Four quite different memoirists help to prove the vitality of the literary form

Book Recommendations, Nonfiction / By /

Four quite different memoirists help to prove the vitality of the literary form John Marshall, book critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, briefly discusses four memoirs that “demonstrate the genre’s vitality and variety.” The four cover very different subjects: childhood in Africa divorce alternative lifestyle–“living green” mental illness

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50 States of Literature: Exploring in Maryland | Columbia Spectator

Book Recommendations / By /

50 States of Literature: Exploring in Maryland | Columbia Spectator Columbia Spectator‘s 50 States of Literature series continues with Anne Tyler’s novel A Patchwork Planet, where the main character, Barnaby Gaitlin, lives just outside of Baltimore: The quiet neighborhood outside of Baltimore serves to nestle Barnaby with its “big, tall spruce trees” and “damp, chilly

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book review

“The Friend Who Got Away,” eds. Jenny Offill and Elissa Schappel

Nonfiction, Review / By /

Offill, Jenny, and Elissa Schappell, eds. The Friend Who Got Away New York: Doubleday, 2005Hardcover, 294 pagesISBN  978-0-385-51186-5 Recommended  We’re stuck with our families, but we get to choose our friends. And although it’s hard to pin down the formula for creating friendship, we all know the magic of friendship when we’re lucky enough to find

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Amazon’s Kindle is stoking sales of e-books

Ebooks, Publishing / By /

Amazon’s Kindle is stoking sales of e-books The debate over e-books and the future of publishing continues, here centered around Amazon’s new e-book device, the Kindle. One person involved in the publishing industry compares e-books to audiobooks. If that’s an apt comparison, then we can only expect e-books to become increasingly more prevalent relatively quickly.

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Hollywood’s James Ellroy enigma

Author News, Film / By /

Hollywood’s James Ellroy enigma – Los Angeles Times “Which did you like better, the movie or the book?” Readers almost always choose the book. But because the book and film are different mediums, each with with its own traditions, requirements, and limitations, a direct comparison between the book and the movie is usually unfair or,

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Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service

Publishing, Writing / By /

Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service – washingtonpost.com Amazon is causing quite an uproar in the print-on-demand publishing world with its apparent attempt to create a monopoly for itself. Be sure to read the Writers Weekly article linked at the bottom of this piece.

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50 States of Literature: Meandering Through West Virginia

Book Recommendations / By /

50 States of Literature: Meandering Through West Virginia | Columbia Spectator From the hills of West Virginia comes Ann Pancake’s debut Strange as This Weather Has Been, based on real events and interviews from an Appalachian mining town. Lace See and Jimmy Make fall in love in the era of the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Twenty

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older adults in literature

“T” Is for Trespass by Sue Grafton

Fiction, Older Adults in Literature, Review / By /

Grafton, Sue. “T” Is for Trespass (2007)New York: Putnam, 400 pages   ISBN: 0399154485Random House Audio, narrated by Judy Kaye Recommended Starting a new Sue Grafton novel always means getting reacclimatized to Kinsey’s world. For Kinsey (lucky woman), time is not passing nearly as quickly as it is for her readers. At the beginning of

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Web Sites Let Bibliophiles Share Books Virtually : NPR

Book News / By /

Web Sites Let Bibliophiles Share Books Virtually : NPR Think of it as Facebook or MySpace for people who’d rather browse in a book shop than go to a party. Book-centered sites like LibraryThing, Goodreads, Shelfari, aNobii and BookJetty, among others, allow readers to keep track of books they have read or books they want

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