PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

Nominees for the 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction have just been announced:

• Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
• Deborah Eisenberg, The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg
• Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
• Eric Puchner, Model Home
• Brad Watson, Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives

This year's judges are Laura Furman, William Kittredge, and Helena Maria Viramontes, who read approximately 320 novels and short story collections to determine the finalists. The winner, "first among equals," will be announced on March 15, and all will be feted in an award ceremony on May 7. You can read more about each of the finalists and their books by clicking here.

The PEN/Faulkner Award was established in 1980 by National Book Award winner Mary Lee Settle and was first awarded in 1981. Her goal was to create a national prize honoring literary fiction of excellence, juried by writers for writers, free of commercial concerns. The prize was named for William Faulkner, who used his Nobel Prize funds to establish an award for younger writers, and PEN, the international writers' organization. The award honors the best published works of fiction by American writers in a calendar year. Three judges, all writers, select five books from among the more than 300 works submitted (there are no submission fees). Last year's winner was Sherman Alexie, for War Dances. The finalists were Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna), Lorraine M. Lopez (Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories), Lorrie Moore (A Gate at the Stairs), and Colson Whitehead (Sag Harbor).

Newest from Chelsea Cain

Did you see Jeff Baker's article on Chelsea Cain and her writing process in Sunday's Oregonian? It was the first in an occasional series of articles he'll be doing, looking into the "hows and whys of writing." Good stuff! And good timing too, because the newest book in Cain's Portland-based series goes on sale tomorrow. In The Night Season, Portland detective Archie Sheridan and Oregonian reporter Susan Ward both return, but they are hunting a different serial killer, as Gretchen Lowell, the evil beauty of Cain's first three books (Heartsick, Sweetheart, and Evil at Heart), is in jail...for now. While I'm not a big reader of thrillers, I'm really enjoying this series because she marries chilly dread with irreverent humor, so the menacing mood isn't nonstop. I'm looking forward to reading her newest one.

In his article, Baker noted that January Jones (who plays Betty Draper on the AMC series "Mad Men") has taken an option on Cain's series because she's interested in playing Gretchen Lowell. I think she could pull it off; she can be pretty creepy. He also mentioned that Cain is thinking about starting another Portland-based series -- happy news for all of us!

March Events at Broadway Books

March events at Broadway Books are now up on our website -- just click on the "Events" tab. We start this month's offerings the day after tomorrow with Dan DeWeese and his debut novel, You Don't Love This Man, and conclude with an Irishish St. Patrick's Day featuring Ger Killeen and Brian Doyle in our Comma Reading Series. In between we'll host Gemma Whelan, John Keeble, Don Colburn, and Oz Hopkins Koglin, for some fiction and some poetry. Hope to see you soon!

West of Here -- and a Bonus!

I'm having fun reading a new novel, West of Here, by Jonathan Evison, set in the fictional Olympic Peninsula town of Port Bonita, in America's last frontier. The novel travels back and forth in time between the late 1800s and 2006, as Port Bonita travels from its hopeful, forward-looking genesis to its contemporary sad-sack town. Evison paints a vast canvas with gorgeous descriptions of the northwest and a wide array of characters. It's a book I'm finding hard to put down (which makes work a challenge) because I want to know what's going to happen next with each character.

Here's what one reviewer had to say: "Evison bravely sets out to conquer big stories and big themes, and the result is a daring, gorgeously structured, and deeply satisfying expedition of a novel. West of Here deftly connects lives and centuries, pipe dreams and fierce realities, the sensibilities of the modern with the storytelling punch of the classic." (James P. Othmer)

And one of my favorite writers, Jim Lynch (The Highest Tide, Border Songs), calls it a "creative bonanza of a novel," and says Evison writes "with a big, playful heart."

Evison's debut novel, All About Lulu, was published in 2008 to critical acclaim, winning the Washington State Book Award. In 2009, he was awarded a Richard Buckley Fellowship from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. Algonquin editor Chuck Adams (Water for Elephants, A Reliable Wife, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England) has called West of Here the best novel he's worked on in more than four decades of publishing. In his teens, Evison was the founding member and frontman of the Seattle punk band March of Crimes, which included future members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Born in San Jose, California, he now lives on an island in Western Washington.

In the contemporary Port Bonita, characters often gather at the Bushwhacker bar and knock down a few beers, usually a Kilt Lifter. How would you like your very own Kilt Lifter beer glass? We have a handful at the store, and will happily give you one with each copy of West of Here that you purchase. How's that for a deal?

Here's a brief video documentary by Mark McKnight in which Evison discusses his writing process.

Some Sci-Fi Fantasy News

 

We don't sell TONS of science fiction/fantasy literature, but we do have some steady readers and steady

sellers in these areas. Much of what we sell falls into the young adult category. The finalists for this year's Nebula Awards were recently announced, and here are the finalists in the YA category:

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy:

• Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
•  White Cat, Holly Black (McElderry)
• Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press; Scholastic UK)
•  Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, Barry Deutsch (Amulet)
• The Boy from Ilysies, Pearl North (Tor Teen)
• I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett (Gollancz; Harper)
• A Conspiracy of Kings, Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow)
• Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)

The awards will be presented in a ceremony on Saturday, May 21st, in Washington, DC. To learn more about the awards and about the finalists in the other categories, visit the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America page about the Nebula Awards weekend. 

 

And while I'm on the topic of SciFi, I'm thrilled to report that we will finally see Book 2 in the series by Patrick Rothfuss, following the very popular book The Name of the Wind. The Wise Man's Fear, Book 2 in the Kingkiller Chronicles, will be published next week in hardcover ($29.95). If you want us to reserve a copy for you, just let us know.



Finalists for 2010 LA Times Book Prizes

The finalists for the 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have just been announced. Some surprises in the bunch and some not-so-surprising (such as more kudos for Rebecca's Skloot's fabulous book -- coming in paperback in two weeks). The winners will be announced in a ceremony at the LA Times on April 29. Several of these books are on my to-be-read list, including The Lotus Eaters, which arrived recently in paperback and looks intriguing. Here is the complete list of finalists; how many have you read?

Biography:

• Miranda Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I (Knopf)
• Selina Hastings, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham (Random House)
• Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience & Redemption (Random House)
• Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir (TWELVE/Hachette Book Group)
• Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt (Random House)

Current Interest:

• Jonathan Alter, The Promise: President Obama, Year One (Simon & Schuster)
• Sebastian Junger, War (TWELVE/Hachette Book Group)
• Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (W. W. Norton & Company)
• Joe Nocera & Bethany McLean, All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis (Portfolio/Penguin Group)
• Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco/HarperCollins)

Fiction:

• Rick Bass, Nashville Chrome (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Richard Bausch, Something is Out There: Stories (Knopf)
• Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad (Knopf)
• Jonathan Franzen, Freedom (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Frederick Reiken, Day for Night (Reagan Arthur Books/Hachette Book Group)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction:

• Peter Bognanni, The House of Tomorrow (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
• Leslie Jamison, The Gin Closet (Free Press/Simon & Schuster)
• Michael Sledge, The More I Owe You (Counterpoint)
• Christine Sneed, Portraits of a Few People I’ve Made Cry: Stories (University of Massachusetts Press)
• Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters (St. Martin’s Press)

Graphic Novel:

• Adam Hines, Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One (Adhouse Books)
• Dash Shaw, Bodyworld (Pantheon)
• Karl Stevens, The Lodger (KSA Publishing)
• C. Tyler, You’ll Never Know, Book Two: Collateral Damage (Fantagraphics)
• Jim Woodring, Weathercraft (Fantagraphics)

History:

• Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (The Penguin Press)
• John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq (W. W. Norton & Company and The New Press)
• Susan Dunn, Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought To Change the Democratic Party (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
• Thomas Powers,The Killing of Crazy Horse (Knopf)
• Steven Solomon,Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization (HarperCollins)

Mystery / Thriller:

• Tom Franklin, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (William Morrow)
• Tana French, Faithful Place (Viking)
• Laura Lippman, I’d Know You Anywhere (William Morrow)
• Stuart Neville, Collusion (SoHo Press)
• Kelli Stanley, City of Dragons (Minotaur Books/A Thomas Dunne Book)

Poetry:

• Henri Cole, Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems, 1982-2007 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Maxine Kumin, Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010 (W. W. Norton & Company)
• Yehoshua November, God’s Optimism (Main Street Rag)
• Craig Santos Perez, From Unincorporated Territory {Saina} (Omnidawn)
• Ed Roberson, To See the Earth Before the End of the World (Wesleyan University Press)

Science & Technology:

• Oren Harman, The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness (W. W. Norton & Company)
• Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner)
• Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Bloomsbury USA)
• Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout (It Books/HarperCollins)
• Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown)

Young Adult Literature:

• Marc Aronson & Marina Budhos, Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science (Clarion Books)
• Stephanie Hemphill, Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials (Balzer & Bray/HarperCollins)
• Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon (Disney/Hyperion Books for Children)
• Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings (Greenwillow/HarperCollins)
• Rick Yancey, The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist) (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)

Comma Launches Tonight with Cody & Johnson

We're so excited about the launch of Comma, a new reading series organized by local writer Kirsten Rian. The series launches TONIGHT at Broadway Books at 7 pm. Please join us to hear local writers Robin Cody and Harold Johnson, two of our favorite writers, customers, and friends. Next month's Comma (Thursday, March, 17th) will feature Brian Doyle and Ger Killeen, two authors quite appropriate to read on St. Patrick's Day. Comma will continue on the third Thursday each month at the store.

The wonderful website Reading Local has a good description of tonight's events and the featured authors; check out their website to learn more about tonight's events and about all things literary in the Portland area.