October is National Book Month

Curl up with a good book this month because October is National Book Month. The promotion is sponsored by the National Book Foundation and was created to encourage readers of all ages to enjoy books. The foundation highly encourages families to read together.

This foundation also gives out the annual National Book Award. The finalists for this award will be announced on October 15 at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater. Check out the webcast from the National Book Foundation's site to hear the announcement. Click here for more information about the 2008 National Book Award.

Want to spend time with a good book, but not sure what to read? Browse the Washington-Centerville Public Library's online catalog or ask the friendly library staff for suggestions. There are many book lists available online including the New York Times Bestseller List, Amazon's Best Books of the Year So Far and Indie Bound, which covers some of the hidden treasures in the world of books. There are many more resources like these available, so go out and explore!

Neil Gaiman Is Cool And You Know It

And if you don't know, you'd better ask somebody. This leather-clad literary icon is the creator of the hugely popular graphic novel series The Sandman, as well as numerous other graphic novels (Eternals, Signal To Noise), short-story collections (Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnus Nutter, Witch), children's books (The Wolves in the Walls, Coraline), and novels for adults (American Gods, Anansi Boys). Oh, and remember the films Stardust and Beowulf? Neil Gaiman again, who wrote the book on which the former is based and who co-wrote the screenplay for the latter. That's right: imaginative entertainment for the entire family, and Gaiman does it all without phoning it in like certain other popular writers, who, ahem, shall not be named here (but you all know who you are, so knock it off). Gaiman also has a pretty cool web site for his fans, which you can check out here. So if you've never heard of Neil Gaiman, consider this a long-overdue introduction, and be sure to reserve his very latest, The Graveyard Book.

2009 Big Read Title Announced

The next Big Read title is Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. In this novel, Peter Houghton is an alienated & bullied teen who opens fire at his high school and kills ten people. The judge assigned to the case tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, who was once Peter's best friend and who is now a surviving witness.
The Big Read will take place in Spring, 2009. "Friends, co-workers, neighbors, and strangers will all read the same book, then join together for lively discussion and events. The Big Read is a community wide, six-week-long event during which people gather in all sorts of combinations at all sorts of locations to talk about the myriad issues raised by any good piece of writing."

Meanwhile,try something else by Jodi Picoult.

Greatest Villains in Literature

I was just reading an article in the UK paper The Telegraph highlighting their picks for the 50 Greatest Villains in Literature. What a great idea! So I picked my favorites from their top 25 and came up with the following list.

"Sauron" from the Lord of the Rings--how can a giant, all-seeing eyeball not be creepy?

"Mrs. Danvers" from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier--the housekeeper from your nightmares!

"Hannibal Lector" from Red Dragon by Thomas Harris--pass the fava beans please!

"Voldemort" from Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling--people are afraid to speak his name!

It was hard to choose favorites from their list let alone come up with the whole fifty by myself. Make your own list at your next get together (don't invite any librarians--they'll win) or just let me know who you think the greatest villains in literature are.

Maxine Hong Kingston Receives Award from the National Book Foundation

Maxine Hong Kingston received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation earlier this month. The award has been presented to such renowned authors as Toni Morrison, Ray Bradbury and John Updike among others. The winners are chosen based on how their work has enriched American literature.
Kingston has won many other awards during her lifetime, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction for The Woman Warrior. Other notable works by Kingston include The Fifth Book of Peace and Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace. Celebrate Kingston's lifetime of meaningful and poignant literary contributions and pick up one of these amazing works!

Tolkien Week: September 21-27

Tolkien Week begins Sunday, September 21 and ends on Saturday, September 27. The week is dedicated to the ambitious writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. If you have never read any of his books, The Hobbit is a great one to start with prior to reading the vast Lord of the Rings series. Then dive in to the series that has been revered, copied and even adapted for the silver screen. The series starts with The Fellowship of the Ring, followed by The Two Towers and ends with The Return of the King. Tolkien has many other works out there and the stories can be quite complicated. That is why there are numerous companion pieces which can be helpful to the reader. The Tolkien Companion by J.E.A. Taylor, Tolkien and the Invention of Myth edited by Jane Chance and A Tolkien Compass by Jared Lobdell are several such guides. Perhaps you are looking for works that celebrate Tolkien's vast collection of stories and his life. A Tolkien treasury and Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon honor the works of this illustrious author. Whether you are reading Tolkien's work for the first time or revisiting his world, check out some of these books throughout the week!

Lorrie Moore & Other Witty Writers

Fun and funny, witty and wistful, majestic and mundane, and outrageous and completely down-to-earth sums up Lorrie Moore's fiction. Dear Readers, there's a long tradition of funny, witty, and clever writers. Dorothy Parker. Oh, and Oscar Wilde. Let's not forget John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, George Bernard Shaw, Tom Robbins, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. 'Plum' Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf (she is wickedly funny, really), Douglas Coupland, Terry Pratchett, James Thurber, and David Lodge. But no writer lifts my spirits and makes me laugh out loud more than Lorrie Moore. You'll want to read her sentences out loud to just about everyone, if only to make them laugh and sigh at the same time. Her Collected Stories is out in the U.K. (Here's hoping for a U.S. release soon.) Until then, read any of Lorrie Moore's works. My favorite collection is Like, Life. My favorite passage? I'm not telling.
Margaret Atwood
Douglas Coupland
John Irving
David Lodge
Dorothy Parker
Terry Pratchett
Tom Robbins
George Bernard Shaw
Zadie Smith
James Thurber
Evelyn Waugh
Oscar Wilde
P.G. Wodehouse
Virginia Woolf