For the Love of (Old) Books: Cornell’s Rare & Manuscript Collection
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November 22, 2011

Remember creating time capsules in elementary school? Perhaps you had to imagine what you would place inside: a front page of the daily newspaper, a cassette tape, or maybe a favorite toy? Such a capsule exists at the special collections department at Cornell University-but instead of relying on a shoebox full of ancient knick knacks, this awe-inspiring collection of literary material uses books to tell… [Read More]

Banquet of Books: Austin Jewish Book Fair 2011
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November 19, 2011

It seems fitting that the People of the Book, known for these words of wisdom—“essen epes” (eat something)—should open a book fair with a banquet. The 28th annual Austin Jewish Book Fair, held November 3-12 at the Austin Jewish Community Center (JCC), started with the Book Lovers Luncheon, featuring five-time National Book Award nominee, Melissa Fay Greene, discussing her memoir: No Biking in the House… [Read More]

Review: And the Dead Shall Rise
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November 17, 2011

In 2009, when my boss offered me tickets to see the musical “Parade,” I of course said “yes.” I knew that “Parade” retells the story of Leo Frank, the German-Jewish superintendent of Atlanta’s National Pencil Factory, who was convicted of slaying 13-year-old factory worker, Mary Phagan, in 1913. Later, when Frank’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison, an angry mob sprung him from… [Read More]

History of a Suicide by Jill Bialosky
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November 10, 2011

An endless loop of images, sounds, and events play in the theatre of my horrified mind. Specific details brand themselves red hot into memory. The hour, the day, the week, the month, the year, the decade before it happened replay backward and forward as my mind searches for clues to the mystery of my lover’s suicide two years ago. As a reader, I rode a… [Read More]

Featured Local Bookstores: The Bookery
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November 8, 2011

This is the second “Featured Local Bookstores” post that has focused on a bookstore located in downtown Ithaca’s Dewitt Mall. Until 2006, The Bookery and Buffalo Street Books used to be known as Bookery I and Bookery II. Now, however, it is the only bookery in town that offers “an extensive selection of used and rare books, available in our store and online at thebookery.com…. [Read More]

“Almost Everything Takes Forever”: Poems by Kirsten Wasson
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November 3, 2011

“A novel, biography, and memoir, all/three going at once.” This is how Kirsten Wasson describes her mother’s voracious literary appetite in the poem “One Way to Read.” The two lines, however, could well have been written to describe the author’s new collection of poems, Almost Everything Takes Forever, published by Antrim House Books. It is a lush, lithe, witty, emotionally frank series of postcards from… [Read More]

A Texas-Size Book Festival
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November 1, 2011

Austin hosted the  16th Texas Book Festival at the state capitol building October 22-23 with 250 authors presenting and 35,000 in attendance. Los Angeles may boast the much larger Los Angeles Times Festival of Book, which attracts as many as 140,000 visitors; but when you compare LA’s population of 9.8 million to Austin’s 800,000, you see that Austin pulled off a bigger, per capita turn out…. [Read More]

Building a new kind of bookstore business
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October 29, 2011

There’s a new bookstore in Athens, Georgia, with a different kind of business model. After four years of planning, learning, getting financing in place and finding the perfect location at 493 Prince Avenue, Janet Geddis opened Avid Bookshop this month. Last Friday night’s grand opening celebration crowded customers into tight corners and out the doors into the streets like a festival. Listen to this podcast… [Read More]

The Fallback Plan
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October 27, 2011

After the endless commencement ceremony, the cap toss, and the droning luncheons with family and friends, comes the panic-induced question asked by the college graduate: What next?  Debut author Leigh Stein accurately captures this bewilderment and sense of loss experienced by so many Generation Yer’s post-college in her first novel The Fallback Plan (Melville 2012) due out in January. Esther Kohler- Stein’s Juno-esque protagonist- graduated… [Read More]

37 Sketches by Gwen Marston (Six Mile Creek Press)
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October 25, 2011

Tuesday’s Gone Local columns have featured “local” bookstores and publishers. This past year opened with Six Mile Creek Press signing a publishing contract for my clients’ manuscript, Dear Friend Amelia. Mary Jordan and Joyce Hatch collaborated with Ron Ostmun and Harry Littell at Six Mile Creek Press here in Ithaca to produce letters and images from the Civil War in a beautiful book. Six Mile Creek Press approaches… [Read More]