Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.

Announcing the 2013 PEN Literary Award Winners | PEN American Center

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Announcing the 2013 PEN Literary Award Winners | PEN American Center PEN America announced today the winners and runners-up of the 2013 PEN Literary Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country. This year’s recipients include Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo, former Poet Laureate Robert Hass, acclaimed playwright Larry Kramer, co-editors of Mother […]

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Monday Miscellany

Author News, Book News, Book Recommendations, Ebooks, Fiction, Literary History, Publishing / By /

Little Libertarians on the prairie Christine Woodside argues that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, journalist Rose Wilder Lane, edited her mother’s reminiscences into books that project a Libertarian point of view: A close examination of the Wilder family papers suggests that Wilder’s daughter did far more than transcribe her mother’s pioneer tales: She shaped them and

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Monday Miscellany

Author News, Fiction, Libraries, Monday Miscellany, Reading / By /

There are a couple of sad stories about well known authors to report: Elmore Leonard, 87, has suffered a stroke Harper Lee, 87, is the victim of elder abuse But there is some good news about libraries and librarians: State of America’s Libraries Report 2013 Libraries and library staff continue to respond to the needs

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Monday Miscellany

Ebooks, Libraries, Literary Criticism, Literary History, Monday Miscellany, Oddities, Writing / By /

The Best Births In Literature In honor of the birth last week of Britain’s Royal Heir, The Atlantic compiled this list of the five best birth scenes in literature. Are there any others you’d add to this list? Literature’s Fight Club Katherine Hill, author of the recently published novel The Violet Hour, admits: I have

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Author Ann Rule sues, claims Seattle Weekly defamed her | Local News | The Seattle Times

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Author Ann Rule sues, claims Seattle Weekly defamed her | Local News | The Seattle Times True-crime writer Ann Rule has sued the Seattle Weekly, claiming the alternative newspaper defamed her in 2011 when it published an article penned by a convicted killer’s fiancé that slammed the best-selling author for “sloppy storytelling.” Rule’s lawsuit, filed

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Man Booker longlist ‘most diverse’ in prize’s history, say judges | Books | guardian.co.uk

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Judges for the 2013 Man Booker prize have drawn up what is “surely the most diverse” longlist in the prize’s history, they say, naming 13 books by authors who are mostly far from being household names. Only two authors on the list have been nominated for the prize before: Jim Crace is listed for his

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Monday Miscellany

Audiobooks, Book Recommendations, Film, Libraries, Monday Miscellany, Reading / By /

Actors Today Don’t Just Read for the Part. Reading IS the Part. The digital revolution has contributed to the dramatic rise in audiobooks: Once a small backwater of the publishing industry, in part because of the cumbersome nature of tapes, audiobooks are now flourishing. Sales have been rising by double digits annually in recent years.

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Monday Miscellany

Book Recommendations, Fiction, Literary Criticism, Literary History, Monday Miscellany, Writing / By /

The top 10 classic spy novels From Joseph Conrad to John le Carré, intelligence historian Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones picks the fiction that best reveals the secrets of espionage “So my selection of novels reflects the interests of a historian, and draws on both domestic and foreign espionage. They are “classics” in being of some antiquity, and

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O’Brien Wins Lifetime Achievement Prize for Military Writing

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O’Brien Wins Lifetime Achievement Prize for Military Writing – NYTimes.com Tim O’Brien, the author of “The Things They Carried” and “In the Lake of the Woods,” among other works, has been named as the recipient of the 2013 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.  

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Monday Miscellany

Book Groups, Literary History, Monday Miscellany, Oddities, Reading / By /

This past week was particularly rich in literary-related stories. Here’s a selection chosen for its variety. Elizabeth Wein’s top 10 dynamic duos in fiction Some characters just have to exist in pairs: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Thing 1 and Thing 2. Elizabeth Wein’s excellent novel Code Name Verity

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