Peace and Dragonflies, Singleton Hippie Art

Peace and Dragonflies(c) Singleton 2008Wings fluttering,dancing,parading through the skyintranslucent petticoats,a chorus ofmake-believe blues,swirling,twirling,scooching intomake the circle...and thencurtsy tothe wind...Peaceanddragonflies....Ballet for the sky....Available here!

Mercantile Center Announces 'First Novel' Award Nominees

Earlier this month, the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction announced the shortlist for its 2008 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize. The winner gets $10,000.

"As the new Center for Fiction, we intend to do everything we can to support and promote emerging writers," said director Noreen Tomassi. Ten grand is, indeed, quite a bit of support.

This list of nominees caught my eye, because I noticed ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES by Rivka Galchen was on it. I've heard so many good things about the book, it's on my impossibly long list of books I'd like to read eventually. I'll be interested to see who wins.

An Award for the Odd Title

The Bookseller recently did an online poll to determine the oddest book title of the last 30 years. Now, as odd book titles go, you'd think it would be hard to beat People Who Don't Know They're Dead, but another one did--Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers. (Damn! I was going to use that one for my next book.) How to Avoid Huge Ships came in third. (And would you believe there's actually another book with that title?)

News and More News

All sorts of cool book-related things to report. I wish I could say I dug these up all by myself, but I found them on The Readers' Advisor Online Blog, which is always packed with interesting tidbits.

For instance, Dutton has inked a deal on what's being called a "digi-novel," to be published in Fall 2009. According to this Publishers Weekly article, Dutton "paid millions for a multimedia three-book series from Anthony Zuiker that, at its centerpiece, features a mystery novel which will send readers to a Web site with companion footage relating to the plot." We're seeing this kind of crossover between print and Web publishing more and more.

PW also reports that Amazon has bought Shelfari.com, a Seattle-based social network site for readers. So what isn't Amazon buying these days?

And Anne Trubeck suggests that Catcher in the Rye might need to be replaced on high school syllabi with contemporary literature that speaks more to current teens. I know there are more current coming-of-age stories out there, but isn't Catcher what is commonly known as a classic? Has it really lost all its relevance? I pick it up about every 10 years or so (and you don't need to know exactly how many times that's been ;)) and found something to like about it each time.

Maybe I'm just old school, but I can't picture Catcher being replaced by the complete scripts for Freaks and Geeks.

How to Hire a Readers' Advisory Librarian

Readers' advisor--now, that's a job many people would consider a dream position. Imagine getting paid to read books and recommend them to people. Sign me up now!

Thing is, there's more to it than that. Of course, you can't just read what you like--you have to read what other people might be looking for (and you might hate). Plus you have to advise people, thus the advisory part of the position. Which means working with them, not dictating to them or dumping all over their choices. ("Science fiction? What are you some kind of geek? And thrillers? Totally unbelievable and formulaic junk. Now, how about a little Proust . . .")

So, here are one woman's thoughts on how to hire a good readers' advisory librarian. It's not necessarily a job for anyone who enjoys reading.

Peace, Love, The Dream...Singleton 2008 Hippie Art

Peace, Love, The Dream (c) Singleton 2008 SOLD.Tangled in Sunday sheets,I stretched,tossed,let the Sun sprinkle pixie dust in my eyesand woome back to sleep.....Cold, summer sleep...And we we're dancing...heads thrown back in laughter,everyone else wrapped around their partners,swooning,but we were laughing....And it was the Peace, tattered little sticks and strings,woven,matted,braided

The New Curtis Sittenfeld Book

The Reader's Advisor Online notes that the new Curtis Sittenfeld book, AMERICAN WIFE, will be among the new fall releases coming to stores this week (or tomorrow, to be exact).

I happened to notice this review of the book in the NY Times, which caught my eye not only because I read Sittenfeld's last book, PREP, and enjoyed it, but because it included so much discussion of PREP. And I was terribly happy to see that someone other than myself (Joyce Carol Oates, no less) had noticed that Lee Fiora, the protagonist in PREP (contrary to what some of the book's blurbs would have you believe), was not a female version of JD Salinger's Holden Caulfield in any way, shape or form--hell, she was Holden's complete opposite, if she was anything. Holden was an outsider who rejected the prep school "in crowd"--Lee wanted to belong to the "in crowd" so badly, she treated her down-to-earth, Midwestern family like shit when they visited her at one point.

I'm just so glad someone else noticed--and used the opportunity of reviewing the author's next book to point this out.