Book of the Week #43

Live Free or Undead by Diverse Hands and edited by Rick Broussard (Concord, NH: Plaidswede, 2010)




From the press release:

"An anthology of short fiction in a horror vein written by local authors and set in the familiar locations of New Hampshire will appear in bookstores just in time for Halloween. “Live Free or Undead: Dark Tales from the Granite State” is being released by Plaidswede Publishing of Concord and should be available across the state by Oct. 14. The book presents 20 spine-tingling tales, some by first-time writers and some by such well-known New Hampshire authors as Rebecca Rule, Brendan Dubois, David Elliott and Hugo Award winner James Patrick Kelly. The book cover is illustrated by Dover artist Marc Sutherland and the whole project was edited by New Hampshire Magazine Editor Rick Broussard."

Last Friday night I attended a reading for this book --as part of the Concord Literary Festival-- where many of the contributing authors were in attendance and read to us from their story. Becky Rule and James Patrick Kelly both read their entire stories, everyone else left the audience at a cliffhanger. Luckily the books were available for sale at the event so I didn't have to wait long to find out what happened in the various stories.



If you weren't able to be there Friday, you have several more opportunities coming up to hear the stories read by the various authors:

• Double Midnight Comics, Manchester, is planning a double dose of zombie fun as the creators behind the hit comic anthology Zombiebomb join some of the creators behind the new NH short story anthology Live Free or Undead to sign their books!
  
• A horror-fiction reading event at Rye Public Library, Wednesday October 27th, 2010 at 7 pm
  Selections from the new collection Live Free or Undead with guest authors Brendan DuBois, Michael DeLuca, Elaine Isaak, and Andy Richmond.
  
• On Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 11am Toadstool Books, Peterborough will host a reading from this brand new collection of spooky tales edited by Rick Broussard and featuring a story from local author Seth Blake and stories from Joyce Wagner, Kristopher Seavey, & Lorrie Lee O'Neill who will be there to read and sign.
  
• At 7pm on Saturday, October 30, 2010 Toadstool Books, Milford will host Lorrie Lee O'Neill, David Elliott, David O'Keefe & Gregory L. Norris reading their contributions to Live Free or Undead.

Book of the Week #42

The Sibley Guide to Trees written and illustrated by David Sibley (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)


Did you ever see a tree and wonder what kind of tree it was? David Allen Sibley -- who has written lots of books to answer the question "what kind of bird it that?" -- has written this book to help you identify trees.


This book is filled with more than 4,100 beautiful color drawings of the leaves, and the flowers, the bark, etc. so you can examine a specimin and compare it to the picture. It also sorts trees into their taxonomies with all related species grouped together and provides maps to show where various trees will be found.


As part of the Concord Literary Festival, David Sibley will be at Gibson's on Saturday. October 23, 201o at 3pm to discuss and sign his work.

Ladybug Nominee Profile

Author Melissa Stewart and illustrator Constance R. Bergum show us who'se hiding from winter's cold all around us. There are activities and storytime guides on the author's website. This book was published by Peachtree Publishers.

"Stewart takes readers on an informative journey, describing how snakes, voles, spotted salamanders, carp, beavers, and red-spotted newts, among other animals, "spend their days" during the winter months. Fascinating facts-a wood frog can freeze solid on the forest floor and survive-make the spare text intriguing and fun. Beautiful paintings in muted watercolors convey the creatures in their habitats and the quiet of the season. This pleasing addition is a great read-aloud for units on winter and animal habitats." (School Library Journal review)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

Concord Literary Festival Events at the NHSL

What do novelist Katherine Towler, Moose of Humor Rebecca Rule, journalist Kevin Flynn, and New Hampshire Poet Laureate Walter Butts have in common? They have all had books featured as books-of-the-week on this blog. This outstanding group of New Hampshire authors will all be reading at the NH State Library on Saturday, October 23, 2010 as part of the Concord Literary Festival. Thanks to Gibson's Bookstore --a festival partner--we expect to have books by our readers available for sale at the event.

The Center for the Book began featuring a book-of-the-week on its blog in January 2007 and has included novels, history, biography, poetry, children's and young adult literature, cookbooks, and various other books that struck my fancy in the nearly 200 weeks since then. When the New Hampshire Writer's Project asked us to be part of the Concord Literary Festival it seemed like a great opportunity to bring the book-of-the-week out of cyberspace and into the library with a group of featured authors reading from their recent work. The writers who were invited to read are all local authors and were chosen to show the diversity of book-of-the-week titles as well as to complement the other programs that are planned as part of the Festival, many of which also feature authors whose books have been books-of-the-week (John Walters and Marty Kelley, for example.)

Katherine Towler will read beginning at 10am. She is author of the novels Snow Island, Evening Ferry, and Island Light. This trilogy of novels set on a fictional New England island chronicles the lives of two generations in two island families and the impact of the wars of the twentieth century on the island community. Praised by the Boston Globe as "luminous and moving," Snow Island was chosen as book-of-the-week #52 in 2007. Katherine Towler currently teaches graduate students in the low residency MFA Program in Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and works as a freelance writer specializing in publications and promotional materials for schools and non-profits. She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Rebecca Rule will read beginning at 11am. Her newest release, Headin' for the Rhubarb! A New Hampshire Dictionary (well, kinda) will set you straight on the correct meaning of New Hampshire's native expressions and how to pronounce them, to boot. Two of Becky’s previous books, Live Free and Eat Pie: A Storyteller's Guide to New Hampshire, and Could Have Been Worse: True Stories, Embellishments and Outright Lies have been books-of-the-week. A New Hampshire native, she has published two other collections of short stories. The Best Revenge was named Outstanding Work of Fiction by the NH Writers Project. For seventeen years she wrote a column on NH books and writers, “Bookmarks,” that appeared in various New Hampshire newspapers.

At noon Kevin Flynn will be reading from Our Little Secret with his wife and co-author Rebecca Lavoie. In 2010 Wicked Intentions: The Sheila LaBarre Murders was the selected as book-of-the-week #22. This was his first book and was the story that he has described as changing his life. Kevin Flynn is a native of Holyoke, MA and currently lives in Hopkinton, NH. He got his start in journalism at the age of 19 working as a news writer for News Radio WHYN-AM. In the subsequent twenty years, Kevin has become an award-winning journalist working in radio and TV and a respected author. Flynn and Lavoie are collaborating on another true crime book, due in stores January 2012.

New Hampshire Poet Laureate Walter Butts will read beginning at 1pm. Walter is the author of several poetry collections, including Sunday Evening at the Stardust Café, and the chapbooks What to Say if the Birds Ask, Sunday Factory, White Bees, and A Season of Crows. He has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award, and has taught in poetry workshops at the University of New Hampshire. He is a member of the faculty of the BFA in Writing Program at Goddard College, and his poems appear frequently in such magazines as Atlanta Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Mid-American Review, and Poetry East, and have been anthologized in numerous publications including Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets (2009 book-of-the-week #13).

The Concord Literary Festival is sponsored by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and thirty community partners, including the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. Events will be held throughout the downtown area on October 21-23, 2010 and include author readings and book signings, poetry readings and slam performances, workshops, films, a New Hampshire horror story reading, plays and First Amendment discussions.

Ladybug Nominee Profile

It's time for bear to put on his PJs and go to sleep, but he keeps misunderstanding what Old Man Winter is telling him to do in this clever tale by Maureen Wright with wonderful wintery illustrations by Will Hillenbrand.

"Young readers will love this funny picture book with its rhyming sing song text and its delightful illustrations. With expressive characters and a perfect ending, this is a picture book that children will enjoy reading again and again." (from Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

National Book Award Finalists Announced Today

The twenty Finalists for the 2010 National Book Award were announced today. The list includes a previous National Book Award Winner, two previous Finalists, thirteen women--the largest number of women Finalists in a single year in the Awards' history--and six books from small, independent presses.

The Fiction list includes Australian-born Peter Carey (now a U.S. citizen living in New York City); Brooklynite Nicole Krauss; North Carolina native Lionel Shriver, who now divides her time between Brooklyn and London; Baltimore native, now Michigan-based Jaimy Gordon; and Californian Karen Tei Yamashita.

Young People's Literature Finalists Walter Dean Myers and Rita Williams-Garcia have both been Finalists in the category in previous years, the former in 1999 and 2005, and the latter just last year. The other three Finalists are Paolo Bacigalupi, a Nebula and Hugo Award nominee for his adult science-fiction writing (Ship Breaker is his first book for young readers); former attorney Kathryn Erskine for her second book for young adults; and Laura McNeal, a former teacher who co-authored her three previous books with her husband.

The nonfiction list includes a memoir, a biography, and three diverse accounts of war. Musician and poet Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids chronicles both her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the artistic and political scenes of New York City in the 1970s, and Justin Spring's biography of Samuel Steward is a veritable archive of the social history of gay life before Stonewall. Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy and Megan K. Stack's Every Man in This Village Is a Liar tell of the ongoing turmoil in North Korea and the Middle East, respectively, while 1999 National Book Award Winner John W. Dower's Cultures of War examines the effects of four powerful historical events: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

All of this year's Poetry Finalists are first-time nominees for the Award, though C.D. Wright was a National Book Awards Judge in 2006. By the Numbers is James Richardson's seventh book of poetry, in addition to his two critical works. The Eternal City by Kathleen Graber and Ignatz by attorney Monica Youn are second collections, while Lighthead is Terrance Hayes' third.

The Winner in each category--Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature--will be announced at the 61st National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Wednesday, November 17. Each Winner will receive $10,000 and a bronze statue; each Finalist will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal. Tom Wolfe will receive the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, to be presented by journalist and founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, Tina Brown. The Foundation's Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community will go to Sesame Street visionary Joan Ganz Cooney, to be presented by children's book author and the first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Jon Scieszka.

The Finalists were selected by four distinguished panels of five judges each who were given the charge of selecting what they deem to be the best books of the year. Their decisions are made independent of the National Book Foundation, which organizes the Awards program, and their deliberations are strictly confidential. To be eligible for a 2010 National Book Award, a book must have been published in the United States between December 1, 2009, and November 30, 2010, and must have been written by a United States citizen.

"The diversity of voices among the Finalists in all the categories makes it a particularly intriguing year for the National Book Award," said National Book Foundation Executive Director Harold Augenbraum.

Ted Kooser in Concord Tomorrow

On October 14, 2010 The NH Writers' Project and the Concord Monitor will present the first Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry to Ted Kooser, a Pulitzer-Prize winner who preceded Hall as U.S. poet laureate. This is a kick-off event for the Concord Literary Festival.

Kooser will read his poems after the presentation. Hall will be there and will also read briefly. Kooser is an incredibly accessible poet whom Dana Gioia, former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, has called one of the most original poets of his generation."There is to my knowledge no poet of equal stature who writes so convincingly in a manner the average American can understand and appreciate," Gioia wrote of Kooser. "He has transformed the common idiom and experience into fresh and distinctive poetry."

Date: October 14, 2010 at 7pm
Venue: Concord City Auditorium
Cost: $10; buy your tickets at the Monitor's office, Gibson's Bookstore, or at the door.

Book of the Week #41

We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg (Random House, 2006)

"Against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, this novel features a thirteen year old girl living in poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi in the early sixties. Her mother, a single parent, is severely handicapped by the polio she contracted when she was nine months pregnant with her daughter, and she relies
heavily on the assistance of an African-American caregiver named Peacie, with whom her daughter has a love-hate relationship. A lot of issues are looked at in this book, including the notion of what freedom really is, and whether or not it is fair for a child to be intimately involved in caring for a parent so mightily compromised." (summary from author's website)

This title was chosen by Nashua Public Library for their 2010 One City, One Book project. On Sunday, October 17, 2010 the library will present Beyond the Book: An Afternoon with Elizabeth Berg. On Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 7 pm the Nashua Public Library will host a discussion of the novel in the NPL Theater.

Here are the details on Elizabeth Berg's visit:
Thanks to support from the Friends of the Library and TD Charitable Foundation, author Elizabeth Berg will be on hand to talk about We Are All Welcome Here and answer your ques­tions. Toadstool books will bring copies of Elizabeth’s books for sale and signing. Before the presentation, a private wine and cheese recep­tion with the author will be held in the Dion Center Board Room. Bring your book group, and enter our drawing for a bag of up to 12 copies of next year's Nashua Reads book! Other door prizes will also be awarded. Tickets are $5, or $25 for entry to both the private reception and presentation. Avail­able at the Nashua Public Library circula­tion desk, or print this form and mail in your order. Sunday, October 17, 2010 at Rivier College, Dion Center, 16 Clement Street, Nashua, N.H. Private reception: 1 pm; Public presentation: 2 pm.

Weekend Book Events Sampler

There are a lot of book-related events planned for this weekend in New Hampshire. Here are a few for you to consider attending:

• On Friday, 10/8/10 at 6pm Water Street Bookstore will be hosting a reception for Elizabethe Plante, beloved manager of the bookstore, who is moving on to her next adventure. (Good Luck Elizabethe, I'll miss you!)
  
• MainStreet BookEnds of Warner will be hosting lots of events this weekend as part of the Warner Fall Foliage Festival. Things kick off at 11am on Saturday 10/9/10 with a reading by David Elliott and continue through the weekend.
  
• Jud Hale, of Yankee Magazine, will be at Toadstool Books, Peterborough at 11am on Saturday, 10/9/10 discussing Inside New England.
  
• Browsing Through the Leaves, the NH Statewide Library Book Sale Tour is this weekend
  
• Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Further Life, will be at Toadstool Books, Keene at 2pm on Saturday 10/9/10.
  
• Geraldine Brooks will accept the Sarah Josepha Hale Award in Newport at 8pm on 10/9/10 at the Newport Opera House on Main Street.
  
• The Village Book Store begins a month-long celebration of spooky New England with the presentation Spirits of the Granite State by bestselling author Roxie Zwicker who will take participants on a search of the legends and ghosts of New Hampshire. This free presentation will take place at the store on Sunday, 10/10/10 at 3 pm.
  
• Sunday, 10/10/10 beginning at 3pm the Frost Farm will host New Hampshire Dead Poets Rememberance Day.
  
• RiverRun will host a Local Authors Night with Kimberly Alexander, Jamie LaFleur, and Patricia Wall on Monday, 10/11/10 starting at 7pm.

Ladybug Nominee Profile

Florence Parry Heide -- whose home town of Kenosha gave her her own day in 2009 -- and Lane Smith have created a charming book about how a princess with a problem figures out a work-around with a little help from a friend. This book was published by Schwartz & Wade Books, an imprint of Random House, which has some activity pages buried on its website.

"Unless weighed down by her jewel-encrusted crown, diamond-embedded socks, or tied to her chair, Princess Hyacinth floats. Her days, encumbered as she is, are spent watching other children play in the Palace Grounds. Sometimes, Boy, whose kite is decorated with a golden crown in the Princess's honor, stops by her window to say hello. One day, in want of some adventure, Princess Hyacinth dons her heavy robe and crown and determinedly heads to the park. After convincing the Balloon Man to tie a string to her ankle, she sheds her clothes down to her Royal Underwear to float merrily among his colorful, bobbing balloons. A jubilant spread follows, depicting the Princess's airborne gyrations with great aplomb. Soon, however, while exploring a nearby familiar-looking kite, Princess Hyacinth becomes hopelessly entangled in its strings. In a sweetly satisfying ending, Boy comes to her rescue and is handsomely rewarded by the King and Queen. As for Princess Hyacinth, she is now free to float "up, up, up" in her Royal Underwear, knowing that Boy will be there to reel her in when she wants to come down. Heide's tale bubbles with effervescence, drawing readers into the fantasy with a lively, conversational text. Deftly, Smith enhances the words with a delightful whimsicality, from his clever application of perspective, range of color chosen to match the action, placement of text in varying hues, use of large topiary animal images in the gardens, and simple but effective character expressions. Princess Hyacinth is a joy from beginning to end." (School Library Journal review)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

Dead Poets - Live at the Frost Farm

The beautiful and historic Robert Frost Farm has joined with the Dead Poets Society of America to host the first New Hampshire Dead Poets Remembrance Day. The grand celebration will take place in the famous Frost barn from 3:00 sharp to 4:30 PM, on Sunday, October 10th. Nearly a dozen of New Hampshire's best-known bards are going to gather at the Frost Farm to read Dead Poets -- LIVE!

All are welcome to attend the reading. There is a fee of $4 (NH resident) or $5 (non NH resident) to enter to Farm, which is truly one of the best-kept literary sites in the country.

Here is the line-up:
Pat Frisella : Paul Scott Mowrer
Stephanie Voss : Celia Thaxter
Mark DeCarteret : Robert Lowell & Esther Buffler
Mimi White : Jane Kenyon
Kate Towler : Robert Dunn
Rodger Martin : Richard Eberhart
Bill Gleed : Robert Frost
John Perrault : Philip Booth
Marjory Wentworth : Ogden Nash
Marie Harris : E. E. Cummings
S. Stephanie : May Sarton

Book of the Week #40

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks (NY: Viking, 2001)

"I used to love this season. The wood stacked by the door, the tang of its sap still speaking of forest. The hay made, all golden in the low afternoon light. The rumble of the apples tumbling into the cellar bins. Smells and sights and sounds that said this year it would be all right: there'd be food and warmth for the babies by the time the snows came. I used to love to walk in the apple orchard at this time of the year, to feel the soft give underfoot when I trod on a fallen fruit. Thick, sweet scents of rotting apple and wet wood. This year, the hay stooks are few and the woodpile scant, and neither matters much to me." (p. 3)

This gripping historical novel is based on the true story of Eyam, the “Plague Village,” tucked in the rugged mountain spine of England. In 1666, when an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to the isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna’s eyes the reader follows the story of the plague year, as her fellow villagers make an extraordinary choice: convinced by a visionary young minister they elect to quarantine themselves within the village boundaries to arrest the spread of the disease. As the death toll rises and people turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna must confront the deaths of family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of illicit love.

Year of Wonders was a New Hampshire nominee for the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. On Saurday, October 9, 2010 Geraldine Brooks will be visiting our state as she will receive the 2010 Sarah Josepha Hale Award at the Newport Opera House at 8pm.

Library Card Sign up Month

The American Library Association celebrated National Library Card Sign-up Month in September. In Manchester they are celebrating in October, and they have knights.

Ladybug Nominee Profile

Inspired by the picture books of his own youth, Loren Long has created this heartwarming story of a tractor and his friends. In an interview about the book Long explains how he created the paintings for Otis. Activity pages and additional artwork that didn't make it into the book are included on the author's website. Otis was published by Philomel Books.

"Otis is a fun-loving tractor who roams the fields after a hard day's work and plays in the haystacks. In the barn one night, his engine provides a gentle purr that helps a frightened young calf fall into a peaceful sleep. The two become inseparable. That is, until the farmer decides to upgrade and brings home a brand-new, shiny yellow tractor and relegates Otis to the weeds behind the building. Having outlived his usefulness, Otis just sits there, impervious to the calf's call to play. But when his friend gets stuck in Mud Pond and no one-not even the fire department-can pull her out, the feisty tractor revs his
engine ("putt puff puttedy chuff") and saves the day. His heroism and concern
for a friend are themes that will appeal to young readers. Long's gouache and
pencil artwork is stunning with a red and cream main character against a
sepia-toned monochromatic background. The overall effect is nostalgic and
comforting as readers bond with the determined little tractor. In the end, Otis
finds a place on the farm where his engine's soft purr can be put to good use.
This satisfying conclusion that speaks of a place for everyone is sure to ring
true to children." (School Library Journal review, reommended for
PreS-Gr 2)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.