National Book Awards 2015

The National Book Awards finalists have been announced, and one of the books on the list is The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, which I raved about to anyone who would listen after I read it! Check out the complete article on NPR.

"Winners in each category will receive a bronze sculpture and a purse of $10,000, at a ceremony in New York City on Nov. 18."

National Book Awards Finalists 

 

Fiction

Karen E. Bender, Refund
Angela Flournoy, The Turner House
Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies
Adam Johnson, Fortune Smiles
Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

Nonfiction
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Sally Mann, Hold Still
Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus
Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the QuranTracy K. Smith, Ordinary Light

Poetry
Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Terrance Hayes, How to Be Drawn
Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus
Ada Limón, Bright Dead Things
Patrick Phillips, Elegy for a Broken Machine

Young People's Literature
Ali Benjamin, The Thing About Jellyfish
Laura Ruby, Bone Gap
Steve Sheinkin, Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep
Noelle Stevenson, Nimona

ARTICLE SHARING: "Author Turow fears DOJ Apple suit would empower Amazon"

CNET is running an article written by Jay Greene stating that author Scott Turow (author of Presumed Innocent) is alleging that a lawsuit Amazon has filed against Apple, HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster will put Amazon in a position to crush all of their competition.

"'You'll end up with one bookseller in the United States because Amazon will crush everyone else,' Turow said.

In an op-ed piece for Bloomberg, the Presumed Innocent author dubs Amazon 'the Darth Vader of the literary world.' And in an interview with CNET, Turow said he's worried that Amazon's tactics will unfairly undermine brick-and-mortar booksellers and ultimately the publishing industry." (CNET article by Jay Greene)

Read the full CNET article by Jay Greene, and the original Bloomberg article written by author Scott Turow.

Little Free Libraries

What a great idea! I saw this on the news this morning. This project was the brainchild of Todd Bol and Rick Brooks, who first met in 2009 while exploring the benefits of green practices in small businesses.

They started with the very first "one room schoolhouse" seen to the left, and since then people around the country have built their own Little Free Libraries.

The idea is basically "take a book, leave a book". These are little libraries that belong to the community.

Their mission is:

• To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide.
• To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.
• To build more than 2,510 libraries around the world--more than Andrew Carnegie!

Here are some of the libraries created by individuals across the country...

I'd love to have something like this in my area, but would worry about how to deal with our inclement weather. I live in south Florida, and we can have regular fierce rain storms!

They tell you how to order a library (they range $100-600 in cost), or how to build your own.

Like them on Facebook, and check out the map to see whether there is one near you.

Check out the Little Free Library website. Maybe you can do one in your area?

BBPOC 2012: Going on now!

I'm attending the 2012 Book Blogger and Publisher Online Conference this week, and it isn't too late for you to join in! We still have audio chats going on today and through the weekend, and recordings of all of the audio panels will be posted for at least a month for all attendees to listen back over once again. See my original post about it here, or check out their website for more info.