Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.

Hoaxes hit bookstores – Los Angeles Times

Hoaxes hit bookstores – Los Angeles Times It’s a scam aimed at independent book stores holding author appearances: Someone calls claiming to be the scheduled author, relates the story of an emergency, and asks the store owner to wire money to Western Union. Most of the events seem to be occurring in southern California. And […]

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Happy birthday, Harper Lee!

This is from The Writer’s Almanac, which is produced by Prairie Home Productions and presented by American Public Media: It’s the birthday of (Nelle) Harper Lee, (books by this author) the author of To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), born in Monroeville, Alabama (1926), the daughter of a local newspaper editor and lawyer. She was a

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50 States of Literature: Georgia On Our Minds | Columbia Spectator

50 States of Literature: Georgia On Our Minds | Columbia Spectator Tayari Jones’ debut, Leaving Atlanta, is set during the 1979 Atlanta Child Murders, at which time a total of 29 black children were killed. Three kids tell their stories: Tasha, struggling daily to stay in favor with her friends, Rodney, branded as too soft

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Four quite different memoirists help to prove the vitality of the literary form

Four quite different memoirists help to prove the vitality of the literary form John Marshall, book critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, briefly discusses four memoirs that “demonstrate the genre’s vitality and variety.” The four cover very different subjects: childhood in Africa divorce alternative lifestyle–“living green” mental illness

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50 States of Literature: Exploring in Maryland | Columbia Spectator

50 States of Literature: Exploring in Maryland | Columbia Spectator Columbia Spectator‘s 50 States of Literature series continues with Anne Tyler’s novel A Patchwork Planet, where the main character, Barnaby Gaitlin, lives just outside of Baltimore: The quiet neighborhood outside of Baltimore serves to nestle Barnaby with its “big, tall spruce trees” and “damp, chilly

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book review

“The Friend Who Got Away,” eds. Jenny Offill and Elissa Schappel

Offill, Jenny, and Elissa Schappell, eds. The Friend Who Got Away New York: Doubleday, 2005Hardcover, 294 pagesISBN  978-0-385-51186-5 Recommended  We’re stuck with our families, but we get to choose our friends. And although it’s hard to pin down the formula for creating friendship, we all know the magic of friendship when we’re lucky enough to find

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Borders Bookzone

Borders Bookzone Seeing and hearing an author speak can personalize a book.  Borders new Bookzone offers  videos of writes talking about their own books as well as about their favorite books. And it looks as if site visitors can also upload their own book reviews, although the only one I found there so far was

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Amazon’s Kindle is stoking sales of e-books

Amazon’s Kindle is stoking sales of e-books The debate over e-books and the future of publishing continues, here centered around Amazon’s new e-book device, the Kindle. One person involved in the publishing industry compares e-books to audiobooks. If that’s an apt comparison, then we can only expect e-books to become increasingly more prevalent relatively quickly.

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Hollywood’s James Ellroy enigma

Hollywood’s James Ellroy enigma – Los Angeles Times “Which did you like better, the movie or the book?” Readers almost always choose the book. But because the book and film are different mediums, each with with its own traditions, requirements, and limitations, a direct comparison between the book and the movie is usually unfair or,

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Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service

Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service – washingtonpost.com Amazon is causing quite an uproar in the print-on-demand publishing world with its apparent attempt to create a monopoly for itself. Be sure to read the Writers Weekly article linked at the bottom of this piece.

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