100 Days of Bookitude!

Day 100 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project! Really, I've been doing this for 100 days! If you are the 100th day reader...hmm, I don't really have a prize, unless you want a copy of my first poetry chapbook, Selected Roles (Moon Journal Press, 2006), as I still have some of those. Cover art is a painting by my husband! (Let me know, and we'll figure out how to send you one!) Image for today is the poster from a past event, the poetry reading at the arts center, during Illinois Arts Week.

Mainly I will celebrate with some bookish news culled from the Internet and National Public Radio.

For example, NPR told me this morning that this day in 1609 brought the first publication of Shakespeare's sonnets! Yay! Oh, that reminds me that I have another thing to celebrate: a nice review of my chapbook Broken Sonnets in Fiddler Crab Review, an online magazine that celebrates the chapbook, or the very slim volume of verse.

NPR also shared the news that George Washington never returned the book Law of Nations to the library, but, lest he be thought a deadbeat, a society has donated a new copy of the book to the library, which has waived the $300,000 fine.

And, as I told you in an earlier entry, the Lost Man Booker Prize was indeed awarded yesterday. And the winner is....Troubles, by J G Farrell. Here's some info about the book from the Man Booker website:

Troubles is the first in Farrell's Empire Trilogy, which was followed by The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) and The Singapore Grip (1978). The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker Prize in 1973 and was shortlisted for the Best of the Booker, a special award created to mark the 40th anniversary of the prize in 2008. Farrell died in 1979.

So Farrell was a big Booker winner, it appears. I could not find The Bay of Noon, by Shirley Hazzard, also nominated, at work, but I will keep an eye out for it.

Ah! And we will be celebrating at work, too! Not the 100th day of my book-blog project, but a little gathering of current and former co-workers. We were going to go to lunch together, but the boss is headed to Chicago, so, while the cat's away, the mice will play. That is, we will clean off the counter and have a picnic while we mind the store!

I doubt there will be cake, but there might be cookies. And hummus. And my famous pasta salad, with tuna and green olives!

Ah, and my other cause for celebration is that my new poetry chapbook, Living on the Earth (Finishing Line Press, New Women's Voices Series No. 74), is indeed out there in the world, and people are receiving their single pre-ordered copies. I have not yet received my big box of author copies, but you can be sure I'll let you know when I do, in another "all about me" kind of blog entry. Because, you know, it's always all about me.

*Rampant Abuse of the Asterisk*

Day 97 of the “What are you reading, and why?” project. A regular Babbitt’s customer is now reading The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction, edited by Colm Toibin, and was thrilled to discover it on our shelves. Where it no longer resides.

Published in 2000, this anthology covers a great span of time, and range of writers, including Jonathan Swift, James Joyce, Maeve Binchy (may I just say that my cousin’s baby is named Maeve?!), Roddy Doyle, William Trevor (ah!), Emma Donahue, and Colum McCann. And another decade of Irish writing has gone on since.

Our happy customer had read The Master and The Heather Blazing by Toibin and various works by several of the authors represented in the anthology and was eager to discover more authors and more samples* of those she likes.

Toibin’s newest novel is Brooklyn, which won Britain’s Costa** (previously Whitbread) Book Award in Fiction and was on the Man Booker Prize*** long list in 2009, along with William Trevor’s Love and Summer. (Sheldon is reading the 2009 winner, Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, and so was Mary, in a previous blog entry!)

**Costa Coffee! (This should please Coffee Lovin’ Mom and a number of other addicts. And this, of course, makes perfect sense. If you drink enough coffee, you will not fall asleep reading.)

From reading The Master myself, recommended by Lizabeth, and the reviews of some of his other works, I know that Toibin is a subtle writer, trusting the quiet build in fiction, and knowing the rich complexity of life will present itself if we, the readers, pay attention. So I’m thinking his Irish fiction selections must be attentive, too.

***And now I shall be attentive to the winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize, to be awarded 40 years after the publication of the nominees, due to a shift-in-rules glitch back then, because Shirley Hazzard, one of my favorites, is on the list, although I have not read the nominated book, The Bay of Noon. She is on the short list, winner to be announced May 19, coming right up!!

*Our “regular” (nothing to do with coffee) customer likes the idea of the Irish fiction anthology so she gets a preview of various authors before she spends time and/or money on longer works by someone she won’t like. She pointed to one of the authors listed on the cover and said he was “weird.”

Names have been omitted to protect the unknown. The asterisk has been abused because I am linear-time challenged. I like coffee.