"I asked them, what do you think about the [Beatles] songs? And a handful of them said, 'I have never heard of a Beatles songs (sic) in my life . . ."Granted, on the above quote, John Lennon's In My Life is probably not one of their more popular tunes, but I can't believe these young whippersnappers haven't heard of I Want to Hold Your Hand, Let It Be, or at the very least, Hey Jude. Now get off my lawn before I throw an onion from my belt at those damn kids!
--Ryan 'The Imp' Seacrest on American Idols' Beatles' week
1) THE NICKELODEON BOOK AWARDS . . . I've never been a huge fan of book awards. It's all very subjective. Nobody is better at being obscurely subjective year after year than the American Library Association. My children are older now so I'm not exposed to a lot of the young children literature anymore, but I don't think I could have predicted first-time author Clare Vanderpool's Moon Over Manifest (9780385738835) 16.99 to win the Newbery Award, or that first-time illustrator Erin Stead would win the Caldecott Award for A Sick Day for Amos McGee (9781596434028) 16.99. There were other awards in an ever-burdgeoning series of categories that you can see at http://www.ala.org/ and then click on the awards link. Let's face it, the majority of people are only interested in the Newbery and the Caldecott. We are expecting more copies of Moon Over Manifest tomorrow, so get your backorders in promptly. We're still waiting to hear when we'll see more copies of the Caldecott winner. I dunno, maybe someone should write a children's book on the Beatles . . .
2) NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET . . . Censorship and Mark Twain do not go hand in hand. In fact I wish that Mark Twain or at least a zombie-like fascimile were around right now to address the recent news that NewSouth, Inc. is publishing an expurgated version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (9780553210798) 5.95. I imagine that he would be none to happy about this recent turn of events, and we would probably hear him cussing all the way from Hannibal, MO. And rightly so. Apparently, NewSouth feels that the 'N-word' and the 'I-word' should be removed, which detracts from the point Mr. Twain was making about how bad these words are, and, of course, it is used in the context of the times. Humph! And by the way, we do have copies of The Autobiography of Mark Twain (9780520267190) 34.95 in stock . . .
3) BORK! BORK! BORK! After the success of Stieg Larsson's books, it seems that every publisher is searching for the next blockbuster Swedish mystery/action/suspense/thriller. The latest entry is Three Seconds (9781402785924) 24.95 by Roslund & Hellstrom. As Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philly would say, "The authors look really badass on the backcover."
Odds & Sods
I was saddened to learn from Sandy, the long-time manager at Best Books in Jackson, MI. that they will be closing their doors in two weeks. We wish Sandy and her staff the best of luck in the coming days . . .
KCI's holiday sleeper 365: The Best Wisconsin Sports Stories Day By Day (9780984388288) 27.95 by Dale Hofmann and Cliff Christl are back in stock. From Borchert Field opening in Milwaukee in 1889 to Brett Favre's return as a Minnesota Viking, everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask about Wisconsin sports is here in one volume. Order yours today!
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