Between the Covers

David Sedaris to appear at Broward's Parker Playhouse

Everybody's favorite humorist heads back to South Florida in April: David Sedaris will appear on Friday, April 8, at the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale.

The author of Chipmunk Seeks Squirrel, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames and Me Talk Pretty One Day will be signing books after the show, as he always does. He'll read new material, too, just on the off chance you're sick of the old stuff.

Click here for tickets ($48, $58).

 

"An Object of Beauty" by Steve Martin - an audiobook review

I'll be the first to admit that most of the time, the art world holds little fascination for me. I haven't even bothered with Art Basel, one of the world's biggest art events, these past few years, and it's right here in my own backyard.

All that is changing, however, after listening to an audiobook of Steve Martin's novel An Object of Beauty, a comedy of manners that  somehow makes a subject in which I have only a marginal interest compelling - and hugely entertaining.

The novel follows the career of the sharp-eyed, sexually voracious and morally bankrupt Lacey Yaeger, who starts as a cog in the great wheel that is Sotheby's and soon enough makes her mark in the art world as a dealer. Along the way she shatters hearts, friendships and a few hard and fast rules of the art world. Narrated with sardonic restraint by her old friend Daniel, an art writer, An Object of Beauty is a modern-day morality tale, with Martin acting as a wry guide through the ebbs and flows of the art market. I plan to track down more of his books soon, and not just because I grew up in the era of "getting small."

The best reason to opt for the audiobook over the print version is actor Campbell Scott, who quite simply is one of the best readers I've heard. He's funny and slips deftly in and out of the characters' voices (and also does credible French and Russian accents), and he also manages Lacey's voice without slipping into high-pitched mimicry.

What are you reading now?

"I’m a serious cook, and my husband is a serious eater, so I read The Italian Slow Cooker by Michele Scicolone, and it’s superb! I have made Sicilian orange chicken, sausage and spareribs . . . I also enjoyed The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson. How can you not like a man who turned down the chance to be the English Philip Roth? He had me at hello.”

Amy Bloom, author of Where the God of Love Hangs Out

Which book will win "Oddest Title" contest?

At long last, the wait has come to an end: The Diagram Prize has announced its six finalists.

The award, created by the trade magazine The Bookseller, honors the Oddest Book Title of the year. Who will wear the crown previously worn by Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes? (which The Bookseller assures us saw huge sales after it won - if by "huge" you mean 95 copies) Here are the contenders:

8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium Proceedings, various authors

What Color is Your Dog? Joel Silverman

Managing Your Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way, Michael R. Young (this one's gonna give the Friction Stir Welding book a run for its money)

The Generosity of the Dead, Graciela Lowenstein

The Myth of the Social Volcano, Martin King Whyte

The Italian's One-Night Love Child, Cathy Williams

Vote here for your favorite. The winner will be announced on March 25.

 

Family maid sues author of "The Help"

A woman who once worked as a maid for a relative of Kathryn Stockett, author of the bestselling novel The Help, is suing the writer, saying that a black servant character in the book was based on her and showed her in a bad light.

The Associated Press reports that Ablene Cooper, who worked for Stockett's brother, filed suit in Hinds County Circuit Court in Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 9, seeking $75,000 in damages.

One of the offending passages cited, says the AP, includes a scene in which the character, named Aibileen, refers to a cockroach, saying, "He black. Blacker than me."

The Help, which was published in 2009 and sold 2.5 million hardcover copies in the U.S., is based on relationships between white families and black maids in the South of the 1960s. A film version, due out this summer, stars Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard, Viola Davis, Sissy Spacek and Octavia Spencer.

Borders files for bankruptcy; two Broward stores to close

Finally, the inevitable has happened: Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and plans to close about 200 of its stores, two of them in Broward County.

The Borders set for termination are in Plantation and Fort Lauderdale; the Aventura Borders closed last fall. Big stores were the big target: Most of the stores destined for closure are more than 20,000 square feet, according to Publisher's Weekly.

Meanwhile, Borders will continue to operate its online store and will honor gift cards, the Border Rewards program and other customer programs, according to another Publisher's Weekly story, which also quoted president Mike Edwards as saying in a statement: “It has become increasingly clear that in light of the environment of curtailed customer spending, our ongoing discussions with publishers and other vendor related parties, and the company’s lack of liquidity, Borders Group does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor and which are essential for it to move forward with its business strategy to reposition itself successfully for the long term.''

Click here to see the list of store closings.

What are you reading now?

“I’m reading Alice Hoffman’s new collection of interconnected short stories , The Red Garden. Hoffman’s writing is so beautiful it’s almost painful to read. I want to rush through to find out what happens next and how the stories are tied together, but I also want to linger over every word. Because she packs her books full of rich sensory detail, Hoffman makes the magic she writes about feel so real, as though I could, at any moment, find myself in the town of Blackwell and the mysterious garden that bears only red fruit.”

Eleanor Brown, author of The Weird Sisters

Jonathan Evison's "West of Here" - a review

More than 100 years separate the flood of characters in Jonathan Evison’s bracing epic novel, and yet as different as their lives are, some truths remain solid despite the passage of time. Men will attempt to forge into the unknown whether they’re mapping dangerous uncharted territory or trying to prove the existence of Bigfoot. Women will strain against the uncomfortable limits of domesticity, and visionaries will eventually run smack into harsh reality. And mountains, well, mountains will always work nicely as metaphors for the greatness we might achieve even if we never will.

West of Here is a sprawling tragicomic novel about identity — national and personal — that’s as entertaining as it is insightful into the human need to make a mark on the landscape. The land in question here is Port Bonita on Washington State’s Olympic peninsula, at the mouth of the mighty Elwha River, where Evison’s parallel stories dovetail the town of 1890 (prostitutes, Shakers, adventurers, entrepreneurs) with its present (Walmart, casinos, KFC, Sasquatch hunters). The original citizens are a mix of rough-and-tumble opportunists, doomed Native Americans and motivated dreamers who envision Port Bonita’s future as a rival to Seattle (which has conveniently just burned to the ground). Their modern descendants desire things, too: companionship, better jobs, a loosely defined freedom. They are slowly realizing, however, that a big payment is coming due for all of their ancestors’ miscalculations.

Click here to read the rest of my review of West of Here.

 

Five finalists named for Rohr Prize

The Jewish Book Council announced the finalists of 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature. The award, which was established in 2006, awards the winner a whopping $100,000, with $25,000 going to a runner-up.

The nominees:

Allison Amend, Stations West

Nadia Kalman, The Cosmopolitans

Julie Orringer, The Invisible Bridge

Austin Ratner, The Jump Artist

Joseph Skibell, A Curable Romantic

The winner will be announced May 31.

 

"Matterhorn" wins Colby Award

Karl Marlantes' epic novel of Vietnam Matterhorn has received the 2011 William E. Colby Award, which recognizes a first work of fiction or nonfiction that makes a significant contribution to the public understanding of intelligence operations, military history or international affairs.

Marlantas received the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts and 10 air medals for his service in Vietnam, from which he draws in Matterhorn, which is set in 1969 and follows a rifle platoon stationed at the Laos border. He's also a Yale grad and Rhodes Scholar.

The prize is $5,000 and will be awarded to Marlantes in October.