Best Suspense Novels

The nominees for the Shirley Jackson Awards “for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic” have been announced. The winner will be announced on July 12th. See the list of finalists for Best Novel below:

Alive in Necropolis by Doug Dorst
The Man on the Ceiling by Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem
Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory
The Resurrectionist by Jack O’Connell
The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

Short List For Best Women Writers Prize Announced

The Orange Prize was initiated to encourage the development of reading of wonderful writing by women authors. Click here for a list of past shortlisted and winning authors of the Orange Prize For Fiction. The 2009 Prize winner will receive £30,000 (US$43,701) and will be announced on June 3rd.

The Orange Prize for Fiction is awarded to the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English. The prize is open to any full length novel, written in English by a woman of any nationality, provided that the novel is published for the first time in the United Kingdom between 1 April of the year before the prize is awarded and 31 March of the year in which the prize is awarded. Although the novel’s first UK publication must fall within these dates, it’s still eligible if it was previously published in English elsewhere. Enough of the rules, let’s go to the goods.

The 2009 finalists are:
Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deidre Madden
Home by Marilynne Robinson
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie

Below are the books that didn’t make it to the Short List–they’re all great reads as well:

The Household Guide to Dying by Debra Adelaide

Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold

Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans

Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo

Strange Music by Laura Fish

Love Marriage by V.V. Ganeshananthan

Intuition by Allegra Goodman

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight by Gina Ochsner

Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber

Kindling Interest In The Kindle

Don’t pass over this post just because it’s about Amazon’s electronic book (e-book) reading device called the Kindle and you have no interest in electronic readers. That’s what I’ve been doing for a while now anytime I came across a news story or ad for one because I am unlikely to ever change my reading habits. I love reading books and, at the risk of being determined an unrepentant Luddite, I’ll probably not give up the paper version for an electronic box version. That was how I felt until I read Steven Johnson’s article in the Wall Street Journal from April 20, 2009 entitled: “How The E-Book Will Change The Way We Read And Write”. I urge you to read it too because he has some interesting ideas about the bright future of reading and how these gadgets will affect communicating about the books we read. Does it make you want to go buy one?

Pulitzer Prize Books Announced

The Pulitzer Prize, awarded for works of distinction in Fiction, History, Biography, Poetry and General Nonfiction, were announced the other day. The winners receive $10,000 and a certificate. Below is a list of the winners and finalists:

Fiction
Winner: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Finalists: The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
All Souls by Christine Schutt

History
Winner: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
Finalists: This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s by G. Calvin Mackenzie & Robert Weisbrot

Biography
Winner: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
Finalists: Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll

Poetry
Winner: The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin
Finalists: Watching the Spring Festival by Frank Bidart
What Love Comes to: New & Selected Poems by Ruth Stone

General Nonfiction
Winner: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
Finalists: Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age by Arthur Herman
The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe by William I. Hitchcock

Celebrate Earth Day At Green Fest

Eco-Fun for Everyone at “Green Fest”

On Sunday, May 17th, seventeen Middlesex County libraries, in partnership with the Connecticut Library Consortium, will present Green Fest - a celebration of going green in our community. The festival, the highlight of the libraries’ county-wide “Greening Our Valley” initiative, will take place from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at Middlesex Community College’s Chapman Hall, 100 Training Hill Road in Middletown. All ages are invited and admission is free.

The festival will feature educational materials, giveaways and games sponsored by libraries and other organizations; circus-themed food; discussions on Connecticut outdoor living led by Rachael Sunny from the CT Department of Environmental Protection and gardening expert Patrice Barrett; and, at 3:00 p.m., a performance of ARTFARM’s Circus for a Fragile Planet. Bring your own water bottle for a chance to win an eco-surprise.

Enjoy a great afternoon of family-friendly activities while supporting libraries and our green future! The college is handicapped accessible and there is plenty of free parking. All ages are invited to this free festival, made possible by a grant from the Middlesex Community Foundation. For more information about this and other environmental programs going on now at libraries across Middlesex County, visit http://www.greeningourvalley.org/

Lost Your Job? Read One Of These…

If you’ve recently been laid off, you’re in good company these days. The following list of books might help you cope with the situation:

Creating Your Best Life by Carlone Adams Miller and Michael Frisch

Doing What You Love, Loving What You Do: the ultimate key to personal happiness and financial freedom by Robert Anthony

The First 30 Days: your guide to any change (and loving your life more) by Ariane de Bonvoisin

What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson

When You’re Falling, Dive by Mark Matousek

Thinking About Tomorrow by Susan Crandell

Welcome To Your Crisis : how to use the power of crisis to create the life you want by Laura Day

Life After Loss : a personal guide dealing with death, divorce, job change, and relocation by Bob Deits

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

Confidence : how winning streaks and losing streaks begin and end by Rosabeth Kanter

The Power of Story: rewrite your destiny in business and in life by Jim Loehr

Words That Work : it’s not what you say, it’s what people hear by Frank Luntz

The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Handbook by Martha Davis

What Now? by Ann Patchett

Moving Forward: taking the lead in your life by Dave Pelzer

Second Acts: creating the life your really want, building the career you truly desire by Stephen M. Pollan

Here’s The Bright Side: of failure, fear, cancer, divorce and other bum raps by Betty Rollin

The greatness guide : one of the world’s top success coaches shares his secrets for personal and business mastery by Robin Sharma

Longtime ALA Intellectual Freedom Leader Judith Krug Dies

From LibraryJournal.com:

Judith Fingeret Krug, longtime director of American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) and executive director of the Freedom To Read Foundation (FTRF), died April 11 after a year-long fight with stomach cancer. She was 69.

ALA officials said she died at Evanston Hospital in suburban Chicago. Krug was a staunch fighter against censorship and founder of Banned Books Week. She had been head of the OIF since 1967.

Krug, according to a statement forwarded by ALA Executive Director Keith Fiels, “worked tirelessly to guarantee the rights of individuals to express ideas and read the ideas of others without governmental interference. Through her unwavering support of writers, teachers, librarians, and above all, students, she has advised countless numbers of librarians and trustees in dealing with challenges to library material. She has been involved in multiple First Amendment cases that have gone all the way to the United States Supreme Court.”

“Her legacy is a lifetime of passionate commitment, advocacy, and affirmative actions to protect the Constitutional rights of citizens granted under the First Amendment,” Fiels said.

The common definition of “librarian,” editorialized Dorothy Samuels in the April 15 New York Times , (which also published a respectful obituary), “leaves out the larger role librarians play in our democracy, facilitating access to information and ideas and promoting and protecting a precious First Amendment right: the freedom to read. No one took that role more seriously than Judith Krug…”

Celebrate National Library Week and honor the work of Judith Krug by reading a banned book.

The 18 Most Memorable Movie Library Scenes

Take a few minutes to celebrate National Library Week by thinking about what your favorite movie library scenes are. Then compare your list with the one that Entertainment Weekly came up with, thanks to Examiner.com.

The Mummy was also on our list but we had a different scene in mind–the one where librarian Evelyn Carnahan declares, “I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O’Connell, but I am proud of what I am.  I… am a librarian.”

Stop by the Essex Library this week and let us know what your favorite movie library scenes are.

http://www.examiner.com/x-562-Book-Examiner~y2009m4d15-The-17-most-memorable-movie-library-scenes

2008 Philip K. Dick Award For Science Fiction Announced

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. This year two books share the award:

Emissaries From The Dead by Adam-Troy Castro

Terminal Mind by David Walton

2009 Golden Kite Award Winners

The 2009 Golden Kite Awards, sponsored by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, is the only award for children’s book authors and artists judged by their peers. This year’s winners (for books published in 2008) are:

Fiction: Down Sand Mountain by Steve Watkins
Fiction Honor Recipient: The Adoration Of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson 

Nonfiction: A Life in the Wild: George Schaller’s Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts by Pamela S. Turner
Nonfiction Honor Recipient: The Mysterious Universe: Supernovae, Dark Energy, And Black Holes by Ellen Jackson

Picture Book Text: A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton
Picture Book Text Honor Recipient: Before John Was A Jazz Giant by Carole Weatherford

Picture Book Illustration: Last Night, illustrated and written by Hyewon Yum
I Love My New Toy Illustrated and written by Mo Willems