Book of the Week #5

Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words by Bill Bryson (NY: Broadway Books, 2002.)

This revised edition of Bill Bryson's first book is the resource you need if you have difficulty telling a hoard from a horde or a capitol from a capital. Bryson describes this book as "a compilation of suggestions, observations, and even treasured prejudices." It is useful, often funny, and clearly explains troublesome spellings, usages, punctuation, and the proper names of things.

Bryson lived in Hanover, New Hampshire from 1995-2003. He was interviewed on NHPR's The Front Porch in 2003, shortly after the publication of A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Podcast features our Poet Laureate

The Poetry Foundation website features a weekly podcast. This week it includes a reading of Affirmation by U. S. Poet Laureate, and New Hampshire resident, Donald Hall.

It's book award season

Book awards seem to have news in bunches and this is one of the weeks that happens.

• The Mystery Writers of America announced the 2007 nominees for the Edgar Awards on January 19th (the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe.)
  
• The National Book Critics Circle presents awards each year for the finest books and reviews published in English. On January 22 they announced their 2006 finalists. They also began a 30 books in 30 days project on their Critical Mass blog where they will feature one of the finalists each day until the award ceremony.
  
• Also on January 22nd, the American Library Association announced the winners of its Newbery, Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Geisel, and Printz awards for the best children’s and young adult literature.

Book of the Week #4

Winter to Winter: A Year of Seasonal Change in the Monadnock Foothills by Jack Kraichnan(Dublin, NH: Snow Brook Press, 2005.)

In his introduction the author describes this volume as "a nature book . . . also a book of meditations inspired by the economy and elegance of haiku." the poems were inspired by a daily five-mile walk through the foothills of Mount Monadnock. The author took these walks, in all weather, between December 2002 and December 2003.

Encased in clear ice
Trees transform winter daylight
Into countless suns

(This haiku appears on p. 4 of the book and is used with permission.)

In March 2006 NHPTV's NH Outlook talked to Jack Kraichnan about his work. This book was reviewed for the NH Writer's Project by Rebecca Rule. To learn more about Haiku, check out tinywords which describes itself as "the world's smallest magazine . . . also the largest-circulation journal of haiku in English."

Spotlight on e. e. cummings

We recently obtained an exhibit case for the Center for the Book New Hampshire Author's Room here at the State Library and have decided to use it for spotlight exhibits on different New Hampshire authors. The first one is on e. e. cummings and was put together by NHSL Reference Librarian Charles Shipman.

If you have a NH author to suggest for a future spotlight exhibit let us know!

LAL Update

My email this morning included an update from the national coordinator of the Letters About Literature writing competition. If you are a parent or teacher who sent letters for this competition this year you may have received this email as well (depending on how clearly you wrote your email address on the entry coupon.) For those of you who didn't receive this email, here are the highlights:

• The national competition coordinators are still processing the more than 56,000 letters they received from young readers across the nation!
• The first two rounds of judging are just about complete, which means most of the state semi-finalists have been selected. A hefty 5,000 to 8,000 letters will advance to the next level of judging.
• In February, more than 150 state-level judges (including authors, publishers, teachers, librarians, and even a governor’s spouse or two) will read the semi-finalists in their state and select their top essayists on all three competition levels.
• Each state center for the book (including NH) will then contact their winning writers in March.
• The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress will announce our six national winners no later than the first week in May.

This is the fourth year that New Hampshire has participated in this competition and more entries were received this year (473 entries had been logged as of mid-January) than ever before.

Book of the Week #3

Winter Woes by Marty Kelley (Madison, Wis.: Zino Press Children's Books, 2003. )

This is a cautionary tale about what might happen to you if you venture out into the snow. It is ideal for curling up with on a cold blustery day.
Kelley lives in New Boston, NH and has been known to read at local schools. This book was a 2005 nominee for the Ladybug Picture Book Award.

Book of the Week #2

Logging Railroads Along the Pemigewasset River by Bill Gove (Littleton, NH: Bondcliff Books, 2006)

This book from a NH publisher examines the history of various logging operations that worked the Pemi watershed beginning in the late 1800s. Author Bill Gove is a retired (Vermont) forester who writes about New Hampshire's logging railroads. His published books include J.E. Henry's Logging Railroads, and Logging Railroads of The Saco Valley. Each of the books is heavily illustrated and the author has donated many of the photographs to the Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society. The book was featured in the September 2006 issue of Heart of New Hampshire and came to my attention by way of the Village Bookstore's non-fiction best-seller list.

Book of the Week #1

Lost Geography by Charlotte Bacon (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000)

This was Bacon's first novel and it is a beautiful book about the inner lives and private desires that thread through families, both connecting and separating the people in them. The book was favorably reviewed by the Hippo when it came out and was nominated for the 2002 Dublin IMPAC Literary Award.

Author Charlotte Bacon has taught at UNH since 1998 and in addition to this book has published a collection of short stories called A Private State (University of Massachusetts Press, 1998) and the novel There is Room for You (Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2004).

Charlotte Bacon was interviewed in July 2005 as part of the UNH Author's Series

The NH Book of the Week Project

There are a LOT of interesting books by New Hampshire authors, about New Hampshire, and set in New Hampshire. I come across a lot of these books in the course of both of my jobs (Director of the NH Center for the Book & Librarian, NHAIS Services).

During 2007 I have decided to write about one of these books each week in this blog. The book will be chosen by me based on the totally subjective criteria of what I came across (new or old or in-between) that struck me as interesting that week. The books will all have a Granite State connection of some sort. I am happy to hear from anyone with suggestions of interesting books and expect that the Granite State Readers Recommend project is apt to be a regular source of ideas for me (with credit given to the recommender of course).

I hope that you will find these books of interest as well. I also hope that you will feel free to add comments to the postings telling me (and the readers of this blog) what you think about the books and what other books you are reminded of by what I have said. One of the goals of the NH Center for the Book is to generate discussion about books among NH readers and I hope that this project will start conversations, both real and virtual, about these books.

If you would like to link to the Book of the Week from your blog or website this is the direct link.

As it is already the third week of January I have some catching up to do so watch for several posts by the end of this week.

Birthdays and books in Littleton

I got my email newletter today from The Village Book Store in Littleton, N.H. The newsletter is not on their website yet, but they say it is coming soon. Meanwhile you can get it via email by signing up on the site. There were several interesting things in this latest issue including a review of The United States of Arugula which is now on my (ever-growing!) to-read list, a local best-sellers list which included several titles not reflected on the NY Times list, and announcements of upcoming events. Among those events were two birthday celebrations:

We will be holding special events downstairs at the Village Book Store
every Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Activities will be geared towards families with
children ages 4 and up, but everyone is welcome!

Sunday, January 21, 2007 , 2:00 p.m. Winnie the Pooh’s Bee-Day Celebration
Celebrate author A.A. Milne’s birthday with stories, crafts, and perhaps a little smackerel of something delicious!

Sunday, January 28, 2007 , 2:00 p.m. Adventures in Wonderland We’ll paint
the roses red, design a funny hat, and play a little croquet in honor of Alice
in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll’s birthday, and a very merry unbirthday for the rest of us!

I love the idea of celebrating author birthdays by going to a bookstore event!

NH Poet on Poetry Daily

If you haven't checked out the website Poetry Daily yet, today is a great day to do it as the featured poet is New Hampshire's own Seth Abramson!

The poem is called "Public Defender" and it originally appeared in The Iowa Review. Seth is a co-editor of The New Hampshire Review and the author of the blog The Suburban Ecstasies.

Poetry Daily is a website that features a different poem each day. It is a good way to find new poets and to bring a little poetry into your day.

"It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably
every day for lack of what is found there."
--William Carlos Williams

James Patrick Kelly in Rochester

The latest issue of Granite State Libraries just came out and it includes an article about NH author James Patrick Kelly who will be speaking at the Rochester Public Library on January 25th as part of their NHHC Speculative Fiction program.

Talking about books

If one of your new years resolutions was to read more, you might want to consider joining a book discussion group at your local library. Many libraries around the state have them and it is a great way to find out about books you might not come across otherwise. It can also be a wonderful opportunity to talk about what you have read and to get more out of a book by hearing other people's ideas about it. It can also help motivate you to finish a book if there is a deadline!

Here is a random sampling of some upcoming book discussions in NH public libraries:

Tucker Free Library in Henniker will disuss Lying Awake by Mark Salzman on January 10th and The Seal Wife by Kathyrn Harrison on February 14th as part of their TALK IT UP AT TUCKER FREE program.

The Monthly Book Discussion Group at Tracy Memorial Library in New London meets the first Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm at the library. They will be discussing Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood on February 6th.

At the Portsmouth Public Library upcoming Adult Book Discussions include The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (which I loved!) on January 8 & 9 and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloane Wilson on February 12 & 13.

The Library Book Club at the Plaistow Public Library meets on the first Wednesday of the month at 7:15pm at the library. They several books set in NH coming up including Here at Eagle Pond by Donald Hall on February 7th and Trailerpark by Russell Banks on March 7th.

Manchester City Library's book group will be discussing The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas L. Friedman on January 11th at 7pm. This nonfiction book explores how advances in technology and communications are increasing globalization and making our world 'flat'. On February 8th they will discuss My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.

The Aaron Cutler Memorial Library in Litchfield has a couple of book groups: Their Light N' Lively group will be reading Driving Mr. Albert in January and All Booked Up will read Colors of the Mountain for February.

Visit your local public library to see what books they will be talking about!

Finding Fiction

There was a recent post on the Inquiring Librarian Blog about the OCLC FictionFinder and it seems like a very cool way to find works of fiction on topics that interest you.

"FictionFinder is a project of OCLC Research that provides access to
millions of records for books, eBooks, and audio
materials identified as fiction (including novels, short stories, dramas,
and comics). "

The site includes the usual searching interface -- title author, ISBN (because everyone knows the ISBN of the book they are looking for) -- but what makes it cool is that is includes a browsing interface that lets you see titles by awards won, characters (you can find out if , like me, you are a fictional character!), genres, subjects (like 15 novels about Public Defenders), and settings (both real and imaginary).

I have a few quibbles with the system. For example, New Hampshire is a browsable setting, but you cannot narrow it down further than that, on the other hand, Hells Kitchen (a NYC neighborhood) has its own browse listing with 15 attached titles. Also, some subjects seem to be attached to titles they don't really apply to -- The Wizard of Oz doesn't come to my mind as being about "books and reading," but perhaps I need to re-read it. However, despite these limitations it seems like a good tool for finding fiction of interest to a specific reader. And once you find a title of interest you can click on the "find any edition" link at the top left of the titles page to see the libraries around the world that have the book.