Home > Blogs > Book Nook (Skip to blog navigation.)
Karl Rove’s memoir, Courage and Consequence came out this week. I just checked over at Amazon.com and his book is currently their best-selling book - apparently there’s a receptive market for it.
Congratulations, Karl.
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment More: booms and busts
They are still selling this book over on Amazon.com but it is bound to become a collector’s item. The publisher just sent out this notice:
“It is with deep regret that Henry Holt and Company announces that we will no longer print, correct or ship copies of Charles Pellegrino’s “The Last Train from Hiroshima” due to the discovery of dishonest sources of information for the book.
It is easy to understand how even the most diligent author could be duped by a source, but we also understand that opens that book to very detailed scrutiny. The author of any work of non-fiction must stand behind its content. We must rely on our authors to answer questions that may arise as to the accuracy of their work and reliability of their sources. Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction.
Mr. Pellegrino has a long history in the publishing world, and we were very proud and honored to publish his history of such an important historical event. But without the confidence that we can stand behind the work in its entirety, we cannot continue to sell this product to our customers.”
For more on this unfolding story click HERE:
I’m a WWII history buff so this story was a real shocker to me. Even so, I’m glad I have a copy of this book.
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment More: booms and busts
The new book by Chelsea Handler, “Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang” came out today. Her last book, “Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea” was an absolute smash. Have you read it? Do you plan to read her latest?
I might have to stick this Karl Rove book back on the shelf and switch to some intentional comedy…at least Chelsea’s fans appreciate her sense of humor.
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment More: laughable
Karl Rove’s new memoir, Courage and Consequence, came out this week. It contains some lovely memories. Here’s my favorite (so far):
Rove recalled that “At the age of nine, I decided I was for Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. I got my hands on a Nixon bumper sticker, slapped it on my bike’s wire basket, and rode up and down the block, as if that alone would get him the vote. Instead it drew the attention of a little girl who lived in the neighborhood. She had a few years and about thirty pounds on me and was enthusiastically for John F. Kennedy. She pulled me from bicycle and beat the heck out of me, leaving me with a bloody nose and a tattered ego. I’ve never liked losing a political fight since.”
Isn’t that adorable?
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (17) | Post your comment More: midnight confessions
The Apple iPad, the much ballyhooed tablet computer has been delayed. If you watched the Oscars last night you probably saw the Apple ads that claimed the iPad will be available in April. Wait a minute-wasn’t the release date supposed to be in March? This month? What happened?
Some analysts have already proclaimed the iPad will be an Amazon Kindle killer, that it could be the superior device for reading electronic books and that the Amazon Kindle’s current early eBook dominance might wither quickly after the iPad hits the market. So what is the reason for this delay?
According to a rather snarky piece today in a UK publication the Apple delay is the result of a very basic problem. Nick Farrell writing in The Inquirer thinks the delay could be the product of a software glitch. He writes:
“WHILE THE NASDAQ stock market actually rose on the news that Apple had named a date for its overpriced keyboardless netbook, no one seems to have noticed that the shipping date had slipped.
The rumour mill had been speculating that Jobs’ Mob would have to delay the launch of the Ipad but everyone assumed it would have something to do with the Chinese hardware makers that make the thing.
However, when the manufacturers said that everything was on time on their side of the Pacific, the rumour mill started to focus on the one thing that Apple does have direct control of, the Iphone OS.
John Gruber at Daring Fireball claims the software has taken longer to finish than they’d hoped. The problem apparently is in the timing of turning out the software. Obviously on a scale with Duke Nukem on one hand and being on time on the other, a couple of weeks is nothing.
However it is strange that after all this time in development something as basic as an upgrade to the Iphone OS is still not ready. If Gruber is right, then it means that the one component that it should have been easy to get ready in a year is not ready.”
The article concludes by holding the figurative lighted match under Apple while also illuminating the bloomers of any potential consumers who might be considering the purchase of an iPad. He closes with this resounding slap across the chops:
“Really what they should be saying is that if you buy this low-powered, overpriced Ipod Touch you sacrifice any credibility you might have as someone who knows technology and your mind is out to lunch with some pathetic bloke who twitters his abject worship of Steve Jobs at the Oscars.”
Yow! Is it getting warmer in here?
To peruse the entire article click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment More: The melting slushpile
“Virginia Hamilton: Speeches, Essays and Conversations” edited by Arnold Adoff and Kacy Cook (Blue Sky Press, 368 pages, $29.99)
When the author Virginia Hamilton died in 2002, her husband, the poet Arnold Adoff, could not bear to go into her office at their Yellow Springs home. Finally, he felt the will to enter.
The result is a collection of previously unpublished “speeches, essays and conversations.” Kacy Cook, Adoff’s co-editor on the project, wrote that “Arnold had found himself unable to enter Virginia’s office in the years after her death. He had taken to opening the door a crack and tossing things on the floor inside.”
In the introduction, Rudine Sims Bishop describes Hamilton’s achievements: “In the field of children’s literature, she garnered every national and international honor for which her work was eligible — the John Newberry Medal, the Coretta Scott King Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the National Book Award, the NAACP Image Award, the Hans Christian Anderson Award, to name just a few. By the close of the 20th century, she had become the most highly honored American author of children’s books.”
Hamilton grew up in Yellow Springs and attended Antioch College. Throughout her long career, she lived and wrote in the village of Yellow Springs. This collection provides insights into her craft; how she wrote, what she visualized, how she conceptualized.
In one speech, she related that “Fiction is the creation of reality. The primary subjects of fiction are emotions, beliefs, and human values. By the age of four or five, we have experienced everything we need to write fiction — love, rage, boredom, loss, guilt and fear, and even death. There is personal experience as well as the experience of observation, and both can elicit profound emotional responses in the would-be writer.”
As I perused her articulations and observations, I recalled the pleasure of conversing with Virginia. We had some memorable interviews on WYSO Public Radio.
In our 1999 interview on WYSO, she expressed her view that “I think parents should read to their children. Children should read to parents. A lot of reading should be going on — a lot of talking. A lot of people don’t talk to one another.”
Yellow Springs was a good place for her to work. People left her alone. She said, “Writers write by themselves. I go for months without seeing many people. A lot of times, people think I’m not in town because I’m not here physically; I’m at my work.”
She talked about her awards: “It’s very nice to have them. It sort of gives me courage — like reading Faulkner early in the morning, which is something I do sometimes.”
It was splendid to read this collection and to hear her voice again on my old tapes. Her intellect dazzled me and she could say offbeat things. She loved the rural space around Yellow Springs — she said, “I always feel that the grain silos look like spaceships.”
This year, the American Library Association presented its first Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: we remember
These flowers are blooming though the snow in my yard. They are so lovely, so hardy, pushing their gentle blossoms up through the ice.
Tune in to WYSO (91.3fm) this Sunday morning. I’ll be broadcasting live from the WYSO studios. They will be airing my interview with one of the sharpest cultural critics in America. Tune in at 10:30 to find out who she is. I’ll be on until noon. I hope you can listen.
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment More: heard on the radio
Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..
Vick Mickunas reviews books for the Dayton Daily News.
In a hurry? ActiveDayton.com's twice-a-week e-mail newsletter lets you know the top five things to do in the area twice a week. Sign up
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Copyright © 2010 Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA. All rights reserved.
By using this site, you accept the terms of our Visitors Agreement and Privacy Policy. You may wish to note our other business policies.
Stabbing leads to police chase
Lebanon, Kings lacrosse
Cub Scouts Visit Homless
Latest comment
Leon, would you like to borrow a bar of soap and apply it liberally to that blasphemous language of