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Thomas Pynchon's Gravity’s Rainbow is One of the Six Finalists for “The Best of the National Book Awards for Fiction” 

The National Book Foundation is asking readers to vote for their favorite National Book Award-winning fiction book as part of their “Best of the National Book Awards for Fiction” campaign and Penguin author Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow is among the six titles selected by 140 NBA winners, finalists and judges. Voters can submit their pick by clicking here until October 21st and when you vote, your email address will be entered for a drawing to win two tickets to the 60th National Book Awards on November 18, 2009 and two nights in the Marriott Hotel Downtown. The winner will be announced at the National Book Awards on November 18th.

In addition, Harold Augenbram, the executive director of the National Book Awards will be leading a discussion of Gravity’s Rainbow at the Barnes & Noble on E. 86th Street on November 2nd.
 

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James Wesley, Rawles is our guest blogger during the week of September 28. If you have any questions for James Wesley, Rawles, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some more information about How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It - Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times: 

With the recent economic crisis, formerly unimaginable scenarios have become terrifyingly real possibilities-learn how to prepare for the worst

Global financial collapse, a terrorist attack, a natural catastrophe-all it takes is one event to disrupt our way of life. We could find ourselves facing myriad serious problems from massive unemployment to a food shortage to an infrastructure failure that cuts off our power or water supply. If something terrible happens, we won't be able to rely on the government or our communities. We'll have to take care of ourselves.

In How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, James Rawles, founder of SurvivalBlog.com, clearly explains everything you need to know to protect yourself and your family in the event of a disaster-from radical currency devaluation to a nuclear threat to a hurricane. Rawles shares essential tactics and techniques for surviving completely on your own, including how much food is enough, how to filter rainwater, how to protect your money, which seeds to buy for your garden, why goats are a smart choice for livestock, and how to secure your home. It's the ultimate guide to total preparedness and self-reliance in a time of need.

About James Welsey, Rawles:

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The survival battery is a key issue for any prepper, as one of the biggest short-term concerns in a SHTF scenario is security. Stored supplies and learned skills are all for naught if you can't protect the supplies from theft or survive to put those skills to use. While I would love for everyone to have a chance for a top of the line Main Battle Rifle (MBR), they do not run cheap, nor is the ammunition cheap these days. While modern rifles have undoubted advantages, there are also a large number of older weapons that remain capable, and which most citizens can buy online with a little paperwork.

To trade firearms in interstate commerce, one must have a Federal Firearms License - an FFL. Once upon a time one could acquire a Type 01 FFL (also known as a dealer FFL) as a "home FFL" at a reasonable price and without too much trouble, but since about the Clinton administration they've become much tighter - looking to allow only those selling firearms for a profit. One option still remaining to us mere citizens is the Curios and Relics (C&R) FFL or 03 FFL) is a "collectors" license which allows you to purchase firearms on the C&R list in interstate commerce. This means that you can buy C&R handguns out of state, or can buy online and have them shipped directly to you through a "common carrier". A purchase at a gun show or dealer on a C&R FFL can legally dispense with all the paperwork and checks normally required - a signed copy of your C&R and payment is all that is needed. The C&R list is comprised of all firearms over 50 years old as well as firearms determined by BATF to be of special collector value. Some short-barreled firearms and large caliber "destructive devices" have been released from NFA status on the C&R list. Others (including all machineguns to my knowledge) remain NFA items despite their C&R status.

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Yesterday I explained some of the difficulties of becoming, or being, a professional writer and gave an example of how the initial germ of an idea for a book, by no means the hardest part of a project but definitely up there in the top three, can appear from anywhere and develop from a simple pub conversation. With Red Herrings and White Elephants and Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep the hardest part, after the initial idea, was thinking of the expression or phrase, known as idioms, in the first place. There are possibly over two thousand that have become part of our accepted language (where the words we actually use mean nothing at all in the context of a conversation we are having and yet we instinctively know what they mean, i.e. Straight from the Horse's Mouth). Yet if we sit down and try to come up with a dozen, we will all be struggling after only a few. The best way to do that research was to listen out for them in action, so to speak, and so I spent the following two years with a notebook jotting down every single time I was "Barking up the Wrong Tree", visiting a "Bucket Shop" with a "Chip on my Shoulder" or had learned something "On the Grapevine." In the event I tracked down the source of over a thousand of them covered by those first two books, each one traceable to a single, or series, of real events in our rich history.

 #1 New York Times Bestselling Authors Charlaine Harris, Tomie dePaola and T. A. Barron Are Among the Stars of "From the Publisher's Office's" Fall Line-Up, Featuring New Content in Each of Nine Series, including "A Backstage Pass to the Worlds of Charlaine Harris" in Project Paranormal, Penguin Storytime with Liz Shanks, and "The Dark Side of American Business" in The Business Beat

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New York, New York, September 30, 2009 ... Penguin Group (USA) has rolled out the second season of "From the Publisher's Office", its own online network, it was announced today by Penguin Group (USA) President Susan Petersen Kennedy.  The network features brand-new programming in all nine series across its three multimedia channels: "The Screening Room," "The Radio Room," and "The Reading Room." "From the Publisher's Office" was an online hit right out of the gate, with its inaugural season logging more than 100,000 page views in just three months, and drawing instant praise from readers (click here to read a sampling of the reader praise).

Mrs. Kennedy said: "It's very gratifying that ‘From the Publisher's Office' has been reaching so many readers, who are enjoying insights into our books and authors from across the house.  We're pleased to present a new season of programming."

New features added to "From the Publisher's Office" since its initial launch include: the ability to sign up for email newsletters or RSS feeds that allow users to receive notification when a new episode of their favorite show has been released, and syndication of the "Radio Room" and "Screening Room" series on YouTube and iTunes.

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Thirteen Penguin Group (USA) Authors Featured at 2009 National Book Festival

The 2009 National Book Festival, an annual event organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Sept. 26th, 2009 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the festival features more than 70 award-winning authors, illustrators and poets appearing in "Fiction & Fantasy," "Mysteries & Thrillers," "History & Biography," "Children," "Teens & Children," "Poetry," and "Home & Family" pavilions. In addition, fun activities that promote reading will be set up for children in the popular "Let's Read America" pavilion. Individual 30-minute author presentations and one-hour book signings by the participating authors are the heart of the National Book Festival, which is designed to bring readers together with their favorite writers and illustrators.

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As a professional writer, one of the daftest things to admit to a stranger is that you are a professional writer. It's possibly the worst of all professions to own up to at a party, apart from perhaps, "I am an acquiring editor at a publishing company." (I imagine)

The reason is that virtually everybody believes they have a book in them, or could be a writer of some kind, and want your help/advice/time/patience/use of your contacts/a way in. There have been times when I simply lie as say I am a lecturer/marketing manager/teacher or, and this is my own personal favourite, simply bone idle. But that can lead to looking arrogant and foolish should somebody know the truth about you which is later revealed. Internationally bestselling author to boot. And now, "So what do you write about," then, ‘"How do you do your research," followed by, "How long does it take to write a book," and, "Where do you get your ideas for a book in the first place," inevitably followed up by over 50% of people with the dreaded line, "I'm writing a book myself - if I wrote something would you look at it and give me some advice?"

I always reply, "Sure, of course I will," which is usually responded to with, "That's great, what shall I write about? And this is where I finally loose patience. "Ah ha," I say, "Now that's up to you isn't it." That's what a writer does: Has the idea, the long, long blank pages ahead and the dogged persistence to fill those pages with something others may find interesting enough to pay you for. (You could substitute the words dogged persistence here with work ethic, self discipline, or effort, but, and take my word for it, it is dogged persistence.) Books don't write themselves. Editors don't write them either; they contribute and improve, but only writers write them. By the way, despite offering many hundreds of times, nobody has ever sent me anything in the end, presumably because they can never think of what to write about, apart from their life story.

» Mark Kurlansky discusses his book, which looks at a forgotten government writer's project to chronicle the regional eating habits of Americans prior to World War II.

» Read more about The Food of a Younger Land

Mark Kurlansky, The Food of a Younger Land

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I first had the idea of studying the history of nursery rhymes about ten years ago now. But at that time, the idea of trawling through history to try and discover the origins of many of our favourite little children's nursery rhymes and their meanings, obvious or hidden, was one I didn't relish to begin with, to be honest. After all, what could possibly be interesting about a short, fat boy who must have been called either humpty, or dumpty, who lived a long, long time ago and who fell off his wall? Or, for that matter, how much fun can you have with three blind mice being chased around the kitchen by a farmer's wife? Surely that has happened on farms across the land since knives were first carved from flint stone. And why would anybody, in this case me, want to create a book full of stories like the one about a little boy called Jack Horner who shoved his hand into a pie and stole some plumbs.

But, instead, this has turned out to be the most rewarding piece of work I have done so far. Because once it becomes obvious that many nursery rhymes have been written about, or evolved from, particular historic events and then used as a way to pass important news around the countryside, during an age when modern communication was limited simply to word of mouth, then the research becomes a fascinating study into our way of life, in bygone years. For example, would you expect Humpty Dumpty to be the name of one of King Charles I's cannons located at Colchester Castle, scene of the Siege of Colchester during the summer of 1648 as the English Civil War exploded into violence? It was operated by a gunner called One Eyed Thompson who successfully kept Cromwell's forces at bay until they managed to blow it off the wall, allowing the Parliamentarians to approach the town. The Kings Cavalry (the horses) and the King's Infantry (the men) then faced a race against time to repair the cannon but failed. An important battle was lost and a turning point in history then marked by a rhyme, soon repeated in every hamlet and village across the land as news spread.

Winnie-the-Pooh Returns After More Than 80 Years in Dutton Children's Books'Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

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"Pooh and Piglet, Christopher Robin and Eeyore were last seen in the Forest - oh, can it really be eighty years ago? But dreams have a logic of their own and it is as if the eighty years have passed in a day."

So begins the introduction to Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the first authorized sequel to A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner. Dutton Children's Books will publish the embargoed title on Monday, October 5th, when it will land in stores nationwide. Written by David Benedictus and illustrated by Mark Burgess, this is the first newWinnie-the-Pooh book in more than 80 years. Penguin Audio will publish an audio version read by Grammy Award-winner Jim Dale.

Penguin is rolling out an extensive six-figure marketing campaign leading up to the publication. On September 3rd, bookstores across the country opened "Pooh-tiques", dedicated spaces for Winnie-the-Pooh and friends. With these "Pooh-tiques", booksellers are inviting readers to rediscover Winnie-the-Pooh's beloved adventures and return to the Hundred Acre Wood.

Independent bookstores across the country are hosting Pooh tea parties for fans young and old. Tea parties include honey flavored food, count-the-honey-candies-in-the-jar contests, story times with favorite Pooh books, bring-your-favorite-bear-from-home story times, and activities such as "pin the tale on Eeyore."