I’m in love with a soldier.  His name is Richard and he wears a green jacket and carries a cavalry sword—a big heavy one meant for killing, not fencing.  He is an officer but be aware that he is no gentleman, something his  fellow officers continually mention.  His best comrade in arms is named Harper and he has a darling Donegal accent and a Nock gun.  It  shoots seven volleys at once and it’s a good thing Harper’s  a big boy because the recoil from that gun will break the shoulders of most men.   They both came up hard.  Richard enlisted to escape the law and Patrick was just looking for a few square meals.  They did well in the army, rising to unimaginable ranks and winding up richer than anyone could have believed thanks to all the loot they captured.   I met them through the magic of PBS and the BBC but I got to know them both better when I read their stories.

Of course, Richard and Patrick only exist between the covers of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe’s novels.  I love historical fiction but for the most part have always shied away from the stuff meant for the guys and stuck more closely with Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.  I’ll admit it, I skim the battle scenes in Cornwell’s books because there is some stuff I just don’t want to know.  However, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about the Napoleonic Wars and in a manner so pleasant I was hooked before I realized what was actually happening.  I gave Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey a try as well, since they are contemporaries of Richard’s, but despite the fine writing and sterling research of C.S. Forester and Patrick O’Brien, it appears that I prefer soldiers to sailors.  Go Army!

I have to thank DCPLive’s own Jimmy for blogging about National Novel Writing Month last year because now the portmanteau “NaNoWriMo” is forever lodged into my brain. I ran out of time last year before I could reach the 50,000 word count (the number of words necessary to claim novel-writing success on the official website). Also, I just really couldn’t resist the urge to chuck the ideas that I grew frustrated with while racing the NaNoWriMo clock, thus completely missing the point of this particular exercise in freewriting and perseverance. So I’m going to give it another shot this year (though I’m now down by four days). So…thanks, Jimmy!

There are several books in DCPL to help you along the path to creating and finessing the novel of your dreams. Here are two that I like so far:

The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways To Bring Fiction To Life by Noah Lukeman: After you hammer out your NaNoWriMo novella, you may be wondering how to make it readable (and perhaps even enjoyable) to the masses. This is a great little book full of helpful hints and practical exercises for developing characters and plot.

Your Novel Proposal: From Creation to Contract by Blythe Camenson and Marshall J.Cook: Now that you’ve drafted a winning manuscript, take a look at this book. I really like the fact that it provides in-depth guides to conquering the more administrative aspects of authorship such as searching for an agent and submitting query letters. But first things first…let’s just make it through Novel Writing November and think about this other stuff later.

Happy Writing, ya’ll!

Right now many adults are revisiting (and perhaps introducing their kids to) the 1963 classic Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, thanks largely to the new film adaptation of the book from director Spike Jonze. From the critics salivating over the new film to readers and scholars with fond memories of Sendak’s book, most fans agree that Where The Wild Things Are is impeccable in its celebration of childhood imagination and groundbreaking in its recognition of childhood angst and anger, even. But you can troll the web yourself for in-depth critical analysis of the book–I’ll try to steer clear of all of that.

In my day-to-day library work, I’m often stumbling onto old childhood favorites of mine, books that resonated for one reason or another. Here are a few of the ones that are truly special to me:

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe: I remember truly enjoying this book, not for the intriguing Cinderella-esque story alone but also because of Steptoe’s gorgeous and evocative illustrations. The thing that struck me most about the artwork was that it seemed to have so much richness and texture. The illustrations had this quality about them that made me want to reach out and touch the characters.

Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard: To this day, this book reminds me of my 4th grade teacher Miss Armstrong. She was a very sweet lady but my class sort of took her kindness for weakness. Miss Armstrong would have done well to have a raven-haired alter ego like Miss Viola Swamp, with scary make-up and even scarier temperament.

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats: As a kid growing up in Atlanta, where the snowy days are few and far between, it was a real treat reading about the travails of little Peter in the beautifully snow-covered city.

Also, I’ve found some great adult books that celebrate the works of some of the great authors of children’s literature:

The Art of Maurice Sendak by Selma G. Lanes: This book is a smorgasbord for Sendak fans that features essays on his life, his career and his body of work as an illustrator and author. My favorite things about this book so far are the pages (three foldout pages!) of his brilliant artwork and a facsimile of “Where The Wild Horses Are“, the prototype of what would become the aforementioned Sendak masterpiece.

The Art of Eric Carle: This incredible book reflects upon the life and the art of legendary (and one of my favorite) children’s author Eric Carle. Much like Carle’s stunning book illustrations and artwork, this book is multi-textured and very colorful, an insightful collage of autobiography, essays and tributes from his peers and admirers.

Do you remember your favorite books from childhood? What are the qualities that make these books truly special?

“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.”
- Stanley Horowitz

Yesterday was the first official day of Autumn and I couldn’t be happier.  Even though we Georgians probably have at least a month to go before the advent of cooler, crisper weather or the rich, stunning appearance of fall foliage, I’m anxiously anticipating the coming months.

Autumn has always been my favorite season. September meant going back to school and getting back into the hustle-and-bustle of school life (this zeal for academics usually wore off in about a month). October has always been great because of chillier weather and Halloween candy. And November is the best time of the season as the fall colors are at their most potent and Thanksgiving is in the air.

I have a lot that I’d love to say about the way that autumn makes me feel but so many great writers, poets and thinkers have already spoken so eloquently about the season. So I’ve included some more really amazing quotes about fall. Please don’t be shy about sharing your own thoughts on the glories (or the agonies, even) of autumn:

“Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.  What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?
- Hal Borland

“No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face.”
- John Donne

“Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for
biting winds than genial breezes.  Autumn is the mellower season,
and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.”
- Samuel Butler

Whatever your taste in books, if you’ve spent much time in a library or bookstore over the past 20 years it’s likely you’ve at least heard of Neil Gaiman. A successful author in a variety of different genres (including science fiction, fantasy, and horror, as well as graphic novels, books for children, and screenplays for television and film), he has been the recipient of numerous awards, most notably the Nebula, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy Awards, as well as the 2009 Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book (which also won the Hugo for best book and Locus award for best YA novel). He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and two of his books (Stardust and Coraline) have been adapted into major motion pictures (we carry both adaptations in the DCPL catalog, and they can be located here, and here, respectively).

The website Shelfari (a literary oriented social networking site which allows members to build a virtual bookshelf to display books they’ve read) recently posted an article on Neil Gaiman and his personal library. The idea was, as stated by the author of the piece, “you can learn a lot about someone by seeing what’s on his or her bookshelf…[so] we thought it would be fun to take a look at what’s on the bookshelves of some of our favorite authors.”

Mr. Gaiman’s home library is impressive, both in terms of quantity and quality. A perusal of his bookshelves reveals a man with an eclectic and varied taste, exactly what one would expect from such a talented and wide-ranging author.

If you are interested in learning more about Neil Gaiman, his website offers a wealth of information about his life, work, and current activities. You can also check out his author profile on Shelfari or follow him on Twitter. And for those who have never read anything by him but are looking for a good place to start, allow me to recommend a couple of my favorites:

The Sandman graphic novel series is, in a word, brilliant. It has been critically acclaimed, being one of very few comics to ever make it onto the NY Times bestseller list as well as have been selected as one of Entertainment Weekly’s “100 best reads from 1983 to 2008“.  Although DCPL doesn’t carry the entire series, we do carry the first collection of issues I read, entitled The Doll’s House, which is a fine place to start exploring the series, as well as its  follow up installments: Dream Country and Season of Mists.

American Gods was awarded the Hugo and Nebula awards (among others) and tells the story of Shadow, an ex-con who learns upon his release from prison that both his wife and best friend died the previous day in a car accident, leaving him with no one to come home to. Offered a job as a bodyguard by a mysterious man named Wednesday, Shadow travels with him around the country, slowly learning of a weird and dangerous world he never knew existed, and the Gods, old and new, that inhabit it.

Check them both out. You won’t be disappointed.

September is Celebrate Roald Dahl Month (well, according to the Roald Dahl website, at least) as September 13 marked what would have been his 93rd birthday. Dahl is known for his quirky and imaginative books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. A few of his books have been adapted into animated and live action films and love or hate these movie remakes, there is another one on its way.

Fantastic Mr. Fox has been made into a stop-motion animated feature film written and produced by my all-time favorite filmmaker, Wes Anderson of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums fame. The film enlists an all-star cast and I have to say, it looks pretty great. You can watch the trailer here. Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of my favorite Dahl books and it will definitely require a reread before the movie comes out.

By the way, here is an interesting fact that you may or may not know: Roald Dahl wrote the screenplays for both of Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and James Bond You Only Live Twice. You can read more fun facts in the Roald Dahl biography, D is for Dahl: A Gloriumptous A-Z Guide to the World of Roald Dahl.

While the movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is not due to be released for another two months, there are plenty of Wild related things to keep our anticipation at bay and ensure that we will be ready to experience Spike Jonze’s movie to its fullest. If it has been awhile since you’ve read Sendak’s 1964 Caldecott winning book, you can check it out at the Library which has copies in English, Spanish and Chinese. If you haven’t seen the original movie trailer yet, which is pretty awesome, you can do so here.  And lucky us! A new trailer was released a couple of weeks ago, giving us a little bit more insight as to how they’ve taken a 10 sentence book and turned it into a feature-length film.

There are numerous people out there blogging about pretty much everything Wild related, but one of the coolest sites I’ve found is Terrible Yellow Eyes. The blogger was so inspired by Where the Wild Things Are that he set up a site that pays tribute to the book and its author. Artists from all over the world send in their own artistic reproductions of the book and the site is updated frequently.

The movie has been an enormous undertaking which has spanned many years and has involved hundreds of people. Check out Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are blog, We Love You So, to learn how the movie came to be.

And don’t forget to pre-order your Where the Wild Things Are figurines!

Do you have any fun Where the Wild Things Are sites to share?

The literary world lost a great talent on Thursday July 23rd when E. Lynn Harris suddenly passed away on a train to Los Angeles.  Details of his death are not yet known. The part-time Atlanta resident and best selling author had been on a West coast tour in support of his new novel Basketball Jones.  All ten of his previous novels have hit the New York Times bestseller list.

As a gay man with a tumultuous childhood, Harris often wrote about African-American men who publicly identify themselves as heterosexual but privately sleep with men. In an AJC blog post, Philip Rafshoon, Owner of Outwrite Books in Midtown, recalled  Harris’ early literary career in Atlanta, including him spending $25,000 of his own money to self-publish his debut novel Invisible Life in the early 90s.

Harris was born in Little Rock, AR and called many cities his home during his lifetime, but most recently had been dividing his time between Atlanta and Fayetteville, AR.  In addition, he has often read his works at our library.  You can hear a podcast recording of his last Georgia Center for the Book reading at the Decatur Library by clicking here.

With just a smidgeon of summer remaining, there is still plenty of fun to be had.  One event on the horizon is the 20th Annual National Black Arts Festival that begins today, July 29 through August 2. Among the notable performers, speakers and guests on the roster are actor/filmmaker/producer Robert Townsend (check out his independent film classic Hollywood Shuffle),author Nelson George and a tribute to one of my favorite singers Nina Simone by great vocalists such as Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright. This promises to be a truly special event in celebration of African cultural heritage in through film, theatre, dance, literature, music and art. Check out the festival’s website for more information . Don’t you wanna go?

Francis “Frank” McCourt, an Irish-American high school teacher and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, died July 19 at the age of 73. He is best known as the author of Angela’s Ashes, a gripping memoir about his childhood growing up in both America and Ireland during the 1930s and 1940s. Angela’s Ashes was awarded the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, as well as the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award (Biography) and the 1997 Boeke Prize. It’s success led to it’s adaptation as a feature film released in 1999 by Paramount Pictures. Along with Angela’s Ashes, McCourt has published two additional autobiographical works which continue chronicling his life after his move back to America. ‘Tis examines his experiences attempting to acclimate to life in New York City, his stint in the Army, and his attendance and eventual graduation from NYU and later Brooklyn College, while Teacher Man focuses mainly on his life as a teacher in NYC public high schools. In addition to his autobiographical works, McCourt has also written a children’s picture book entitled Angela and the Baby Jesus and appeared as the host of a travel DVD entitled The Historic Pubs of Dublin. For those interested in more information on Mr. McCourt, Time magazine has published an obituary replete with details of his life and work. Additionally, I have linked to a NY Times piece wherein several of his former students have written letters sharing their recollections of him and the affect he had on their lives.

“My dream was to have a Library of Congress catalog number, that’s all,” said McCourt, speaking of his modest hopes for the success of Angela’s Ashes. It went on to sell over 5 million copies. Sometimes dreams come true, and then some. E 184.I6 .M117 1996