Received: from p11.selectacast.net ([199.107.233.218] verified) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.3.11) with ESMTP id 4652134 for harriett@logan.com; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:32:27 -0500 Subject: Shelf Awareness for Thursday, December 23, 2010 Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:32:26 -0500 Message-Id: <996082.411.2721125.-2031075879.1293111112552@selectacast.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Thread-Topic: Shelf Awareness for Thursday, December 23, 2010 Priority: Normal Importance: normal X-MSMail-Priority: normal X-Priority: 3 Sensitivity: Normal From: "Shelf Awareness" To: "Harriett Logan" X-Mailer: CommuniGate Pro MAPI Connector 1.52.53.10/1.53.10.3 X-Virus-Scanned: clean according to Sophos on Logan.com X-PolluStop-Diagnostic: (whitelisted) X-Orig-Return-Path: u2721125a411i504675225@errors.selectacast.net X-Orig-Recipients: /GW1fvKAuLV2mVsCxThYxkWa5qHEuehS X-PolluStop-Score: 0.00 X-PolluStop: Scanned with Niversoft PolluStop v2.7.2 X-Junk-Score: 1 [X] Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----_=_NextPart_29096_00015942.00031281" ------_=_NextPart_29096_00015942.00031281 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Aut= horBuzz thanks you for a wonderful 2010 Shelf Awarene= ss : Daily Enlightenment for the Book Trade Thursday | December 23, 2010 | Volume 2 | Issue 1358 H= arlequin Teen: The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa Aladdin: Dork= Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell Overlook Pres= s: True Grit by Charles Portis Ingram: Yes, = we have that! Dial Books: S= apphique by Catherine Fisher Happy Holiday= s from Dark Coast Press Editors' Note Holiday Bonus Issue <> Quotation of the Day Otto Penzler, 'the Happiest Person You Know' <> News Books <> & Books & Boutique--in Fort Lauderdale Notes: Outside B <> &N Investor Begins to Pull Back Media and Movies Media Heat: Chef Rock on the Today Show Next Week <> Movie: <> Gulliver's Travels Stephen King's Top 10 Films of 2010 <> Books & Authors IndieBound: Other Indie Favorites <> Book Review: <> From the Land of the Moon Shelf Starters: <> Tramp _____ Editors' Note Holiday Bonus Issue Encore! Encore! This really, really is our last issue of the year. But we will be making up= dates on Facebook , on Twitter @ShelfAwareness and on our home page . And be sure to catch Shelf Awareness publisher Jenn Risko on Wednesday, Dec= ember 29, live at 8 p.m. Eastern on Book TV on C-Span 2, where she and Sam = Tanenhaus discuss "the notable books, bestsellers and publishing industry s= tories of 2010." During the q&a portion of the show, viewers may call in, s= end e-mails and tweet. The program will re-air on Friday, December 31, at 8= :30 p.m.; Saturday, January 1, at 4:30 a.m.; and Sunday, January 2, at 6 p.= m. (all times Eastern). We'll see you here again on Tuesday, January 4. We wish you all happy holid= ays and a very happy new year! Share This Aladdin: Dork= Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell * * * Quotation of the Day Otto Penzler, 'the Happiest Person You Know' "I'm the happiest person you know. I am an optim= ist, I'm happy, I love life, I love friends, I love my job. Every day I wak= e up and I wish I could believe in God, because I want to thank somebody fo= r my wife and for my life. So reading a story or a book isn't going to brin= g me down." --Otto Penzler, founder and owner of the Mysterious Bookshop and the Myster= ious Press in a Los Angeles Times story about his life and contributions to mystery publ= ishing and bookselling. Share This News Books & Books & Boutique--in Fort Lauderdale Books & Books, which has stores in southern Florida, Westhampton Beach, N.Y= ., and the Cayman Islands, is opening another outlet, a boutique in the Mus= eum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, according to the Sun-Sentinel. This is Books & Books' fir= st store in Broward County. The boutique is being added as part of a renovation that executive director= Irvin Lippman said is aimed to transform the museum's entrance into a publ= ic gathering space and that "extends the cultural life of the museum into t= he city." He added that bookstores are "the place where you can really brin= g the community together." Customers will be attracted by "the pleasure rum= maging for books and intelligent conversation." The kiosk will include a caf=E9 run by the same chef at the caf=E9 at Books= & Books' main store in Coral Gables. Books & Books owner Mitchell Kaplan praised both the museum's downtown loca= tion and his partners, which include Nova Southeastern University. "It's a = great group of people, who are proactive," he told the paper. "They know wh= at they want to do." Share This Notes: Outside B&N Investor Begins to Pull Back Aletheia Research and Management, the thir= d-largest shareholder of Barnes & Noble and at times an apparent ally of in= surgent shareholder Ron Burkle, has reduced its stake in B&N, Reuters reported. Accordin= g to a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alethe= ia owns 12.7% of the company. Last month it owned 14%, and earlier this yea= r it owned 15.1%. Aletheia began buying B&N in October 2009. The move likely reflects Burkle's losses this year in his bids to have repr= esentation on the B&N board and his suit against B&N's poison pill provisio= n. Aletheia said in the filing that it paid $149.8 million for the 7.67 millio= n shares of B&N stock that it still holds, which has dropped in value to ab= out $108.1 million. --- E-readers present a challenge to Orthodox people of the book on the Sabbath= . The Atlanti= c notes that e-readers are "problematic not only because they are electroni= c but also because some rabbis consider turning pages on the device--which = causes words to dissolve and then resurface--an act of writing, also forbid= den on the Sabbath." On the other hand, reading printed matter on the Sabba= th is kosher. One Jewish blogger has proposed "a special Kindle that can bypass Sabbath p= rohibitions by disabling its buttons, turning itself on at a preset time, a= nd flipping through a book at a predetermined clip." But most Orthodox Jews seem to accept the e-prohibition and will stick to p= rinted books, newspapers and magazines for Sabbath reading. As one rabbi co= mmented sagely: "There's real value in embracing technology. It's just abou= t knowing when to turn it off." --- Congratulations to Valerie Koehler of B= lue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex., who has won a scholarship sponsored by = the Ingram Content Group to attend the ABA's sixth annual Winter Institute = January 19-21 in Arlington, Va., Bookselling This Week reported. Koehler called the scholarship "a wonderful Christmas present! I appreciate= Ingram's support of the Winter Institute, as it is always invigorating and= inspiring to attend." Some 35 booksellers attending the Winter Institute have received scholarshi= ps, including 31 publisher scholarships announced last month. --- Flavorwire re= lays the Coen brothers' favorite authors, who include Jim Thompson, Flanner= y O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy (no surprise!), Homer, Dashiell Hammett and Wil= liam Faulkner. --- Buzzsugar off= ers a winter reading list consisting of "15 Books to Read Before They're on= the Big Screen," including The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, The= Keep by Jennifer Egan and Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The site= wrote: "Cozy up with one of these books next to a warm fire--plus, you'll = be able to claim that 'the book was so much better" before everyone else.' = " --- Late in the season, Bloomberg offers five "last-minute gift books for procrastinators." --- It may not come as a surprise that "= austerity" topped Merriam-Webster's list of Top Ten Words of the Year , which is determin= ed by the volume of user lookups at Merriam-Webster.com in response to current events an= d conditions. "Austerity clearly resonates with many people," said Peter Sokolowski, edit= or at large at Merriam-Webster. "We often hear it used in the context of go= vernment measures, but we also apply it to our own personal finances and wh= at is sometimes called the new normal." Slate examine= d two key questions sparked by the top word from an economist's perspective= : "So what is austerity, economically speaking? And why did it become so ve= ry prevalent in 2010?" Merriam-Webster's Top Ten Words of the Year: 1. Austerity 2. Pragmatic 3. Moratorium 4. Socialism 5. Bigot 6. Doppelg=E4nger 7. Shellacking 8. Ebullient 9. Dissident 10. Furtive --- "Three Books in Praise of the Clueless Detective " were suggested by NPR's Anjanette Delg= ado, who noted that "in an era in which we're no longer sure of anything--n= ot our own economies, and not even whether Twitter is a waste of time or th= e greatest invention since contact lenses--there's something to be said for= stories about hero sleuths who don't know it all, but will do what it take= s to learn." --- "We started down a rather unconventional route for our Christmas card this = year and there was simply no turning back. The pull of the dark side was ju= st too strong," 39 Degrees North observed in explaining its video adaptation of Neil Gai= man's poem, "Nicholas was...". --- The Huffington Post paid tribute to the "big, fat guy in a red suit with a = fluffy white beard" by showcasing "9 Books About the 'Real' Santa Claus and= the History of Christmas ." --- Effective January 17, Abigail Cleaves will become associate director of pub= licity of Shreve Williams Public Relations. She formerly was assistant publ= icity director of the Penguin Press, where she worked five years. Earlier s= he worked at Holt and Norton. Share This Media and Movies Media Heat: Chef Rock on the Today Show Next Week Next Thursday on the Today Show: Chef Rahman "Rock" Harper, author of 44 Th= ings Parents Should Know About Healthy Cooking for Kids (Turner Publishing,= $9.99, 9781596527447/1596527447). Share This Movie: Gulliver's Travels Gulliver's Travels, based on the b= ook by Jonathan Swift, opens this Saturday, Christmas Day. The movie is dir= ected by Rob Letterman and stars Jack Black as Gulliver. The tie-in edition= is from Penguin ($14, 9780143119111/0143119117). Share This Stephen King's Top 10 Films of 2010 Author and Entertainment Weekly pop culture columnist = Stephen King "names his faves: Computer nerds, a mutant baby, and Leonardo = DiCaprio all made the cut." Who else would include The Social Network and Jackass 3D on the same list? = Of the latter, King wrote: "I actually saw it in 2-D, but humor this low ha= rdly needs an extra dimension. Few of the gags can be described in a family= magazine, so let's leave it at this: If you find the idea of grown men in = their underpants playing tetherball with a hive of pissed-off Africanized b= ees as hilarious as I do, you loved Jackass. If not... go rent a Woody Alle= n movie." Share This Books & Authors IndieBound: Other Indie Favorites From this week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org , here are the recom= mended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads: Hardcover Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear (Orbit, $19.99, 9780316072816/0316072818). "Hu= ll Zero Three is a fast-paced story of cloned people aboard a colonist ship= that is damaged and at war with itself. The clones have to piece together = what has gone wrong in their world in order to survive the dangers of manuf= actured beasts that would kill them. This is one of the best science fictio= n novels that I have ever read. A real page turner!"--Fran Wilson, Colorado= State University Bookstore, Fort Collins, Colo. The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir by Leslie Marmon Silko (Viking, $25.95, 97806= 70022113/067002211X). "Novelist Silko's memoir invites readers to travel wi= th her outside her home in the Tucson Mountains and deep into the arroyos a= nd foothills of the Sonoran Desert. Where others see a barren landscape, sh= e finds a lushness and a home. Even bits of the land, the turquoise, reach = out to her. To read Silko's writing is to enter into a space in which our a= ssumptions about time, family, relatedness, and nature are upended. The sto= ries she tells are beautiful, haunting and true."--Karen Maeda Allman, Elli= ott Bay Book Co., Seattle, Wash. Paperback A Good Fall: Stories by Ha Jin (Vintage, $15, 9780307473943/0307473945). "H= a Jin never fails to amaze. His newest work, a collection of short stories,= focuses on individuals who struggle to reconcile their cultural identities= with their new and disparate surroundings. A Good Fall is at times tragic,= at others humorous, yet persistently enchanting."--Bridget Allison, Phoeni= x Books, Essex, Vt. For Ages 4 to 8 Small, Medium and Large by Jane Monroe Donovan (Sleeping Bear Press, $15.95= , 9781585364473/1585364479). "This richly and warmly illustrated story of o= ne girl's Christmas dreams come true will keep you smiling and reaching for= a cup of cocoa. The adventures of one young girl and her new best friends = are a perfect way to keep grounded in the things that matter the most durin= g the holiday season--cookies, wild toboggan rides, a warm fire, and the co= mfort of being with those you love."--Tom Heywood, the Babbling Book, Haine= s, Alaska [Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!] Share This Book Review: From the Land of the Moon From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus, translated by Ann Goldstein (Euro= pa Editions, $15 trade paper, 9781609450014/1609450019, December 28, 2010) This slender, unpretentious littl= e volume packs a heartfelt emotional wallop. There she sits, beautiful Grandmother as she once was, a victim of mental i= llness perhaps, a kind of "love folly." As a genuinely attractive woman, sh= e is always convinced handsome men are just about to propose to her, a trul= y lovely woman who perpetually hopes that the man of her dreams is just abo= ut to arrive. She covers the walls of her house with drawings, entrusts her= most intimate thoughts to a hidden black book and sits on the bench in fro= nt of her home in the little village of Cagliari on the island of Sardinia,= smiling fixedly, "as if she understood nothing, as if she had arrived from= the land of the moon." In 1950, at the age of 40, Grandmother leaves the husband she doesn't love = in the village of Cagliari. At the thermal baths on the mainland she meets = the Veteran, the great love of her life, who may be the narrator's real gra= ndfather. The ineffectual husband whom Grandmother doesn't love has arrived in town a= s a stranger with nothing but a suitcase and proposes to her one month late= r. Grandfather never stops settling for her degrading behavior--and then we= discover why he continues to love this very damaged woman. In his earlier = life, before coming to Cagliari, as he was leaving work on his birthday, wi= th his wife, children and relatives all gathered at his home ahead of him, = waiting to celebrate, American bombers attacked his village. His family hom= e was reduced to rubble, his entire family killed. He is determined now to = keep his new family. We meet grandmother Lia as an obstructive, bitter, unpleasant old woman--an= d then we learn that, as a teenager, she ran away from home, pregnant by a = shepherd who emigrates to America, an already married man who may have trul= y loved her. This simple but profound tale of how little we know each other is told in a= very condensed, chronicle style, a tale spanning three generations boiled = down to its essence in less than a hundred pages. Sketching out only a few = scenes into dramatic life, author Milena Agus artlessly strings together ha= lf a dozen plot threads of people caught in a tragic tangle of unfulfilled = and unrequited loves, in which the characters who are most judgmental are o= ften the people with the same secrets. "...what do we really know about others...?" Agus asks. "What can we know,= truly, even about those closest to us?" Begin this novel a doubter, if you will, that anything so short can span so= very much and shake you to your emotional center. You may find yourself re= maining in your armchair stunned when the last page is turned, then going b= ack to the beginning to read again, with wiser eyes, this unassuming little= gem.--Nick DiMartino Shelf Talker: An unassuming little gem of a novel that packs a heartfelt em= otional wallop. Share This Shelf Starters: Tramp Tramp by Tomas Espedal (Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press, $21.95, = 9781906497682, December 15, 2010) Opening lines of a book we want to read: Why not begin with a street. The street and the = route I walked, up and down, almost every day for more than two years. Bj= =F8rnsonsgate, dirty and car-choked, working class housing in rows on each = side of the shadow that resembles a road, a traffic artery, bloodless and c= old, a narrow pavement past factory lots, the filling station, down towards= Danmarksplass, the city's darkest traffic light intersection. A miserable = street, punctuated with depressing relics: a dying tree, that ruinous woode= n house and a hedge smothered with exhaust dust, the window where she stand= s pulling off her cotton jumper. A miserable street, my home and favourite route into the city.... Down unde= r the traffic tumult. Right or the left through the underpass? The tunnel divides, today I take the right fork, and in retrospect I should= be grateful that I didn't choose the left, because a bit further along on = the right, just past the Forum cinema, after the slope leading to the lake,= on the bridge where fish lie dying on the tarmac, the sunlight strikes a t= raffic sign and I am struck by an unexpected shaft of happiness. It simply = says: you are happy. Here and now. For no reason. In this instant you are h= appy, unreasoningly, like a gift... suddenly I'm happy. Why? Because sunlig= ht picks out a road sign? I have to stop and catch my breath. I feel a warm= and jubilant transparency inside me. Thoughts reawaken and lose their dull= ness, it's a thoroughly physical experience, my thoughts brighten, and I st= art walking again, lighter this time, up towards the prominence of Nyg=E5rd= sh=F8yden and the city centre. Slowly it dawns on me, you're happy because = you're walking. --Selected by Marilyn Dahl Share This For editorial inquiries concerning Shelf Awareness, contact John Mutter, ed= itor-in-chief, at John@shelf-awareness.com. For business inquiries, contact Jenn Risko, publisher, at Jenn@shelf-awaren= ess.com. For sales and advertising inquiries, contact Melissa Solberg at Melissa@she= lf-awareness.com. For inquiries about reviews, contact Marilyn Dahl at Marilyn@shelf-awarenes= s.com for adult titles and Jenny Brown at Brown@shelf-awareness.com for chi= ldren's titles. For accounting, finance and payment inquiries, contact Richard Jobes at DJ@= shelf-awareness.com. To report a technical problem regarding the issue, contact Amber Elbon at A= mber@shelf-awareness.com. There are graphics embedded in this e-mail. If you cannot see them, please = click here . Back issues of Shelf Awareness are available on our Web site . You are receiving this message because you are registered to receive Shelf = Awareness Daily News This message has been sent to harriett@logan.com. If this mailing was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here for your own customized She= lf Awareness Daily News. Send to a Friend | Modify Your Preferences | Unsubscribe ------_=_NextPart_29096_00015942.00031281 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

3D"Shelf
Thursday | December 23, 2010 | Volume 2 | Issue 1358

3D"Harlequin

3D"Aladdin:

3D"Overlook

3D"Ingram:

3D"Dial

3D"Happy
Editors' Note
Holiday Bonus Issue
Quotation of the Day
Otto Penzler, 'the Happiest Person You Know'=
<= dt style=3D"background:url('http://news.shelf-awareness.com/files/1/shelf-a= wareness/411/pa/list_indicator_01.gif') no-repeat scroll left center transp= arent; color:#000000; font-size:12px; font-weight:bold; margin-bottom:5px; = padding-left:25px;">News
Books & Bo= oks & Boutique--in Fort Lauderdale
Notes: Outside B&N Investor Begins to Pull Back
Med= ia and Movies
Media Heat: Chef Rock= on the Today Show Next Week
Mo= vie: Gulliver's Travels
= Stephen King's Top 10 Films of 2010
Books & Authors
=
IndieBound: Other Indie Favorites
Book Review: From the Land of the= Moon
Shelf Starters: Tr= amp

Editors' Note

Holiday Bonus Issue

Encore! Encore!

This really, reall= y is our last issue of the year. But we will be making updates on Facebook, on Twitter @ShelfAwareness and = on our home page.

And be sure to catch She= lf Awareness publisher Jenn Risko on Wednesday, December 29, live at 8= p.m. Eastern on Book TV on C-Span 2, where she and Sam Tanenhaus discuss "= the notable books, bestsellers and publishing industry stories of 2010." Du= ring the q&a portion of the show, viewers may call in, send e-mails and= tweet. The program will re-air on Friday, December 31, at 8:30 p.m.; Satur= day, January 1, at 4:30 a.m.; and Sunday, January 2, at 6 p.m. (all times E= astern).

We'll see you here again on Tuesday, January 4. We wish= you all happy holidays and a very happy new year!

 

Share This

3D"Aladdin:

* * *
<= /div>

Quotatio= n of the Day

Otto Penzler, 'the Happiest Person You Kn= ow'

=


=3D"""I'm the happiest person you know. I a= m an optimist, I'm happy, I love life, I love friends, I love my job. Every= day I wake up and I wish I could believe in God, because I want to thank s= omebody for my wife and for my life. So reading a story or a book isn't goi= ng to bring me down."

--Otto Penzler, founder and owner of the = Mysterious Bookshop and the Mysterious Press in a Los Angeles Times story about his life and con= tributions to mystery publishing and bookselling.

 

 

Share This

News

Books & Books & Boutique--in Fort Lauderdale

Books & Books, whic= h has stores in southern Florida, Westhampton Beach, N.Y., and the Cayman I= slands, is opening another outlet, a boutique in the Museum of Art in Fort = Lauderdale, according to the Sun-= Sentinel. This is Books & Books' first store in Broward County= .

3D""

The boutique is being added as part of a renovation that executive direc= tor Irvin Lippman said is aimed to transform the museum's entrance into a p= ublic gathering space and that "extends the cultural life of the museum int= o the city." He added that bookstores are "the place where you can really b= ring the community together." Customers will be attracted by "the pleasure = rummaging for books and intelligent conversation."

The kiosk wil= l include a café run by the same chef at the café at Books &a= mp; Books' main store in Coral Gables.

Books & Books owner M= itchell Kaplan praised both the museum's downtown location and his partners= , which include Nova Southeastern University. "It's a great group of people= , who are proactive," he told the paper. "They know what they want to do."<= /p>

 

Share This

Notes: Outside B&N Investor Begins to Pull Back

3D""Aletheia Research and Management, the third-largest sharehol= der of Barnes & Noble and at times an apparent ally of insurgent shareh= older Ron Burkle, has reduced its stake in B&N, Reuters reported= . According to a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commissi= on, Aletheia owns 12.7% of the company. Last month it owned 14%, and earlie= r this year it owned 15.1%. Aletheia began buying B&N in October 2009.&= nbsp;

The move likely reflects Burkle's losses this year in his bids to have r= epresentation on the B&N board and his suit against B&N's poison pi= ll provision.

Aletheia said in the filing that it paid $149.8 mi= llion for the 7.67 million shares of B&N stock that it still holds, whi= ch has dropped in value to about $108.1 million.

---

E-readers present a challenge to Orthodox people of the book on the Sabb= ath. The Atlantic notes that e-readers are "problemat= ic not only because they are electronic but also because some rabbis consid= er turning pages on the device--which causes words to dissolve and then res= urface--an act of writing, also forbidden on the Sabbath." On the other han= d, reading printed matter on the Sabbath is kosher.

One Jewish b= logger has proposed "a special Kindle that can bypass Sabbath prohibitions = by disabling its buttons, turning itself on at a preset time, and flipping = through a book at a predetermined clip."

But most Orthodox Jews = seem to accept the e-prohibition and will stick to printed books, newspaper= s and magazines for Sabbath reading. As one rabbi commented sagely: "There'= s real value in embracing technology. It's just about knowing when to turn = it off."

---

=3D""Congratulations to Valerie Koehler of = Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex., who has won a scholarship sponsored by= the Ingram Content Group to attend the ABA's sixth annual Winter Institute= January 19-21 in Arlington, Va., Booksel= ling This Week reported.

Koehler called the scholarship= "a wonderful Christmas present! I appreciate Ingram's support of the Winte= r Institute, as it is always invigorating and inspiring to attend."
Some 35 booksellers attending the Winter Institute have received schola= rships, including 31 publisher scholarships announced last month.

---

Flavorwire relays the Coen br= others' favorite authors, who include Jim Thompson, Flannery O'Connor, Corm= ac McCarthy (no surprise!), Homer, Dashiell Hammett and William Faulkner.

---

Buzzsugar offers a winter reading list consisting of "15 Books t= o Read Before They're on the Big Screen," including The Devil in the Wh= ite City by Erik Larson, The Keep by Jennifer Egan and Te= am of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The site wrote: "Cozy up with on= e of these books next to a warm fire--plus, you'll be able to claim that 't= he book was so much better" before everyone else.' "

---

Late in the season, Bloomberg offers five "last-minute gift books for procrastinators."=


---

3D""It may not come as a surprise that "austerity" topped Merriam-Webster'= s list of Top Ten Words of the Year, which is determined = by the volume of user lookups at Merriam-Webster.com in r= esponse to current events and conditions.

"Austerity clearly resonates with many people," said Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster. "We often hear it used in the context of government measures, but we also apply it to our own personal finances and what is sometimes called the new normal."

= Slate examined two key questions sparked by the top word from an economist's perspective: "So what is austerity, economically speaking? And why did it become so very prevalent in 2010?"

Merriam-Webster's Top Ten = Words of the Year:

  1. Austerity
  2. Pragmatic
  3. Moratorium
  4. Socialism
  5. Bigot
  6. Doppelgänger
  7. Shellacking
  8. Ebullient
  9. Dissident
  10. Furtive


---

"Three Books in Praise of the Cluele= ss Detective" were suggested by NPR's Anjanette Delgado, who noted that "in an era in which we're no longer sure of anything--not our own economies, and not even whether Twitter is a waste of time or the greatest invention since contact lenses--there's something to be said for stories about hero sleuths who don't know it all, but will do what it takes to learn."
---

3D""=

"We started down a rather unconventional route for our Christmas card this year and there was simply no turning back. The pull of the dark side was just too strong," 39 Degrees North observed in e= xplaining its video adaptation of Neil Gaiman's poem, "Nicholas was...".
---

The Huffington Post paid tribute to the = "big, fat guy in a red suit with a fluffy white beard" by showcasing "9 Books About the 'Real' Santa Claus and the History of Christmas<= /a>."

---

Effective January 17, Abigail Cleaves will become associate director of = publicity of Shreve Williams Public Relations. She formerly was assistant p= ublicity director of the Penguin Press, where she worked five years. Earlie= r she worked at Holt and Norton.

 

 

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Media and Movies

<= a name=3D"4159487">

Media Heat: Chef Rock on the Today Show Next Week

Next Thur= sday on the Today Show: Chef Rahman "Rock" Harper, author of 44 Things Parents Should Know About H= ealthy Cooking for Kids (Turner Publishing, $9.99, 9781596527447/1596527447).=

Share This

Movie: Gulliver's Travels

3D""Gulliver's Travels, based on the book by Jonathan Swift, op= ens this Saturday, Christmas Day. The movie is directed by Rob Letterman an= d stars Jack Black as Gulliver. The tie-in edition is from Penguin ($14, 97= 80143119111/0143119117).3D""







Share This<= /p>

Stephen King's Top 10 Films of 2010
<= p>3D"=Author and Entertainment= Weekly pop culture columnist Stephen King "names his faves: Compu= ter nerds, a mutant baby, and Leonardo DiCaprio all made the cut."
Who else would include The Social Network and Jackass 3D on the same list? Of the latter, King wrote: "I actually saw it in 2-D,= but humor this low hardly needs an extra dimension. Few of the gags can be= described in a family magazine, so let's leave it at this: If you find the= idea of grown men in their underpants playing tetherball with a hive of pi= ssed-off Africanized bees as hilarious as I do, you loved Jackass.= If not... go rent a Woody Allen movie."

 

Share This

Books & Authors

IndieBound: Other Indie Favorites


From this week's= Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are= also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover

Hull Zero= Three by Greg Bear (Orbit, $19.99, 9780316072816/0316072818). "Hu= ll Zero Three is a fast-paced story of cloned people aboard a colonist= ship that is damaged and at war with itself. The clones have to piece toge= ther what has gone wrong in their world in order to survive the dangers of = manufactured beasts that would kill them. This is one of the best science f= iction novels that I have ever read. A real page turner!"--Fran Wilson, Col= orado State University Bookstore, Fort Collins, Colo.

The Tu= rquoise Ledge: A Memoir by Leslie Marmon Silko (Viking, $25.95, 978067= 0022113/067002211X). "Novelist Silko's memoir invites readers to travel wit= h her outside her home in the Tucson Mountains and deep into the arroyos an= d foothills of the Sonoran Desert. Where others see a barren landscape, she= finds a lushness and a home. Even bits of the land, the turquoise, reach o= ut to her. To read Silko's writing is to enter into a space in which our as= sumptions about time, family, relatedness, and nature are upended. The stor= ies she tells are beautiful, haunting and true."--Karen Maeda Allman, Ellio= tt Bay Book Co., Seattle, Wash.

Paperback

A Good = Fall: Stories by Ha Jin (Vintage, $15, 9780307473943/0307473945). "Ha = Jin never fails to amaze. His newest work, a collection of short stories, f= ocuses on individuals who struggle to reconcile their cultural identities w= ith their new and disparate surroundings. A Good Fall is at times = tragic, at others humorous, yet persistently enchanting."--Bridget Allison,= Phoenix Books, Essex, Vt.

For Ages 4 to 8

Small,= Medium and Large by Jane Monroe Donovan (Sleeping Bear Press, $15.95,= 9781585364473/1585364479). "This richly and warmly illustrated story of on= e girl's Christmas dreams come true will keep you smiling and reaching for = a cup of cocoa. The adventures of one young girl and her new best friends a= re a perfect way to keep grounded in the things that matter the most during= the holiday season--cookies, wild toboggan rides, a warm fire, and the com= fort of being with those you love."--Tom Heywood, the Babbling Book, Haines= , Alaska

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

 

 

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Book Review: From the Land of the Moon


<= /p>

From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus, translated by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions, $15 trade paper, 9781609450014/1609450019, Dece= mber 28, 2010)

This slender, unpretentious little volume packs a heartfelt emotional wallop.

There she sits, beautiful Grandmother as she once was, a victim of mental illness perhaps, a kind of "love folly." As a genuinely attractive woman, she is always convinced handsome men are just about to propose to her, a truly lovely woman who perpetually hopes that the man of her dreams is just about= to arrive. She covers the walls of her house with drawings, entrusts her most intimate thoughts to a hidden black book and sits on the bench in front of = her home in the little village of Cagliari on the island of Sardinia, smiling fixedly, "as if she understood nothing, as if she had arrived from the land of the moon."

In 1950, at the age of 40, Grandmother leaves the husband she doesn't love in the village of Cagliari. At the thermal baths on the mainland she meets the Veteran, the great love of her life, who may be the narrator's real grandfather.

The ineffectual husband whom Grandmother doesn't love has arrived in town as a stranger with nothing but a suitcase and proposes to her one month later. Grandfather never stops settling for her degrading behavior--and then we discover why he continues to love this very damaged woman. In his earlier l= ife, before coming to Cagliari, as he was leaving work on his birthday, with his wife, children and relatives all gathered at his home ahead of him, waiting= to celebrate, American bombers attacked his village. His family home was reduc= ed to rubble, his entire family killed. He is determined now to keep his new family.

We meet grandmother Lia as an obstructive, bitter, unpleasant old woman--and then w= e learn that, as a teenager, she ran away from home, pregnant by a shepherd w= ho emigrates to America, an already married man who may have truly loved her.<= /p>

This simple but profound tale of how little we know each other is told in a very conden= sed, chronicle style, a tale spanning three generations boiled down to its essen= ce in less than a hundred pages. Sketching out only a few scenes into dramatic life, author Milena Agus artlessly strings together half a dozen plot threa= ds of people caught in a tragic tangle of unfulfilled and unrequited loves, in which the characters who are most judgmental are often the people with the = same secrets.

 "...what do we really know about others...?" Agus asks. "What can we know, truly, even about those closest to us?"

Begin this novel a doubter, if you will, that anything so short can span so very much = and shake you to your emotional center. You may find yourself remaining in your armchair stunned when the last page is turned, then going back to the begin= ning to read again, with wiser eyes, this unassuming little gem.--Nick DiMartino

Shelf Talker: An unassuming little gem of a novel that packs a heartfelt= emotional wallop.

 

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Shelf Starters: Tramp


Tramp by Tomas Espedal (Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press, $21.95, 978190649= 7682, December 15, 2010)

Opening lines of a book we want to read:

3D""Why not beg= in with a street. The street and the route I walked, up and down, almost every day for more than = two years. Bjørnsonsgate, dirty and car-choked, working class housing in= rows on each side of the shadow that resembles a road, a traffic artery, bloodle= ss and cold, a narrow pavement past factory lots, the filling station, down toward= s Danmarksplass, the city's darkest traffic light intersection. A miserable street, punctuat= ed with depressing relics: a dying tree, that ruinous wooden house and a hedge smothered with exhaust dust, the window where she stands pulling off her co= tton jumper.

A miserable street, my home and favourite route into the city.... Down under the traffic tumult. Right or t= he left through the underpass?

The tunnel divides, today I take the right fork, and in retrospect I should be grateful that I didn't choose= the left, because a bit further along on the right, just past the Forum cinema, after the slope leading to the lake, on the bridge where fish lie dying on = the tarmac, the sunlight strikes a traffic sign and I am struck by an unexpecte= d shaft of happiness. It simply says: you are happy. Here and now. For no reason. I= n this instant you are happy, unreasoningly, like a gift... suddenly I'm happ= y. Why? Because sunlight picks out a road sign? I have to stop and catch my breath. I feel a warm and jubilant transparency inside me. Thoughts reawake= n and lose their dullness, it's a thoroughly physical experience, my thoughts brighten, and I start walking again, lighter this time, up towards the prominence of Nygårdshøyden and the city centre. Slowly it daw= ns on me, you're happy because you're walking.

--Selected by Marilyn Dahl

 

 

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