1/29/10

Weekend Book Events

SATURDAY, January 30, 2010
  • Walt Schnabel of Dublin, NH will be discussing and autographing Blood Club at Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough at 11am.
  • Manchester City Library is having a $5 Bag Book Sale on January 30, 2010 (Saturday) 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM in the Winchell Room of the Manchester City Library at 405 Pine Street, Manchester, NH.

SUNDAY, January 31, 2010

  • The Warner Area Bookclub meets at MainStreet BookEnds at 3pm. They will be discussing Barbara Kingsolver's novel Prodigal Summer.

1/28/10

J. D. Salinger (1919-2010)

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though." (Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye)

Reclusive author Jerome David Salinger died on Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. Following the publication of his novel The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger became one of the world's most admired authors. Holden Caulfield, the anti-hero of the novel, spoke to adolescents in a rebellious voice they recognized as their own. Salinger withdrew from public life and the fame that Catcher in the Rye brought to him. He had not published anything since the 1960s and had not been interviewed since 1980. In a Boston Globe interview that year, he said, "I love to write, and I assure you I write regularly. But I write for myself and I want to be left absolutely alone to do it."

1/27/10

Katharine Weber Reading at Wiggin Memorial Library

Tomorrow night, Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 6:30pm RiverRun Bookstore and the Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham present novelist Katharine Weber, reading from True Confections. Weber will read at the library which is located at 10 Bunker Hill Avenue in Stratham, New Hampshire.

Nathan Graziano at River Run TONIGHT

Teacher, writer, and Manchester resident Nathan Graziano, along with Rusty Barns, will be reading at River Run Bookstore tonight (1/27/2010) at 7pm.

1/26/10

Book of the Week #4

The Big Fish of Barston Falls by Jack Noon (Moose Country Press, 1995)

Since the Great Meredith Rotary Fishing Derby is this weekend (January 30-31, 2010) it seems appropriate to choose a fish tale for this week's book.

"In the summer of 1822 twelve-year-old Sue Reckford and Malik, an old man and one of the few Abenakis left in the Connecticut River valley, fish together in the river at the Vermont village of Barston Falls. They catch perch every day and trade them in the village square.

In response to a teasing bet from the oldest settler in the village about the size of the fish, Malik sets out to catch something bigger. He and Sue start fishing out in the big eddy below the falls and there they make an astounding discovery." (jacket copy)




1/25/10

Water Street Hosts Authors This Week

Water Street Bookstore will have two author visits this week:

TONIGHT, 1/25/2010 7pm - 8:30pm Kate Braestrup, author of the new memoir Marriage and Other Acts of Charity

Wednesday, 1/27/2010 7pm - 8:30pm Christina Asquith, journalist and author of Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family, and Survival in the New Iraq.

It looks like this is the week to be in Exeter!

1/23/10

Notable Books from McDowell Fellows

The McDowell Colony's January e-newsletter included this:

For those seeking good books in the new year, a place to start might be the 100 Notable Books of 2009 chosen by The New York Times. Eight Fellows -- including Kate Walbert (A Short History of Women), Stacey D'Erasmo (The Sky Below), and Mary Karr (Lit: A Memoir) -- join two Medalists (John Updike and Alice Munro) on that list. Walbert and Karr's books also made the Times's 10 Best Books of 2009 list.

(I added the links.)

1/22/10

Dayton Duncan at UNH

On Sunday, January 24, 2010 Dayton Duncan will be Rebecca Rule's guest as part of the New Hampshire Authors Series. This event will take place in the Dimond Library, 5th floor Reading Room at 2:00 p.m. The program is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. To register, click on www.events.unh.edu.

1/21/10

Book of the Week #3

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick (The Blue Sky Press, 2009)

This book by Rodman Philbrick--a native of Portsmouth, NH now living in Maine--was recently named as a Newbery Honor Book by the American Library Association. Thanks to J. Dennis Robinson of SeaCoastNH.com for sending me this news.


"Philbrick (Freak the Mighty) offers rip-roaring adventure in this Civil War–era novel featuring a mistreated orphan who doesn't let truth stand in the way of spinning a good yarn. When his guardian, Uncle Squinton—the meanest man in the entire state of Maine—sells off Homer P. Figg's older brother, Harold, to take a rich man's son's place in the Union army, Homer can't just stand around doing nothing. Determined to alert the authorities (and his brother) that Harold is too young to be a soldier, the plucky narrator traces the path of the regiment. He faces many dangers, including an abduction or two, and being robbed and thrown in with the pigs, and joining the Caravan of Miracles before landing smack in the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg, where he reunites with his brother and more or less drives the Confederates away. The book wouldn't be nearly as much fun without Homer's tall tales, but there are serious moments, too, and the horror of war and injustice of slavery ring clearly above the din of playful exaggerations." (from Publishers Weekly)

1/15/10

Book of the Week #2

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (NY: Grand Central Publishing, c1960)

The book of the week is typically a book that has come to my attention recently and seems (to me at least) connected to New Hampshire. This week was spent working on Big Read: New Hampshire Reads To Kill a Mockingbird so very little else has captured my attention.

During March 2010 there will be programs and events focusing on this classic novel throughout New Hampshire. There are 100 partners in the project including schools, libraries, bookstores, and other NH organizations.

Check out what we are planning at http://bigreadnh.org

1/14/10

Katherine Paterson Named Ambassador

Katherine Paterson, two-time winner of the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal, was named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on Jan. 5, 2010.
Ms. Paterson lives in Vermont and is the author of one of my favorite books of all time -- Bridge to Terabithia.
The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, along with the Children's Book Council, oversees the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature project.

1/8/10

Book of the Week #1

White on White: Churches of Rural New England by Steve Rosenthal (Monacelli Press, 2009)

Photographer Steve Rosenthal has captured the iconic beauty of New England churches and collected them in this gorgeous volume.

"The early churches of New England hold a special place in the American consciousness, revered for their physical beauty, simplicity, and elegance and for their role in the early history of this country. Places of worship they were and are, but they are also icons of a particularly American sensibility and artistic vision. Photographer Steve Rosenthal has traveled throughout the northeast capturing the gems of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and tracing the evolution of church styles from the early, dramatically simple meetinghouse form through the changing patterns of Greek and Gothic revivals. His photographs capture the intrinsic beauty of the architecture while creating a world of rich order and rational light. He has frozen in time the New England buildings that may soon be—or have already been—lost in a chaotic, contemporary world."