LibriVox, the all-volunteer effort turning public-domain books into audio files, has recently released some classics of literature:
Category: News
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Bush the author
Jenna Bush has a book deal. Hey, if it helps UNICEF, it can’t be all that bad?
From the Guardian:
Jenna Bush, the daughter of US president George Bush, is to write a young adult, non-fiction book based on her experiences as an unpaid intern working with Unicef in central America.
The book, called Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope, will focus on a 17-year-old orphaned single mother with HIV. It has been bought by HarperCollins for an undisclosed sum – believed to be above $300,000 (£155,500) – is due to be published this autumn. A “portion” of author and publisher proceeds will go to the US fund for Unicef, which supports child survival, protection and development worldwide through education, advocacy and fundraising.
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Albany Author and Nelson DeMille
The Mystery Writers of America announced its new board today, and it includes UAlbany professor Frankie Y. Bailey, who has written at least four mysteries. She’ll be the secretary, serving with DeMille, who will be president for the 2007-08 term.
From the press release:
Bailey is serving on the board of the organization at a very exciting time. This year the MWA will hold its 61st annual Edgar® Awards, which recognize the very best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film, and will honor legendary master of suspense Stephen King with the Grand Master award, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. The MWA just announced the launch of the first ever website dedicated solely to the Edgar Awards, www.theedgars.com. Additionally, MWA is launching the MWA:Reads Library Initiative, a program developed to aid financially struggling libraries throughout the U.S.
Bailey is an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany (SUNY), and is also the author of mystery series featuring Southern criminal justice professor/crime historian Lizzie Stuart. The series includes the novels Death’s Favorite Child (Silver Dagger, 2000), A Dead Man’s Honor (Silver Dagger, 2001), and Old Murders (Silver Dagger, 2003). The fourth Lizzie Stuart novel, You Should Have Died on Monday, will be out in March 2007. Bailey is currently at work on Writing Justice: The Worldviews of African American Mystery Writers (McFarland).
Mystery Writers of America (MWA) recently announced the election of its national officers for the 2007-2008 term, including President Nelson DeMille.
DeMille is the bestselling author of: By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General’s Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion’s Game, Up Country, Night Fall, and Wild Fire.
Serving alongside President DeMille are Secretary Frankie Y. Bailey, Treasurer Bob Williamson, and Executive Vice President Daniel J. Hale.
In his new role of Executive Vice President, Daniel J. Hale will be guiding the organization through a year of groundbreaking initiatives. Hale stated, “It is my great honor and pleasure to serve as the Executive Vice President of Mystery Writers of America, the premier organization for crime writers, professionals allied to the mystery writing field, aspiring crime writers, and those devoted to the genre.
“Mystery Writers of America is an organization dedicated to service. Through the newly announced MWA:Reads Library Initiative, we aim to provide books for American youth who might not otherwise have access to the wonderful world of mystery. We have also formed an Education Committee, one whose planned programs are designed to help increase the educational opportunities for the mystery community. Through it all, MWA remains steadfast in its dedication to promoting higher regard for crime writing, as well as raising the level of recognition and respect for its membership.”
Hale continued, “In the near future, MWA will launch its new website, one that has been completely redesigned. Not only visually stunning, it will usher in unprecedented opportunities for the 3,000 members of MWA, as well as those in the general public wanting to know more about their favorite authors.”
Mystery Writers of America’s membership includes publishers, editors, literary agents, and screen and television writers, as well as authors of fiction and non-fiction books.
The organization will celebrate the 61st anniversary of the Edgar® Awards on April 26th in New York City. The awards will be hosted by Al Roker of NBC’s Today Show and will honor Stephen King as the 2007 Grand Master.
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A new blog!
The New York State Writers Institute has just launched a blog, run by its director, Donald Faulkner.
It’s still in the early stages, but give it a look. It is sure to be a great supplement to the quality slate of authors NYSWI always bring in.
The URL is: http://nyswiblog.blogspot.com/index.html
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Flights of Fantasy book sale expands
Eleanor at Flights of Fantasy checks in with news of the ongoing sale:
Flights of Fantasy is now giving 25% off on all used & new fiction published before 2007 – not just paperbacks. The Web site isn’t updated yet.
The reason for the sale is an upcoming move by the store, as reported on the Times Union business blog, which is here:
http://blogs.timesunion.com/business/?p=944 -
America’s oldest comic book up for sale
Who came before Superman and Archie? Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, of course.
This from http://www.finebooksmagazine.com:
The earliest known sequential American comic book, published in 1842, was The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, based on original material by Swiss writer/artist Rodolphe Töpffer. Originally published in Switzerland in 1837 under the title Les Amours de Mr. Vieux Bois (aka Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois), the work was pirated, translated, and re-drawn by British publisher Tilt and Bogue in 1840. As noted early comics historian Robert Beerbohm noted, “In a world where international copyright conventions did not exist, this was perfectly legal, if morally questionable.” The British printing plates were re-used for the U.S. version, released by New York’s Wilson and Company in 1842.
“The significance of this incredible artifact is hard to overstate,” said Ed Jaster, Vice-President for Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries. “As the first American comic book, this seminal publication set the stage for a four-color revolution that would take hold almost a century later. It’s interesting to note that this copy is printed in black and white and bound with string, as both color printing and staples had yet to be invented!”
“This is an exceptional opportunity for collectors to acquire what is arguably the most significant comic book in existence,” Jaster said. “Less than a dozen copies have been confirmed to exist, several of which are owned by institutions and unlikely ever to be offered to the collecting public. Once gone, the opportunity to possess this rare volume may never come again.”
The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck – First Printing will be offered in Heritage Auction Galleries’ upcoming Comics Signature Auction, to be held May 3-5, 2007 in their Dallas, Texas world headquarters.
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“Extracts from Adam’s Diary”
Among the latest releases from LibriVox — the volunteer group that publishes free audio files of public domain books — is Mark Twain’s “Extracts from Adam’s Diary,” a fun and funny collection of ruminations from humanity’s first man.
Here’s a print excerpt:
Friday
The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I
had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty
–GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not
any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and
rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden.
Says it looks like a park, and does not look like anything but a
park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named
–NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to
me. And already there is a sign up:KEEP OFF
THE GRASSMy life is not as happy as it was.
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Banks on Milan Kundera
From a review in the International Herald Tribune, Russell Banks writes about Milan Kundera’s third book of essays on the novel, “The Curtain.” And though the review is generally positive, Banks’ one criticism seems rather damning, as if he is suggesting the Kundera is out of touch with our times.
Here are excerpts:
“The novel alone,” he says, “could reveal the immense, mysterious power of the pointless,” in opposition to the “pre-interpretation” of reality. The novel, in Kundera’s view, is not a genre; it’s a way of busting through the myriad lies regarding human nature and our collective and individual fates, lies that serve the purposes of bureaucracy and greed and the joyless quest for power. The “pre-interpretation” of reality is the curtain referred to by the book’s title, “a magic curtain, woven of legends … already made-up, masked, reinterpreted. … It is by tearing through the curtain of pre-interpretation that Cervantes set the new art going; his destructive act echoes and extends to every novel worthy of the name; it is the identifying sign of the art of the novel.”
and then this:
If I have any quarrel with Kundera’s description of the history of the novel, it’s that he’s not inclusive enough. He does not discuss a single female novelist, even in passing. It’s as if no Western woman has ever tried writing a serious novel in 400 years. And, in his appreciation of non-European novelists like Fuentes, García Márquez and Chamoiseau, he colonizes them, as if culturally they gazed longingly toward their European mother- and fatherlands instead of their homelands. But then, he’s not writing literary criticism; he’s writing the secret history of the novels of Milan Kundera and teaching us how to read them.
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Mary Gordon wins $20,000 story prize
MARY GORDON WINS THE STORY PRIZE for her collection,
The Stories of Mary GordonNew York, NY — The Stories of Mary Gordon, published in 2006 by Pantheon Books, is the winner of The Story Prize, as announced at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium in New York City on February 28. Two other books—The Lives of Rocks (Houghton Mifflin) by Rick Bass and In Persuasion Nation (Riverhead Books) by George Saunders—were contenders for the award. At the event on Wednesday night, the three finalists read from their books and discussed their work onstage with Larry Dark, the Director of The Story Prize, before Founder Julie Lindsey announced the winner at the end of the program.
Gordon received $20,000—the largest first-prize amount of any annual U.S. book award for fiction—and an engraved silver bowl. The other two finalists, Bass and Saunders, each received $5,000.
Written over the course of thirty years, The Stories of Mary Gordon collects twenty-two new stories and nineteen that appeared in a previous collection, Temporary Shelter. Mary Gordon is also the author of six novels, including Final Payments and Pearl; four books of nonfiction, including The Shadow Man; and a collection of novellas, The Rest of Life. Her short stories have twice been first-prize winners in the O. Henry Awards and she is the recipient of numerous other honors, among them an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts
and Letters. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.Established in 2004, The Story Prize annually honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction. Eligibility is restricted to
collections (containing at least two stories and/or novellas) by a
living author, written in English. Eligible books must be the first
publication of the work in the U.S. during a calendar year, in either
hardcover or paperback, available for purchase by the general public. Collections must also include work previously unpublished in book form.The Director of The Story Prize, Larry Dark, served as Series Editor for six volumes of the annual Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards from 1997 to 2002 and has edited four other anthologies of short fiction. A fifteen-member Advisory Board, including prominent members of the literary community, offers support and advice to The Story Prize. The award was established by founder Julie Lindsey and is underwritten by a private donor.
The three finalists for The Story Prize were selected by Dark and
Lindsey from among 65 books entered for consideration in 2006,
representing 44 different publishers and imprints. Three judges read the books chosen as finalists to determine the winner of The Story Prize.The judges were:
—Edwidge Danticat, an award-winning fiction writer and the first winner of The Story Prize for her 2005 collection of connected stories, The Dew Breaker (Knopf).
—Ron Hogan, of the literary blogs Beatrice.com and Galleycat, which covers the publishing industry.
—Mitchell Kaplan, an independent bookseller, past American Booksellers Association president, and founder of the Miami, Fla., area Books & Books stores.
