The Bookshelf

Do you ever wonder where writers create their works? Take a look at Maeve Binchy and her husband Gordon Snell’s cottage just outside Dublin.  It may look cluttered to some, but I could live there.

Here are just a few other books which capture writer’s rooms and haunts:

American writers at home

Novel destinations

Darwin’s garden

You’ve probably noticed a number of changes on the first floor. With an ever-growing collection, certain genres were starting to get too big for their britches. So we’ve moved some things around to make them more convenient, and to give everything a little more breathing room. Have a look:

As you can see, the graphic novels are now down on the parquet floor. Next to them are current editions of our most popular newspapers. (You can still find the newspaper upstairs, too.) The other side of that shelf is the new home of Westerns and Chick Lit.

If you go around the corner to the right, you’ll find our new coffee machine. Grab a cup, have a seat in one of our comfy chairs, and spend some time with us!

The Orange Prize shortlist for fiction has been announced. Three American women have been included in the annual British award for best novel of the year by a woman. The winner of the $43,000 prize will be awarded June 3 in London.

Home by Marilynne Robinson

Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman

The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey

Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie

Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden

Click on the links to search for the items, or to place a hold.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki

Not just because it’s Earth Day – really. This comic book series and animated feature length film are highly recommended at any time!  Nausicaä has a strong ecological theme. So it seemed appropriate to write about it today. The message is timeless and important. Read the graphic novels, watch the DVD.

My movie review: In the post-apocalyptic future, pacifist and environmental warrior Princess Nausicaa lives in Valley of the Wind, a small rural territory at the edge of an expanding wasteland. When a ship carrying a weapon from a long-gone industrial age crashes nearby and soldiers come to retrieve the cargo, she and the people of the Valley struggle to prevent conflicting nations from destroying one another and the declining planet.  (read more)

See a selected list of environmental-themed documentaries.

For 6 years librarians all over the world have had to withstand the plaintiff  questions from Da Vinci Code fans of when Dan Brown is going to write another novel….Well, the waiting is over.  Random House has announced that they are planning a 5 million print run on the next novel to feature  protagonist Robert Langdon. Due out  September 15, 2009 the novel will be called The Lost Symbol. Of course the publisher is promising that the wait will have been worth it…what else would he say? I am sure he is hoping for just one tenth of the sales of Da Vinci Code which were 81 million copies worldwide.

For those of you who cannot wait until September, never fear…the powers that be have arranged for the movie Angels and Demons starring Tom Hanks once again as Langdon to be released on May 15th…Ah just over a month.  ok, ok can’t even wait that long? … here’s the trailer:

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today at Columbia University. In addition to their 14 awards for excellence in journalism, a number of prizes were awarded for literature. Check out some of the prize-winning titles!

• Fiction: Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
• History: The Hemingses of Monticello : An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
• Biography: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
• Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin
• General Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

Click on the links to search for the items, or to place a hold. You can also see the rest of the prize winners by clicking the medal above!

Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard announced the winners of the Lukas Prize Project Awards, given to works of literary nonfiction. The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize was awarded to Jane Mayer for The Dark Side about the conduct of the fight against terrorism; the Mark Lynton History Prize went to Timothy Brook for Vermeer’s Hat, about commerce in the 17th century; and the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award was given to Judy Pasternak for her forthcoming book, Yellow Dirt: The Betrayal of the Navajos. The awards will be given out on May 12.

If you liked watching the miniseries  Lost in Austen on PBS, here are a few book recommendations.

Austenland: A Novel by Shannon Hale -  audiobook

Pride & Prejudice junkie/Darcy obsessed, Jane Hayes is given a vacation to Pembrook Park – an exclusive resort where people pretend to live like Jane Austen characters.

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler – audiobook

After a night of immersing herself in all things Jane Austen (medicine for a very bad day), 21 st century Courtney Stone wakes up in 1813 England. She now occupies the body of Jane Mansfield, a 30-year-old unmarried  gentle lady.

And for ages 12 and up, try:

Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman – audiobook

Inspired by Pride and Prejudice, 15-year-old best friends Julie and Ashleigh deck themselves out in antique  gowns, crash an elite boys’ school dance, and look for their “Mr. Darcy”.

For more ideas, don’t miss our Jane Austen Lives On! booklist.

BTW, the DVD Lost in Austen is ordered for the Library. Reserve it now!

See a related Studio post.

Shelf Awareness, an e-newsletter for booksellers and librarians, has a regular author interview called Book Brahmin (kinda like the questionnaire on Inside the Actors Studio, but less snooty). One of my favorite questions is “Book You’ve Faked Reading.” Author Susan Wiggs copped to lying about reading Proust’s Swann’s Way in French, while librarian Vicki Myron (writer of Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World) admitted that she faked reading Shakespeare.

One recent survey in Britain found that two out of three people lied about reading (Orwell’s 1984 was fibbed about most often). The book I faked reading was Nausea by John-Paul Sartre. I was taking a 20th-century European Lit class in college and trying to impress the graduate assistant (it didn’t work). So what are the books you’ve faked reading?