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Donna Seaman here, with my first Green Alert. As an eco-minded reader and reviewer, I’ll be watching for news about environmental books and web sites and other eco-lit matters of interest. Spring is the right season for new green actions, and along with crocuses and robins, we have a green book short list. Yes, it’s time [...]

The Tamer Institute for Community Education received the $619,061 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for twenty years of work with children in Gaza and the West Bank. The prize is given annually to an author, illustrator, or an organization that promotes reading. Read more about the win in the Guardian.

I had a ball chatting with Ingrid Law, and Gillian Engberg seemed thrilled to be talking to Ann Brashares, but for sheer frequency of giggling frivolity, it looks like Ilene Cooper has us beat. She had a pow-wow recently with author Kate DiCamillo and before it’s over they both sound like they’re about to hyperventilate [...]

Just because I was the last one picked for dodgeball doesn’t mean I don’t have a competitive nature, and I’m totally bummed that no one invited me to the Booklist editors’ gaming session at Jake’s (see the “Dark & Stormy Afternoon“ posts for more info). So rather than get mad, I’m getting even. To distract Likely Stories readers from the play-by-play [...]

(Previously on As the Nerd Turns.) Category: Movies No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and [...]

(Previously on Nerd & Nerder.) Category: Mystery Given a choice of category, Ian suggested we try Mystery, to take advantage of my “mystery expertise.” “That’s torn it!” said Lord Peter Wimsey. “I’m more of a crime fiction guy than sleuthing,” I protested. “You know, books with shotguns in them.” Nonetheless, although the name Wimsey rang a [...]

(Previously on Nerd vs. Nerd.) Category: Novels, 1950-Present I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before. “Sounds like A Separate Peace,” I said, “except that it wasn’t Devon . . . ” “Do you want a clue?” [...]

…And £40,000 for a lifetime of excellence in literature and being awesome. David Cohen Prize Judges’ Chair Andrew Motion said it better: “[Heaney's work has] crystallised the story of our times, in language which has bravely and memorably continued to extend its imaginative reach”, and for his critical writing, his translations and his lecturing, which [...]

The contenders are: Peter Carey (Australia) Evan S Connell (USA) Mahasweta Devi (Bangladesh) EL Doctorow (USA) James Kelman (UK) Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) Arnošt Lustig (Czech Republic) Alice Munro (Canada) VS Naipaul (Trinidad/India) Joyce Carol Oates (USA) Antonio Tabucchi (Italy) Ngugi Wa Thiong’O (Kenya) Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia) Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia) Read more about the shortlist [...]

(Previously on Nerd vs. Nerd.) Category: Poetry Whan that April with his showres soote / The drought of March hath perced to the roote, / And bathed every veine in swich licour, / Of which vertu engendred is the flowr . . . “Chaucer, Canterbury Tales,” spake Ian withe full confidence. His comrade, Keir, noddedst [...]