September 2009 Archives

Best-sellers at Borders Books & Music in Springettsbury Township for the week that ended Sept. 20.

1. "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown.
2. "True Compass" by Edward Kennedy.
3. "The Last Song" by Nicholas Sparks.
4. "Say You're One of Them" by Uwem Akpan.
5. "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls.

Over the summer two Christian School of York students submitted poetry and were chosen to be published in "A Celebration of Poets -- Summer 2009." Justine Keener submitted a poem entitled "Wake Me When January Ends" and Nick Lay submitted "Meltdown."

The guidance counselor for Wellsville and South Mountain Elementary schools has written and published a book chronicling his experience adopting a little boy.

Troy Strausbaugh and wife Tara adopted 7-year-old Noah from Catholic services a few years ago. Their experience was so positive, Troy decided to write a book with illustrations by retired Northern art teacher Donna Barlup. The picture book, "Adoption Is A Loving Choice," is now available at www.xlibris.com.

By BETH VRABEL
For the Daily Record/Sunday News

If a writer's book is his baby, well, then Anthony Fredericks has a lot of babies. As in 118 of them, not counting the half-dozen or so manuscripts currently in gestation.

"I can possibly tell you the titles of the last 10," Fredericks said with a laugh.

Each book, from the first -- "The Reading Comprehension Idea Book" for teachers, printed in 1983 -- to the last, "A is for Anaconda," a children's book published this year -- has been a stepping stone to the next manuscript, Fredericks said.

From the Associated Press:

MIAMI -- Juanita Castro, the exiled sister of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raul Castro, is set to release a first-person memoir in which she talks at length about her brothers.

The more than 400-page book entitled: "My Brothers Fidel and Raul. The Secret Story," is set for release Oct. 26. It is co-written by Spanish-language journalist Maria Antoineta Collins and will be published by Santillana USA.

Juanita Castro left the island in 1964. A longtime Miami resident, she has kept a low profile and for years could be found behind the counter of the small pharmacy she owned. She retired in 2007.

According to a Santillana news release, Castro dictated the story to Collins a decade ago but refused to publish until now.

I just read the Harry Potter book series for the second time. The first time around, I enjoyed it for pure entertainment. Second time around, important life qualities stood out:

Read and study hard - the importance of a good education, as demonstrated by Hermione, who rescued Harry and Ronald Weasley on many occasions with her book smarts.

Honor and remain true to your values.

Establish bonds of true friendship that offer unconditional love and support.

The importance of building a good support system for when life throws you curveballs.

Strength and wisdom to resist temptation from bad influences.

Standing up to your enemies and sometimes even your own friends when you know they are making a bad choice or putting themselves in danger.

Courage.

Humbleness.

All this in the story of a young boy whose heart was filled with a love so strong it doomed the strongest ever dark wizard who sought only power and the desire to live forever.

Not bad for a book series about wizards!

From the Associated Press:

BOSTON -- A new book about a man accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist includes an account by a Las Vegas woman allegedly robbed at gunpoint by him.

"Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer," was written about Philip Markoff by Boston Globe reporter Maria Cramer and Paul LaRosa, a producer for the CBS newsmagazine "48 Hours."

Book news from the Associated Press

Dan Brown's new novel has passed the 2 million mark and bested Bill Clinton's "My Life" in the record books.

Doubleday announced Tuesday that hardcover, audio and e-book sales for "The Lost Symbol" topped 2 million copies for its first week of release in the United States, Britain and Canada. The total is "well over" 2 million for English-language editions worldwide, according to Doubleday spokeswoman Suzanne Herz, who declined to offer a specific number.
Amazon.com reported last week that first-day sales for "The Lost Symbol" were higher on its Kindle e-reader than in hard cover.
"The Lost Symbol" didn't approach the more than 8 million copies that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" sold in the first 24 hours, but the weekly results were an all-time high in North America for Doubleday's parent company, Random House Inc.


And at Google: The authors and other parties that reached a settlement with Google Inc. to give the company the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books now say they will negotiate a new deal.
Lawyers for The Authors Guild and other plaintiffs said in court papers filed Tuesday that they plan to have settlement talks with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve complaints about a $125 million deal that the Justice Department said probably violates antitrust law.
The lawyers asked a judge who was supposed to preside over a hearing on the settlement next month to delay it for at least another month so they can reach a new agreement.

A review from reader Loretta Martin:

When a news alert flashed on CNN on June 13, 2005, announcing that a jury had reached a verdict in Jackson's molestation trial, Halperin thought American legal history was about to be made. He was sure justice would be served, that this would not be another O.J. Simpson travesty where a celebrity had gotten away with murder.

From the Associated Press:

CHICAGO -- Oprah Winfrey says her latest book club selection is an exception in more ways than one.

The latest pick from publishing's surest hitmaker is Uwem Akpan's debut short story collection "Say You're One Of Them."

From the Associated Press:

LONDON -- She was known for much of her life as the queen mother. And according to her official biography, she detested it.

"Horrible name," she wrote in a 1953 letter to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, died in 2002 at the advanced age of 101. The official account of her life by royal biographer William Shawcross runs past 1,000 pages and divulges the queen mother's opinions on topics ranging from feminism to homeopathy.

From the Associated Press:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google Inc. is giving 2 million books in its digital library a chance to be reincarnated as paperbacks.

As part of a deal announced Thursday, Google is opening up part of its index to the maker of a high-speed publishing machine that can manufacture a paperback-bound book of about 300 pages in under five minutes. The new service is an acknowledgment by the Internet search leader that not everyone wants their books served up on a computer or an electronic reader like those made by Amazon.com Inc. and Sony Inc.

Author Jonah Lehrer has family in York. He will be in town in October for a talk at Martin Library.

By BETH VRABEL
For the Daily Record/Sunday News

Jonah Lehrer's credentials might be intimidating. After all, he was a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University, in addition to being a Columbia graduate. He's a contributing editor to Wired and Scientific American Mind. The New Yorker, The Washington Post and the Boston Globe have all carried his byline.

But, just like the rest of us, he gets sent to the grocery store with a list from his spouse.

Unlike the rest of us, such trips inspire a widely acclaimed book.

Best-sellers at Borders Books & Music in Springettsbury Township for the week that ended Sept. 6.

1. "Alex Cross's Trial" by James Patterson.

2. "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenberger.

3. "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein.

4. "The Weight of Silence" by Heather Gudenkauf.

5. "Home" by Marilynne Robinson.

In a previous Book Buzz post, we wrote about Bob Ketenheim's postcard history book about Glen Rock.

Not long ago, the Glen Rock Carol Singers published a revised history.

Now comes another book about this southern York County borough. "Glen Rock -- A Historical Review" will be published next year as part of Glen Rock's 150th anniversary.

For details, click on Books about Glen Rock abound, and there's a lot of history to write about.

"How to Tell a Secret: Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Breaking Codes & Conveying Covert Information," by P.J. Huff and J.G. Lewin, has been reprinted in Italian by Availerdi, a publishing house in Milan. Huff and Lewin are owners of The York Emporium and authors of "How to Feed An Army" and "Witness to the Civil War."

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- Three poets, two fiction writers and a nonfiction writer have won $25,000 prizes given annually to emerging women authors.

Poets Vievee Francis, Janice Harrington and Heidy Steidlymayer; fiction writers Lori Ostlund and Helen Phillips; and nonfiction writer Krista Bremer are this year's recipients of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Awards. The awards were announced Wednesday.

Previous winners of the award, founded in 1995, include ZZ Packer and Lan Samantha Chang.

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- Sex and scandal have not been enough to make major sellers out of books about Bernard Madoff.

According to Nielsen BookScan, neither a much-discussed tell-all by alleged ex-mistress Sheryl Weinstein nor a recent wave of biographies about the imprisoned financier have caught on with the public.

From the Associated Press:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. is warning a federal judge that Internet search leader Google Inc. will be able to gouge consumers and stifle competition if it wins court approval to add millions more titles to its already vast digital library.