Texas Pages

David LaBounty, publisher of Plano's The First Line and a regular reviewer for The Dallas Morning News, is looking for submissions for his literary journal for next year.

Here are the details:

Here are a few of the most buzzed about books being released next week:

- Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time Series #13) by Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson
- Superman : Earth One by J. Straczynski, Shane Davis
- Me by Ricky Martin
- Simple Times : Crafts for Poor People by Amy Sedaris
- Origins (The Vampire Diaries : Stefan's Diaries Series #1) by L. Smith , Kevin Williamson
- Must You Go? : My Life with Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser

See more new releases at Barnes and Noble.

Some items of note involving local authors:

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press recently released a handsome, convenient, 264-glossy-paged guide to The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System. It received a "recommended" endorsement from Scientific American.
Facts you might not have known: Io, one of Jupiter's moons, is the stinkiest place in the solar system, because of its abundant hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs. And co-author David Baker is a McKinney resident and professor at Austin College in Sherman. (The other co-author, Todd Ratcliff, works for something called NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.)
Just from a casual look, I can tell that this is the sort of book I would have pored over for hours at a certain phase in my life; if you have a young or young-at-heart stargazer in your home, I would encourage you to check it out.

The Whiting Writers' Awards were announced in New York last night. It's not likely you've heard of these folks -- the $50,000 prize is given to "writers of exceptional talent and promise in early career."

Past recipients include Jonathan Franzen, Michael Cunningham, Cristina Garcia , Colson Whitehead and Texans Ben Fountain and Justin Cronin.

The list of winners is attached below; full biographies are posted here.

Here are a few of the most buzzed about books being released next week:

- The Confession by John Grisham
- Broke by Glenn Beck
- Life by Keith Richards
- Pitchforks and Torches: The Worst of the Worst, from Beck, Bill, and Bush to Palin and Other Posturing Republicans by Keith Olbermann
- The Tattoo Chronicles by Kat Von D

See more new releases at Barnes and Noble.

The University of Texas Press has announced that Joanna Hitchcock, director since 1992, will retire at the end of February.

Today's press release from UT says: "At this turning point in publishing history, Hitchcock said UT Press needs someone who has a personal stake in, as well as a professional commitment to, its long-term future rather than a leader who is approaching retirement."

According to cbcnews.com (via Boldtype), the family of Stieg Larsson says that a manuscript exists for another book in the late author's stupendously popular series.

But it's a complicated situtation, to say the least.

As noted earlier, Larsson's longtime partner Eva Gabrielsson, is in a legal deadlock with Larsson's family over the author's estate. Gabrielsson presumably has the unfinished manuscript he was working on at the time of his death, but she has refused to discuss it or reveal its whereabouts. (But read on.)

This week, Larsson's brother, Joakim, said he had been in touch with his brother about the book shortly before his sudden death:

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's the Great American Snub.
Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom," the year's most highly praised and talked about literary novel, was not among the fiction finalists announced Wednesday for the National Book Awards.
Nine years ago, Franzen won for "The Corrections" and his latest book was a sensation even before its release, the subject of a Time magazine cover story and rave reviews and so in demand that President Obama obtained an early copy. Oprah Winfrey picked "Freedom" for her book club, even though Franzen's ambivalence in 2001 over her choosing "The Corrections" had led her to cancel his appearance on her show.
Nominees on Wednesday included Peter Carey, whose "Parrot and Olivier in America" was a runner-up for the Man Booker Prize, and such well-regarded authors as Nicole Krauss ("Great House") and Lionel Shriver ("So Much for That"). The book awards also welcomed a rock star, Patti Smith, a nonfiction contender for "Just Kids," a memoir about her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; and an attorney, poetry finalist Monica Youn ("Ignatz"), whose day job is with the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.

LONDON (AP) -- British writer Howard Jacobson won the prestigious Booker Prize Tuesday with his philosophical comedy The Finkler Question beating five other writers, including two-time winner Peter Carey and the bookies' favorite, Tom McCarthy.

Garry Wills, who had been scheduled to appear Oct. 25 at Highland Park United Methodist Church, has canceled the remainder of his book tour.

A publicist for Penguin Books, publisher of his latest, Outside Looking In: Adventures of and Observer, cited health reasons for the cancellation, although he will be doing some TV appearances.

OK, so you know the economy in Great Britain isn't quite what it might be when people start grabbing authors' glasses and holding them for ransom. Yeah. Not kidding.

Here it is, direct from our friends at Slate:

Less than a week after a publishing snafu resulted in thousands of copies of Freedom being pulped in the U.K., author Jonathan Frazen ran into trouble again at his London book party Monday night. While Franzen was busy celebrating the error-free debut of his book -- the earlier version was scrapped because of typesetting errors -- a party crasher snatched the glasses off the author's face, leaving behind a ransom note demanding 100,000 British pounds for their return. A police helicopter was dispatched to search for the two thieves, and because it was a book party, the hashtag #glassesgate soon materialized on Twitter. The saga ended when a HarperCollins sales manager found one of the robbers hiding in the bushes and Franzen decided not to press charges. Despite Freedom's runaway success, Franzen hasn't been able to catch a break abroad: On Monday, the best-selling author was late for a BBC interview after his cab never showed up.

British oddsmakers -- noted literary experts -- put the odds on Texas Institute of Letters member Cormac McCarthy at 5/2. That's second only to Kenyan-in-exile Ngugi wa Thiong'o and ahead of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.

GalleyCat has been charting his progress in the eyes of the oddsmakers. But David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times notes in his eloquent (as usual) discourse on literature as sport that "the Swedish Academy to have focused, over the last few years, on European authors, a worldview made explicit in 2008 by former Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl, who famously called American literature 'too insular and ignorant to challenge Europe as the center of the literary world.'"

I know from past experience that readers often have romantic notions about working in a bookstore. So I'll post details from the e-mail I just received saying that they are hiring for their new location.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Steve Hely's modestly titled novel, How I Became a Famous Novelist, was awarded the 2010 Thurber Prize for American Humor on Monday night.
Hely, who writes for The Office and has previously written for 30 Rock and The Late Show With David Letterman, received $5,000.
Previous winners of the Thurber award include Jon Stewart and David Sedaris. The prize, which was founded in 1997, is named for the humorist-cartoonist James Thurber.

The violence and the vitality of the borderlands animate a trio of books out right now.

There's Tyche Hendricks' The Wind Doesn't Need a Passport.
There's Ed Vulliamy's Amexica: War Along the Borderline.
There's Charles Bowden's Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields.

Julian Aguilar of the Texas Tribune and a border boy reminds us there's an important re-issue out from Cinco Punto Press, the El Paso independent press. The tome is Terrence Poppa's Drug Lord. Poppa's updated the 1990 book, too.

For those want to understand how much things have changed, have remained the same and what has gone underreported in the corruption architecture of the U.S.-Mexico drug trade, Poppa offers a tutorial and an epilogue.

Here's more from Julian's interview with Poppa, on the drug trade, legalization, the Prohibition, problems on the international bridges and scenarios for the future.

Freelance writer Sarah Perry was on hand last night as Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson visited the Preston/Royal Borders for a unique stop on their tour for "The Great Typo Hunt." Here's her report:

Perhaps the most satisfying typo ever found was corrected about a week ago. Christine Collie, a self-described "footnote nut" found it on the bottom of page 123, an extra "e" in the title of a book.

The typo wasn't in just any book though. The book was The Great Typo Hunt, a narrative of two men's journey across the U.S. to find typos and correct them. Collie e-mailed the book's authors, and last night during their book signing at Borders on Preston Road and Royal Lane, the men presented her with a new edition of the Chicago Manual of Style as a prize.

"I just took such pleasure in finding it," Collie says.

Books blog hits new low? Not quite.

Even with the news about Lincoln sprayed across the top, and a big ol' picture of the Bat Boy checking his cellphone staring up at me, I was still going to resist writing about Going Mutant: The Bat Boy Exposed.

But when the poster of the Weekly World News creation fell off the cubicle wall where I had taped it, there was some actual news a Texan could use.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oprah Winfrey has forgiven Jonathan Franzen.
Nine years after picking Franzen's The Corrections for her book club and then canceling his appearance on her show after he expressed ambivalence over her endorsement, Winfrey has chosen his new novel, Freedom. The talk show host is not scheduled to announce her pick until later today, but The Associated Press on Thursday purchased a copy that had a book club sticker on the front.

NEW YORK (AP) -- For at least one night, Tom Wolfe will share billing with one of the founders of Sesame Street.
The National Book Foundation announced Wednesday that the author of such best-sellers as The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities will receive an honorary National Book Award for lifetime achievement.
The foundation said a special prize for outstanding service to the American literary community also will be given to Joan Ganz Cooney. Cooney's research on television and education helped inspire the beloved children's program Sesame Street.
Nominees for the competitive categories will be announced Oct. 13.
The awards ceremony takes place Nov. 17. Humorist Andy Borowitz will be the host.

Good news to send us into the weekend: Modern Library is preparing to issue a 25th anniversary edition of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

The press release says the release date is Sept. 28, and that the re-issue "returns Blood Meridian to its original trim size and boasts the artwork from the original cover, the first edition of which is one of the most sought-after items on the antiquarian book market."

This is a legendary book, one that reviewer Bryan Woolley once described as "a terrifying hymn to violence and death" that "sold few copies at first, but
critics and academics now acknowledge it as one of the great American novels and name Mr. McCarthy with the same reverence as Melville and Faulkner."

So I'll be looking forward to getting my copy. In the meantime, I dug way back into the archives for the original review from The Dallas Morning News. The reviewer was another western legend, Elmer Kelton.

The Texas Book Festival just announced that Michael Cunningham, one of the stars in the festival's lineup, has dropped out.

Festival publicity director Lisa Lawrence said that she was told the Pulitzer-winning author had a conflict. Organizers were working on replacing him in the First Edition Literary Gala Oct. 15.

A representative for publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux, said that the author is still touring to promote By Nightfall but said only that he withdrew from the Austin festival because of a conflict.

Nebula- and Hugo Award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer will take part in two events at the University of Texas at Dallas
At 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15, he'll present a free lecture, "Forget About Killer Robots: How Humanity Will Continue to Prosper After the Advent of Super-intelligent Machines" at the campus Conference Center.
Aspiring sci-fi writers have a chance to get up close and personal with the celebrity author, who has won just about every science-fiction honor available.

As I am fond of saying -- if I knew anything about making money, I would probably not be in journalism.

But it seems to me that if you're running a chain of bookstores, and you just lost more than $46 million in the most recent quarter, and the best answer you have is "Build-a Bear" -- you are in trouble.

(Publishers Weekly has their story here. Bloomberg News has details here. Associated Press copy after the jump.)

Former Texas doctor Abraham Verghese is among the finalists for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Verghese, the author of Cutting for Stone (reviewed here), served on the faculty at Texas Tech University and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio before becoming a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Poets & Writers magazine has put together a list of the Top 50 MFA Programs in America.

The esteemed University of Iowa comes in at No. 1. Michigan takes No. 2.

And No. 3?

A tipster points out that Frederick Grinnell, a professor at the UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, has made the short list for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books for Everyday Practice of Science: Where Intuition and Passion Meet Objectivity and Logic.

Here's what the judges said about his book, which is published by Oxford University Press:

Jonathan Franzen has not suffered for lack of exposure for his soon-to-be-released novel, Freedom. With pre-publication appearances on the cover of Time and in The New York Times Book Review, the novelist is showing that you really don't need Oprah to whip the book media into a frenzy. (Yes, The Dallas Morning News will be on that bandwagon as well -- stay tuned.)

But not everyone is thrilled. As noted on GalleyCat, Jennifer Weiner has launched a Twitter campaign with the hashtag "#franzenfreude" that she says is a call "for non-Franzen novels about love, identity, families, The Way We Live Now. I pick Anne Tyler's DIGGING TO AMERICA"

Here are a few other titles suggested by tweeters, with links to reviews where available.

Plano's loss is Fairview's gain.

Today's business section has the story of how Legacy Books is morphing into A Real Bookstore, which is slated to open in mid-November.

Owner Teri Tanner says it's a bookstore in tune with economic realities.

Rock fans rejoice: Pat Benatar will be at the Uptown Borders (at 6300 Mckinney Ave.) tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. to sign copies of her memoir, Between a Heart and A Rock Place.

The event does require a wristband for entry, and only books will be signed (so don't bring your old vinyls or electric guitars.) For more information, call 214-219-0512.

Just got off the phone with Kyle Hall, marketing director of Legacy Books in Plano, and he tells me that "there's substance" to the reports and rumors that North Texas may find itself with an independent bookstore with a number of the same faces familiar from Legacy, but under another bookstore name and at a different location, sometime this fall.

He also noted that Legacy had been about to launch an online marketplace, which would have been ideal for customers who wanted to support the independent bookstore but lived too far away to shop there regularly. If and when the new mystery store opens, he says, online shopping will definitely be an option, and even if you can't get there in person, you can still help them thrive.

Stay tuned for more updates. I think this story is about to turn good again. Maybe really good.

And the book community of Dallas goes into mourning: The fabulous, gorgeous independent bookstore Legacy Books, at Legacy and the Dallas Tollway in Plano, is closing Aug. 14, after not quite two years in business.

This will be a huge loss to the literary community. Legacy was ultramodern in looks (I've often called it the "Neiman Marcus of bookstores") but utterly old-fashioned in terms of customer service. You could always count on Legacy's wonderful staff to help you find something, order it, or suggest books you didn't know you had to read until they'd put them in your hands.

However, there may be good news afoot: Maria Halkias, our business guru, reports in her story here that the store may be moving to another location. Here's hoping. My advice: Call the store, 972-398-9888, and let them know how much you'll miss them.

To visit Legacy online, go here.

PHOTO by Mike M. Hancock/Special Contributor: Author Charlie Huston (left) greets fans at Legacy in 2009.

Alright, I'll admit it, I'm a nerd - news like this gets me excited. As seen on Yahoo! news:

"FAIRBANKS, Alaska - A longtime Alaska comic book buff is selling one of the gems in his vast collection, a rare copy of Batman No. 1 published 70 years ago.

Mike Wheat of Fairbanks has put the 1940 comic book on the auction block through Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, where it's expected to fetch more than $40,000. Online bids already have climbed to $35,000 for the book, believed to be one of fewer than 300 still in existence."

It's funny how this book was originally sold for 10 cents...nobody really knew what kind of a bargain that was, I'm sure.

AP Photo.

Publishing Perspectives today has a pair of articles that look at readers the way most publishers do: as a set of statistical data waiting to be milked for profits.

But beyond the potential for some terrific pie charts, there's information that shows just how hard it is to put avid readers in a box, even if that box is filled with sci-fi novels or romances.

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- It is September in Sachs Harbour, northern Canada. In the cold and desolate landscape, Mikael Blomqvist and Lisbeth Salander are about to begin a new adventure.
But their journey in the fourth book of Stieg Larsson's best-selling "Millennium: crime series is a mystery. The book was left unfinished on the author's laptop when he died suddenly in 2004 at age 50.
Only two people know about the content of the manuscript: Larsson's longtime partner Eva Gabrielsson, who has refused to talk about it and won't reveal the whereabouts of the last installment in the series, which started with "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"; and Larsson's friend John-Henri Holmberg, who received an e-mail about the book from Larsson less than a month before his death on Nov. 9, 2004.

Arlington's Sandra Brown, who will release a set-in-Houston novel, Tough Customer next month, is not a fan of ebooks, at least from a pricing standpoint.

"I almost feel guilty when I download a book from a colleague, because I know how much blood sweat and tears went into that," she's quoted as saying on GalleyCat. "I would pay more if they charged more."

She also likens them to comic books, albeit in a positive way: ""When I grew up my parents didn't want us reading comic books because they weren't considered real books. But when I was raising my kids I was like, 'I don't care what format you read, as long as you are reading.'"

This has provoked some disapproving responses.

When The New York Times wanted a snapshot look at the Dallas economy, they turned to Ben Fountain, who knows the territory well. And in his postcard, from Preston Hollow and University Park, his writing is up to its usual high standard:

Inside Jimmy Choo I encountered, hmm, no customers. In the antiques store down the way, two. Loro Piana, zero. Escada, zero. Hermès, one. Chanel, zero. According to every sales clerk queried at these fine establishments, business was great, super, fantastic or any one of a number of other perky superlatives. Yet the longer I hung around, the more I sensed the torpor of a dusty Catalan village that time has passed by.

The story is about wealth, luxury, the history of commerce and the nature of the human brain. So tell me -- why did the editors in New York choose to illustrate it with ... a cowgirl and a pair of legs from a Bratz doll?

(If you're a fan of Ben's, you can read his Dallas Morning News essay on Haiti here. He also can be heard in Act III of the "Island Time" installment of public radio's This American Life. )

WASHINGTON (AP) -- British author Christopher Hitchens says he must undergo chemotherapy on his esophagus and has canceled some engagements.
The 61-year-old Hitchens, whose most recent book, Hitch-22, is on Publishers Weekly's best-sellers list, posted a message on his publisher's website that he had been told by his doctor that he must undergo a course of chemotherapy. Hitchens expressed regret for having to cancel engagements on short notice.
His publisher issued a statement saying the author was being given his privacy during the treatments.
The author, essayist and columnist has written more than a dozen books and enjoyed surprising commercial success three years ago with God Is Not Great, a direct attack on religion.
The Washington Post notes:

The notorious chainsmoker announced in 2008 he had given up tobacco -- driven, he said, by "fear." (His wife Carol Blue told us then he "wants to live -- live to see his political enemies defeated.") But he was still sneaking a smoke or two when our colleague Manuel Roig-Franzia interviewed him last month.

More from Poynter.org, Twelve Publishers.

Attention all comic book fans: Wonder Woman is getting a makeover. And no, I don't mean she's going to the salon.

Starting this week, DC Comic's famous Amazon warrior will sport a completely new costume designed by Jim Lee - one that has pants and a jacket. With her hair slicked back and a sly smirk on her face, this Wonder Woman looks more like a street fighter and less like the 70-year old symbol of feminism.

As cool as she looks, I've got to wonder, though...is DC trying to fix something that isn't broken?

Photo courtesy DC Comics.

Arts & Letters Live's Texas Bound series teamed up with the Dallas Theater Center for the Monday-night installment of the series of readings. DTC is presenting It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, so the theme was "Heroes and Anti-Heroes." DTC artistic director Kevin Moriarty was on hand to tell the audience how pleased he was to work with Arts & Letters, and to expect more collaboration during the 2011 festival honoring Texas playwright Horton Foote.

DTC resident acting company members Matthew Gray and Lee Trull were among the readers, with a program rounded out by Matthew Stephen Tompkins, Raphael Parry and Sally Nystuen Vahle (Vahle did a phenomenal job filling in for Harriet Harris, who was originally scheduled to read "Mother in the Trenches," but was ill). Texas Bound suspended its usual stories-with-Texas-ties theme for a broad range of heroes, anti-heroes and folks caught in between--from a professional eater to a mother who sets off to find her son in the trenches. But, as usual, the series showed the life that a single actor can bring to a piece of writing.

In honor of the Independence Day weekend, Barnes and Noble is holding an online sale on select titles. Everything listed is 45% off - including the complete seasons of Sex and the City and Naruto, cooking books, and Sudoku kits.

The offer ends soon, so get your steals online as soon as you can - they'll be gone with a boom before you know it.

It was exciting to see (via GalleyCat) that the Daily Mail landed an interview with the reclusive Harper Lee, author of the beloved To Kill a Mockingbird.

It's an interview that makes your average Twitter note sound wordy by comparison.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rick Riordan (RY'-er-dan) is again invoking the Greek gods.

The author of the million-selling "Percy Jackson" children's books is launching a new adventure saga in October.

Jackson's "The Heroes of Olympus" series begins with the "The Lost Hero," set in Percy Jackson's old training ground, Camp Half-Blood, but with new characters.

Riordan's new series was announced Monday by the Disney Book Group's Disney-Hyperion imprint.

In the spring, Riordan started an Egyptian-themed series, "The Kane Chronicles."

Sad news for the literary world: Jose Saramago, who was the first Portuguese-language winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, has died at his home in the Canary Islands of Spain. He was 87 and had been ill for quite some time. Saramago's unflinching suport for Communism and blunt style -- both personal and literary -- alienated some, but his talent was never in question. In the photo at right, Saramago is shown at the time of his Nobel Prize win in 1998.

Here's the full story from our colleagues at The Associated Press:

LONDON (AP) -- American novelist Barbara Kingsolver took home the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction on Wednesday with her sixth novel, "The Lacuna," beating bookmakers' favorite Hilary Mantel.

Headed to New York this week for BookExpo America? Our own Michael Merschel and Chris Vognar are, and they plan to keep you updated on who they see and what they read. Expect some good titles and celebrity sightings, so keep it right here on the Texas Pages blog, on on Twitter #dmnbea. The conference is May 25-27.

Continue reading for a live Twitter feed.

While Michael Young was reporting today's update on the SMU Press, I was asking around for specifics as to what might happen to the employees of the press. Because to me, if the university's plan to suspend operations meant eliminating the staff, that's the same thing as eliminating the press, no matter how many task forces are brought in to study the situation.

I still don't have details. But when senior editor Kathryn Lang shared her latest tally of writers who have expressed support ("4 Pulitzer Prize winners and 3 finalists, from a National Book Award winner and 3 finalists; an American Book Award winner, 11 PEN Award winners ... Edgar Award winners and finalists, from countless O. Henry and Pushcart winners, from National Magazine Award winners, and MacArthur Fellows,") she offered the slightest hint that something positive is afoot: "When we can be more specific, we'll be sure to let you know--and just as soon as we can. We are hopeful, and we are working feverishly to get our books that are in the pipeline ready to go."

It's a vague answer, but it means the final chapter has not been written. So stay tuned.

Nancy Churnin today brings welcome news of the arrival of Story Book House, a picture-book boutique that will have its grand opening Saturday and Sunday behind the 4th Wall Gallery in Uptown Dallas.

Owners Matthew and Kristine Abramowitz say they designed the Story Book House as an extension of their gallery, which showcases the work of illustrators such as Eric Carle or Mary GrandPré.

The grand opening will feature Oklahoma artist Mike Wimmer on Saturday and Texas author and illustrator Keith Graves on Sunday. Details are here.

Despite an outpouring of support from writers nationwide, SMU Press's operations will be suspended effective May 31, Southern Methodist University Provost Paul W. Ludden says.

But an e-mail sent out by Ludden holds out hope that a revamped press could return in the future, after a task force evaluates its operations.

Ludden's e-mail, sent Wednesday morning, says the press will be "fulfilling all of our contractual obligations with authors as we go forward."

He says that if SMU is to have a press, it must meet the following criteria:

• "Its structure and operations must reflect the technological advances that are sweeping the publishing industry.


• "Its operation must be financially sustainable.


• "Any publishing decision must reflect the consideration of the marketplace response to the publication.


• "The Press must continue to reflect the academic principles and standards of the University."

The task force is to report by Dec. 1.

Late yesterday, Russell L. Martin III, chair of the advisory board for the press, told me he was "cautiously optimistic." Today, when I asked him about the fate of the employees of the press, he referred me to the provost's office.

We'll post updates as we learn more.

It's always nice to see some good news about a local book-related company: The latest Publishers Weekly says that Half Price Books is thriving during these rough economic times. Sales for the fiscal year are up 9 percent through March, says CEO Sharon Anderson Wright.

It's worth noting that the chain has done well despite an almost stubborn resistance to online sales. Paperophiles will nod in agreement with Wright's optimism for the printed word: "It remains to be seen what will happen with e-readers," she says. "At least with a paperback, your battery doesn't stop running."

Deborah Coonts continues her book tour of Dallas with an appearance 7 tonight at Barnes & Noble, 7700 West Northwest Highway.

If you can't make it there, you have one more chance: she'll be back 1 p.m. Sunday at Borders, 10720 Preston Road at Royal Lane.

The Texas native's latest is Wanna Get Lucky?

Wondering who would win that smackdown?

Well, when it comes to selling books, go with the vampires.

As reported in GalleyCat and Bookseller.com, Laura Bush's memoir Spoken From the Heart is the second-fastest-selling book of the year, selling more than 147,000 copies its first week.

By comparison, Hillary Clinton's White House memoir had 600,000 first week sales, says GalleyCat.

The biggest seller so far this year? Charlaine Harris' Dead in the Family, with 199,732 copies its first week out.

And, as luck would have it, you can catch our interview with Charlaine Harris tomorrow in The Dallas Morning News, ahead of her signing at Borders, Preston at Royal. You can read our Laura Bush interview here.

Earlier this week, the University of Texas at Austin announced two winners of the coveted Dobie Paisano Writing Fellowships for 2010.

Phillipp Meyer is the author of American Rust (review here.) He's a 2008 graduate of UT's Michener Center. According to UT, he will be working on a novel about the rise of a Texas oil and ranching dynasty across the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

John Pipkin is the author Woodsburner (review here.) He's a former executive director of the Writers League of Texas and has begun work on his second novel, The Blind Astronomer's Atlas, UT says.

The fellowships at the 250-acre ranch are open to applicants who are either native Texans, have resided in Texas at least three years at some time or have published significant work with a Texas subject. Past fellows include A. C. Greene, Gary Cartwright, Jan Reid, Stephen Harrigan, Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto Gilb, Sarah Bird and William Cobb.

The advisory board for the SMU Press met today with provost Paul W. Ludden, staff writer Michael E. Young reports.

Russell Martin, of the advisory board, told him: "There's no new news. We had a very productive day, a good meeting with the provost, and we'll meet again. But there's no new news. We haven't even scheduled the next meeting yet."

Asked whether there was hope that the press might be saved, he said:

"Too soon to say. There's always hope. Where there's life there's hope."

Ludden has announced his intent to suspend operations at the press. Clay Reynolds, a regular contributor to the books pages, wrote yesterday about why the press is central to the school's mission.

While supportive e-mails continue to flow in for the SMU Press, which provost Paul W. Ludden intends to close at least temporarily, the advisory board for the press is preparing to meet with him on Wednesday.

Russell L. Martin III, chair of the advisory board, confirmed the meeting. In an e-mail, he explained: "We had asked last week to meet with him again and he wants to meet with us. We don't know what the results may be; I'm not predicting an outcome one way or another."

Meanwhile, The Writer's Garret of Dallas has sent out an "emergency" plea for support on behalf of the press, noting that "Letters ... have been pouring in, and we've heard that SMU is beginning to take notice. "

Kathryn Lang, the senior editor for the press, shared one of those recent e-mails, this one from Michael Pietsch, Executive Vice President and Publisher at Little, Brown and Co.

He writes: "....An academically supported literary house like SMU Press is more important in the ecosystem of the arts than ever before. This is a house where unfamiliar ideas can be given a legitimate airing. The Press's commitment to publishing serious writers well matters to those writers and to the community of readers who are hungry for serious thought rendered through accomplished prose."

And late last week, I heard directly from Debra Monroe, author of the memoir On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain, which is scheduled to be released next month. In wake of the stories about the press, she was eager for people to know that, "Though the official pub date is June 30, it will be distributed to stores in the next 10 days. So I will either be the last booked published by the best small press in America, or just one of many published there."

Ludden's statement last week said that the university faces "challenging budgetary times" during which "difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions must be made." It publishes eight to 10 books a year, with a budget of roughly $400,000 a year.

Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell spoke at a local book store to promote her new book, The Carrie Diaries, on Thursday.

Watch this video as she reads a bit from the book and answers reader questions. Then share your thoughts in the comments section below. Where you there?

Sex and the City 2 hits movie theaters May 27.

A plea for support from the SMU Press, which Southern Methodist University is on the verge of closing because of budget concerns, has been answered by some of America's best-known writers.

Kathryn Lang, senior editor at the press, on Wednesday sent out an e-mail explaining that last Thursday, she and other press employees were summoned to a meeting with SMU provost Paul W. Ludden, "at which we were told that the operations of the SMU Press would be closed down on June 1, 2010. We had no hint or prior warning that this was coming. We have fifteen stranded new projects under contract and 130 other titles in print, effectively unsupported if this should come to pass."

When I asked about the response to her call for help, Lang e-mailed to say, "We've been inundated with letters of support from all around the country--from past and present authors, and from the 15 upcoming 'stranded' authors should the Press be shuttered, from authors whose books we've turned down in the past (!!), from literary agents, from directors of other small presses, from the English dept. of the University of Vermont (!!), from people who have critiqued our manuscripts, from 'blurbers,' from people we don't even know! It's amazing."

Among those who answered her call for letters of support was Pulitzer-winning author Richard Russo. Lang had time to share some of the other notes; here are excerpts from what they said:

Novelist Ann Beattie: "It is with shock and sadness that I have learned that SMU Press -- one of the most distinguished, reliable, essential presses in the country
-- might no longer exist. It is a forum for serious thought in the intellectual community, and it is an important press for Texans and for everyone else who reads seriously. It greatly enhances the stature of your university, and it is counted on to bring forth important books that become part of the dialogue of the entire culture. Closing SMU Press would be a disastrous decision. "

Novelist Madison Smartt Bell: "I'd like to tell you and everyone else concerned that the loss of SMU Press would be a body blow to American literature. It has been, for most of my lifetime, one of the most significant publishers in the South, though it has not restricted itself to Southern writing. ... If important publishers like SMU can't find a haven in the academies, well, it's all going to be over sooner than we thought.

Novelist Abraham Verghese: "I have recently endorsed two wonderful manuscripts by authors you were about to publish. This will be a loss to the literary world as well as a blow to the prestige and reputation of SMU in the academic world. I hope you will reconsider and perhaps find a way to fulfill your commitment to existing books in the pipeline."

John Dufresne, novelist and a Florida International University professor: "I have long sung the praises of SMU Press as the finest small press in the country as far as publishing quality literary fiction goes. It is disheartening to think that the university administration puts such little value in literature, not to mention in the well-being of its long-time employees. This a blow to the national literary community."

As noted in today's Dallas Morning News story, Ludden says that budget reasons are behind his decision, announced Tuesday, to stop the press. "SMU has weathered the financial crisis well, but some cuts were necessary," he wrote. "By suspending operations rather than closing the press with finality, we retain the option to resume the press in a renewed form in the future."

The future of the award-winning Southern Methodist University Press is at risk today after university provost Paul W. Ludden announced plans to suspend operations for budgetary reasons. (Link is to today's Dallas Morning News story.)

Ludden noted that "challenging budgetary times" are when "difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions must be made." He said that "By suspending operations rather than closing the press with finality, we retain the option to resume the press in a renewed form in the future."

The press, in operation since 1937, is the oldest university publishing house in Texas. It publishes eight to 10 books a year, with a budget of roughly $400,000 a year. Peter Givler, executive director of the Association of American University Presses in New York, points out: "Now, $400,000 is serious money, but in relationship to the entire university budget, it's a fraction of a fraction." (According to smudailycampus.com, it is also less than Ludden's salary as of 2008.)

In recent years, the press has published some excellent fiction. It produced a finalist for a PEN/Faulkner award for T. M. McNally's The Gateway: Stories). (Details are posted here.) A 2007 novel, Openwork, by Adria Bernardi, received Honorable Mention for the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award.

The press also was the original publisher of Tracy Winn's Mrs. Somebody Somebody, which is about to be re-released by Random House.

The three employees of the press are scrambling to gather support, and several people have contacted me on their behalf. I will post updates as I learn of them.

Staff Writer Justin Umberton today reports that the Dallas Public Library is going digital and will soon be allowing downloads of electronic books, audio books, music and other online content.

Information is available on the library website. If you're wondering whether your city's library participates, visit www.OverDrive.com and enter their ZIP code in the appropriate box.

If you're a veteran of this sort of thing -- the story points out that Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, Plano, McKinney and Frisco already offer downloadable material -- what's your experience been like?

The Texas Institute of Letters was handing out awards Saturday night in Austin for the best writing by and about Texas and Texans. Here's a list of winners, provided by newly named president Darwin Payne:

Larry L. King, playwright of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, received the $1,500 Lon Tinkle Award for excellence sustained throughout a career. His wife was to accept the award in his behalf; King was not expected to be able to travel from his Washington, D.C. home because of illness.

Scott Blackwood won The Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction of 2009 for We Agreed to Meet Just Here. Blackwood grew up in Texas and now directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at Roosevelt University in Chicago. (Read our review here.)
Bryan Burrough was awarded the $5,000 Carr P. Collins Award for Best Book of Non-Fiction for The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, published by Penguin Press. Burrough is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair and former reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He lives in New Jersey; read Alan Peppard's take here.

The Mystery Writers of America handed out their Edgar Awards last night. (Contributor Jeff Guinn was not among the winners, but as they say, just being nominated is an honor.) I

f you're a mystery fan, you might also be interested in the membership list of the group's Southwest Chapter. You'll find links to recent releases from Jeff Abbott, Sandra Brown, Deborah Crombie, Harry Hunsicker, Carlton Stowers and more.

And speaking of awards, which we were at the beginning of that first paragraph -- the Bellwether Prize, a $25,000 award for unpublished fiction, has gone to Naomi Benaron of Tucson, Ariz. "Prize founder Barbara Kingsolver calls Benaron's manuscript, Running the Rift, culturally rich and completely engrossing," says the press release.

In my neverending quest to bring you vital book-related news -- and also find material that will increase page views from the coveted 14-year-old-boy demographic -- I once again turn to the NPR program Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! This weekend's show reported on the release of a long-suppressed survey by the Wilson Library Bulletin about librarians and ... well, here's how it was broadcast by host Peter Sagal:

"The survey found 20 percent of librarians said that they had quote, done it in the stacks. ... Asked what Shakespearean title best described their first sexual encounter, 28 percent said Comedy of Errors, while for 22 percent it was Much Ado About Nothing. We wonder how many chose The Two Gentlemen of Verona. "

Dutiful journalist that I am, I have tracked down the original survey, as posted by blogger Will Manley, who says he lost his job over the effort. But out of 5,000 librarians who responded to him in 1992, Manley also found (kids, ask a grown-up before clicking to the jump):

There's no better time to get down to your local comic book shop than this Saturday. Why? Because you get FREE issues, and may get to meet some hot talent. It's a good time to get the kids interested in reading, or just dip in the comics realm yourself. Here's some options:

Zeus Comics (4411 Lemmon Ave, Dallas, 214-219-TOYS) Saturday, 10am-6pm
Bid farewell to PVPonline cartoonist Scott Kurtz. This is Scott's final signing before moving to Seattle. James O'Barr, Joe Eisma and David Hopkins will be present too. Plus thousands of free comics and the return of the mighty quarter comic sale.

Lone Star Comics (6780 Abrams Road, Suite 109, Dallas, 214-553-2555; click link for other locations) Saturday, 10am-8pm
In the spirit of encouraging kids to read, Lone Star Comics will give away $250 worth of graphic novels to the elementary school and high school libraries of the schools that have the most kids attend any of the store locations. Local author and comic book fan A. Lee Martinez will sign copies of his new book Divine Misfortune from 1pm to 4pm. Gearbox Softare, the people that brought you Borderlands, Brothers in Arms D-Day, and Halo: Combat Evolved will also be present signing people up to focus test new games, giving away Gearbox swag and copies of some of their games as prizes.

Keith's Comics (5400 E. Mockingbird Lane, Suite 120, Dallas, 214-827-3060; click link for other locations) Saturday, 11am-9pm
Meet a mystery actor, who plays a bad guy in the upcoming Jonah Hex movie, from 1pm to 2pm, and Greg Ingram, from Robert Rodriguez's Machete.

Read on for more on the annual event and noteworthy free titles will be available.

Three bits of good news for three writers with Texas ties:

First, my former colleague Richard Whittle has landed a coveted spot on tomorrow's Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Whittle will be discussing The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey. The publisher has posted the prologue here. Watch this space for a review soon.

Second, Jim Hornfischer shared a nice shout-out from The Wall Street Journal, where critic Stephen Hunter listed The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors as one of the five best books "describing war as soldiers know it." Hornfischer comes in right after To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy Holt. I'm not sure there could be a more noble spot for a war book.

Finally, Alan Peppard dug up some additional details about Skip Hollandsworth's National Magazine Award.

And I shouldn't boast, but I did win a door prize at last week's Earth Day celebration here at the office. But that might be slightly off topic. Not to mention, it might make these other guys jealous.

Congrats, everyone.

John Grishman is getting into the young adult genre with his new book, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, due in stores May 25. The story centers around the thirteen year-old Theo's involvement in a sensational murder trial. Read the first chapter at Borders.com and tell us what you think.

I'm a fan of young adult fiction, and I'm intrigued by Grisham's forary in to the genre, especially given the stories he's known for telling. I've read the first chapter, and I'm interested enough to give the book a shot. What say you, Grisham fans?

Skip Hollandsworth has just landed one of the highest honors in magazine writing -- a National Magazine Award -- for his Texas Monthly story about a paralyzed football player from Dallas.

If you know Texas writers, you probably know Skip, and join me in congratulating him.

A complete list of winners is listed here.

I hope you enjoyed Tom Dodge's excellent Sunday Essay on Mark Twain. I know I did.

Some additional reading for you on the 100th anniversary of his death:

The San Francisco Chronicle had one of the better roundups of recent Twain-related books that I saw.

At the bottom of Tom's essay, you'll find a list of links to helpful sites.

And the Associated Press carries this news, that a fresh trove of Twain material is headed to the auction block.

(Illustration by MARK SUMMERS/ Special Contributor)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Mark Twain, known for his curmudgeonly wit and storytelling, is shown as a family man and loving father in "A Family Sketch," a never published tribute to a daughter who inspired two of his stories and died at 24 after contracting spinal meningitis.
"She was a magazine of feelings, & they were of all kinds & of all shades of force," he wrote of Olivia "Susy" Clemens shortly after her death in 1896.
"In all things she was intense: in her this characteristic was not a mere glow, dispensing warmth, but a consuming fire," he said of the daughter who was the inspiration for his "Joan of Arc" and "A Horse's Tale."
The 64-page, handwritten document is among a trove of 200 personal letters, manuscripts and photographs of Mark Twain -- the pen name for Samuel Langhorne Clemens -- going on sale June 17 at Sotheby's New York.
The auction house will exhibit the material for five days, beginning today, on the 100th anniversary of the author's death at age 74. The Associated Press got a preview earlier this week.

The Mystery Writers of America will announce their Edgar Awards in two weeks. Among the nominees: Fort Worth writer Jeff Guinn's Go Down Together, which came out in paperback last month.

You read the review by Bryan Woolley -- himself somewhat of an expert on the Dallas criminals -- here.

The American Library Association has released a couple of interesting lists today.

The first is its 2009 Top Ten list of most frequently challenged books. Holding the No. 1 spot this year: Lauren Myracle's young adult novel series "TTYL." New to the list this year: Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series, which was challenged on the categories of being "Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group."

The second list looks at the most-challenged titles for 2000-2009. Topping that list: Harry Potter.

Some perspective: For the year, the ALA received 460 reports on "efforts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves." As I wrote last year, in an era where information flows freely online and virtually anybody can order anything they want at any time and have it delivered anywhere, concerns about restricted access in libraries might seem ... quaint.

But you have to agree with the sentiment expressed by Barbara Jones, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, in the group's press release: "Protecting one of our most fundamental rights - the freedom to read - means respecting each other's differences and the right of all people to choose for themselves what they and their families read."

The 2009 list of most-challenged books is posted here, or read the jump and then tell me what you think.

NEW YORK (AP) -- "The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt," by T.J. Stiles won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for biography, and "Tinkers," by Paul Harding, won the fiction award.
Other literary winners announced by Columbia University on Monday were: "Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World," by Liaquat Ahamed, for history; "Versed," by Rae Armantrout, for poetry; and "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy," by David E. Hoffman for general nonfiction.

Abraham Verghese, the Stanford medical professor who once served on the faculty at Texas Tech University and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, has won Book of the Year honors in the adult fiction category of the Indies Choice Book Awards. His novel Cutting for Stone is reviewed here.

Other winners, announced yesterday, are:

Adult Nonfiction: The Lost City of Z, by David Grann (who was an Arts & Letters live guest last season; a review of his book is here)
Adult Debut: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
Young Adult: Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
Middle Reader: When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
New Picture Book: The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney

Kate DiCamillo was voted Most Engaging Author. The list of Honor Award recipients in that category included Verghese, Texas-raised Libba Bray, and Isabel Allende, who will be speaking May 13 at Arts & Letters Live.

A full list of honorees is available from the American Booksellers Association.

The Association of American Publishers reported this week that book sales in 2009 totaled $23.9 billion, down from $24.3 billion in 2008.

Some perspective:

The Bookseller emphasizes that e-book sales have overtaken those of audiobooks. Audio book sales totaled $192 million, down 12.9 percent, while e-books hit $313 million, up 176.6 percent.

Daily Finance notes that overall sales of trade books -- "the fiction and non-fiction books you know and love" -- totaled $8.1 billion, a 1.8 percent drop from last year. Adult hardcovers jumped 6.9 percent to $2.6 billion, helped in part by big sales for Dan Brown. Trade paperbacks fell 5.2 percent to $2.2 billion, and mass market paperbacks slipped 4 percent to $1 billion.

The AAP notes that the industry had a compound annual growth rate of 1.1 percent over the last seven years.

And if you really want to get into numbers, Publishers Weekly revised its rankings for the best-selling books of the year. The aforementioned Mr. Brown sold 5.5 million copies of The Lost Symbol to top the fiction hardcover list, while Sarah Palin topped the nonfiction list with 2.7 million copies of Going Rogue. Local author Sandra Brown finished in the top 100 with Rainwater,

And by comparison: Victor Godinez of The Dallas Morning News noted earlier this week that music sales fell to $6.3 billion last year, while the worldwide movie box office grew to $29.9 billion.

Home girl Anne Rice (yes, she graduated from Richardson High School, so she counts as one of us) will be the latest subject of a Bluewater Productions comic-book biography, to be released in June.

Read all about it after the jump.

So if that whole icon of rock and debauchery thing doesn't work out, Keith Richards apparently has a Plan B.

The Daily Mail, citiing "sources in the publishing world who are familiar with the contents of his memoirs," says that the Rolling Stone once considered getting professional training to manage his book collection.

The 66-year-old is said to have started painstakingly arranging copies of rare books about the history of early American rock and the Second World War using libraries standard Dewey Decimal classification system.

Despite apparently giving up on the idea because it was "too much hassle", he still takes pride in displaying his favourite books by the bedside for guests who visit Redlands, his Elizabethan farmhouse in West Sussex and his property in Weston, Connecticut.

Perhaps less of a surprise: He has said he is finding it "very difficult" to remember things for the book.

(Spotted by Atlanta writer (and former Morning News staffer) Jamie Gumbrecht.

I received an e-mail today about a couple of authors who have scheduled a signing. No big news there -- that happens about a dozen times a week.

But this e-mail came with a bonus -- news of a new independent bookstore in town.

The Weekend Reader Bookshop, 4000 Pioneer Road, Balch Springs, in the Pioneer Oaks Shopping Center, is owned by Flo Lockett-Miles.

I asked Flo via e-mail to tell me how the shop was doing, and I received a refreshingly frank reply:

"Some days it feels like the best decision we have ever made. Other days, I feel like asking God for a 'do-over'."

Here's her story of the store's genesis:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Attention Twilight fans: Stephenie Meyer has a new book coming out.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will release The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner on June 5.
The novella is told from the viewpoint of Bree, a newborn vampire featured in Eclipse. That's one of the books in Meyer's best-selling teen-vampire saga.
Meyer says in a statement Tuesday the novella had originally been planned for The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide. But she says it became too long to fit into the guide.
The publisher says $1 for each book sold in the U.S. from the first printing of 1.5 million copies will be donated to the American Red Cross International Response Fund. It supports disaster relief efforts such as those in Haiti and Chile.

The Texas Institute of Letters has released the list of finalists for its 2009 literary awards.

Among the many familiar names on the list are Oscar Casares, Cristina Henriquez, Bryan Burrough, Tracy Daugherty, Bill Sloan and John Pipkin. (Click on those names for links to reviews or stories from The Dallas Morning News.)

(UPDATE: Scott Blackwood was overlooked in the original post.)

The prizes will be given out at the group's meeting in Austin on May 1. The full list of finalists, as provided by the TIL, is below.

In a stunning upset -- well, upsetting to me, because neither of my picks won -- the Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year has been awarded to Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes by Dr Daina Taimina.

When I wrote about the nominees, I was pulling for What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua or Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich. But Britain's Bookseller mag says my picks came in second and third, with 30 percent and 11 percent of the vote, respectively.

As Horace Bent, who is the magazine's "legendary diarist and custodian of the prize" analyzes things:

The mathematics-meets-needlework tome proved an intoxicating yarn, securing 1,912 votes--42% of the total. But why did it win? Well, according to "Geoff", a visitor to thebookseller.com, ". . . there's really no substitute for voting crochet. The superb juxtaposition of relativistic equations and traditionally feminine handicraft skilfully blend against a backdrop of four-dimensional hyperbolic space utilising the three-dimensional creations of a wool-based algorithm in a context of knot theory and non-Euclidian geometry carries a sublimely fundamental and yet simultaneous intimate and accessible viewpoint on the structure of the Universe". My thoughts entirely.

Taking the historic view, Bent also noted , that "the public proclivity towards non-Euclidian needlework proved too great for the Third Reich to overcome. If only someone had let the Poles know in '39."

George W. Bush may have been the guy voters wanted to sit down and have a beer with, but author-turned-president Barack Obama knows how win hearts at bookstores.

After a speech in Iowa, in which he said that Iowa City's legendary Prairie Lights bookstore would benefit from his health care overhaul, the president made a surprise visit and bought two books for his daughters, 11-year-old Malia and 8-year-old Sasha, and a "Star Wars" pop-up book for the 6-year-old son of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, the Associated Press reported.

According to the Washington Post's "44" blog, he told owner Jan Weissmiller, "Well, this used to be my favorite place," and lamented that he can no longer browse for reading material as he did when he was a little-known candidate.

He purchased Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson and The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell -- and the Star Wars book Gibbs had been holding.

"It's a little expensive, sir," Gibbs said as he handed the book to Obama, who showed it to reporters while the cashier rang it up for $37.44.

"I can handle it," Obama said, rejecting Gibbs' offer to pay. "It's for keeping his dad away for too many hours a day."

"I need more books than that, sir," Gibbs said.

Outside the store, a reporter asked, ""Nothing for Mrs. Obama?"

Obama paused to think for a second. "Thanks for getting me in trouble," he replied.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

The Western Writers of America announced their 2010 Spur Awards. And as might be expected, several titles have Texas connections.

Robert Flynn won in the category of "Best Western Long Novel" for his TCU Press release Echoes of Glory. (Si Dunn's review is available here.)

The Nonfiction Biography winner was David C. Humphrey, author of Peg Leg, which was released by the Texas State Historical Society.

The Juvenile Fiction winner, Hard Winter by Johnny D. Boggs, has a Texas setting, and Boggs himself once worked as a sports editor in Dallas and Fort Worth.

In the Nonfiction-Contemporary category, the winner was The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906-1920 by Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler, from the University of New Mexico Press.

And this is stretching the Texas connection, but Clay Reynolds reviewed the Short Novel winner, Robert Olmstead's Far Bright Star.

The press release with the complete list of winners is available after the jump, or at the WWA site.

The Texas Library Association has announced plans to begin compiling a recommended reading list for adult readers. The list, to be released when the group meets in San Antonio next month, "will feature 25 notable fiction works published in the U.S. within the last year."

Which is great, but what I really want to know is how I missed this fund-raiser for the TLA Library Disaster Relief Fund: "The Tattooed Ladies of TLA " calendar. Just a glance at the site might make you imagine the punishment for your next overdue book in a whole new way.

True, we've now missed three of the calendar's 18 months, but a thing of beauty is a joy forever, no? "Libraries thrive on and promote diversity and freedom of expression," the site says. "The Tattooed Ladies of TLA calendar is a testament to both." Couldn't agree more.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Biographies of Abigail Adams and Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange are among the winners of the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history.
Columbia University announced Wednesday that three authors will each receive $10,000 for the Bancroft.
The prize goes to Linda Gordon for Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits; Woody Holton for Abigail Adams; and Margaret D. Jacobs for White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940.
Previous winners of the Bancroft, founded in 1948, include John Dower's Embracing Defeat and Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy.

I loved reading this series when it came out. A fun escape into harmless potty humor. I even still strut around in my Captain Underpants T-shirt sometimes.
Fun stuff from AP:

NEW YORK - Break out the briefs and red cape, if you dare. More tales of Captain Underpants are coming.

Author Dav Pilkey has agreed to write four more of the multimillion-selling series that helped establish the giggly genre known as "poop fiction." The first book, The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, comes out in August with a worldwide printing of 1 million copies, Scholastic announced Thursday.

"I think fans of Captain Underpants will be very happy with this new book," Pilkey said in a statement Thursday. "It has all of the action, laffs and ridiculousness that kids love, plus all the unapologetic irreverence and questionable potty humor that grumpy curmudgeons love to complain about. It's got something for everybody!"

Read the full story here.

Tim O'Brien, who teaches creative writing at Texas State University-San Marcos, has been awarded the $20,000 Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The award is given to "a prose writer whose achievements and dedication to the literary profession have been demonstrated." The university's press release is posted here.

I post this mostly as an excuse to talk about The Things They Carried. Last night, I picked up the newly released 20th anniversary version of the book, which has been lauded, it seems, by each one of the millions of people who read it. Add me to the list, although technically I have not read it yet. I got about halfway through, then had to set it down because of the intensity. I can't remember the last time a book had that effect on me.

One that came close? Alex Lemon's Happy. (We reviewed the TCU professor's memoir earlier this year, and Doug Swanson offered this profile.)

I finished Lemon's memoir about coping with a life-threatening brain condition less than an hour before I started O'Brien's fictionalized retelling of his Vietnam experience. I'm struck by the parallels -- both are gripping, compelling accounts that feature traumatized young men and their comrades. The language is scalpel-sharp, the emotions raw.

And, as it turns out, both men are products of Minnesota's Macalester College who have found their way to the faculty of Texas universities. That makes Texas either a magnet for traumatized writers, or excellent ones. You tell me.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," winner last year of the Man Booker Prize in London, was honored Thursday night on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The novel, set in the age of King Henry VIII, won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for fiction. It's a compassionate narrative of royal adviser Thomas Cromwell, a leading enforcer of the English Reformation and a rival of Sir Thomas More.
Mantel was not in attendance at Thursday's ceremony but issued a statement saying that she was working on a sequel and that the award is "the best possible encouragement."
Three British authors were winners Thursday: Mantel, historian Richard Holmes for general nonfiction and 92-year-old editor Diane Athill for autobiography.

It may not be "the world's most prestigious literary prize," as their e-mail claims. But Bookseller.com's Diagram Prize for oddest title of the year is easily my favorite.

This year's shortlist has just been announced. And the nominees are:

David Crompton's Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter
James A Yannes' Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich
Daina Taimina's Crocheting Adventures With Hyperbolic Planes
Ronald C Arkin's Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots
Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky's The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Tara Jansen-Meyer's What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?

Previous winners include The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60mg Containers of Fromage Frais, How to Avoid Huge Ships and the timeless Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality.

You can cast your vote at the bottom of this page. The winner will be announced March 26.

On the eve of today's release of Karl Rove's memoir, Staff writer Wayne Slater spoke with another Texas conservative -- former state Republican chairman Tom Pauken. Who has his own book out, titled Bringing America Home. Wherein he has few kind words for Rove and his former boss.

"Republican politics is barely recognizable to many of us who were grassroots activists in the early days of the conservative movement - especially after eight years of a Republican administration headed up by George W. Bush, who claimed to be a conservative," Pauken writes.

Slater is co-author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential.

And Rove can offer his defense in person next week , when he will be in the area for a series of events.

The Los Angeles Times got an early copy of the book; their review is here.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The archive of writer David Foster Wallace, best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center library and museum at the University of Texas, the center announced Monday.
Hailed as a visionary of his literary generation, Wallace suffered from depression and committed suicide in 2008 at age 46. His archive includes handwritten notes and drafts of Infinite Jest and other works, poems written as a child, his personal library and writings from college.
Material for Wallace's posthumous novel, The Pale King, will remain with his publisher until after the book's scheduled release in 2011.