Book News – Awards & Coming Soon!

 

 

Amazon & Pottermore Team Up!

It seems like all I’ve been talking about lately is Harry Potter, but never you fear… I think this is finally the capping point. Why? Because the moment we have all be waiting for has finally arrived.

The wonderful world of Harry Potter is FINALLY on Kindle!!!

Amazon.com  said on Tuesday that e-book versions of the Harry Potter (hit series by J.K. Rowling) are available to read on the company’s Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablet. But…it comes with a quirk.  Though customers can search for the Potter e-books through the company’s Kindle Store, they will be directed to the Pottermore Shop to actually BUY the books and then add them to their library.

For those of you concerned with the Pottermore shut out, (ultimately rejected any new members due to it’s overwhelming community size) that is no longer an issue.  You can still purchase the books.  Guaranteed!

So hop on over and snatch up a little magic, you know you’ve been waiting for it!

(FYI – Foreign-language versions of the Harry Potter e-books will be available through Kindle Stores worldwide in coming weeks!)

 

 

Winner Announced for 2012 Award for Fiction

 

 

Congrats to Julie Otsuka and her novel  The Buddha in the Attic  which was selected as this years winner of the 2012 PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction. It is a precise, poetic novel that tells the story of Japanese picture brides brought to California from Japan in the early twentieth century.

Ms. Otsuka and the four finalists will be celebrated during the 32nd Annual PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony, which celebrates the winning novel as “first among equals.”

The four finalists are:

  • Russell Banks for Lost Memory of Skin
  • Don DeLillo for The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories
  • Anita Desai for The Artist of Disappearance
  • Steven Millhauser for We Others: New and Selected Stories

Three judges, chosen annually by the directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, select four finalists and one winner from among the more than 350 submitted works by American authors published in the U.S. during the 2011 calendar year, making this the largest peer-juried award in the country. This year’s judges were Marita Golden, Maureen Howard, and Steve Yarbrough.

 

 

 

In Theaters Soon!

 

As always there are a few movie adaptations coming out this week.

First up…Goon, based on the book by Adam Frattasio and Doug Smith, opens in select theaters this Friday, March 30. Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Eugene Levy and Jay Baruchel star in this true story of a bouncer-turned-hockey player.

Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey chronicles the uniquely wild adventure of Doug Smith, who was determined to realize his dream of playing professional hockey, despite the fact he didn’t start skating until the age of 19. Armed with a burning desire and his only marketable athletic abilities – those honed as an amateur boxer – Doug defeated impossible odds to win a championship ring and play in the world’s second-best hockey league. Goon gives a raw and revealing insider’s look at the riotous world of minor league hockey and the most peculiar role in all of sport – the Goon, whose job is to protect teammates from opposing ruffians. Come along as Doug Smith, an outsider in the hockey world, literally fights his way to the highest level of minor league hockey. You may never view the game in the same light again.

 

Trailer

 

And, if Hockey isn’t really your thing, how about a little fairy tale magic! Mirror Mirror, loosely based on the Brothers Grimm Snow White tale, also opens this Friday, March 30. Tarsem Singh directs a cast including Julia Roberts, Sean Bean, Nathan Lane and Lily Collins.

 

Spared by her would-be executioner, Snow White finds a home with seven kindly dwarfs, but the hateful queen who wants her dead will stop at nothing to be the most beautiful woman in the land. A poisoned apple seems to send Snow White to her death, but true love brings her back, and good once again prevails.

 

 

 

Trailer

About Misty

Your friendly neighborhood narcissist. I'm sarcastic, cynical and a bit cranky. I own a soap box so big that sometimes I have difficulty stepping down off of it, and I'm about 94% certain I have multiple personalities. I don't sleep enough, and I read more than any person should ever consider normal. I have anger management issues, especially when I'm stuck in traffic and I have an unhealthy obsession with my Kindle. I am a vampire lovin', zombie obsessed, book-in-hand, iPod freak. You either love me or hate me. You be the judge.