bookweek « Do You Read Me? The American Book Center Blog

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Bookbits for March 13th, 2008

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

National Bookweek has started! We don’t have an alternative book to give away this year, but we do have a special late night shopping night this coming Monday, with activities in both stores and during which all people of 55 and older will get 20% off their purchases from 18.00 to 20.00 hrs! See Hayley’s previous post or the ABC homepage for more information.

Alexander McCall Smith’s best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency will be turned into a 13-episode tv-series. I’ve mentioned this before, but back then it was going to be a tv-movie, so they’ve tweaked a bit. Filming will start this summer.

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (or the ‘Arab Booker’ as it’s also known as)(it’s sponsored by the same folks) was awarded to Baha Taher for Sunset Oasis. Part of the prize is the translation of the book, although no date for the English version is known at the moment.

Interview! Click here for some background information on Marina Lewycka, of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian fame.

Sonya Hartnett has won the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for her entire body of work.

Tags: 20%, arab booker, astrid lindgren memorial award, bookweek, interview, lady detectives
Posted in Book Awards, Book News, Bookbits, Events | Comments Off

Bookbits for February 14th, 2008

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

If you’re looking for new authors to try in the fantasy genre, read this piece featuring many women who are exploding onto the scene nowadays: Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, and Kelly Link, to name a few.

Trouble in Middle Earth: The heirs of J. R. R. Tolkien are suing New Line Cinema over profits from the successful (now there’s an understatement) Lord of the Rings movies, and are threatening to block the filming of the two Hobbit movies.

What is believed to be the first recording of Allen Ginsberg reading from his landmark poem Howl has been uncovered. The recordings will be posted on Reed College’s website some time tomorrow.

Expect a pimped version of The Joy of Sex in September – it’s been redone to include sections on Viagra, phone sex, and body paint to reflect the changing landscape of sex and sexuality since the book first came out in 1972.

The annual Dutch National Bookweek is about a month away, and the traditional free book has been exported to Australia. Here’s hoping many other countries will follow!

The bloggers over at the New York Times have too much time on their hands, I think, since they’ve put up part of the index of Carl Bernstein’s book on Hillary Clinton, A Woman in Charge. See pages 9, 44, 92-93, 95, 143-44, 147, 217, 304, 320, 408-11 of the paperback edition for ‘ egregious errors and failures of’ Mrs. Clinton. She also has a tin ear, apparently (pages 143, 228, 288). Has anyone recently indexed Obama, McCain, or Huckabee?

Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown, died of pulmonary fibrosis on Monday.

When I started out posting on this blog, I don’t think I could ever have foreseen quite how many awards exist in Book Land. Tom Sleigh has won the Kingsley Tufts Award for poetry, for his collection Space Walk. Also, Lucette Lagnado won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature for her memoir The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World.

Tags: awards and more awards, bookweek, howl, index, lawsuit, lord of the rings, steve gerber, tin ear, viagra, women in fantasy
Posted in Biographies, Book Awards, Book News, Bookbits, Comics & Graphic Novels, Events, Health, Poetry, Politics/Current Affairs, Science Fiction/Fantasy | Comments Off

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