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Carla Cohen, awesome bookseller

Submitted by Barbara on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 15:06

Rest in Peace, Carla Cohen. An awesome bookseller and champion of writer, founder and co-owner of the Washington, DC Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse. You will be missed.

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Author On the Bookcase: Jennifer Vanderbes, author of Strangers at the Feast

Submitted by Barbara on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 13:35

Author On the Bookcase
Jennifer Vanderbes

Jennifer VanderbesI'm thrilled to welcome Jennifer Vanderbes, author of the new book, Strangers at the Feasts, to On the Bookcase. On Thanksgiving Day 2007, three generations of the Olson family gather. While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set out from the nearby housing projects on a mysterious job. A series of tragic events bring these two worlds ever closer, exposing the dangerously thin line between suburban privilege and urban poverty, and culminating in a crime that will change everyone's life.

Jennifer writes stories that "attempt to answer certain questions." A simple "what if" question started the story that became Strangers at the Feast.

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Southern Festival of Books: National Reading Group Month Signature Event

Submitted by Barbara on Mon, 10/04/2010 - 12:05

I'm off this Thursday for the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville. Once again, I will be attending the signature event for the National Reading Group Month. This is always great fun.

The author panel will be held at a breakfast on Saturday, October 9.

The authors on the panel are:

Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been, Tom Franklin,Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Sena Jeter Naslund, Adam & Eve
Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Lee Smith, Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger

I'll write the juicy details when I get back.

Any one in Nashville? Come on down!

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Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, Sept 24-26

Submitted by Barbara on Mon, 10/04/2010 - 11:42

Held in Datonya Sept. 24-26, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance was great, as usual. The people, the panels, the publishers -- the 3 Ps. I chatted with friends from my days of an indie bookseller, met up with new friends (bloggers), and discovered great authors.

I moderated a book club panel with 3 awesome panelists. Joshilyn Jackson write gods in Alabama, Between, Georgia, and The Girl Who Stopped Swimming. Backseat Saints is Joshilyn new novel. Katie Crouch is the author of Men and Dogs and Girls in Trucks. Aaron Curtis is a buyer for Book and Books in Coral Gables.

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Reading Group Choices 2011: Selections for Lively Book Discussions

Submitted by Barbara on Thu, 09/30/2010 - 14:27

Well, it's official -- Reading Group Choices 2011: Selections for Lively Book Discussions is released!

Reading Group Choices 2011Titles by such reading group favorite authors as Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Hood, Anchee Min, Jane Green, Susan Richards, and

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Teaser Tuesday September 21: Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

Submitted by Barbara on Tue, 09/21/2010 - 09:50

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read, Open to a random page, share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page, and share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I love anything by Dennis Lehane so I was thrilled to receive an ARC of his latest.

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National Reading Group Month 2010 Great Group Reads

Submitted by Barbara on Mon, 09/20/2010 - 00:27

2010 GREAT GROUP READS

October is National Reading Group Month (NRGM) and the NRGM 2010 Great Group Reads have been selected.

Great Group ReadsThirteen titles have been picked this year.

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Man Booker Prize Part Six: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

Submitted by Barbara on Tue, 09/14/2010 - 21:24

Man Booker Prize Part Six
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson


The Finkler Question'He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one…’ Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they’ve never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czech always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results.

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Man Booker Prize Part Five: In A Strange Room by Damon Galgut

Submitted by Barbara on Tue, 09/14/2010 - 20:04

Man Booker Prize Part Five
In A Strange Room by Damon Galgut

In a Strange RoomA novel of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, In a Strange Room is a hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man’s search for love and for a place to call home.

A young man makes three journeys that take him through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way – including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge – he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man’s best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his life.

Praise

"I doubt if any book in 2010 will contain more memorable evocations of place than In a Strange Room...

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2010 Man Booker Shortlist

Submitted by Barbara on Tue, 09/07/2010 - 11:06

Man Booker PrizeI'd better step-up my game.

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