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{ Monthly Archives } November 2007

Best Books 2007

Fimoculous is collecting the ‘best of’ lists, including best books. More than 20 lists linked so far. Some of the latest are Best Music Books, Best Biographies, Best Gardening Books, all from the Times of London; Top 10 Books from the NYT and Best Illustrated Children’s Books from the same source; Best Foreign Policy Books [...]

E-Books / Amazon’s Kindle

From The Reader’s Advisory Online Blog yesterday:
“What To Say When Your Patrons Ask About E-Books Tomorrow (And They Will)
“In case you haven’t heard, Amazon unveiled their new E-Book reader — the ‘Kindle’ — today.
“Don’t just brush this off as more hype. This launch is huge. So here’s what you do: … “
Read on.

The Greying of American Books

From an article in the LAT today, title Shades of Gray in Fiction, by Maria La Ganga:
“Since America’s 78 million baby boomers started turning 60 last year, dozens of novels with graying protagonists and late-life themes have hit the nation’s bookstores, adding a few new wrinkles to the face of contemporary fiction and underscoring a [...]

New Oprah Book

“According to the Associated Press, Oprah Winfrey has chosen Ken Follett’s 1989 novel The Pillars of the Earth for her next bookclub pick. Follett’s newest book, World Without End, is a sequel. The Pillars of the Earth is a love story set in 12th-century England. Unlike Follett’s other books, this one is a big historical [...]

Maine Writers Podcasts - Now Playing!

Lectures, readings, and interviews with prominent Maine writers are available online now via the Maine Humanities Council. Listeners can download the Humanities on Demand podcasts, or subscribe to them via an iPod or similar device.
Humanities on Demand launched with seven recordings including Maine Writers Speak — featuring authors Cathie Pelletier, Monica Wood, and Richard Russo, [...]

Books that Release Endorphins?

Camille DelVecchio compiles an annotated list of comfortable books, ones that evoke childhood, with ‘languid’ pacing, familiar situations, some predictability, and nothing ‘boring, sappy, or patronizing.’ Her list of 15 books includes Good Poems for Hard Times, Calvin & Hobbes cartoons, and books by Philip Gulley, Anne Tyler, Peter Mayle, Carrie Brown, Bill Richardson, [...]

Short Stories: Dead or Alive? Plus: Genre Literature

Apparently best-selling writer Stephen King thinks short stories are alive, but barely, while short story writer Jack Livings in Newsweek is a bit more optimistic, though given the evidence and arguments he presents, I’m not sure why.
Among Livings’ faint-praise responses to King’s short story death-knell:
“There’s evidence that the size of the audience for literary short [...]

War Movies

From the Reference Desk (Nashua Public Library, NH) offers lists (with webcat links) of feature films released during WWII, to coincide with Ken Burns’ latest video project (with Lynn Novick), The War, chronicling “the American experience of World War II through the eyes of those who endured it.” They also list some propaganda films, [...]