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Literary Masters of Suspense Celebrate Thrillers Alongside Troops

Categories: authors, Operation Thriller, thrillers Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
By savvybookworm on November 8, 2012

Once again, the International Thriller Writers and the USO have joined forces for Operation Thriller III, a 10-day, four-country tour to the Middle East with five of the world’s most thrilling authors.

Bestselling thriller authors Kathleen Antrim, Michael Connelly, Joseph Finder, Brad Meltzer and Andy Harp toured eight U.S. bases in Turkey, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries, boosting troop morale, leading Q&A sessions with the soldiers, signing books and “coining” our country’s heroes with the 2012 International Thriller Writers (ITW) commemorative challenge coins of appreciation.

“The tour isn’t about authors,” said Capital Offense author, Kathleen Antrim. “It’s about our troops, hearing their stories, and being able to give back to those who sacrifice so much for us.”

For the authors, the trip provided an opportunity to thank the soldiers for their service and to meet real-life heroes, beyond the heroes within the pages of their books.

“We suspense novelists write stories about fictional heroes.  How great for us to have the chance to meet the real-life heroes, the men and women who help keep us all safe — America’s troops,” said Joe Finder, who penned favorites such as Buried Secrets, Vanished, Company Man and High Crimes.

“We write about characters who stand up for others even at great risk to themselves,” added  Michael Connelly, author of nail-biters such as the forthcoming The Black Box, The Lincoln Lawyer, and The Drop. “Now we get to meet real people who do that for us in real life on a day in and day out basis. If nothing else, we just want to say thanks.”

As a small token of their thanks, the authors distributed the commemorative ITW challenge coins, which are traditionally given to soldiers by their unit commanders for exceptional actions.

“Throughout my entire career, our troops have been writing me, sending photos, thanking me for the entertainment,” said The Inner Circle author Brad Meltzer.  “But let’s be honest:  they’re the ones who deserve the thanks.  This is nothing but an honor to me.”

This was an especially significant trip for Northern Thunder author Andy Harp, a retired Colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserves.

“Every minute of every day,” said Andy, “someone is standing at the gate, watching it, guarding it for the rest of us. Operation Thriller is our small way of saying thank you to those that serve.”

O.M.G. Winston, You’re Not Going to Believe This

Categories: history Tags: , ,
By savvybookworm on August 7, 2012

Reprinted from DailyMail.co.uk, by Emily Allen, August 7, 2012.

It’s one of the most common phrases of the modern technological age coined by celebrities like Paris Hilton and used by teenage girls across Britain and America.

However, it seems O.M.G. is actually very ‘last century’.

It has emerged that the British admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher first penned the acronym in a letter to Winston Churchill as far back as 1917.

Lord ‘Jacky’ Fisher, as he was known, used it in a letter to the famous wartime prime minister about some ‘utterly [upsetting]‘ World War I newspaper headlines.

He wrote: ‘I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G (Oh! My! God!)— Shower it on the Admiralty!!’

The phrase, added to the Oxford English Dictionary last year, is the colloquial abbreviation for ‘Oh My God’, generally used in conversations to express surprise, embarrassment, excitement and disgust, according to the Urban Dictionary.

It’s normally associated with teenage girls and the phrase was thought to have originated from online chat rooms, most commonly used in online games, web chats and in text messages. 

It is frequently heard on reality TV shows too, including The Only Way is Essex.

It’s a far cry from the upper-class world of Lord Fisher who was one of the most celebrated officers in the history of the Royal Navy.

Lord Fisher began his career during the Crimean War and ended it during the First World War.

He is widely credited for materially preparing the fleet for war, introducing the world’s first all-big-gun battleship Dreadnought.

However, he resigned as First Sea Lord in 1915 after falling out with the then First Lord Winston Churchill over the commitment to the Dardanelles expedition.

However, O.M.G is not the first modern day phrase which seems to have surprising historic routes.

LOL, now defined as ‘laughing out loud’, was first used in 1960 to denote ‘little old lady’.

Dennis Rodman Pens Children’s Book

Categories: Children's literature Tags: , ,
By savvybookworm on August 3, 2012

Reprinted from the NY Daily News, by Kate Sullivan, July 31.

No, this isn’t a sign of the apocalypse, but it’s close: Dennis Rodman, once perhaps the weirdest players in the NBA, has written a children’s book entitled “Dennis the Wild Bull.” The book will be released in September and, according to the book’s blog, it is being dedicated to Rodman’s children. Interested readers can pre-order signed copies of the book for $30 dollars, however for now the plot of the book remains unknown.

The book is co-authored by Dustin Warburton, a screenwriter and children’s author who has also co-authored books with 2011 Hall of Fame boxer Kostya Tszyu and Jesse James Leija. The book’s illustrations are by Dan Monroe.

According to the book’s website, the book has “the sole purpose of conveying good lessons to children based on Dennis’s own experiences as a world class athlete while overcoming obstacles as a child.”

Darren Prince, Rodman’s agent, told Page Views that details will most likely be released in the next week.

“It’s just really about the character, more about being comfortable in your own skin and that it’s okay to be different,” Prince said.

Prince said that the book is Rodman’s “own way of reaching out to his own children after everything that’s happened.”

Rodman recently went through a difficult divorce and had to spend time away from his kids. Additionally, Prince noted that book comes as a sort of healing process for Rodman, who has recently reconnected with his estranged father after 40 years.

“It’s a great step in the right direction for Dennis,” Prince told Page Views.

Prince expects that there will be a large book tour and noted that several conventions have already shown an interest.

The question remains, will Rodman don a wig and white dress for this book launch? He famously showed up to a New York bookstore wearing a wedding dress to promote his 1996 autobiography, “Bad As I Wanna Be.”

Rowling Starts Harry Potter Book Club for Young Readers

Categories: book clubs, Children's literature Tags: , ,
By savvybookworm on July 31, 2012

Reprinted from Reuters.com, by Patricia Reaney, July 31, 2012

Author J.K. Rowling launched an online book club for young readers on Tuesday and will appear in a live global webcast in October from Edinburgh, Scotland, to speak with her fans about the magical world of Harry Potter. Rowling’s U.S. publisher, Scholastic, which developed the Harry Potter Reading Club website, said it will be a destination for fans of the British boy wizard and a tool for parents and teachers who want to set up book clubs to introduce children to the joys of reading. “Scholastic has been in conversation with educators, librarians and other book lovers about ideas for bringing the Harry Potter books to new readers in exciting and different ways,” Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic Trade, said in a statement announcing the club. “The Harry Potter Reading Club is a direct response to that feedback and provides an entry point through which the thrill of these books can be shared with new generations of Harry Potter fans both within and beyond the classroom.” The live webcast with Rowling from her hometown will be presented by the club at noon EDT (0500 GMT) on October 11 at www.scholastic.com/hpreadingclub. Scholastic, which described the webcast as a “live virtual author visit to classrooms,” said it will be Rowling’s first opportunity since 2007 to interact with young readers and to discuss Pottermore, www.pottermore.com, a website launched in April to help fans navigate through the tales of wizardry and witchcraft. The Harry Potter Reading Club will include a guide for everything about the boy wizard, an overview of the series of Harry Potter books that have sold an estimated 450 million copies worldwide and were transformed into eight hit movies, and information about Rowling, the world’s first author billionaire. Scholastic said it will add activities on the site every month.

Vote for the 100 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time

Categories: young adult Tags: ,
By savvybookworm on July 26, 2012

Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times, by Carolyn Kellogg, July 24, 2012.

Holden Caufield is battling it out with Weetzie Bat. John Green is going up against Madeleine L’Engle. A Salman Rushdie fable faces off against Anne McCaffrey’s dragons. It’s a race to determine the 100 best young adult novels ever, in a poll online now at NPR.

After soliciting nominations from listeners, NPR selected a whopping 235 reads for the first round of polling. That’s “reads,” not “books,” because the list includes several series, such as Harry Potter, “The Princess Diaries” and “Uglies.” There is a healthy mix of classics in with the contemporary books, so gray-haired readers should feel as comfortable voting as teenagers will.

Last summer, when NPR asked listeners to help come up with a list of 100 best science fiction books, the top spot was taken by J.R.R. Tolkein’s “The Lord of the Rings.” That’s also on this YA list, as are other top finishers, including No. 2, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, and No. 7, “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury.

Wait, “Fahrenheit 451″ is a novel for young adults?

In making their decisions, the judges defined “young adult” as readers ages 12 to 18, which meant that many coming-of-age novels (such as “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume) skewed too young. They decided some books could be classified as young adult in the poll based on themes, reading level, age of characters and whether the book is one that teens voluntarily read.

The four judges are Diane Roback, children’s book editor at Publishers Weekly; Pamela Paul, children’s book editor at the New York Times Book Review; Tasha Robinson, book editor of the Onion’s A.V. Club; and Ted Shelvan, a teacher librarian in Washington state who chairs the committee choosing the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Assn.) list of best young adult fiction.

Readers who want to vote online for their favorites aren’t limited to just one. Each reader gets 10 votes. The results will be posted in a few weeks.


It’s Fur Real: World’s Smartest Dog Gets a Book Contract

Categories: Pets Tags: , , ,
By savvybookworm on July 19, 2012

Reprinted from the Daily News, by Peter Enzinna, July 19, 2012.

 

No, a dog didn’t write a book, but this may be the next best thing. John Pilley, who with Alliston Reid trained Chaser, a Border Collie with the largest tested memory of any dog, has reportedly signed a six-figure deal with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to publish “The World’s Smartest Dog,” the story of the pup’s extraordinary talents, in fall 2013. (Photo: Wofford College, via Discovery News)

Chaser’s prodigious memory was the subject of a 2010 article in The New Scientist, and she’s on tape recognizing objects, categories, and commands galore. She has a vocabulary of just over 1,000 words – several times as many as the previous record holder, Rico, according to TIME magazine. (Rico’s 200 words seem relatively paltry, but remember, he was a dog.)

Chaser’s training, which involved intense repetition and recollection exercises, addressed questions of how much dogs could really understand of spoken human language. In applying various commands and categories, Pilley “[demonstrated] conclusively that Chaser understood that the verb had a meaning” outside of the object to which it referred.

Pilley’s book, while presumably no “Marley and Me,” should provide an insightful look into one dog’s interactions with the world around her, and the implications of her tremendous capacity to learn its ways. A six-figure deal is just the latest in a string of new tricks from this team.

 

Encyclopedia Brown Author Dies at 87

Categories: Children's literature Tags: ,
By savvybookworm on July 17, 2012

Donald Sobol, author of the beloved children’s book series “Encyclopedia Brown,” died Wednesday in Miami. He was 87.

Sobol was born in New York and served in World War II. After going to college at Oberlin, he worked as a journalist in New York, then left to pursue a writing career in 1951. Although he was having some success, his “Encyclopedia Brown” manuscript was turned down two dozen times before it found a publisher.

The first book, “Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective” was published by T. Nelson in 1963. It proved so popular that Sobol was soon following up with more stories about the 10-year-old Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown and his partner, tomboy Sally Kimball. Eventually, there would be almost 30 books in the series, which has never gone out of print.

A fund in memory of Donald Sobol has been set up at the New York Public Library.

Sobol had moved with his wife and family from New York to Florida in 1961; the “Encyclopedia Brown” series was set in the fictional Florida town Idaville. Sobol tried to retain a measure of anonymity; he did not grant television interviews and preferred not to be photographed. “I am very content with staying in the background and letting the books do the talking,” he told the Oberlin alumni magazine  in 2011.

Before “Encyclopedia Brown,” Sobol had been publishing historical nonfiction aimed at children, with titles that included “The Double Quest” and “The Lost Dispatch: A Story of Antietam.” He had a hit with the short column “Two Minute Mysteries,” which was syndicated by newspapers from 1959-68.

Sobol, who continued writing into his 80s, used his own experience as a lesson for aspiring writers. “Persevere, and don’t take no for an answer,” he said. “And if you really think [the publishers] are right, then look over the manuscript and polish it a little more.”

Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2012.

Beatrix Potter’s Original Drawings Sell for $95,000

Categories: Children's literature, classics, Illustration Tags: , , ,
By savvybookworm on July 12, 2012

Art and book collectors alike can delight in the recent sale of a series of original, rare Beatrix Potter illustrations through Sotheby’s. Today in London a set of four watercolors of “This Pig Went To Market” sold for $95,000.

The illustrations were originally published in “Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes,” published in 1922. The first drawings shows a colonial looking pig riding a horse and cart to the market while another pig lounges on the fence with the intent of staying home. To accompany the text “This Pig had a bit of Meat; This Pig had none,” the second illustration shows a grandmotherly pig frying meat (we’re hoping it’s not pork), while another pig-companion peels potatoes. A third drawing brings the rhyme to a close, depicting an adorable weeping pig who can’t find its way home.

Reprinted from The Huffington Post, July 10, 2012.

 

Are Our Dogs Really That Excited to See Us When We Return Home?

Categories: Dogs, Psychology Tags: , ,
By savvybookworm on July 9, 2012

They may be called “man’s best friends,” but dogs remain mysterious to their human companions. What do we really know about them except that they love us? Or is even that an illusion?

No, says Stanley Coren, author of “Do Dogs Dream?: Nearly Everything Your Dog Wants You to Know” (W.W. Norton: 290 pp., $23.95), a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of British Columbia.

“Science has progressed, and we have now come to understand that dogs have all of the same brain structures that produce emotions in humans,” explains Coren, although he also cautions us not to make too much of this. “[I]t is important,” he adds, “not to go overboard and immediately assume that the emotional ranges of dogs and humans are the same.”

In other words, when Fido starts wagging his tail wildly as you walk up the driveway at the end of the day, don’t misunderstand: That pooch is definitely thrilled to see you. It’s just that his notions of attachment are a little different than ours.

Coren explores many areas of canine behavior — including whether they sweat or dream. “[I]t would be more surprising if dogs didn’t dream,” he writes, considering those similarities in their brains.

At the same time, he addresses various myths and anecdotes that have arisen around canine behavior. Can dogs, for instance, detect cancer? Some medical tests seem to suggest that their noses can uncover lung, bladder, breast and other cancers. “Perhaps sometime in the future, that ‘lab test’ you get for possible cancer may well come in the form of some educated sniffing by a Labrador Retriever,” Coren muses.

Maybe so, but for now I think I’ll put my trust in a CT scan.

 

Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times, by Nick Owcha,  July 8, 2012

 

Reading Rainbow Returns…This Time to iPad

Categories: childrens, reading Tags: , ,
By savvybookworm on July 6, 2012

“I genuinely believe we have an opportunity to revolutionize how we educate our children,” LeVar Burton says. “We just have to marshal the will to get it done.”

Burton, of course, is the actor who hosted and produced “Reading Rainbow,” the PBS television series geared toward early readers. With a 23-year run, the show was PBS’ third-longest series, but it’s been off the air since 2006. Now it’s coming back as — what else? — an iPad app.

The Times’ Michelle Maltais talked to Burton about the Reading Rainbow app.

[I]n June, Burton and business partner Mark Wolfe launched the multimedia-infused “reading adventure” app. “Educational technology is what we need to get it done,” he said, noting that paper’s days as a storytelling medium are likely numbered. “And if we marry educational technology with quality, enriching content, that’s a circle of win.”…

The app currently offers 150 books, curated to appeal to children ages 3 to 9 — kids who are “on the cusp of cracking the code and [who] just cracked the code, setting the lifelong pattern for whether they will be a reader or not,” Burton said.

As a nostalgic nod to those of us who still harbor an emotional connection to the show, Burton said they spent months producing 16 video field trips, with more to come soon.

Burton has legions of book-loving fans who remember “Reading Rainbow,” but that’s not his only iconic role. He also played Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge, the blind navigator on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and was Kunta Kinte, the star role in the award-winning 1977 miniseries “Roots.” These days, Burton — who describes himself as actor-director-educator-student — shares his thoughts on Twitter with 1.7 million followers.

The Reading Rainbow app is free to download and provides limited access to its content. Subscriptions allow kids unlimited access to the books, using a vibrant interface to create engaging storytelling; young readers earn rewards for their progress. A monthly subscription is $9.99, or $29.99 covers six months.

 

Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times.

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