Blogger at large

I didn't mean to be gone so long, my goal from the inception of this blog has been to post two entries a week....and last week that just didn't quite work out, but I am back with some book news.

The nominees for The 2012 National Book Awards were announced this morning and are as follows;

Fiction

Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her 
Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King
Louise Erdrich, The Round House
Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds

Nonfiction

Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 4
Domingo Martinez, The Boy Kings of Texas
Anthony Shadid, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East

Poetry

David Ferry, Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations
Cynthia Huntington, Heavenly Bodies
Tim Seibles, Fast Animal
Alan Shapiro, Night of the Republic
Susan Wheeler, Meme

Young Peoples Literature

William Alexander, Goblin Secrets
Carrie Arcos, Out of Reach
Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down
Eliot Schrefer, Endangered
Steve Sheinkin, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon


While I haven't read any of these titles, I am looking forward to hearing more about them. If you would like further information click here.


Tomorrow will bring the announcement of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Some notable past recipients;

Sir Winston Churchill/Samuel Beckett/John Steinbeck/Ernest Hemingway/Sinclair Lewis/William Faulkner/Toni Morrison/George Bernard Shaw/William Butler Yeats/Saul Bellow/Pablo Neruda/Rudyard Kipling....just to name a few.

As for me...

I spent much of my reading time last week re-reading a portion of The Bone House by Stephen R. Lawhead. I had planned on re-reading the entire book but my impatients to start book three (the ending of the trilogy) got the better of me. And now I'm taking my time savoring book three and the wild ride it is taking me on. The characters are at such different ends I have no idea how the author will tie them together. But of course I will report on this as soon as I have the answer.

Until then, I wish you all, Happy Reading!!