2008 National Book Critics Circle Awards

Fiction Finalists:
Roberto Bolaño, 2666.
Marilynne Robinson, Home.
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project.
M. Glenn Taylor, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart.
Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kittredge.
Autobiography Finalists:
Rick Bass, Why I Came West.
Helene Cooper, The House On Sugar Beach.
Honor Moore, The Bishop’s Daughter.
Andrew X. Pham, The Eaves Of Heaven.
Ariel Sabar, My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq.
Biography Finalists:
Paula J. Giddings, Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching.
Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family In An American Century.
Patrick French, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul.
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.
Brenda Wineapple, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Nonfiction Finalists:
Dexter Filkins, The Forever War.
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the Civil War.
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side.
Allan Lichtman, White Protestant Nation.
George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776.
Poetry Finalists:
August Kleinzahler, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City.
Juan Felipe Herrera, Half the World in Light.
Devin Johnston, Sources.
Pierre Martory (translated by John Ashbery), The Landscapist.
Brenda Shaughnessy, Human Dark with Sugar.
Criticism Finalists:
Richard Brody, Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life Of Jean-Luc Godard.
Vivian Gornick, The Men in My Life.
Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds.
Reginald Shepherd, Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry.
Seth Lerer, Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History: Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter.
The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974 at the Algonquin, is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization consisting of some 700 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns. It is managed by a 24-member all-volunteer board of directors.

Best Selling Author Steve Berry @Warren Newport Public Library

Steve Berry, the creator of the Cotton Malone thrillers, will be at the Warren Newport Public Library next Thursday,February 5, at 7:00 p.m. His books, including his current best seller, The Charlemagne Pursuit, will be available for purchase and signing.

Pulitzer Winner Novelist John Updike Dead

John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, died Tuesday January 27. He was prolific, creating more than 50 books, including novels, short stories, criticism, and a memoir. Updike won many literary prizes, including two Pulitzers, for Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest. A collection of essays, Hugging the Shore, received the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. In 2003, Updike received the National Medal for Humanities at the White House. His two series,the "Bech" and the "Rabbit" books, are his most known. His Witches of Eastwick (1984), about three 20th-century sorceresses, was made into a successful film by George Miller, starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. His last 2 books were Terrorist, about an angry young American Muslim who becomes involved in a plot to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel and The Widows of Eastwick, a sequel to his best selling Witches of Eastwick. Of his writing, Updike once commented that his aim was to "give the mundane its beautiful due".

Oscar Nominations Go to Films Adapted From Books

Oscar nominations have been awarded to several films adapted from books. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was nominated for best picture, best director (David Fincher), best actor (Brad Pitt), best supporting actress (Taraji P. Henson) and best adapted screenplay. Slumdog Millionaire, based upon Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A, was nominated for best picture, best director (Danny Boyle) and best adapted screenplay. The Reader, based upon Bernhard Schlink's novel, was nominated for best picture, best director (Stephen Daldry), best actress (Kate Winslet) and best adapted screenplay. Revolutionary Road, based upon the novel by Richard Yates, was nominated for best supporting actor (Michael Shannon), best art direction and best costume design.

Creator of Rumpole Sir John Mortimer Dead

John Mortimer, widely known for his Rumpole series, died last Friday at 86. Mortimer was a verstille writer, known as a playwright (part of the "new wave" with John Osborne and Harold Pinter), screenwriter, novelist, and journalist. Mortimer also was a practicing barrister and Queen's Counsel, a fierce free-speech advocate, a divorce lawyer and a criminal attorney. Like his character Horace Rumpole, Mortimer accepted only defense briefs. His Rumpole is probably best known through Leo McKern's portrayals on television. In court, Mortimer was like Rumpole. He enjoyed needling judges. And they often responded in kind. During one closing argument, Mortimer apologized to the jury because they'd had to sit "through the most boring trial ever to have been held in the criminal court." The judge began his own summation by noting, "It may surprise you to know, members of the jury, that the sole purpose of the criminal law in England is not to entertain Mr. Mortimer." In later years, Mortimer created a trilogy of blackly comedic political novels, the Rapstone Chronicles.

Borders Original Voices 2008 Awards

The winners of the 2008 Borders Original Voices Awards, which honor "fresh, compelling and ambitious written works from new and emerging talents" are :
Fiction: The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway. The committee commented: "A haunting story of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people trying to find and retain their humanity in the midst of war and siege."
Nonfiction: The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner. "Part travelogue, part self-help, part anthropological study, the best part of this entertaining and informative book is Weiner's rich, clever writing." Young Adult: I Am Apache by Tanya Landman. "An engaging, well researched book that any young adult--or any adult for that matter--will find compelling, thanks to its unorthodox storyline and passionate, vengeful protagonist."
Picture book: Those Darn Squirrels! by Adam Rubin, illustrated by Daniel Salmieri. "The quirky, colorful illustrations perfectly complement the imaginative text, making this a book that kids and parents will cherish and want to read again and again." Each winner receives $5,000, and the books will be featured in Borders stores.

Mystery Author Donald E. Westlake Dead

Donald E. Westlake, the creator of over 100 books and 5 plays, died New Year's Eve of a heart attack. He was 75. Since his first book was published in 1960,Westlake had written under his own name and several pseudonyms, including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Edwin West. Most of his books shared one feature: They were set in New York City, where he was born. Later in his career, Westlake limited himself to two pen names. He used his own name to write about a comical criminal named John Dortmunder. As Richard Stark, he wrote a series about a criminal named Parker. More than 15 of his books were made into movies. Westlake also wrote a number of screenplays, including The Grifters which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991. His next novel, Get Real, is scheduled for release in April. He typed all his manuscripts on a portable manual typewriter. Westlake received three Edgar Awards and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.