Today’s “One for the Books” column offers “A Vicarious Vacation in Ireland.”

At first glance, … news that Amazon … had removed buy buttons for all comics and graphic novels distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors sent an alarming shockwave of déjà vu. Would this be another replay of Macmillan’s battle with Amazon last month …? Or was there some even larger battle brewing …? The answer is more prosaic. Amazon’s move corrects a glitch that had its origins over the weekend, when the retailer’s top 100 sellers were suddenly dominated by comics and graphic novels, all of them distributed by Diamond. Hundreds of titles were offered at staggering discounts, which, as Publishers Weekly reported, saw high-end hardcover boxed editions — normally offered for $100 or more — priced at $14.99 or less. Naturally, customers took great advantage, and rumors flew that thousands of orders had been placed for these below-bargain-basement products. …

“I spent my first 5 years living in the Vanderveer section of Brooklyn, NY. My very earliest memory in life was of a large stack of Little Golden Books that sat on the floor, next to a big 1950’s style sofa. Not too far away was the metal pedal car I shared with my older brother and the five siblings that would follow. At age 18 my mother was told that she would not be able to have children. I guess she had to prove the doctor wrong. Books were ever present in our household. My mother was never without a long reading list herself. Her passion for books instilled a love of reading in me. … Little Golden Books began publication by Simon and Schuster in 1942, at a cost of 25 cents each. The low cost made them affordable to most families. In addition to bookstores, they were available in other locations such as department stores, which was a departure from how books had been sold. Despite paper shortages in WWII, the books were a huge success. Over one and a half million were sold within the first five months. Since their inception, more than two billion have been sold worldwide. …”

“DreamWorks Studios has acquired Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel The Help. Set in the 1960s, the project, which centers on Southern white women and their black housekeepers, had already been optioned by Stockett’s childhood friend rookie director Tate Taylor. He also adapted the script with a lot of consultation from Stockett.”

“Lorin Stein, an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux whose youth belies his influence in the publishing industry, was named the editor of The Paris Review, the prestigious literary magazine, its board of directors said on Friday. Mr. Stein, 37, has edited several high-profile authors at Farrar, Straus; in 2007, three of the five fiction finalists for the National Book Award were works he edited. As editor of The Review, Mr. Stein will succeed Philip Gourevitch, the author and journalist who announced in November that he was stepping down.”

… Mr. Rove’s book offers the most expansive account yet of the Bush presidency by one of the people most responsible for it. Addressing the most controversial and consequential moments of Mr. Bush’s eight years in power, Mr. Rove takes responsibility for the widely criticized Air Force One flyover after Hurricane Katrina and writes that he secretly cried in his White House office when he learned he would not be indicted in a C.I.A. leak case. …

]]> http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/03/05/karl-rove-secretly-cried/feed/ 0 http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/03/04/national-grammar-day/ http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/03/04/national-grammar-day/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:50:47 +0000 Mary Louise http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/?p=5781 Happy National Grammar Day! As Grammar Girl points out, “Language is something to be celebrated, and March 4 is the perfect day to do it. It’s not only a date, it’s an imperative: March forth on March 4 to speak well, write well, and help others do the same!”

The Guardian Book Blog visits the legendary Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Have a fun trip.

Fiction:

First prize: Victor Ladato, for Mathilda Savitch (FSG)
Second prize: Barbara Johnson, for More of This World or Maybe Another (HarperPerennial)
Third prize: C.E. Morgan, for All the Living (FSG)

Nonfiction:

First prize: Dave Cullen, for Columbine (Twelve)
Second prize: Toby Lester, for The Fourth Part of the World (Free Press)
Third prize: Neil White, for In the Sanctuary of Outcasts (Morrow)

Literary work, fiction: The Long Fall by Walter Mosley
Literary work, non-fiction: In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Literary work, debut author: A Question of Freedom by R. Dwayne Betts
Literary work, biography/autobiography: Michelle Obama by Deborah Willis
Literary work, instructional: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
Literary work, poetry: Bicycles by Nikki Giovanni
Literary work, children: Our Children Can Soar: A Celebration of Rosa, Barack, and the Pioneers of Change by Michelle Cook
Literary work, youth/teens: Michelle Obama: Meet the First Lady by David Bergen Brophy
Motion picture: Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Actress in a motion picture: Gabourey Sidibe for Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Supporting actress in a motion picture: MoNique for Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Independent motion picture: Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Writing in a motion picture: Geoffrey Fletcher for Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Directing in a motion picture: Lee Daniels for Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

]]> http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/03/03/library-experiments-with-kindle-lending/feed/ 0 http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/03/03/writer-appropriates-work-of-others/ http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/03/03/writer-appropriates-work-of-others/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:43:25 +0000 Mary Louise http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/?p=5761 From the New York Times:

… [There was a] flurry of attention recently about a teenage German novelist, Helene Hegemann, whose book about Berlin’s club scene was named a finalist for a prestigious literary prize to be awarded next month in Leipzig. After a blogger and fellow novelist announced that Ms. Hegemann had blended sizeable chunks of his own writing into hers, Ms. Hegemann, instead of following the plagiarism-gotcha script of contrition and retraction so familiar in recent years, announced that appropriating the passages from that book and other sources was her plan all along. A child of a media-saturated generation, she presented herself as a writer whose birthright is the remix, the use of anything at hand she feels suits her purposes, an idea of communal creativity that certainly wasn’t shared by those from whom she borrowed. In a line that might have been stolen from Sartre (it wasn’t) she added: “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” The news made waves in the United States with an almost novelistic kind of timing, just before the publication last week of a highly anticipated book by David Shields, “Reality Hunger,” a feisty literary “manifesto” built almost entirely of quotations from other writers and thinkers. …

At last, we say goodbye to the seemingly endless January and February and hello to March, the promise of spring to come. But before we welcome the verdant green that will be here in a few weeks, let’s pause to look around.

Take a look at a large tree. Have you ever noticed that, without leaves, the branches look just like the roots? It looks as if a giant hand had pulled the tree out of the ground whole, turned it upside-down, and shoved it back down in the ground, with the roots sticking out.

So, imagine that the “roots” you can see are trying to pull nutrients out of the air as roots pull them out of the soil. Can you imagine yourself mustering up your own energy and sending it to the tree, to feed it? Try it. Send it positive thoughts of strength, health, sunshine, love. And as soon as you do, I’ll bet the tree sends you more, right back. You may feel foolish at first, but eventually, I’ll bet it will make you smile.

We are all part of one energy force. Feed a tree.

Thank you to Lisa Scalfaro for the beautiful photograph.

Today’s “One for the Books” column is “Don’t Worry; Be Happy!”

“Fox acquired the film rights to the bestselling Fourth Realm trilogy by reclusive author John Twelve Hawks, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Alex Tse (The Watchmen) will write the screenplay. Producers are Gil Netter (The Blind Side) and Andrew Tennenbaum (The Bourne Identity). The acquisition has refueled interest in speculating about the real identity of John Twelve Hawks, and New York magazine reported that ‘famous fake memoirist’ James Frey is the current target, inheriting the dubious honor that ‘has previously landed on James Patterson, Stephen King, and Michael Chabon.’ Although Frey is co-writing a six-part sci-fi series under the pseudonym Pittacus Lore, he dismissed (sort of) any connection with the Fourth Realm trilogy in a statement to the New York Post: ‘I will neither confirm nor deny that I am John Twelve Hawks, Pittacus Lore, or anyone else…. I will say that I have done, and I am continuing to do, projects that will come out anonymously or with invented names on them.’ “

The trilogy comprises “The Traveler,” “The Dark River,” and “The Golden City.”

The nominees are Sherman Alexie for War Dances (Grove Press); Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna (Harper); Lorraine M. López for Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories (BkMk Press); Lorrie Moore for A Gate at the Stairs (Knopf); and Colson Whitehead for Sag Harbor (Doubleday).

• Margaret Atwood: “You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality.”
• Roddy Doyle: “Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, e.g. ‘horse,’ ‘ran,’ ’said.’”
• Geoff Dyer: “Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.”
• Anne Enright: “The first 12 years are the worst.”
• Richard Ford: “Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.”
• Jonathan Franzen: “When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.”
• Neil Gaiman: “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
• Jeanette Winterson: “Enjoy this work!”

Part One

Part Two

]]> http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/02/24/amazing-library-pics/feed/ 0 http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/02/24/kay-scarpetta-to-hit-the-screen/ http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/02/24/kay-scarpetta-to-hit-the-screen/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:42:45 +0000 Mary Louise http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/?p=5717

Reportedly, Angelina Jolie will play a young Kay Scarpetta in upcoming film(s) based on the Patricia Cornwell mystery series.

From Shelf Awareness: Nominees for the 2009 Strand Magazine Critics Awards, recognizing excellence in mystery fiction:

Best Novel:

Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston (Ballantine)
Life Sentences by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Riverhead)

Best First Novel:

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell (Little, Brown)
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry (Penguin Press)
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin)
Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley (Touchstone)
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke (Harper)

Also, the Strand gave its lifetime achievement award to Elmore Leonard “for his huge body of mystery and crime novels.” The winners of the Critics Awards will be announced on July 7.

Also from Shelf Awareness: The winners of the Books for a Better Life Awards, sponsored by the Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society:

]]> http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/02/23/award/feed/ 0 http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/02/23/stories-of-plagiarism/ http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/2010/02/23/stories-of-plagiarism/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:26:32 +0000 Mary Louise http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/?p=5711 The Christian Science Monitor offers five tales of plagiarism.

For rules and the photo, go to: www.npr.org/threeminutefiction

The parts of The Last Train from Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino, published by Holt in January, that concern supposed technical problems with the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 are based on fraudulent testimony by a serviceman who claimed untruthfully that he had been on the plane that dropped the bomb, the New York Times reported. Pellegrino told the Times he will rewrite sections of the book for the paperback and foreign editions of the book. The late Joseph Fuoco stated that he was a last-minute substitute for another flight engineer on the Enola Gay, that an accident with the bomb had killed a young scientist and that the bomb had been damaged so much that its destructive power was cut in half–all claims that have been widely refuted.

Thomas Nelson’s celebrity-voiced The Word of Promise® Audio Bible has been selected as a finalist in four categories of The Audio Publishers Association’s (APA) 2010 Audies competition, which include “Audio Drama,” “Multi-Voiced Performance,” “Inspirational/Faith-Based Non-Fiction,” and “Package Design.”  The Audie Awards is the only awards program in the United States devoted entirely to honoring spoken word entertainment. Winners will be announced at the Audies Gala on May 25, 2010, at The Museum of the City of New York in New York City. The Word of Promise® Audio Bible is a scripted dramatization of the trusted New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible presented in a compelling, dramatic audio theater format. The project features the talents of Hollywood actors including Michael York (narrator), Richard Dreyfuss (Moses), Gary Sinise  (David), Jesse McCartney (young David and Daniel), Stacy Keach (Paul and Job), Ernie Hudson (Peter), Sean Astin (Elihu), Malcolm McDowell (Solomon), Joan Allen (Deborah), Lou Diamond Phillips (Mark), Luke Perry (Judas), Harry Hamlin (Nehemiah), Jim Caviezel (Jesus), and Martin Jarvis (voice of God). Complete with production by AFTRA Award winner Carl Amari (The Twilight Zone™ Radio Dramas), an original music score by prolific Italian composer Stefano Mainetti (Abba Pater & The Shooter), and movie-quality sound effects produced, engineered, and mixed at Cerny American Creative in Chicago—an award-winning facility ranked in the Top 3 in the nation for sound design headed by director JoBe Cerny. The 90+ hour project released through Thomas Nelson, Inc., in October in a special 79-CD box set collection and an 11-MP3 CD offering, both with a bonus features DVD. Stand-alone New Testament and Old Testament sets are also available. Audio samples, a free iPod application, and additional information about The Word of Promise® Audio Bible are available by visiting http://www.thomasnelson.com/thewordofpromise. Updates are also available by following The Word of Promise® on Facebook and Twitter, @WordofPromise.