featuring Jonathan Franzen on its cover.

This marks the first time in 10 years that a living American novelist has appeared on the cover of Time.

From Shelf Awareness:

“The late Stieg Larsson is the first member of the Kindle Million Club, according to Amazon, which announced that the Millennium Trilogy author has become the first writer to sell more than one million Kindle books.”

From The New York Post:

There will not be a male version of “Eat Pray Love” from Michael Cooper, the ex- husband of “Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert. She dumped Cooper to embark on the year long trip that inspired her best-selling mem oir. Cooper then struck a deal with Hyperion last summer to write “Displaced,” which would have told how he coped with the divorce and embarked on his own journey. But the deal’s off. Cooper told Page Six he finished the manuscript, but parted ways because of Hyperion’s “eleventh-hour demands” to make it more racy. “I set out to write about how, in the wake of a devastating and unex pected divorce, I slowly rebuilt my life by redoubling my already decades-long commitment to humanitarian relief and human rights work. In the end, it seemed to me that Hyperion hoped to push the book in a more controversial direction — something I was unwill ing to do. I am exploring options with other publishers.”…

Double O Arch in Arches National Park, UT. Author photo from his book.

From a press release:

Jack Bennett, author of Dream Hikes Coast to Coast: Your Guide to America’s Most Memorable Hikes, will be at The Learned Owl Book Shop (204 N Main St, Hudson) on Saturday, August 7 at 2 p.m. Dream Hikes offers detailed descriptions and tips for making 30 “life list” hikes around the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii. Bennett will give an audio-visual presentation illustrating the most remarkable hikes chronicled in his book. Dream Hikes includes maps, color photos, directions to the trailheads and information on local weather and wildlife for each of the trails. From Arcadia National Park to Death Valley, Bennett’s easy, first-person style draws the reader into the adventure of hiking some of the nation’s most scenic trails. Jack Bennett is a “Highpointer,” who has climbed to summits in all 50 states. A lifelong runner, hiker and mountain climber, he has completed six full marathons and one mountain marathon. He holds the Guinness World Record for climbing the highest points in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories. He has been published in American Alpine Journal and is a resident of Chardon, Ohio. Dream Hikes Coast to Coast is published by Menasha Ridge Press. For more information, contact the Learned Owl Book Shop at 330-653-2252.

From The Guardian, a fascinating true-life mystery:

A serial book thief who used a Cambridge degree and a tweed jacket as a “shabby cloak of respectability” to mask his deeds was jailed for three-and-a-half years today for stealing books worth £40,000 from the Royal Horticultural Society’s library. There was, as the prosecution pointed out, little sophistication in the strategy employed by William Jacques, who had already been given a four-year sentence for plundering £1m-worth of rare books in the late 1990s. Armed with his scholarly jacket and a pair of glasses, the man dubbed “tome raider” began frequenting the RHS’s Lindley library in Vincent Square, central London, and signing in under the false name of Santoro. But his regular visits and limited wardrobe soon caught the eye of staff, who grew suspicious. …
Works stolen by Jacques include:
• A copy of Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius, published in 1610, worth £180,000
• Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia Nova published in 1609, worth £75,000
• Two copies of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica published in 1687, worth £135,000
• 13 volumes of the 19th-century botanical study Nouvelle Iconographies des Camellias by Ambroise ­Verschaffelt, worth £40,000.

CNN reports that “Lindsay Lohan needs all the advice she can get. As the star gets ready to serve time behind bars — she has until July 20 to surrender to authorities — she’s turning to self-help books to assist in turning her life around. Her first must-read: “Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships” by Susan Shapiro Barash….”

The Bookseller says that “Willy the Wizard has returned again adding a third target—US publisher Scholastic—to a lawsuit that centres on the Harry Potter books. Having previously filed lawsuits in the UK first against Bloomsbury, and then later against Harry Potter author J K Rowling, the estate of the deceased author Adrian Jacobs has now pitched up in the US where, according to a press release, a news conference is to be held later today (14th July) outlining the latest developments in what appears to be a litigation tour. The lawsuit, to be filed in a federal court in New York, claims that the company’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is “substantially similar” to Jacob’s 1987 book The Adventures of Willy the Wizard, a book largely unknown before last year. The suit calls for Scholastic to recall the Goblet books and pay the estate all profit from it….”

And from the New York Times: “A federal judge is expected to hear arguments next month in the legal skirmish that has broken out over the novel “The Shack,” a story of redemption and loss with Christian themes that has sold more than 12 million copies, The Los Angeles Times reported. William Paul Young, the book’s author, sued his former partners at Windblown Media and his publisher, Hachette Book Group, in a California state court in November, arguing that he had been deprived of more than $8 million in lost royalties from sales of the book….”

From Shelf Awareness:

Comic book legend Harvey Pekar, who “chronicled his life and times in the acclaimed autobiographical comic book series, American Splendor, portraying himself as a rumpled, depressed, obsessive-compulsive ‘flunky file clerk’ engaged in a constant battle with loneliness and anxiety,” died yesterday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. He was 70.

(Click link above for links to several obituaries.)

That’s the question of the moment, and AP has an update.

From a press release:

Author Janis Froelich will be signing copies of her memoir, My Life Looking Back at a Murder, at the Learned Owl Book Shop (204 N. Main St., Hudson) on Sunday, July 25^th from 1 – 3 p.m.

In 1974, Janis Froelich and Linda McLain were young homemakers. Both took temporary jobs with the 57th PGA Championship at Firestone Country Club in Akron. People still talk about that tournament and the miraculous 16^th - hole play by Jack Nicklaus. After McLain was murdered the following February, Froelich used her 40 years’ experience as a newspaper reporter to retrace what happened in McLain’s life prior to the tournament, behind its scenes, and after. What she found was an inspiring finish to a violent case still deemed “shocking” by the defense attorney.

Froelich has written for the Akron Beacon Journal, the St. Petersburg Times, the Des Moines Register and the Tampa Tribune. She currently lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with her husband, Ray Bassett. For more information, please contact the Learned Owl Book Shop at 330-653-2252.

From a press release:

Gary Palmer will sign and discuss his new novel, The Palatine, to the Learned Owl Book Shop on Saturday, July 24 at 3 p.m. Palmer is a local writer and Life Management Coach. His first book, Chagrin Falls, is a popular memoir of growing up in the area. The Palatine is set in an 18th century Germany. It chronicles the journey of a young man from his home on a feudal farm, through combat and struggle, to his decision to immigrate to North America. The novel was inspired in part by Palmer’s research into the experiences of his Swiss and German immigrant forbearers. Palmer lives with his wife, Barbara, in Northeastern Ohio. For more information, call the Learned Owl Book Shop at 330-653-2252.