Posted on November 15, 2012 by Christy Thomas
Louise Erdrich, Katherine Boo, David Ferry, and William Alexander are this year's National Book Award winners.
Congratulations to the 2012 winners of the National Book Awards, announced last night.
Fiction: Louise Erdrich, The Round House
Nonfiction: Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Poetry: David Ferry, Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations
Young People's Literature: William Alexander, Goblin Secrets
Read more about the awards here and
Posted on November 1, 2012 by Christy Thomas
What's on your November to-read list? Here's ten new suggestions to add to it.
Place your holds now on these upcoming hits:
Posted on October 19, 2012 by Christy Thomas
Looking for a good mystery to read? Check out these award-nominated titles.
Earlier in October, approximately 1500 authors and fans gathered in Cleveland, Ohio for the 2012 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. This year’s event featured appearances by a number of mysterious luminaries such as John Connolly, Elizabeth George, Robin Cook and Mary Higgins Clark. A number of annual prizes are awarded at Bouchercon, including the Anthony, Macavity, Barry, Shamus and Dilys Awards. Here is a roundup of all of the winners. Congratulations to all!
The Anthony Awards are literary awards for crime and mystery fiction. The winners are selected by Bouchercon attendees. They are named for the author, editor and critic Anthony Boucher, who is also the namesake for the convention. Fun fact: Anthony Boucher was born in Oakland!
Posted on October 16, 2012 by Christy Thomas
Congratulations to author Hilary Mantel, winner of this year's Booker Prize!
Hilary Mantel has won the 2012 Booker Prize for Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel to her 2009 Booker Prize winner Wolf Hall. She is only the third author in the history of the prize to win twice—and she has the distinct honor of being the first to win for both a novel and its sequel!
Read the announcement here.
Wolf Hall
Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price.
Posted on October 12, 2012 by Christy Thomas
Congratulations to Mo Yan, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize for literature.
Mo Yan of China has won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is internationally known as a prolific and revered portraitist of Chinese rural life. The Swedish Academy says of his work: “Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition.”
Currently the Oakland libraries own most of his books that have been translated into English, in addition to works in the original Chinese. Early birds have already started placing holds on his books.
Read more at the Nobel Prize website, the New York Times, or listen to this
Posted on October 10, 2012 by Christy Thomas
How many of this year's National Book Award finalists have you read?
Congratulations to the finalists for the National Book Awards!
The National Book Awards are given annually to writers of U.S. citizenship in order “to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America”. Panels of distinguished writers (including past National Book Award recipients) are convened to select the best books in four categories: fiction, non-fiction, poetry and young people’s literature. The final awards will be announced on November 14.
You may recognize some of these authors—in addition to being well regarded, many of them are already popular with Oakland readers. Catalog links and short summaries have been provided below for books that are already available through the library. Books that are not yet owned by the library will be ordered this month and will appear in the catalog in early November.
And the finalists are:
Fiction
Posted on October 1, 2012 by Christy Thomas
Place your holds now for October's most anticipated new releases.
Place your holds now on these upcoming hits:
Posted on September 19, 2012 by Christy Thomas
This year's winner of the prestigious literary award the Man Booker Prize will be announced soon. Check out the finalists and recent winners available at OPL.
Last week, the six finalists for the Man Booker Prize were announced. If you’re not familiar with the Booker, it is the United Kingdom’s most prominent literary award. It has been awarded annually since 1969 to a novel written in English by a citizen of the U.K., the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. Winners of the Booker Prize tend to enjoy critical and popular success in the United States as well.
This year’s shortlist includes Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, the sequel to 2009 Booker winner Wolf Hall. Mantel’s latest has already been a bestseller in the U.S. and a hit at Oakland Public Library. Other finalists include The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil, Swimming Home by Deborah Levy, The Lighthouse by Alison Moore, and
Posted on August 31, 2012 by Christy Thomas
Several highly anticipated new books are coming out in September. See our hot list here, and place your holds soon!
Place your holds now for these upcoming hits:
Posted on August 21, 2012 by Christy Thomas
In honor of culinary great Julia Child's 100th birthday, check out one of these great food and restaurant themed books.
This month marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Julia Child, a beloved and iconic individual who changed the way Americans think about food and cooking. Accordingly, a new biography called Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child has just been released. Author Bob Spitz brings together personal diaries and letters to tell her story in a captivating new way, cooking up a “deliciously satisfying read” (Huffington Post).
If you’d like to commemorate her birthday with a book, another great choice would be My Life in France. Published in 2006, this memoir was written in part by Julia Child and completed after her death by a grand nephew, Alex Prud'homme. It recounts her time in France: the great