Sunday, May 2, 2010

Mysteries Resolved: Edgar Awards Given

The Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of their prestigious Edgar Awards for the best crime and mystery writing at a banquet in New York City on Thursday night. Edgars went to John Hart, right, for his novel “The Last Child” and Stefanie Pintoff, whose “In the Shadow of Gotham” won best first novel by an American author. In nonfiction, “The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives,” edited by Otto Penzler, won in the critical-biographical category, and Dave Cullen took the prize for best “fact crime” for “Columbine,” his account of the 1999 shootings at that Colorado high school. Dorothy Gilman was named this year’s grand master. A complete list of winners is at theedgars.com.

Other best novel nominees - winner in red:

  • The Missing by Tim Gautreaux (Random House - Alfred A. Knopf)
  • The Odds by Kathleen George (Minotaur Books)
  • The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books)
  • Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston (Random House - Ballantine Books)
  • Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett (HarperCollins)
  • A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster - Atria Books)
A complete list of winners is at theedgars.com.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Why iPad ebooks are so cool - check out Alice in Wonderland


Yeah, we all love paper books. But you have to admit that e-books can, indeed, do stuff that paper books cannot. A good example of this is Alice for the iPad, Lewis Carroll’s story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland turned into a children’s storybook but with an interactive twist.
This particular e-book is not meant to be read sitting still; it’s meant to be shaken and stirred, forcing many interactive elements on the screen to move around, fall down or jump up. And I bet the kids will love it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Pulitzer Prize 2010 fiction to "Tinkers" by Paul Harding



For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to "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.

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were "Love in Infant Monkeys," by Lydia Millet (Soft Skull Press), an imaginative collection of linked stories, often describing a memorable encounter between a famous person and an animal, underscoring the human folly of longing for significance while chasing trifles; and “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders,” by Daniyal Mueenuddin (W.W. Norton & Company), a collection of beautifully crafted stories that exposes the Western reader to the hopes, dreams and dramas of an array of characters in feudal Pakistan, resulting in both an aesthetic and cultural achievement.


From the Booklist review of "Tinkers":
A tinker is a mender, and in Harding’s spellbinding debut, he imagines the old, mendable horse-and-carriage world. The objects of the past were more readily repaired than our electronics, but the living world was a mystery, as it still is, as it always will be. And so in this rhapsodic novel of impending death, Harding considers humankind’s contrary desires to conquer the “imps of disorder” and to be one with life, fully meshed within the great glimmering web. In the present, George lies on his death bed in the Massachusetts house he built himself, surrounded by family and the antique clocks he restores. George loves the precision of fine timepieces, but now he is at the mercy of chaotic forces and seems to be channeling his late father, Howard, a tinker and a mystic whose epileptic seizures strike like lightning. Howard, in turn, remembers his “strange and gentle” minister father. Each man is extraordinarily porous to nature and prone to becoming “unhitched” from everyday human existence and entering a state of ecstasy, even transcendence. Writing with breathtaking lyricism and tenderness, Harding has created a rare and beautiful novel of spiritual inheritance and acute psychological and metaphysical suspense. --Donna Seaman

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Looking for a happily ever after? What’s the story with the future of independent bookstores? In some cases, it’s quite positive.

More than three independent bookstores are hanging on, if not thriving, in Boston. With more and more city libraries shutting their doors at least several days per week, let's look again to the independent bookstore as a place to browse new and old titles and converse in the community square about all things "books".

Here's the article from the Wall St. Journal:

Monday, April 5, 2010

The iPad from Apple is here - wonder whether it's worth the hype?

The iPad, Apple's version of a slate-like hand-held computer device has arrived to much fanfare. The ebook, web-browser, and video playing is all it's cracked up to be, but there's more. Watch MacWorld's video below to see the iPad in action.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Pen/Faulkner Award announced, Sherman Alexie wins for "War Dances"

The prestigious annual award, presented by the Washington-based PEN/Faulkner Foundation, was given to Alexie because of his book's breadth of topics and innovative style, judges said. "War Dances" consists of short stories interspersed with poems.

Alexie, who lives in Seattle, won a National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2007 and this week, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. He is a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian who grew up on a reservation 50 miles northwest of Spokane. Severely ill as a child, he overcame his conditions and set out for a life of reading and writing. In high school he was the only Native American and became a scholar-athlete, later writing about those experiences in "True Diary."

Many of Alexie's works have been honored, including a story collection, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," which was a PEN/Hemingway Award winner for best first book of fiction. The attention led to a film, "Smoke Signals," which won two awards at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.

Alexie, who receives $15,000 for the PEN/Faulkner honor, will be saluted May 8 on the 30th anniversary of the program.

The other finalists -- Barbara Kingsolver, Lorraine M. Lopez, Lorrie Moore and Colson Whitehead -- will also be recognized.

More>>>

Friday, March 19, 2010

Eat Pray Love - soon to be movie with Julia Roberts. Watch the trailer.


After months and months of waiting, the trailer for the adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, has finally arrived.

Here's a summary of the film from the NY Times:
A woman who once made it her goal in life to marry and rear a family finds her priorities suddenly shifting in director Ryan Murphy's adaptation of author Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir. In the eyes of many, Gilbert was a woman who had it all -- a loving husband, a great apartment, and a weekend home -- but sometimes one realizes too little too late that they haven't gotten what they truly wanted from life. On the heels of a painful divorce, the woman who had previously looked forward to a contented life of domesticated bliss sets out to explore the world and seek out her true destiny.


Although I didn't love the book as so many others did, I do find the trailer for the movie to be intriguing, perhaps the parts of the book that annoyed me will be condensed or eliminated, so I'll probably venture out to see it when it releases on August 13, 2010 or thereabouts.




Thursday, March 18, 2010

Elmore Leonard character of Kentucky lawman comes to FX channel in "Justified"


Check out this new series on FX Channel (check local listings). Created and co-produced by reknowned crime writer Elmore Leonard from a character in his short story, "Fire in the Hole" (you can read this entire short story here.) The series captures most of Leonard's tone and the new take on "lawman" is well worth a look. You might even say, it's "justified".
You can read more about Elmore Leonard here.
Here's what the FX website has to say about this new show:  


JUSTIFIED is the story of Deputy U.S. Marshal RAYLAN GIVENS (Timothy Olyphant), a true-blue hero and something of a throwback, given to wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots, carrying his sidearm in a hip holster – a weapon he only draws when he has to, and when he does, he shoots to kill, because, as he sees it, that’s the purpose of a gun. something of a throwback, given to wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots, carrying his sidearm in a hip holster – a weapon he only draws when he has to, and when he does, he shoots to kill, because, as he sees it, that’s the purpose of a gun. JUSTIFIED is the story of Deputy U.S. Marshal RAYLAN GIVENS (Timothy Olyphant), a true-blue hero and something of a throwback, given to wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots, carrying his sidearm in a hip holster – a weapon he only draws when he has to, and when he does, he shoots to kill, because, as he sees it, that’s the purpose of a gun. USTIFIED is the story of Deputy U.S. Marshal RAYLAN GIVENS (Timothy Olyphant), a true-blue hero. JUSTIFIED is the story of Deputy U.S. Marshal RAYLAN GIVENS (Timothy Olyphant), a true-blue hero and something of a throwback, given to wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots, carrying his sidearm in a hip holster – a weapon he only draws when he has to, and when he does, he shoots to kill, because, as he sees it, that’s the purpose of a gun. 
Raylan was born and reared in the hill country of eastern Kentucky.   It was in Harlan where he played ball, chased girls and dug coal.  And it was from Harlan, at age 19, that he ran, determined to become a U.S. Marshal.  Now, years later, after shooting a gun thug in a Miami hotel and thereby incurring the wrath of his Marshals Service superiors, Raylan has been sent in punishment (and by fate?) to the one place to which he vowed he would never return – Kentucky.
The character of Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens was created by America’s pre-eminent crime novelist Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight) and is played by Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Live Free or Die Hard).  The Chief Deputy of the Lexington U.S.M.S. office is ART MULLEN, played by Nick Searcy (Cast Away, From the Earth to the Moon).  Working alongside Raylan are fellow deputies TIM GUTTERSON – played by Jacob Pitts (The Pacific) – and RACHEL BROOKS – played by Erica Tazel (Life, The Office).  Raylan, Art and the other deputies do what all U.S. Marshals do – chase down fugitives, protect witnesses, transport prisoners.
But, being back in Kentucky, Raylan will also have to confront a past crowded with enough skeletons to choke a graveyard.  There’s his old friend and fellow coal-miner, now fugitive bank-robber, BOYD CROWDER (Walton Goggins - The Shield).  There’s AVA CROWDER (Joelle Carter - Monk, CSI: Miami), the cheerleader from his youth he always had a crush on.  There’s ex-wife WINONA (Natalie Zea -Hung, Dirty Sexy Money).  And, looming largest of all in Raylan’s past, there’s his career criminal father ARLO (Raymond Barry - Cold Case, Training Day).ething of a throwback, given to wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots, carrying his sidearm in a hip holster – a weapon he only draws when he has to, and when he does, he shoots to kill, because, as he sees it, that’s the purpose of a gun.
Raylan was born and reared in the hill country of eastern Kentucky.   It was in Harlan where he played ball, chased girls and dug coal.  And it was from Harlan, at age 19, that he ran, determined to become a U.S. Marshal.  Now, years later, after shooting a gun thug in a Miami hotel and thereby incurring the wrath of his Marshals Service superiors, Raylan has been sent in punishment (and by fate?) to the one place to which he vowed he would never return – Kentucky.
The character of Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens was created by America’s pre-eminent crime novelist Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight) and is played by Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Live Free or Die Hard).  The Chief Deputy of the Lexington U.S.M.S. office is ART MULLEN, played by Nick Searcy (Cast Away, From the Earth to the Moon).  Working alongside Raylan are fellow deputies TIM GUTTERSON – played by Jacob Pitts (The Pacific) – and RACHEL BROOKS – played by Erica Tazel (Life, The Office).  Raylan, Art and the other deputies do what all U.S. Marshals do – chase down fugitives, protect witnesses, transport prisoners.
But, being back in Kentucky, Raylan will also have to confront a past crowded with enough skeletons to choke a graveyard.  There’s his old friend and fellow coal-miner, now fugitive bank-robber, BOYD CROWDER (Walton Goggins - The Shield).  There’s AVA CROWDER (Joelle Carter - Monk, CSI: Miami), the cheerleader from his youth he always had a crush on.  There’s ex-wife WINONA (Natalie Zea -Hung, Dirty Sexy Money).  And, looming largest of all in Raylan’s past, there’s his career criminal father ARLO (Raymond Barry - Cold Case, Training Day).

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Great international bookstores pics:


Selexyz Bookstore in Maastricht, Holland. The bookstore is installed in an old Dominican church.  Photography by madcrow Flickr.com



The coffee shop of the Selexyz Bookstore in Maastricht is settled in the altar of the church. Photography by edwin_wisse Flickr.com



Borderlands Science Fiction Bookstore in San Francisco is home to this hairless Sphynx cat.  
Photography by massdistraction Flickr.com



Shakespeare & Co. Antiquarian Books, Paris.  Probably the most photographed bookstore of the world. 
Photography by Simple Dolphin Flickr.com


 A view from inside the bookstore Shakespeare & Co in Paris. Photo by Toshio Kishiyama Flickr.com



On the third floor of the bookstore Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, you'll find this bed and the motice board behind. 
Photography by Glynnis Ritchie Flickr.com



The Art Nouveau facade of the Lello bookstore in Porto, Portugal. Photography by pedrosimoes7  Flickr.com



The Lello bookstore in Porto, Portugal, is open since 1906 and is surely one of the most beautiful bookstores of the world. 
Photography by delviking Flickr.com



This is the entrance of the bookstore Le Bal des Ardents in Lyon, France. 
Photography by punkinmom_{caroline} Flickr.com and www.butterflymoments.fr



As you know if you frequent this blog, we love great bookstores wherever we can find them. More examples from around the web will be posted soon. Please check back and thanks for supporting your local library or bookshop!

More Creative Bookshelves

We had such a huge response for a previous posting of creative bookshelves, we've pulled together a few more examples from around the web. Enjoy!


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