Authors, Book Column, Bookstore Travels, E-Books, Free Books

Free eBook: Follow a Few Literary Pilgrimages

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This month Simon Goldhill’s Freud’s Couch, Scott’s Buttocks, Brontë’s Grave is the University of Chicago Press’s free eBook offering. I have not read it yet, but the book is all about writers, their homes and travel. When I travel I always look up local literary points of interest and local indie bookshops to visit. They are so much more interesting and telling than the usual sight-seeing fare.

freudscouchGoldhill’s book not only points the way to where these literary locations are, but also digs a little deeper in trying to connect the dots between these places and the writers that were there. I scanned a bit of it and he seems intent to tackle questions like:

Why did author go there? What were they looking for? What will you find if you go there today? Some of the historical sites of note, listed in the book, are:

  • Sir Walter Scott’s mansion
  • Wordsworth’s cottage
  • the Brontë parsonage
  • Shakespeare’s birthplace
  • Freud’s office

So if literary pilgrimages and bookstore tourism are your thing, be sure to check out UCP’s free eBook this month. (There are a few caveats: they use Adobe DRM, so you’ll need an  approved eReader app for that and a kindle fire may be the only kindle device that can read these free ebooks. I haven’t confirmed that though.)

Birmingham, Book Talk, Events

Book Events: February 29, 2015 – March 8th, 2015

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It looks like the weather and temperatures are going to be all over the place in the coming week around Birmingham, AL. Here are three author / book events that you might want to consider attending if you’re dodging raindrops or trying to stay warm.

Sunday, March 1st from 2:00pm – 3:00pm – Local author Hunter Murphy will be at the North Shelby Library talking about his new mystery novel Imogene in New Orleans. Come on out and hear about his adventures as a writer and get a signed copy.

Friday, March 6th starting at 6:30pm – there is a fundraiser at the Homewood Library for the Library and the special guest this year is best-selling author Joshilyn Jackson.  Tickets are $25 and must be bought in advance.

Sunday, March 8th starting at 2:30pm –  the Avondale Library is hosting its Adaptations Movie event. This showing is Chocolat. The discussion will revolve around the film as well as Joanne Harris’ book of the same title.

Birmingham, Book Sale, Book Talk, Events, library

Book Sales in the Birmingham Area

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There are two annual book sales coming up. Both are coordinated by local library friends’ groups and have been worth attending in the past. They are usually a solid mix of used-library books as well as fantastic copies and hardbacks donated by neighborhood folks. Hard to pass up on a sale where good clean hardbacks are only a buck or two, isn’t it?

I know the weather is supposed to warm up and there is some big race in town this weekend, but the annual Book Sale at the Emmet O’Neal Library kicks off tonight. The official date/times are:

*Thursday, February 19th from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Friday, February 20th from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 21st from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 22nd from 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

On Sunday only, all the books, in the upstairs area of the sale, will be half-price and all the books in the downstairs area can be included in a $10 “stuff a bag full of books” deal.

*note that the Thursday evening event is for Friends of the Library members only. You can join for $25 online.

Two weeks later, the annual Friends of the Hoover Public Library Blowout Book Sale takes place. I don’t have any pricing specifics on this sale yet, but in previous sales you were hard pressed to find a book over $4. The date/times are:

Saturday, March 7th from 10:00 a.m.- 5:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 8th from 2:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Also, for more information you can call the Used-Book Store at the Hoover Library at 205-444-7774.

 

 

Book Column, Book Talk, New Releases, Recommendations, Upcoming Titles

Five Upcoming Books I’m Excited About

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The upcoming year is proving to be chock full of good books. Below is my short list of five upcoming books I can’t wait to read and it begins with a bit of breaking news. . .

Just last night, on his blog, author Nicholas Carr revealed Utopia is Creepy:

UtopiaIsCreepy

Nothing else is given or known, but it’s one I can’t wait to read. His last book The Glass Cage was fantastic and I highly recommend it to every adult with a functioning brain. Carr has written other best sellers, but Glass Cage really makes you think and reconsider the technology that is about to infect your world. I can only anticipate more of the same. Utopia Is Creepy by Nicholas Carr is out sometime in 2016.

LostTimeAccidentsThe Lost Time Accidents: A Novel by John Wray
Release date: February 9, 2016

Coming in at 512 pages, Wray’s upcoming book won’t be the fastest read of the year, but read the first paragraph of the promo copy:

“In his ambitious and fiercely inventive new novel, The Lost Time Accidents, John Wray takes us from turn-of-the-century Viennese salons buzzing with rumors about Einstein’s radical new theory to the death camps of World War Two, from the golden age of postwar pulp science fiction to a startling discovery in a Manhattan apartment packed to the ceiling with artifacts of modern life.”

How can that not be a fun book? I hear the story spans three generations and all the war, old-school mysteries and love affairs that three lifetimes demand.The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray hits bookstore shelves on February 9, 2016.

BadAssLibrariansThe Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer
Release date: April 19, 2016

This one wins for best title and for the fact that it’s a true story! It tells the tale of some super-brave librarians in 2012 Timbuktu who hid ancient manuscripts from Al Qaeda as the terrorists were ransacking museums and libraries. The Bad-Ass Librarians hit the streets on April 19, 2016.

HourOfLandThe Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams
Release date: June 7, 2016

Here is the other non-fiction on my short list of awesome upcoming books. The U.S. National Park System turns 100 this year. The Hour of Land contains 12 stories showing us why the parks and the great outdoors are important today in this increasingly facebook-centered world. You can pick it up from your local book shop on June 7, 2016.

TimeSiegeTime Siege by Wesley Chu
Release date: July 12, 2016

This is the second book in Chu’s newest series. The first book Time Salvager came out last year and wound up being one of my favorite sci-fi books of 2015. If you like time travel tales, this series is a good one so far. The Chronomen are back in business July 12, 2016.

Books, Publishing and Birmingham