... h20boro lib blog

Labels: database, famous mainers, maine, maine state library, maine writer

Labels: fiction, king, maine author, maine writer, publishing, stephen king

Labels: author profile, crime fiction, crime novels, maine mystery, maine writer, sarah graves

Labels: author profile, baldacci, political fiction

"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

Labels: book club, fiction, follett, oprah

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

Labels: american writer, author, deaths, mailer, norman mailer, novelist, obituary

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.

Labels: lectures, maine, maine writer, podcast, poetry, readings

• CityRating.com, whose crime statistics are quite detailed (if a bit out of date: 2003), listing raw data for murder, forcible rape, arson, aggravated assault, burglary, and so on, and comparisons for each with the national averages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.

Labels: crime statistics, reference, statistics, u.s. cities

Labels: author interview, crime fiction, gerritsen, historical fiction, maine author, maine writer

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.

Labels: book club, fiction, marquez, oprah

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

Labels: forthcoming, new books, publishing, 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

Labels: forthcoming, new books, publishing, shelf awareness

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).

Labels: deaths, fantasy, fiction, jordan, obituary, wheel of time