So Enid Blyton, author of those fabulous Famous Five books I so adored as a callow youth, wasn’t much of a mum (”Why Enid Blyton’s greatest creation was herself,” by Garry Jenkins (Telegraph):

The drama reveals how Enid exploited even her own family to bolster the Blyton brand. Her two daughters from her marriage to Pollock, Gillian and Imogen, were routinely wheeled out for publicity purposes as Blyton portrayed herself as a devoted mother. But when the photographers left, the reality was different.

And Sarah Palin, who has also been said to use her children as props–is also being accused of neglect: not her children, but Lynn Vincent, her cowriter on Going Rogue (”‘Going Rogue: An American Life,’ by Sarah Palin,” by Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times):

It’s customary for politicians and celebrities to collaborate with a professional writer on books like this . . . However, the name of Palin’s collaborator — the evangelical Christian writer and pro-life activist Lynn Vincent — doesn’t appear on the cover of “Going Rogue.”

Palin herself told Oprah that “I have a journalism degree, always have loved writing, have journaled all my life”–and, therefore, had plenty of primary-source documents on hand. Hardly needed a cowriter, did she?

Using the theme of secrets and suppression as an opportunistic way to link to the next item . . . James Jones’ From Here to Eternity, which so shocked the world with its use of the word fuck (even the Daily Beast still can’t quite bring itself to use the “F-word”) could have been still more shocking–if Scribner’s hadn’t been afraid to publish Jones’ depictions of soldiers supplementing their pay by working as male escorts! (”Was a WWII Classic Too Gay?” by Kaylie Jones, The Daily Beast).

And, since we’re already talking about sex, I may as well mention that my favorite literary award, the Bad Sex Award, has released its shortlist:

Paul Theroux for A Dead Hand

Nick Cave for The Death of Bunny Munro

Philip Roth for The Humbling

Jonathan Littell for The Kindly Ones

Amos Oz for Rhyming Life and Death

John Banville for The Infinities

Anthony Quinn for The Rescue Man

Simon Van Booy for Love Begins in Winter

Sanjida O’Connell for The Naked Name of Love

Richard Milward for Ten Storey Love Song

According to the Guardian (”Bad sex award shortlist pits Philip Roth against stiff competition,” by Alison Flood):

The Pulitzer prize-winning Roth makes the line-up for The Humbling, in which the ageing actor Simon converts Pegeen, a lesbian, to heterosexuality. The Literary Review singled out a scene in which Simon and Pegeen pick up a girl from a bar and convince her to take part in a threesome.

Hmm. Well, I hope Roth isn’t feeling too . . . inadequate . . . about being on the shortlist.

And, finally, feeling bad about not being nominated for any award this year? The remedy is in your hands, friend: buy one (”Vanity book awards,” by Laura Miller, Salon).

And I’ve got a bus to catch. Have a good weekend, everybody.

The other winners were:

Fiction

Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann 

Nonfiction

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, by T. J. Stiles

 Poetry

Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy, by Keith Waldrop
 

Mysterious, complicated, and running on at least two parallel narrative tracks, Jellicoe Road, to say the least, is not for everyone. That’s the main reason why the announcement of the book as the winner of the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award (administered by ALA Young Adult Library Services Association and sponsored by Booklist) was such a shocker. With such critically acclaimed juggernauts as Nation, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and Tender Morsels (yep, we’ve got acceptances speeches from Pratchett, Anderson, Lockhart, and Lanagan, too) as the Honor Books, how did this sleeper sneak its way to the top?

Jellicoe’s coronation is but the latest in Printz’s proud tradition of shucking the curve (let’s not forget other underdog champs like Postcards from No Man’s Land and Looking for Alaska). Marchetta comments upon this in her speech, mentioning a blogger’s reaction of “Melina Who? Jellicoe What?” as liberating. After 17 years of publishing, it was nice to feel new again.

Marchetta is well aware of the love it/hate it takes on Jellicoe; furthermore, she loves to read about it, even when it’s “not always good.” That’s the real gift of the Printz Award, she says: more readers will read her work and talk about it, and isn’t that all an author really wants?

And for those of you with a “30-page rule,” Marchetta hopes you will reconsider. “I’d like to think there’s so many wonderful surprises on page 31 of someone’s story,” she says. She’s right, of course, and Jellicoe Road is the perfect example of such a story. Whether or not the book is your cup of tea, you’ve gotta hand it to the Printz committee: they’re going to get a lot more readers to reach page 31 and beyond.

Read the entire speech here.

[The Printz Award speeches appear on Booklist Online with the permission of YALSA.]

Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, by Chelsea Handler (2008)
I Drink for a Reason, by David Cross (2009)
You Can’t Drink All Day if You Don’t Start in the Morning, by Celia Rivenbark (2009)

Now, if someone will only publish Daddy Drinks Because You Cry. Perhaps we can assign at least part of the blame for this trend to Christie Mellor, whose Three-Martini Playdate (2004) has actually been quite helpful in my own parenting adventures. But, thanks to If You Give a Mom a Martini, by Lyss Stern and Julie Klappas (2009), we’re one book away from another trend.

While we’re having fun with book titles, here’s an instance where a comma makes all the difference. (Don’t click if you’re offended by sexual innuendo–or should I have made the disclaimer before the links?) At any rate, I like to think that particular boner occurred because of the publisher’s focus on more lofty, and less earthy, matters.

And now for something completely different. Our Book Trailer Thursdays blogger, Daniel Kraus, forwarded the Wall Street Journal’s Cormac McCarthy interview (”Hollywood’s Favorite Cowboy,” by John Jurgensen) to me. The author of The Road is in fine fettle, proving, perhaps, that his reluctance to elaborate on Oprah was the result of his being blinded by either stage lights or the preternatural luminescence of the divine Miss O.

His sometimes aw-shucks demeanor notwithstanding, McCarthy has a keen awareness of his investment value:

WSJ: Why don’t you sign copies of “The Road”?

CM: There are signed copies of the book, but they all belong to my son John, so when he turns 18 he can sell them and go to Las Vegas or whatever. No, those are the only signed copies of the book.

WSJ: How many did you have?

CM: 250. So occasionally I get letters from book dealers or whoever that say, “I have a signed copy of the ‘The Road,’” and I say, “No. You don’t.”

He apparently doesn’t think much of mystery readers–or William T. Vollmann, for that matter.

WSJ: Does this issue of length apply to books, too? Is a 1,000-page book somehow too much?

CM: For modern readers, yeah. People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore and people need to get used to that. If you think you’re going to write something like “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Moby-Dick,” go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don’t care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different.

And, with remarks such as “Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing” and “I was planning on writing about a woman for 50 years. I will never be competent enough to do so, but at some point you have to try,” McCarthy is a quote-generating machine. Read for yourself.

Watching TV last night, I was flabbergasted to see a book trailer. A book trailer! On TV! It was a 30-second spot for Stephen King’s Under the Dome, and though it hints at elements of martial law and mass casualties, there’s not much to grab hold of. Notable for its placement on network TV, but little more.

Verdict: Surprised! I don’t recall seeing a book trailer on TV since Dianetics.

But then I did a little searching and found an alternate trailer centered up on an interview with King. Mostly I’ve avoided these kind of trailers in my BTT posts because, guess what? They’re boring. On the other hand, we’re talking about Stephen Freaking King here. The guy has screen presence. What, don’t believe me? Then perhaps you missed his nuanced turn in Creepshow as a country hick turning into a giant weed.

The point is, he’s great in this interview. Under the Dome is his return to the large canvas he manipulated so enjoyably in books like The Stand, It, and Needful Things. It’s also the third time he tried to write the darn thing; his first attempt in 1976 tanked, and another shot in 1979 under the title The Cannibals also self-destructed. King likens his third and final stab to “a baseball player saying, ‘I missed a really fat pitch and I’d really like to have another chance at that particular hanging curveball.”

Before you start thinking this is refreshing low-tech, I should mention that there’s three, possibly four, camera angles to this single interview and various computer-generated graphics. See, even with his a sit-down chat, King can’t help but go “big”.

Verdict: Engaging. I love watching King on camera. Even when he’s not turning into a weed.

“Don Harington is not an underappreciated novelist,” the poet Fred Chappell told The Democrat-Gazette. “He is an undiscovered continent.”

Booklist reviewers have more or less concurred with that assessment. In his review of Thirteen Albatrosses; (or, Falling off the Mountain), Thomas Gaughan wrote that “Harington’s delightful novels of life in Arkansas are far too little known.” And, in his starred review of With (2004), Frank Sennett wrote:

With his delightful twelfth novel, Harington might finally be destined to lose the ironic designation “America’s greatest unknown novelist.”

Alas, that was not to be. But it’s a remarkable for any writer to engage an audience so thoroughly, no matter what the audience’s size may be.

And it kind of makes you wonder what other authors you’ve missed, doesn’t it? I’d love to hear from any Harington fans out there.

Fall, by Colin McAdam

The Disappeared, by Kim Echlin

The Winter Vault, by Anne Michaels

In other news, the 2009 Roald Dahl Funny Prize went to Grubtown Tales: Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky, by Philip Ardagh and Mr. Pusskins Best in Show, by Sam Lloyd.

Given some of the more intense scenes and themes in Margo Lanagan’s dark, boundary-pushing, and extravagantly written Tender Morsels, it wasn’t outrageous to expect something a little scandalous in her acceptance speech at the 2009 Michael L. Printz Awards (administered by ALA Young Adult Services Association and sponsored by Booklist). Instead, Lanagan went for the reverse shocker and offered a more personal, and rather disarming account of how the book came to be.

She talks about how after her previous book, Black Juice, won a Printz Honor in 2006, publishers started pushing her for a “proper novel,” and the spotlight started to seem a bit over-bright. She opens up not only about her apprehension over writing a full-sized novel but also the struggle to find something worthy to write that novel about. While she claims to have taken the advice “If you have no particular story to tell, borrow one from someone else,” and found the seed for Tender Morsels in the intersection of a Brothers Grimm fairytale and a documentary on a Pyrenees bear festival, I doubt anyone in the room believed for a second that Margo Lanagan ever has no particular story to tell.

I had to pretend to myself that there was no pressure on, that the whole thing was a kind of wonderful, fun exploration, that anything went, and that anything, once written, was open for deletion, renegotiation, rewriting for time or changing the point of view. For any plot issue that presented itself I had to choose the solution that seemed at the time the most fun to pursue, the one that would multiply my choices rather than reign them in, the one that would allow the story to progress in the weirdest, wildest, and most interesting way.

Once the novel was written and unleashed upon the world, she found that winning her first Printz Honor, if anything, made the process nearly unbearable the second time around. How often do we hear award-winners trot out the old “Oh, I had no idea that the award was even being announced that day—then the phone rang. Quelle surprise!” Lanagan admitting that she was expectantly perched next to her phone and checking for live-blogging updates is rather refreshing. She proves that having high expectations for a book you know is good isn’t mutually exclusive from having a natural sense of humility and grace, and not least, a terrific sense of humor, when that book is recognized.

[The Printz Award speeches appear on Booklist Online with the permission of YALSA.]

I’m gonna go ahead and tell you. Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine, & a Miracle holds the distinction of being the only book I’ve ever reviewed that made me cry. Now, I’m not talking the kind of cataclysmic sobbing that makes coworkers edge away, nor am I talking about the ever-disturbing weeping-quietly-into-your-hand variety. I just got a little misty-eyed, that’s all, but for this hardened punk, that’s saying something.

It’s one of my favorite books of 2009. With artful simplicity, it tells the tale of a earless Iraqi mutt whose bond with Major Brian Dennis, an American soldier, compels Nubs to walk 70 miles through unforgiving conditions to find his friend. With its multiple (and often appropriately low-res) shots of both the human and canine hero, the book acts as sort of an annotated album.

The trailer takes this concept literally, placing each still image within picture corners, as if you are browsing an actual photo album. It’s a cute concept, but for such a modern story it feels awkwardly old-fashioned; more likely Dennis would keep his pics on a USB drive rather than mounted scrapbook-style. The muddy sound (and weird volume jump near the end) also adds to the overall rushed feel.

Verdict: Bad Dog! Thankfully, there’s plenty of other videos that bring home the powerful story. Oh, man. Here come the waterworks.

Life Achievement

Ellen Asher and Jane Yolen

Novel

The Shadow Year, by Jeffrey Ford
 
Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan
 
Novella

“If Angels Fight,” by Richard Bowes
 
Short Story

“26 Monkeys, also the Abyss,” by Kij Johnson

Anthology

Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, edited by Ekaterina Sedia

Collection

The Drowned Life, by Jeffrey Ford

Artist

Shaun Tan

The full list of winners can be found here.

Some in the publishing industry say that, thanks to e-readers such as the Kindle, people are reading more books (”E-Book Fans Keep Format in Spotlight,” by Brad Stone, New York Times). Who, exactly, says this? Well, the manufacturers of the Kindle, but that’s beside the point. Given that the average Kindle edition is priced at $9.99, it stands to reason that people might buy more of them than $24 hardcovers. Of course, when you factor in the cost of the e-reader itself, you have to buy a lot of Kindle editions before they become a bargain, which may be why people are buying so many: to save money.

But what’s happening to those $24 hardcovers? They’re being sold for as low as $8.98 by retailers such as Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target (”In Book-Pricing Battle, How Low Can They Go?” by Motoko Rich, New York Times). The American Booksellers Association has cried foul–indeed, some have wondered how publishing can survive when the biggest sellers are treated as loss leaders, like cans of tuna fish in the grocery store. Then again, it’s the retailers who are absorbing the loss (some in hopes of selling mountain bikes or big-screen TVs) and while some independent booksellers have gnashed their teeth, others have shrugged and said that they don’t sell a lot of bestsellers anyway.

Indeed, some see Barnes and Noble as a perfect storm of unenlightened self-interest: in going head-to-head with Amazon in the e-reader business (with the adorably named Nook), they might just have found the doomsday device to hasten the demise of their 700-plus superstores (”The Nook of Doom,” by Marion Maneker).

In other financial news, Amy Hertz, editor-at-large at Dutton and editor at HuffPost Books–you know, the one who said that “Book reviews tend to be conversation enders“–said, when asked whether it hurts writers to write for free (”A new-media read on books at Huffington Post,” by James Rainey, Los Angeles Times):

“I’m not going to answer that question one way or another . . . I just don’t think it’s a useful question to ask at this point. It’s a new world.”

Let us know when the question becomes useful, Amy, and we’ll ask it again!

However, some book reviewers don’t even need not getting paid as a reason to quit. Jessica Mann has quit reviewing all books, if I’ve read that right, because so many crime writers are jumping on the “sadistic misogyny” bandwagon (”Book reviewer quits over ‘increasing sexist violence’,” by Amy Willis, The Telegraph).

“Each psychopath is more sadistic than the last and his victims’ sufferings are described in detail that becomes ever more explicit as young women are imprisoned, bound, eaten, starved, suffocated, stabbed, boiled or burned alive,” she told the Observer.

And just who does she blame for this disgusting trend? Women, actually. Ian Rankin said something similar a few years back (”Ian Rankin: The singing detective,” by Danuta Kean, The Independent) and took his bows to boos–wonder if Mann will hear from the women as well.

And now for something completely different: Wiley has signed Tony Little, “America’s Personal Trainer,” to write, dictate, or sculpt the body of a motivational business book called There’s Always a Way (”Wiley Signs Tony Little for Biz Book,” Publishers Weekly). It’s scheduled for this December, but if Tony is worried about writer’s block, I have one message: You can do it!

Interestingly, another hair-rific figure is putting Little’s own considerable work ethic to shame: Frank McKinney, “Daredevil Real Estate Artist and Bestselling Author,” has three–count ‘em, three–new books out: The Tap, Burst This! and Dead Fred, Flying Lunchboxes, and the Good Luck Circle. It’s hard to imagine his appeal on the page being any greater than it is in person.

You know what? Little and McKinney need to form a band. And to complete their band, they need–you guessed it, Sammy Hagar. Thank you, everybody, and good night!

You probably know all this. But maybe you’re like the old me. Either way, I can assure you that romance fiction is a thoroughly enjoyable subject to talk about.  It’s full of surprises; it’s always evolving, and romance experts are, well, passionate. I hope you’ll join us on November 12, 2009,  from 3:00 to 4:00 pm Central Standard Time for the first Booklist romance webinar.

I’ll be the moderator for a terrific group of presenters. Two of our romance reviewers and feature writers, John Charles and Shelley Mosley, will be talking about what makes the romance genre so enduringly popular, and about new trends. Participants will get an early look at forthcoming romance titles both to read and to listen to from Kayleigh George from HarperCollins and Cheryl Herman from Books on Tape. And best-selling romance writer Madeline Hunter, author of The Romantic, The Rules of Seduction, and Secrets of Surrender, among many others, will talk about the vital connection between romance writers and libraries, and how romance writers are partnership with libraries through the Romance Writers of America.

It’s free; it’s bound to be fun. Please join us. Just click the Webinar button on Booklist Online and register today!

While dabbling with various other mobile comics readers (Panelfly and iVerse get silver and bronze, respectively, to comiXology’s gold) I came across a startling bit of news that just seemed too perfect to be true. The title story in Will Eisner’s A Contract with God (collected with two other books in The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue), considered by those who consider such things to be the daddy of the modern graphic novel, is available for the iPhone from Genus Apps. It’s weird to read such a venerable work, and one that had so much impact on the graphic format, on a mobile device, but it’s also kind of great and proves that the delivery device is far less important than content. Is it as good as reading it as a book? Who cares? It’s all good.

So, it’s all supergreat and now I’ve found a way to read in those tiny slices of time when I’m not reading, but things should really get cookin when our Apple overlords unveil their hyper-anticipated tablet device next year (which will likely be some kind of lap-sized, roided-up iPhone). See ya, Kindle. Hope you like the taste of iDust.

Best Mystery Novel

Where Memories Lie, by Deborah Crombie

Best First Mystery

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

Best Nonfiction/Critical

African American Mystery Writers: A Historical & Thematic Study, by Frankie Y. Bailey

Best Mystery Short Story

“The Night Things Changed,” by Dana Cameron from Wolfsbane & Mistletoe

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery

A Royal Pain, by Rhys Bowen

As the movie settled down from a wild rumpus to a study of child emotions and kid logic (who knew there was so much human drama where the wild things are?), I took a moment to glance around the theater. My young companion was riveted, and so were the teenagers and adults sitting behind us. I wondered, had all these adults (especially the ones without children) been touched by book as kids? Was it read to them, or did they discover it on their own? Had they yearned through the years to join Max in his sailboat, and live amongst the wild things? Or, were they too wooed by the moving trailer and perfect soundtrack?

I worried during the first viewing that I’d miss some profound message or deep connection that others carried away. But I found myself fighting tears at the end, and I’m happy to say that the second viewing has the same emotional impact. The kid? He was fine; in fact, he made fun of me a little for “welling up.” But still, as Gillian pointed out, this is not the kind of film one parks their kid in front of, à la Madagascar 2. Children might need some soothing afterward, or at least some quiet one-on-one time.

Do I recommend this film? Yes; it is wonderful and so is the cast. The young star, Max Records, is unbelievably good in every scene. Should you read the book before hand? Yes.  Come on! It’s a classic and only ten lines long. The movie-going experience can only be enriched by reading the original.

I’d like to know, when and where did you first encounter Where the Wild Things Are?