National Book Award finalists to be announced at Flannery O'Connor childhood home

This October, the National Book Foundation will announce the 2010 finalists for the National Book Award at the Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home in Savannah, Georgia. (The foundation has not yet announced who will read the list of 20 finalists in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people's literature.)

In past years, John Grisham has made the announcement from William Faulkner's home in Oxford, Mississippi. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has named the finalists from City Lights Book Shop in San Francisco, Garrison Keillor from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Camille Paglia from the Library Company of Philadelphia.

The foundation's choice of Flannery O'Connor's childhood home (included in A LITERARY GUIDE TO FLANNERY O'CONNOR'S GEORGIA) comes in the wake of last summer's campaign to determine the Best of the National Book Award winners in fiction, with all 77 past winners in the running. Public vote selected Flannery O'Connor's Complete Stories, which won the National Book Award in 1972 -- eight years after her death -- beating out finalists John Updike and Walker Percy.

Short Takes

Dyana Furmansky's ROSALIE EDGE, HAWK OF MERCY has won the Colorado Book Award for Biography.

Urban Affairs Review includes BLOOMBERG'S NEW YORK by Julian Brash (forthcoming in February) in a roundup of books assessing recent change in New York City: "To some observers, however, including most of the above authors— Moody, Greenberg, Angotti, and Brash— Bloomberg’s mayoralty marked the culmination of a disturbing trend that began with the fiscal crisis. For them, the city is becoming a less hospitable place for people in need, as power shifts to economic elites who divide public benefits less equitably."

Emerson Society Papers reviews PASSIONS FOR NATURE: "Johnson's interdisciplinary study breaks new and compelling ground in its establishment of a dialogue between writers, naturalists, painters, and landscape designers on the subject of nature and its role in American life."

Choice recommends THE OYSTER QUESTION ("will interest those concerned with preserving Chesapeake Bay and its natural resources, and environmental historians who focus on state resources") and GLASS CEILINGS AND 100-HOUR COUPLES ("this provocative book raises many questions but does not stoop to providing pat answers about how couples should manage the work-family balance.")

Western American Literature reviews JACK LONDON'S RACIAL LIVES: "London shifted or adjusted his racial attitudes over time as the result of his travels, and Reesman smartly and systematically charts this trajectory."

Florida Forum, magazine of the Florida Humanities Council, profiles Jack Davis, winner of the Florida Book Award for nonfiction for his biography of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE.

Upcoming events:
Wednesday, July 14
2-4 pm
Hudson Institute conference center
Washington, DC
also streamed live: www.hudson.org/WatchLive

Charles Horner (RISING CHINA) and Christopher Ford (The Mind of Empire) in a panel discussion on the role of China's past in understanding its future strategies; with Ashley Tellis (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Arthur Waldron (University of Pennsylvania)

Now available:
IN SEARCH OF BRIGHTEST AFRICA
Jeannette Eileen Jones

While acknowledging the current of American thought that saw Africa as a "dark continent," Jones examines a countertrend in late nineteenth and early twentieth century cultural and intellectual history, in which early environmentalists, filmmakers, New Negro political thinkers and others turned to Africa as an important source of knowledge and enlightenment.

JURY DISCRIMINATION
Christopher Waldrep

Waldrep explores the remarkable 1906 case in which white Mississippi lawyer Dabney Marshall (carrying out a plan conceived by black Mississippi lawyer Willis Mollison) successfully demanded the racial integration of juries in Mississippi, with particular focus on the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case and the consequesnces of its narrow reading of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Short Takes

The New York Times Sunday Magazine mentions REAL PHONIES as an excellent tool for understanding the reality TV show "The Bachelor," where contestants must profess that they are on the show to 'find love' rather than to promote themselves: "This demand on the players brings to mind Abigail Cheever’s fascinating new book, Real Phonies, about the American drama of personal authenticity."

Ron Slate reviews SERIOUSLY FUNNY: "A poet can accept any criticism except the charge that his or her verse is humorless...say he/she has no sense of humor and the poet will become violent or morose."

In the new American Historical Review: THE UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE'S MOVEMENT ("Given current US unemployment rates, the story of this book could speak to the growing number of organizers and policy makers looking to again harness the grassroots.") and HERE, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN ("A book that should receive serious consideration from all historians interested in the presentation and interpretation of the past. Bruggeman's study adds an important piece of the puzzle to our understanding of public history and the ways in which the past has been presented to general audiences during the last eighty years.")

H-Net Reviews (H-1960s) on LIBERALISM, BLACK POWER, AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN POLITICS, 1965-1980: "Fergus offers a compelling read that poses many provocative questions."

Matthew H. Bernstein's SCREENING A LYNCHING was named a finalist for the Richard Wall Memorial Award from the Theater Library Association, which honors a book of exceptional scholarship in the field of recorded performance.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune gives an early teaser for new Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction award winner Linda LeGarde Grover. Her winning collection, THE DANCE BOOTS, will be out in September.

The blog Canopy Roads of South Georgia enthusiastic about THE ART OF MANAGING LONGLEAF.

The Tuscaloosa News on DIXIE EMPORIUM.

Suite 101 article on GLASS CEILINGS AND 100-HOUR COUPLES.

Short Takes

Keith Gilyard discussed JOHN OLIVER KILLENS on GPB's Cover to Cover this past Sunday. The interview, with historian Stan Deaton, should be posted soon with Cover to Cover's podcasts.

From Hawk Migration Notes on Dyana Furmansky's ROSALIE EDGE, HAWK OF MERCY: "I encourage anyone who cares about our incredible planet to read this eye-opening and well-written book." Following Furmansky's talk on Edge at their annual meeting, the Delaware Valley Ornithological Society has renamed their Conservation Award the Rosalie Edge Conservation Award.

Video is now available from the BLACK NATURE panel discussion held at the Berkeley Institute for the Environment this spring. The discussion includes poets C.S. Giscombe, Camille Dungy, Evie Shockley, Robert Hass, Ed Roberson, Al Young, Carl Phillips, Carolyn Finney and Harryette Mullen.

Journal of the History of Biology on THE OYSTER QUESTION: "An exciting contribution to both the history of science and environmental history. In this case study of the Maryland oyster fishery, Keiner does an excellent job of combining these two historical perspectives to shed new light on the depths of a problem that has challenged all of the American oyster states since the early nineteenth century. Through her analysis, Keiner effectively reframes how environmental historians have analyzed histories of common resources and provides a working model for integrating historical and ecological information to bridge the histories of science and environmental history."

Upcoming area events:
Saturday, June 12 @ 2:00 PM
Atlanta History Center
John Burrison will speak on FROM MUD TO JUG and the living tradition of folk pottery in north Georgia.