April 2009

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LA Times Festival of Books Weekend

April 24, 2009 in art gallery, bookstore, Literary Event by Kim | No comments

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LA Times Festival of Books logo

This is the literary weekend in Los Angeles.  Rumor has it that the LA Times Festival of Books is the largest literary festival in the nation.  There are hundreds of hours of panels (tickets are free but must be obtained beforehand), festival stages with readings, a large children’s section, and hundreds of booths with bookstores, publishers, authors, and literary organizations.  Check out the website for a listing of the panels, readings and author signings. 

On Saturday I’m attending a morning panel of Security and American Ideals, then working at the Heifer International booth from noon to 3PM, then dashing to a publishing panel in the afternoon.  Please stop by and see me at the Heifer booth (#846).  Page McBrier will be signing copies of Beatrice’s Goat on Saturday (you can still enter to win a copy for free). 

If you’re at the Festival on Sunday, I’ll be back in the Heifer booth from noon to 3PM.  I’m also stopping by the Book Soup booth on Sunday afternoon between 2:30 and 3:30, Nancy Mehagian will be signing copies of Siren’s Feast, An Edible Odyssey, a memoir with recipes, and giving away homemade stuffed grape leaves.

But the Festival isn’t the only literary event this weekend.  Literary Affairs is hosting a fundraiser for the NEA at the William Turner Gallery featuring Muriel Barbury, author of my favorite book in years, The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  A private book discussion starts at 6:30 and then a cocktail party with Ms. Barbury and a variety of authors begins at 7:30PM.  Check the website for very reasonable tickets.

But Saturday night will still be  young at the conclusion of cocktail party and Granta Magazine’s launch party at Equator Books will just be getting started.  Equator Books is a combination bookstore, used record store and art gallery in Venice that is struggling.  The community is rallying around the store (we’ll be posting about it soon).  One example, admission to this event is the purchase of a book, as if that is ever in doubt when I walk into a store. 

This is a weekend worth waiting for all year.  If you have any other literary suggestions for the next two days, please share them in a comment.

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Bodhi Tree Bookstore

April 23, 2009 in bookstore, spirituality by Claire | 3 comments

An oasis of spirituality in Los Angeles

Once again our friend Laura Sanderson Healy is contributing a review and we’re so grateful to her.  If you haven’t yet read her earlier review, click here.  The rest is her writing.

logo1Calling all Bodhisattvas: enlightenment by the multiple armload awaitsyou at The Bodhi Tree in Los Angeles, a spiritual bookstore beyond compare (though Zen practitioners might tut-tut that comparisons are odious). Since 1970 the Bodhi Tree has been the MRI-strength magnet on Melrose Avenue for seekers of all sorts, whether one is hunting down books on Eastern gurus like H.P. Blavatsky or G.I. Gurdjieff or Western psychics like Edgar Cayce. Books about God or gods/goddesses (and their nemeses), manuals on physical health and wellness, cures and treatments, and self-help titles for those who find themselves on mental or chemical obstacle courses, all find space, as do all the religions, good and — verdict’s out. The store presents all the
theories without passing judgment, according to its literature.

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2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

April 22, 2009 in award, music, poetry by Claire | 1 comment

And, as usual, I haven’t read a single book on the list

I have, however, discovered that it takes an author about five minutes to get the words “Pulitzer-Prize winning” up on his or her Wikipedia entry.   What I haven’t learned is how to line up book covers all nice and pretty in an entry.  But there’ s something kind of jazzy about how I’ve done it, no?

Sigh.  Anyway, here’s the list:

Fiction – Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Random House).  Linked tales about a junior high school teacher and her family. 

 

 

Drama – Ruined by Lynn Nottage.    This isn’t Nottage’s first award, by any means: she’s won a Guggenheim and a MacArthur genius grant.

History – The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (W.W. Norton & Company).  This one also won a National Book Award: see what Kim had to say about it back then.

 

Biography – American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Random House).   A biography from the editor of Newsweek.

 

Poetry – The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press).  Mewin also won the Pulitzer back in 1971. 

 

See full size imageNonfiction – Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon (Doubleday).  Blackmon exposes an ignominious period in our country’s history.  I mean, yet ANOTHER ignominious period.

Music – Double Sextet by Steve Reich, premiered March 26, 2008 in Richmond, VA (Boosey & Hawkes).   Since Reich’s known as a “minimalist” composer, I think I should keep any comment brief.

For more information on these prizes and how the prize works, go to the Pulitzer Prize website.

And for an entertaining blog on the subject of Pulitzer and his prizes, read this.  The sketch of the author may bear a passing resemblance to me, but it’s not me or my twin, and that’s all I’m saying.

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Earth Day during National Poetry Month

April 22, 2009 in environment, poetry by Kim | 2 comments

I love how this poem expresses a mother’s love and gives an example of the beauty of our planet.  On this Earth Day, enjoy!  While you’re at it, adopt a new habit that cares for our environment.

Bats 

Randall Jarrell

 

A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
and catches him.  He clings to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting-
Her baby hangs on underneath.
All night, in happiness, she hunts and flies.
Her high sharp cries
Like shining needlepoints of sound
Go out into the night, and echoing back,
Tell her what they have touched.
She hears how far it is, how big it is,
Which way it’s going:
She lives by hearing.
The mother eats the moths and gnats she catches
In full flight; in full flight
The mother drinks the water of the pond
She skims across.  Her baby hangs on tight.
Her baby drinks the milk she makes him
In moonlight or starlight, in mid-air.
Their single shadow, printed on the moon
Or fluttering across the stars,
Whirls on all night; at daybreak
The tired mother flaps home to her rafter.
The other all are there.
They hang themselves up by their toes,
They wrap themselves in their brown wings.
Bunched upside-down, they sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her sleeping child.

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Book Giveaway: Three Copies of Beatrice’s Goat by Page McBrier

April 20, 2009 in childrens, giveaway by Kim | 27 comments

Beatrice’s Goat, written by Page McBrier and illustrated by Lori Lohstoeter, is the true story of ordinary people chipping in to make a big impact on the lives of others.  One goat gave Beatrice Biira a chance at an education.  I’ve written about my love for Heifer International, an organization that provides livestock to families to help them feed their family and earn money to lift their family out of poverty.  Heifer gave 12 goats to 12 families in Kisinga, Uganda and the Biira family received one of them.  Prior to owning the goat, Beatrice begged her parents to let her attend school, but the school required the students to pay for their books and uniform.  Beatrice’s family did not have the money to pay for her supplies.  After receiving the Heifer goat, it gave enough milk for Beatrice’s family and extra to sell, thereby providing the funds for school. 

For Beatrice, the story continued.  She loved learning, excelled in school, and caught the attention of Heifer supporters who paid for her way through prep school and college.  Last June she graduated from Connecticut College.  She plans to return to Africa to help other impoverished communities.  All because of a goat.

Page McBrier tells this modern day fairytale-come-true in a beautiful children’s book.  I.  Love.  This.  Book.  I marvel at the beauty of the story itself and how it empowers readers to contribute a little to make a big difference.  Ms. McBrier will be at the LA Times Festival of Books in the Heifer booth on Saturday from 11AM to 3PM autographing Beatrice’s Goat.  I’m buying three autographed books to giveaway.  I’ll be at the booth on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3PM, so if you’re attending the Festival, please stop by and visit.

Here’s how you can win:

1.  Comment on this post.

2.  In honor of Heifer’s Pass-on-the-Gift Month, we’re donating $1 for each commenter on any Heifer post during the month of April on Bookstore People (the original donation post, this post or one coming up next week with more exciting Heifer news), Traveling Mamas and Type-A Mom.  We’re giving away up to $1,500.  Comment on the Heifer post at Traveling Mamas and Type-A Mom so we donate another $1, leave another comment here letting us know, and you have another entry.

3.  Share this giveaway on one or more social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, My Space, etc) and let us know for another entry.

I’ll be holding the drawing on April 30th.  This book is precious to me, you will love it, so try to win it.

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