The Reader’s Corner

Powell’s Book Store, probably the most famous (and definitely the largest) independent book store in America, has a great website which I’d like to point you all towards. They have a very entertaining and informative blog, author interviews, weekly best sellers, staff picks, and just a really great site packed with a whole lot more. [...]

The 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award winner was announced yesterday, and it is Sherman Alexie’s War Dances! The other four finalists were: Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna, Lorraine M. Lopez for Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, Lorrie Moore for A Gate at the Stairs, and Colson Whitehead for Sag Harbor.
In children’s literature news, David Almond was [...]

This week brings us many promising debuts that have me almost as excited as the sunny spring weather!
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes. Marlantes’s epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines. Young marine lieutenant [...]

From an article in Publishers Weekly, I learned that Quirk Books is trying out a new way to promote its books. On March 12th they released the first chapter of its newest title, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls (a prequel to the wildly popular Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) as a [...]

The Morning News is running its annual Tournament of Books. They describe this contest as “literary awarding gone ferocious, March Madness-style.” Basically, they take 16 novels from the previous year and seed them into a competitive bracket, much like in sports challenges. A group of judges then pick their favorite from each head-to-head match over [...]

Two plots - one financial, the other terrorist - are being hatched, but there’s much more going on in this absorbing big-canvas view of contemporary London from Faulks. John Veals, a middle-aged hedge fund manager, is planning the collapse of a major British bank. His goal? To pump even more billions of dollars into [...]

Being home sick has its advantages. When I wasn’t passed out in a fever-induced coma this past week, I actually got some recreational reading done. Not much, but I managed to finish a couple of books.
Making Toast - this short memoir-of-sorts is sad and tragic. It doesn’t move quickly, it’s not a story with a [...]

The Spring is heating up with new releases. Among those releasing March 2nd were:
House Rules by Jodi Picoult. Eighteen-year old Jacob Hunt has Asperger’s syndrome, and his devoted single mother, Emma, has built their family’s life around Jacob’s needs, sacrificing her career to act as his caregiver and all but ignoring a younger son, Theo. [...]