h20boro lib blog

Famous Mainers

2008-02-05T11:21:00.000-05:00

A new database at the Maine State Library lists famous Mainers: "Listed in each entry is biographical data: dates of birth/death, connection to Maine, and claim to fame. Also included are listings of some selected resources by or about him or her available at the Maine State Library and links to pertinent websites." So far, there are about 50 people listed.

New Stephen King Novel

2008-01-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

Out next Tuesday: Duma Key: A Novel by Stephen King, which "chronicles Edgar Freemantle's recovery from a construction site accident on a beautiful but mysterious section of the Florida coast." (per Shelf Awareness)

Profile: Maine Mystery Writer Sarah Graves

2008-01-06T10:26:00.000-05:00

The Philadelphia Inquirer profiles Sarah Graves, whose 11th novel in her "Home Repair Is Homicide" series (featuring amateur sleuth Jacobia 'Jake' Tiptree), The Book of Old Houses, is just out.

Author Profile: Political Suspense Novelist David Baldacci

2007-12-10T10:54:00.001-05:00

USA Today has a fairly lengthy profile of political suspense novelist David Baldacci in today's paper. via Confessions

Oprah's Latest Pick

2007-11-14T21:13:00.000-05:00

"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 novel about the building of the great cathedrals." via The Reader's Advisor Online Blog

Also: CBC Radio 'Words at Large' interview with Follett this week.

Author Obit: Norman Mailer, 1923-2007

2007-11-10T12:15:00.000-05:00

Iconic and stridently opinionated American author Norman Mailer died early this morning of kidney failure, about a month after surgery to remove scar tissue around his lungs. He became famous for The Naked And The Dead, published in 1948, a "World War II tale [that] is universally recognized as one of the best war novels to emerge from that conflict." He won Pulitzers in 1968 for an account of the 1967 Vietnam War protest march on the Pentagon, The Armies of the Night, and in 1979 for The Executioner's Song, a novel about self-confessed murderer Gary Gilmore. Mailer published dozens of novels (his latest, The Castle in the Forest, a fictionalised account of Hitler's childhood told by an underling of Satan's, came out this year), stories, essays, and newspaper articles, and he co-founded The Village Voice, an alternative newspaper in New York. Obituaries and Remembrances:

USA Today, the most interesting of the obits so far
NYT (AP)
BBC
2007 interview with Mailer at EW.com

(Photo: Johannes Kroemer/Getty Images)

Maine Writers Podcasts Available on Monday, 5 Nov.

2007-11-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

Lectures, readings, and interviews with prominent writers will be available online beginning November 5 when the Maine Humanities Council launches its new podcast, Humanities on Demand. Listeners can download podcasts or subscribe to them via an iPod or similar device.

Humanities on Demand will launch with seven recordings including Maine Writers Speak -- featuring authors Cathie Pelletier, Monica Wood, and Richard Russo, as well as three readings from the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lunch series -- by poet Elizabeth Edwards, novelist Eric B. Martin, and writer Meredith Hall, and a poetry reading by Wesley McNair.

After the launch, new recordings will be released every two weeks. Future selections will include more from from Maine Writers Speak and the Brown Bag Lunch series and lectures from the Maine Historical Society.

Reference: U.S. City Statistics

2007-10-20T22:26:00.000-04:00

Reference Question of the Week at herzogbr.com tackles a patron's request for detailed crime stats for Louisville, Kentucky. He explains how he did the search, what resources he checked, and what ultimately gave him the statistics that the patron was seeking. Check it out. Among sources he lists that are generally useful for this kind of search:

CityRating.com, whose crime statistics are quite detailed (if a bit out of date: 2003), listing raw data for murder, forcible rape, arson, aggravated assault, burglary, and so on, and comparisons for each with the national averages
City-Data.com, whose crime stats for each city list raw data for murders, rapes, assaults, etc., and numbers per 100,000 people, from 1999-2006
the FBI's Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City (2006), which lists the same crimes as the other two sites, in alphabetical order by town.

Author Interview: Tess Gerritsen

2007-10-09T12:07:00.000-04:00

Maine author Tess Gerritsen is interviewed in the Bangor Daily News about her latest crime novel, The Bone Garden, which puts the spotlight on medical examiner Maura Isles (instead of Jane Rizzoli) and which is set partly in the 1830s, "the dawn of microbial theory in medicine."

Oprah's Latest Read

2007-10-05T11:53:00.000-04:00

Per Book Standard today, "Oprah Winfrey has chosen Love In The Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as the next choice for her book club. ... Love In The Time of Cholera, which is published by Vintage, a Random House imprint, was originally published in the U.S. in 1988 and is about a love triangle fifty years in the making."

A film based on the book will be released in the U.S. on 16 November 2007.

More at Wikipedia, the Vintage catalog - with Reader's Guide, Penguin Reading Guide, review in the NYT (April 1988), and Stone Village Pictures.

Forthcoming Books

2007-10-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

Some of the books due out next Tuesday and Wednesday, October 9 and 10, per Shelf Awareness:

I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert: "Colbert's hilarious patriotic vision for America."

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs

A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book by Frank Warren

Blonde Faith by Walter Mosley, the 10th in the Easy Rawlins crime fiction series.

World Without End by Ken Follett, "follows four children from 1327-1361 as they grow up and deal with such traumas as the Black Death and wars."

The Gift: A Novel by Richard Paul Evans, about "a security guard with Tourette's who is cured by a boy with leukemia."

Mark's Story: The Gospel According to Peter by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

Blue Skies, No Fences: A Memoir of Childhood and Family by Lynne Cheney, memoir

Forthcoming Books

2007-09-26T10:10:00.000-04:00

Some of the books due out next Monday and Tuesday, October 1 and 2, per Shelf Awareness:

Exit Ghost by Philip Roth, the last of his novels to star Nathan Zuckerman. (Good interview with Roth on public radio's 'Fresh Air' last night.)

The Worst Thing I've Done: A Novel by Ursula Hegi (Stones from the River), exploring the dynamics of a love triangle.

A Christmas Visitor by Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer, the eighth Cape Light novel.

Dark of the Moon by John Sandford, 'follows a criminal investigator as he attempts to solve a series of murders in a small town.'

Down River by John Hart: A man returns to his hometown, where his family still believe him to be guilty of a crime for which he was acquitted.

Loving Natalee: A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith by Beth Holloway: Natalee Holloway disappeared while vacationing in Aruba more than two years ago.

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson, 'chronicles the American forces operating in Italy during WWII.' (Nice accompaniment to Lynn Novick and Ken Burns' The War, airing on PBS now.)

Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work for You by Deborah Norville (the science of gratitude??)

Beyond the White House by Jimmy Carter

Maine Patron Keeps Sex Ed Book

2007-09-19T16:31:00.000-04:00

JoAn Karkos has checked out two copies of the book It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex & Sexual Health by Robie H. Harris, from the Lewiston Public Library and refuses to return them. She sent a check to cover their cost but Lewiston Library Director Rick Speer "returned the check and enclosed the library’s Reconsideration of Materials form -- which, opposed to outright theft, is the proper approach for someone to challenge library materials." Her letter to the editor of the Sun Journal is online.

per herzogbr.net blog, and more at PPH (where there are 72 comments on the story, and counting).

RIP, Robert Jordan, 17 Oct. 1948 - 16 Sept. 2007

2007-09-17T10:05:00.000-04:00

Robert Jordan (pseudonym of James Oliver Rigby, Jr.), author of the Wheel of Time fantasy series published in the 1990s and currently, and the Conan (the Barbarian) series, published primarily in the 1980s, died yesterday at age 58 from a rare form of cancer. He was working on the twelfth volume of the Wheel of Time series when he died. He also published a few other books, under pseudonyms including Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly. (Photo credit: Jack Alterman)

Forthcoming Books

2007-09-12T20:43:00.000-04:00

Some of the books due out next Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 17 and 18, per Shelf Awareness:

Dead Heat by Dick Francis and Felix Francis, featuring a chef-sleuth
The Art Thief: A Novel by Noah Charney: Investigator Gabriel Coffin solves a series of connected art thefts.
Dexter in the Dark: A Novel by Jeff Lindsay, third in a series about a Miami cop who is also a serial killer.
Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism by celebrity mom Jenny McCarthy.
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan: His experiences as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Fall Book Season

2007-09-10T13:23:00.000-04:00

The Fall book buzz is in full chorus! Lots of musing, editors' picks, and title lists available at Worth Reading.

Author Obit: Madeleine L'Engle, 29 Nov. 1918 - 6 Sept. 2007

2007-09-07T15:18:00.000-04:00

Publisher's Weekly reported this morning: "Author Madeleine L'Engle died last night in Connecticut, at the age of 89 [actually, 88]. Best known for her 1963 Newbery Award winner A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels, L'Engle was the author of more than 60 books for adults and young readers."

The NYT has an obituary.

New Maine Blog

2007-08-22T19:41:00.000-04:00

Check out the Born to Read Trainers blog, whose focus is childhood (ages 0-5) literacy, children's books, learning to read, and training of child care providers, volunteers, and parents to teach reading to young kids. Most of the postings so far are of general interest to elementary school teachers and day care providers, parents, and children's librarians.

Reading Not Fundamental to All Americans

2007-08-22T15:21:00.000-04:00

"One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices. ... The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous." Of those who read, the mean number of books read (half read more and half read fewer) was seven. Those who haven't read any books in the last year are more likely to be men than women, and older, less educated, with lower incomes, minorities, from rural areas and less religious. More at USA Today.

New Micro-Histories

2007-08-19T09:39:00.000-04:00

A handful of new micro-histories at the Reader's Advisor blog.

New Readers' Blog

2007-08-16T09:55:00.000-04:00

Check out The Reader’s Advisor Online Blog. Looks like it was launched in June, and already there are lots of interesting stories for readers (Nonfiction Reading . . . Without All That Pesky Nonfiction Reading), writers (Where Has the Mystery Mid-List Gone?), and librarians (Under the Radar: How Do You Find Out What People Are Reading?) alike.

Besides the feature articles, there's also a Bestseller Mashup of Fiction and Narrative Non-Fiction (the kind of non-fiction that feels more like fiction), and a list of books coming out this week. Diana Tixier Herald, of the well-known readers' advisory tool Genreflecting, is one of the contributors.

Library Items Stolen and Sold Online

2007-08-06T15:47:00.000-04:00

The Rocky Mountain News reports that a man took out seven library cards from the Denver Public Library, as well as cards from Arapahoe, Aurora and and Douglas County libraries; borrowed 300 books, tapes, and dvds per card (?!?); then sold many of them online; "library losses are estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars."

Ludlum: 12 New Bestsellers Since His Death

2007-08-02T12:10:00.000-04:00

How has thriller writer Robert Ludlum published "no fewer than 12 new bestsellers in the six years since his death? ... Ludlum practically cornered the market in dense, paranoid, meticulously researched thrillers for 30 years. By the time of his death in 2001, he had sold 210 million books. ... This summer, the hottest property at the cinema box office is likely to be The Bourne Ultimatum, the third instalment of a $500m-grossing movie franchise based on Ludlum's best-known character, ... starring Matt Damon as an amnesiac spy.

"Yet for all the sales figures and superlatives, it is somehow fitting that a novelist who specialised in complex conspiracy theories and international espionage should have left behind a conundrum to baffle even Bourne himself. In the years since his death, 12 new works bearing his name have hit the bookshelves and beach-towels of the world. None was penned by Ludlum himself –- and at least three have not been credited to any other writer. These include The Bancroft Strategy, published last year, which sold 102,000 copies in hardback alone."

The Independent explores the mystery.

Cozy Chairs Unseated

2007-07-25T16:55:00.000-04:00

An article in the Baltimore Sun today says that some bookstores, like some Barnes & Noble and Borders locations, are ousting comfy sofas, cozy chairs, and other seating designed for browsing books at leisure. Apparently "homeless squatters, overly enthusiastic young lovers, food trash left behind," and perhaps primarily, "people staying for hours and hours and not necessarily buying books," has done them in.

You'd think public libraries would be the place for cozy browsing, but apparently they face the same issues: "Libraries are designed to be inviting -- but again, the challenge is not to get people too comfortable.

"'It's a topic we wrestle with in every project,' says David Michaels, an Arizona-based interior designer who most recently worked on Enoch Pratt's Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown. Unlike the sparse soft seating at the main library, the new city branch on Eastern Avenue is furnished with habitable chairs."

Michaels then comments, rather mystifyingly, that "a public library should be every man's country club."

Portland and Camden, Maine: Made for Book Shopping

2007-07-25T10:03:00.000-04:00

An article in the South Mississippi Sun Herald extols the plethora of good bookshops in Portland and Camden. The writer browsed Books Etc. and Emerson Books in Portland, then Stone Soup Books, ABCD Books, Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery, Sherman's Books & Stationery and the Owl & Turtle Bookshop in Camden (missing one of my favourites, Rock City Books & Coffee, previously called Second Read Books, in Rockland). He had 36 books shipped back home. via Shelf Awareness