Great Stone Face winner

With 477 of the 6031 votes cast The Ghost's Grave by Peg Kehret was chosen as the winner of the 2006-2007 Great Stone Face Award.

During National Library Week in April New Hampshire students in fourth-sixth grade vote for the winner from a list of titles nominated by a committee of children's librarians.

Seeking outstanding NH books

The New Hampshire Writers’ Project is now accepting nominations for the 2007 New Hampshire Literary Awards for outstanding works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s literature, and journalism, and for lifetime achievement. The deadline for nominations is July 10, 2007. This year's awards will, for the first time, include the Donald M. Murray Outstanding Journalism Award, in honor of Donald M. Murray, who died last December at the age of 82.

The New Hampshire Literary Awards, offered biennially since 1992, celebrate the remarkable literary talent in the Granite State. A cash prize of $500 is given to recipients of the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry and the Donald M. Murray Outstanding Journalism Award. The awards ceremony, which includes a reception and presentations by 2005 award winners, will be held at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester on November 17, 2007.

More Granite State Stories

Each Friday in June NHPR's The Exchange will explore what the literature of New Hampshire says about who we are as Granite Staters through their series Granite State Stories. As with the 2006 and 2005 broadcasts, the programs will be recorded live (at Southern NH University this time) and libraries and other organizations around the state are holding book discussions focusing on the featured books and there are downloadable study guides available for each book.

Kelly wins Nebula Award

Burn by New Hampshire's own James Patrick Kelly won the 2007 Nebula Award for best novella. The award has been given to authors each year since 1965 by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Among the winners for 2007 is New Hampshire's own James Patrick Kelly, whose book "Burn" won for best novella. He recently spoke to NHPR about Burn which is one of the books in the NH Humanities Council's Speculate series.

Book of the Week #21

The French-Canadian Heritage in New England by Gerard J. Brault. (Havover, NH: University Press of New England, 1986)

Published by the University Press of New England, this volume offers an introduction to Franco-American culture including history, language, literature, art, folklore, music, etc. The author integrates his own family history -- his father worked in the Amoskeag Textile Mills in Manchester beginning in 1910 -- with the larger social history of the French in New England.

Communities and organizations throughout New England will be focusing on their French-Canadian roots during 2008 as part of the Quebec 400 celebration.

Poets Laureate Read Together

Last night Donald Hall, the U.S. Poet Laureate, participated in the first ever Transatlantic Poet Laureates Tour. It was discussed in the LC Blog and covered in today's Washington Post.

Notes from my inbox

There were a number of interesting book-related items in my email this morning:

• Rebecca Courser and the Warner Historical Society will be presenting a slideshow this Friday Night, May 18th at 7pm at MainStreet BookEnds. It’s titled...”A Place to Rest Your Head; Warner’s Taverns, Inns, Hotels & Boarding Houses”. There were a lot of them back in the days before I-89 was constructed...when there was a ski area in town along with several active train stations that linked Warner with Boston! These events are always well attended. Please, plan on arriving 10-15 minutes early to hope for a choice seat! This is a free event. All donations will be graciously accepted by the Warner Historical Society to help pay for more photograph preservation.

• NH State Council on the Arts Fellowship recipient Kevin King, will hold a public reading of his poetry at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter. The reading will take place Tuesday, May 22 at 7:00 p.m. in the Kaplanoff Periodicals Room of the library. Refreshments will follow the reading.

• Caldecott-winning author and illustrator Paul Zelinsky will be at Gibson's on Thursday, May 24, at 4 PM!

• PHOTOS & POETRY MARK GHANA’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR PORTSMOUTH, NH -- The work of six New Hampshire photographers and a reading by a Ghanaian poet will celebrate that West African nation, Saturday, June 2. The exhibit, featuring 40 photographs from the forthcoming book, Ghana: An African Portrait Revisited (Peter E. Randall Publisher, LLC), will hang in the Seacoast African American Cultural Center, 135 Daniel Street, Portsmouth. An opening reception is scheduled for 4-6 p.m. That evening, Abena P.A. Busia, a Ghanaian poet who wrote the book’s introduction, will share some of her poetry at a public reading at 7 p.m. in North Church in Market Square. The reading is sponsored by the Sanderson Poetry Series of the Portsmouth Athenaeum.

NH's 2008 Dublin Nominees

The NH Dublin Committee has made its selections for the 2008 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award:

Zoli by Colum McCann
Zoli relates the history of one of the world’s least understood and most persecuted peoples, the Romani of Eastern and Southern Europe, through the life of the title character, a poet and singer of extraordinary talent. The author, Colum McCann captures Zoli’s joys and sorrows with remarkable empathy and insight, and through her we come a little closer to understanding the plight of the Romani during World War II and the dark days of the Soviet Empire.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Told in evocative spare language using repetition in the storytelling tradition, The Road is a moving story of the journey of a father and son through an apocalyptic land. It is a tale of darkness, cruelty and despair that surrounds but is ultimately conquered by the light of the love of these two people.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichi illuminated a part of recent history that might otherwise be forgotten outside of its own country. The vehicle of fiction did not diminish the authenticity of the events and expressed sentiments in ways that might be lost when read as history or journalism.

The Center has been trying to collect copies of all of the titles that the NH Dublin Committee has nominated over the years, but we are still missing quite a few. If you have an extra hardcover copy of any of the titles on our wish list we would be very pleased to have it.

Books can be sent to us at NH Center for the Book, 20 Park Street, Concord, NH 03301

Book of the Week #20

The New Hampshire Gardener's Companion: An Insider's Guide to Gardening in the Granite State by Henry Homeyer. (Globe Pequot Press, 2007)

Having begun my gardening career in Washington, D.C. by this time of year I feel totally behind schedule if my vegetables aren't planted yet. New Hampshire has a very different climate, however, so I have to spend my time reading and planning rather than planting in early spring. This new book by Henry Homeyer, a UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardner who lives in Cornish Flat, has lots of helpful information on NH specific gardening issues. Mr. Homeyer was a guest on NHPR's The Exchange earlier this month.

Isinglass Winner Announced

The Barrington Public Library announced yesterday that Twilight by Stephenie Meyer received 277 votes making it the winner of the Isinglass Teen Read Award. Eligible voters for this award are 7th & 8th graders and there were 1561 votes cast this year from 28 communities. The new list for 2008 will be announced on May 17th at the NHLA Conference.

Book of the Week #19

The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery. (Ballantine Books, 2006).

This book was in Donna Gilbreth's "NH Books" column in the Spring 2007 issue of Book Notes:

"The Good Good Pig is the humorous and sometimes poignant story of the family’s pet pig Christopher Hogwood. He was given to them as a severely undernourished runt on the verge of death. Yet he survived and as he grew ever larger over the next fourteen years he became a pampered member of the family and a local celebrity. Christopher was an expert at escaping the confines of the old barn, named Pig Palace. Montgomery speculated that "…perhaps, we mused, Christopher broke out for the same reason as do many young males. Maybe he was looking for beer." Christopher loved beer, and he loved Pig Spa, when his doting human admirers would groom him for hours. Christopher’s animal companions included eight black hens called "the Ladies" and an obsessive/compulsive border collie named Tess. Montgomery’s descriptions of feeding Christopher, who weighed several hundred pounds as an adult, are vivid and quite funny: "Christopher surged out of his pen, bucking and snorting. Any chickens in the way burst like grouse from cover and flew off in all directions. I ran ahead like a madwoman, struggling with the main slops bucket…." Food is definitely a central theme in this story. The book is also about how Christopher’s popularity helped Montgomery overcome shyness and make many human friends. Interwoven with the story of Christopher’s life and death is also the story of Montgomery’s rocky relationship with her parents and their eventual deaths. This is a book for young and old alike."

On Saturday, May 12, 2007 Sy Montgomery will be at Toadstool Bookshops: at 11am in Milford and at 2pm in Keene.

LC enters the blogosphere!

On April 24, 2007 The Library of Congress Blog was launched on an historical note. So far, it has included a posts about, among other things, rare books, history, architecture, ISSNs, and The McDowell Colony.

This looks like a blog that readers everywhere will want to keep an eye on.

2007 Flume Award Winner Announced

The winner of the 2007 Flume Award is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

Twilight garnered 129 votes out of the total 531 votes cast.

The other titles earned the following votes:
The Truth about Forever -- 82; Velocity -- 53 ; Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment -- 41; A Great and Terrible Beauty-- 38; Haunted -- 37; Tithe -- 35; The Burn Journals -- 29; Powder Monkey -- 24; Looking for Alaska -- 23; I am the Messenger -- 19; The Geography Club -- 15; The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp -- 8

The 2008 nominee list will be available on the Flume Award web site in a couple of weeks.

The Other Side of Sorrow nominated for IPPY Award

The poetry anthology, The Other Side of Sorrow, Poets Speak Out about Conflict War and Peace has been named a semifinalist in the poetry category for the IPPY Award from the 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards, which offers prizes in 75 categories. The anthology, published by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, was edited by Patricia Frisella of Farmington NH. Cicely Buckley of Durham, NH was the associate editor. Winners will be chosen later this month, and be formally recognized at the 11th Annual IPPY Awards event on Friday, June 1st during the BookExpo America (BEA) convention to be held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City from May 31 - June 3, 2007.

Annual Center for the Book Idea Exchange

I got back today from the annual State Center for the Book Idea Exchange meeting. Hosted by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress this meeting provides the directors of all the state Centers for the Book an opportunity to get together and talk about the projects we do and to share ideas and experiences and to help each other with problems our centers may be having. This year there was a lot of discussion about book festivals, state book awards, literary maps, and NEA Big Read projects. We also talk about national projects that centers organize at a state level, like the National Book Festival, Letters About Literature, and River of Words.

This year, for the first time, several of the center directors got together to have a book discussion dinner after the meeting. We read and discussed The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. and were lucky enough to have Chris Higashi of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library join us for the discussion and share with us the excellent Reading Group Toolbox for the Works of Jhumpa Lahiri that they created for their 2007 Seattle Reads project.