The Albany poet and peace activist Don Wilcox has his own brand-new blog. Check it out here.
Author: Michael Janairo
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Celebrate Black History Month: Poetry Reading
On Thursday, February 15 at 7:00PM Albany Poets and The Sage Colleges will again come together to present an evening of Black history-inspired poetry at the Opalka Gallery Lecture Hall featuring The Poet Essence and others from Albany Poets and the Sage College community.
This event is free to the public from 7:00 – 9:00PM. The Opalka Gallery is located on the Sage College of Albany campus at 140 New Scotland Ave.
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Tanizaki, Kureishi and O’Toole
The writer Hanif Kureishi speaks about his debt to the great Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki for his latest movie, Venus, which has garnered Peter O’Toole an Academy Award nomination. Here’s the article. -
Jane Austen Action Figure!
For those of you who just have to have toys to go with classic literature. You can buy this here. -
Behind the scenes at the National Book Critics Circle
An NBCC board member gives an inside look at what it means to be a judge. It involves a lot of reading of books, and then some more reading of books.
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Audio Books: ‘Imperium’
“Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome,” by Robert Harris. Read by Simon Jones. Unabridged, 13.5 hours. Simon & Schuster Audio. $49.95.
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‘On Truth’
‘On Truth’ is a treatise of distinction
Author says lies toy with grasp of realityBy MICHAEL JANAIRO, Staff writer
Harry G. Frankfurt has followed up his 2005 best-seller, “On Bull—-,” which was a philosophical inquiry into “hot air” statements that reflect an indifference to truth, with an equally thought-provoking (and equally slim) volume.
“On Truth” (Knopf; 101 pages; $12.50) aims to explain what he neglected in his previous book: why truth is important.
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Celebrate Black History Month
February is Black History Month, and the Times Union Books Blog will be celebrating by highlighting one book each day from the rich African-American literary tradition.
From slave narratives to the latest best-seller from Eric Jerome Dickey, and with plenty of essays, poems and novels in between … from writers like Frederick Douglass, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison and many more … there’s much than just one book per day.
This is where you can help. Which text from the African-American literary tradition do you think everybody should read?
Send an e-mail with the name of the title, the author, the reasons why you think the text is a must read, and your name and a little bit about yourself to the Books Blog moderator, Michael Janairo, at mjanairo@timesunion.com.
Or just respond to this post with the same information.
Then check out the Books Blog at http://blogs.timesunion.com/books to see what other people are recommending.
For ideas, you may want to check out
This Library of Congress site.
This Gale-Thompson research site.
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Lessons in self-publishing
At the Times Union, we get lots of calls, letters and books from self-published authors. Here are some links with interesting takes on the subject.
Slate magazine recently wrote about Amazon.com’s practice of having self-published authors enter into a murky ethical realm of buying reviews.
The Book Square blog follows up, and finds the service may no longer be available. That blog is here:
http://www.booksquare.com/archives/2007/01/25/2268/The moral of the story is that self-published authors need to be savvy about what they are getting into.
