Is it really only Thursday? Big news day for sure. Where to start...at the beginning, of course.

Last night ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan won the National Book Critics Circle award for best fiction of 2002.

Oprah Winfrey announced the rebirth of her bookclub. For now she's calling it, "Traveling with the Classics." Her plan is to read and discuss 3-5 classics a year, and to visit the location of each book. If anyone can put classics on the bestseller list, it's Ms. Oprah. Not that the NY Times would allow that anyway...should be interesting though.

The American Booksellers Association announced their shortlist for the 2003 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards. The nominees for adult books are -
Adult Fiction:
Atonement by Ian McEwan (Nan Talese/Doubleday)
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber (Harcourt)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Harcourt)
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown)
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Viking)

Adult Nonfiction:
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz (Holt)
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller (Random House)
My Losing Season by Pat Conroy (Doubleday)
Population, 485 by Michael Perry (HarperCollins)
Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin's)

Paperback:
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai (Anchor)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Perennial)
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall (Vintage)
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor)
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin)

All I can say is I'm glad I don't have to vote. I couldn't even come up with a top ten for 2002, never mind choosing the one best book. On the other hand, I have read almost all of the fiction books nominated, which was really surprising for some reason.

On the road again: Ian Rankin and George Pellecanos are going on tour together. RESURRECTION MEN is my give-away this month, and keep an eye out for the next contest....

Finally, a very sad day with the passing of Fred Rogers. His legacy of love should live on for years to come. I'm posting this from John Lee of Suburban Tribe because he said what I feel and said it eloquently:

...and one Goodbye.
Posted on February 27, 2003

I'm sure that more than a few Internet message boards and office water coolers are brimming with jokes about the death of Fred Rogers today. However, I'm man enough to admit that it makes me a little sad to see this humanitarian leave us. Mr. Rogers never tried to sell children a new toy or distract them for half an hour with violent, mediocre animation. He spoke to children on an adult level, while imparting to them the importance of treating yourself and others with love and respect. He was a big advocate of introducing children to the arts, and he was also a masterful storyteller who encouraged the use of imagination.

I hope PBS continues to rerun Mr. Roger's Neighborhood for a very long time. Even better, I hope at some point someone sees fit to release Mr. Roger's Neighborhood in a DVD archive for a very low price so that Fred Roger's legacy can be passed on within and between families for as long as possible.

 
JK Rowling to feature in The Simpsons

JK Rowling is to make a one-off appearance in The Simpsons.

Homer and his family meet up with the Harry Potter author in a special episode set in London.

Lisa Simpson turns out to be a Potter fan and questions the millionaire.

Sir Ian McKellen also appears in the episode - and is first hit by falling scaffolding, then struck by lightning.

The Simpsons go to see him perform on stage in Macbeth, but bring him bad luck by saying the play's name aloud - a theatrical superstition.

A spokesman for the cult US cartoon told The Sun: "The Simpsons bump into JK Rowling outside a bookshop and they talk all about Harry Potter.

"We're very excited about the episode and rest assured every British cliche will be trotted out to get a laugh."

 
Read any good books lately?
By David Sexton, literary editor, Evening Standard

Book reviewers always have one question, at the point of accepting a commission: "How long is it?" They are not hoping, as buyers of mass-market fiction usually are, that it's a really good substantial read. They are praying that the book is not too long.

Reviewing books is not a particularly well-paid form of journalism and it takes time. A book of any more ambition than a thriller can't be read for review at a rate of more than 40, or at most 60, pages an hour. Some books are only 120-pages long and can comfortably be digested in a couple of hours. Others, though, are 400, or 600 pages, or, in some dreadful instances, even more, and they can easily take days to get through.

The reviewer's fee, however, usually remains the same. So, shocking as it may seem, the truth is that some reviewers skip some books. And there are a few who skip through all the books.

They have to be good to get away with it. The more conscientious reviewers enjoy a privileged position. They are able to see the book before anybody else. So they can perform a useful task by simply describing it to a readership which has not had that advantage. What's more, while it is not so easy as you may think to have complete and certain knowledge of a longish text, it's a doddle compared to acquiring complete and certain knowledge of the outside world, which most other journalists have to attempt. The whole thing is right there, on your desk. You can check your facts until you are sure. Some books even have an index.

Yet, believe it or not, there are reviewers who just throw away such a head start. In the States, one such has just come to grief. In the New York Times Book Review, a professor of creative writing, Beverly Lowry, reviewed a book by one of the people involved in the Whitewater affair, The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk by Susan McDougal. An Arkansas newspaper columnist, Gene Lyons, soon spotted that Lowry's review contained a basic error about whether or not the author eventually testified in court (she did).

"Yo, Beverly. Next time, read the damned book," he urged, arguing that "assuming minimal competence, Lowry simply cannot have done so".

Read the complete article at the London Evening Standard