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Well, in a manner of speaking. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone this fall, Scholastic will issue a special edition of the book, with added material from J.K. Rowling as well as new cover art and a frontispiece by Mary GrandPré. The new cover (which fans can pore over with a magnifying glass on Scholastic’s Web site) depicts Harry peering into the Mirror of Erised. The Harry Potter series has sold 375 million copies worldwide; this special edition, which will retail for $30, goes on sale September 23. http://www.publishersweekly.com/enewsletter/CA6563313/2788.html |
May 28, 2008
If you still haven’t had enough Harry…
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May 27, 2008
The Legendary Harvard Bookstore For Sale
It’s not a big surprise but Harvard Book Store is for sale. Owner Frank Kramer is 66 and thinking about the next phase of his life. He’s hired Ridge Hill Partners, a boutique mergers and acquisition intermediary firm in Needham, to manage the sale.
Please see below for more on the announcement of the sale:
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/blog/2008/05/harvard_book_st.html
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May 25, 2008
Solstice Summer Writers’ Conference June Reading Series
THE SOLSTICE SUMMER WRITERS’ CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES ITS JUNE READING SERIES AT PINE MANOR COLLEGE
[Chestnut Hill, MA, May, 2008] Pine Manor College announces its annual Solstice
Summer Writers’ Conference Reading Series. All readings are held in the Founder’s
Room of Pine Manor College, located at 400 Heath Street in Chestnut Hill. Copies of
the authors’ books will be available for sale after all readings; cash-bar
receptions will follow the readings on June 22, 27, & 28. *Plenty of free parking!
Sunday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.
Francisco Aragón & Julia Glass
Francisco Aragón (author of Puerta del Sol; editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino
Poetry) & Julia Glass (author of The Whole World Over; National Book Award winner for Three
Junes).
Monday, June 23 at 7:00 p.m.
Cleopatra Mathis & Tor Seidler
Cleopatra Mathis (author of White Sea and What to Tip the Boatman? – winner of the
Jane Kenyon Award) & Tor Seidler (author of the forthcoming Gully’s Travels;
Publisher’s Weekly Pick of the List The Wainscott Weasel; and Mean Margaret).
Tuesday, June 24 at 7:00 p.m
Meg Kearney & Steven Huff
Director Meg Kearney (author of An Unkindness of Ravens and The Secret of Me) &
Steven Huff (author of More Daring Escapes and the forthcoming A Pig in Paris).
Thursday, June 26 at 7:00 p.m.
Patricia Spears Jones, Lee Hope, & Eric
Gansworth
Patricia Spears Jones (author of Femme du Monde and The Weather That Kills), Lee
Hope (Pushcart Prize-nominee and winner of the Theodore Goodman Award for Fiction),
& Eric Gansworth (author of Indian Summers; PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National
Literary Award winner for Mending Skins).
Friday, June 27 at 3:15 p.m.
Brenda Prescott & Tanya Whiton
Program Administrator Tanya Whiton (publications include Northwest Review and
Crazyhorse 63) & Staff Associate Brenda Prescott (publications include Crab Orchard
Review and The Louisville Review).
Friday, June 27 at 7:00 p.m.
Marina Budhos & Stephen Dunn
Marina Budhos (author of The Professor of Light and House of Waiting; Rona Jaffe
Award winner) & Stephen Dunn (author of fourteen collections of poetry, most
recently Everything Else in the World; Pulitzer Prize winner for Different Hours).
Saturday, June 28 at 7:00 p.m.
Barbara Hurd & Dennis Lehane
Barbara Hurd (author of Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark, a
Library Journal Best Natural History Book of the Year) & Dennis Lehane (author of
Mystic River, Shutter Island, Gone Baby, Gone, and the forthcoming The Given Day).
Directions to Pine Manor College, complete bios of our authors, and more information
about the 2008 Solstice Summer Writers’ Conference can be found at
www.pmc.edu/solstice.
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May 24, 2008
James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) Publishes New Novel
When James Frey imploded as a memoirist in 2006, many said his A Million Little Pieces should have been-and perhaps initially was-presented as a novel, and that Frey-a sometimes screenwriter-was, both by nature and design, a fiction writer. Bright Shiny Morning is his first official book of fiction. If it’s not quite a novel, less believable in its way than his “augmented” memoir ever was, there’s no doubt it’s a work of Frey’s imagination. Ironic, isn’t it?
Set in contemporary Los Angeles, Bright Shiny Morning is not a cohesive narrative but a compilation of vignettes of several characters (if this were a memoir, we’d call them “composites”) who have come to the city to fulfill their dreams. Some examples: Dylan and Maddie, madly-in-love Midwestern runaways who survive through the kindness of near strangers; Esperanza, a Mexican-American maid tortured by a body that could have been drawn by R. Crumb; a group of drunks and junkies who create a community behind the shacks on Venice Beach; Amberton Parker, a hugely famous married movie star who is secretly-you guessed it-gay. Interspersed with these rotating portraits are random historical and statistical factoids (which better have been fact-checked, even if there is a nudge-nudge, wink-wink disclaimer up front: “Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable”) about L.A.: that, for example, “approximately 2.7 million people live without health insurance” and “there are more than 12,000 people who describe their job as bill collector in the City of Los Angeles.” Frey’s intention, it seems, is to create an onomatopoetic jumble, a cacophony of facts andfiction, stats and stories, that replicate the contradictory nature of the place they describe.
I expect, given the sharpness of the knives that some critics have out for Frey, that many will say the book flat out doesn’t work. First off, there’s that voice, the hyperbolic, breathless, run-on, word-repeating voice that was much better suited to a memoir (or even a novel) in which the hero was a hyperbolic, breathless alcoholic and drug addict. And then there’s the frat-boy swagger that angered some readers of AMLP turning up here, too, so faux-cynical as to be naïve: the gang father’s attaboy about his five-year-old son’s desire to be a cold-blooded killer, and the prurient, adolescent take on sex. (And couldn’t someone have stopped him from exclaiming “woohoo” after some of his “fun” and “not fun” factoids?)
Yet the guy has something: an energy, a drive, a relentlessness, maybe, that can pull readers along, past the voice, past the stock characters, past the clichés. Bright Shiny Morning is a train wreck of a novel, but it’s un-put-downable, a real page-turner-in what may come to be known as the Frey tradition.
taken from Publisher’s Weekly, reveiwed by Sara Nelson
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Rick Riordan’s New, Interactive Series
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Scholastic has signed Rick Riordan, author of the bestselling Percy Jackson series, for an ambitious multiplatform middle-grade adventure series that will debut next September. The 39 Clues will incorporate a book publishing program, collectible cards, an online game and more than $100,000 in prizes. The program 
features 10 books about a powerful and mysterious family called the Cahills; the series will be published over the course of two years starting with The Maze of Bones. The 39 Clues game begins on September 9, 2008; through the cards and the program’s Web site (www.the39clues.com), which has not yet gone live, readers will be able to gain clues and information not included in the books.
Riordan has outlined the story arc for the series and has written the first volume, but the subsequent books will be penned by Gordan Korman (Schooled), Peter Lerangis (the Drama Club series), Jude Watson (Premonitions) and other authors yet to be announced. Six collectible cards will be included with each book, each containing a unique code that allows children to register and manage their collections online; 350 cards will be created for the promotion, with packs of 16 cards available for separate purchase.
“With the breakthrough concept of The 39 Clues, Scholastic is uniquely positioned to reach millions of young people who are readers, gamers, collectors, or all three, and encourage them to participate in a multi-dimensional 21st-century reading experience,” said Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic Trade. The program will simultaneously launch in the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
According to Riordan’s agent, Nancy Gallt of the Nancy Gallt Literary Agency, Scholastic was already familiar with Riordan’s work since it had previously acquired book club rights to the Percy Jackson series. “We were very flattered that they thought Rick would be the right person for this, and that they were willing to wait for him to be available to do it,” Gallt said. “We’re also very grateful to Hyperion [publisher of Riordan's Percy Jackson books] for letting us pursue something that was very dear to Rick’s heart. He really did it because he’s interested in gaming, in the online component. This was an opportunity to get to boys in a multimedia kind of way.”
taken from: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6513530.html
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Tommy Lee Jones to Direct and Star in Adaptation of Hemmingway Novel
Tommy Lee Jones will adapt, direct, produce and star in a film based on Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream. Morgan Freeman and John Goodman are also rumored to participate in the film.
“Islands” centers on the various life stages of a reclusive male painter named Thomas Hudson before, during and after World War II, after he moves to the Bahamas. Like many Hemingway characters, Hudson, who in the tale has a stint working for the U.S. Navy and also endures a series of family tragedies, leads a complicated emotional life that he hides behind a stony exterior.
The book was published in 1970, nine years after Hemingway killed himself. He actually broke off a piece of the novel and turned it into a novella that became 1952′s “The Old Man and the Sea.” Jones co-wrote the script with Bill Witliff (“The Perfect Storm”). The project will be presented to buyers at Cannes on Sunday.
The Hemingway adaptation marks Jones’ sophomore directorial effort, after the Mexican mystery “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.”
The movie will have a $30 million budget. Production is scheduled to begin next March in Puerto Rico. There was a 1977 film based on Hemingway’s Islands. It starred George C. Scott and was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner.
found from : http://www.readersread.com/
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May 23, 2008
New Erin Hunter series to be on the “Today Show”
For those of you who are already fans of the “Warrior” books get ready for the first installement of Hunter’s new series entitled “The Seekers: the Quest Begins” due out on May 27th!
Al Roker of the Today Show has picked “The Quest Begins” for one of his book club picks.
| Roker Picks ‘Seekers’ | |
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On The Today Show last Friday, Al Roker chose Seekers: The Quest Begins by Erin Hunter (Harper- http://www.publishersweekly.com/enewsletter/CA6563313/2788.html |
For more information on “The Seekers” series and Al Roker’s book club click the link above.
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May 22, 2008
And He Still Finds Time to Read!
Barack Obama was recently spotted carrying a copy of Fareed Zakaria’s “The Post-American World.” (For the May 11th New York Times Book Review of Zakaria’s new book, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/books/review/Joffe-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin.)
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Political news driving you a little crazy?…
…Then pick up Matt Taibbi’s latest gonzo-journalism-inspired book, The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire.
Taibbi’s shoot-from-the-hip style is not for everyone, but if you take his writing with a grain of salt, (or a glass of whiskey) you’ll have a fair share of laughs! Follow the link below for a recent interview with him:
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May 21, 2008
LOLcat lovers: Rejoice!
I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun will be released November 4, 2008.
This “colleckshun” from www.icanhascheezburger.com will include both classic favorites as well as brand new LOLcats with the hilarious captions in LOLspeak, of course. Please browse the few LOLcats below and get pumped for the release of the book this fall!
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