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Penguin Group (USA) Has Top Three Bestsellers Across the United States

The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan (Penguin Press), Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin), and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) have been topping the Amazon bestseller rankings, and are also been dominating bestseller lists across the nation. The Age of Turbulence debuts at #1 on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list; Eat, Pray, Love is #1 for the 21st straight week on The New York Times nonfiction paperback bestseller list; and A Thousand Splendid Suns is holding strong at #2, in its 18th week on the list, for the week of October 7th.

Garrison Keillor Wins 2007 John Steinbeck Award

Viking Penguin author Garrison Keillor received the 2007 John Steinbeck Award this week in Northern California. In presenting the award to Keillor, Thomas Steinbeck said, quoting his father: "The basic responsibility of all committed artists must be to remind people of their own inherent and unwavering humanity, and to do so without critical bias. The artist must learn to rely upon and nurture empathy and compassion, and do so with a joyful heart." Then he added: "Garrison Keillor is our choice for the Steinbeck Award because he more than fulfills these criteria. What John Steinbeck once observed of Samuel Clemens is also true of this year's recipient, 'He is one of America's greatest treasures because he is first and foremost a man of the people, by the people, and for the people.'"

Created by The Center for Steinbeck Studies in 1996, the annual Steinbeck Award recognizes writers and artists whose work captures the spirit of Steinbeck's empathy, commitment to democratic values, and belief in the dignity of the common man. Past Steinbeck Award winners include Penguin author Arthur Miller, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Studs Terkel, Joan Baez, Sean Penn and John Sayles.

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“There’s a fifth dimension beyond what is known to man – a dimension of sight, of sound, and of the mind. You’ve just crossed into…the Twilight Zone”

On this day in 1959, Rod Serling premiered his fantastic and oft-creepy, paranoid program on CBS-TV. Funny thing about the “Twilight Zone” – though it was often advertised as a sci-fi show, there was rarely a scientific explanation for any of the zany discoveries that ever happened …a guy able to transform his face into other people, a soldier who can see death ahead of time, an ever-advancing hitch-hiker (if he can jump ahead like that – why’s he need to hitch?!), that scary monster on the wing! Wanna really be creeped out: Get the DVD with “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” “Between the pit of man’s fears, and the summit of his knowledge…lies, the realm simple known, as the Twilight Zone…” The original series has 156 episodes, and is a far better use of your time than “The Simple Life”. Better yet, read the scripts…

On October 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in, becoming our nation’s first black Supreme Court Justice. In addition to winning the ground-breaking Brown vs. the Board of Education case as an attorney , Marshall helped dismantle the less-than human “Separate but Equal” standard in the United States, and sparked the civil rights movement. (Oh what I wouldn’t give for us to be able to swap Mr. Marshall with our current African-American justice, Clarence Thomas, who seems hell bent on reversing every case Thurgood ever voted on in his 24 wonderful years on the bench…)