goodreads giveaways
EB- January 12, 2011
Our current crop of Goodreads giveaways, some of which are ending shortly, some of which are just beginning:
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Someone Else’s Garden
by Dipika Rai
Giveaway ends January 14, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Gospel of Anarchy
by Justin Taylor
Giveaway ends January 19, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Shadow Tag
by Louise Erdrich
Giveaway ends February 08, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Devotion
by Dani Shapiro
Giveaway ends February 08, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Kiss & Tell
by MariNaomi
Giveaway ends February 27, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Raising
by Laura Kasischke
Giveaway ends February 15, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
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winners of our olive editions contest
- EB
- January 11, 2011
A while back, we ran a contest asking people which books they’d love to see as olive editions, promising to randomly pick a winner to win a set of the new ones. We let this contest go on a little longer than normal to give as many people as possible a chance to enter, so, to make up for all that time, I’m not going to give away one set . . . I’m going to give away FIVE!
The winners are:
Sharon
Vic
Traci
Kate
Jean
I’ll be emailing you all shortly to get your addresses. For those of you who didn’t win, if you’re still interested in the olive editions, stay tuned for the next entry.
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bob dylan + cher + rick moody + david lehman
- EB
- January 05, 2011
So, somewhere out there in the world there existed this photo of Bob Dylan and The Band jamming with Cher:
Inspired, our friends at the improvisational writing site QuickMuse asked Rick Moody and David Lehman to compose responses. You can find them here and here. But they didn’t stop there. Now, QuickMuse and the 14th Street Y are also presenting Moody and Lehman in conversation about Bob Dylan on January 19.
What do you guys think—what led to Bob Dylan and Cher playing together? What the heck did they talk about? What did they play?
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writers on writing
- EB
- January 04, 2011
A great video of writers talking about the writing process, featuring our very own Simon Van Booy:
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harper perennial acquires adam wilson’s debut novel
- EB
- December 29, 2010
You may have heard it on galleycat first: Harper Perennial editor Michael Signorelli has just acquired FLATSCREEN, the debut novel from Book Court bookseller Adam Wilson. You can read all the details below, and join me in wondering: what kind of cat does Adam have? Adam, this is important info your marketing team needs to know to start our relationship off on the right foot. Pics please!
Harper Perennial Acquires Adam Wilson’s Debut Novel
Editor Signorelli Sneaks in Publishing’s Last Deal of 2010
NEW YORK, NY (December 29, 2010) – Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, is closing out 2010 with the acquisition of Adam Wilson’s debut novel FLATSCREEN, a coming-of-age story about a young man trying to become a new person in a world where nothing is new. The novel is scheduled to be published early 2012.
Editor Michael Signorelli acquired world English rights from Erin Hosier of the Dunow, Carlson and Lerner literary agency.
“Adam has such an easy and energetic way with language. The book is hilarious and, yes, oddly heartwarming, too. Harper Perennial is the perfect home for FLATSCREEN,” said Signorelli. “We became aware of Adam through his blogging and his stellar bookselling at Book Court. Acquiring Adam’s novel is like a last-minute present to myself. This and last week have been so quiet, hardly anyone’s around to tell me ‘no.’”
“I’m grinning ear to ear. Reminds me of losing my virginity; I’m overwhelmingly joyous, nervous, and so relieved that it’s actually happening,” said Wilson.
FLATSCREEN has already garnered amazing praise. Sam Lipsyte calls it “one of the most hilarious and commanding debuts I’ve read in a long time.” Gary Shteyngart says “FLATSCREEN is the novel that every youngTurk will be reading on their way to a job they hate and are in fact too smart for.”
Adam Wilson is a graduate of Tufts University, and the Columbia University MFA Writing Program. He is a Founding Editor, and the Deputy Editor of The Faster Times, a budding international online newspaper. Along with his editorial duties at TFT, he is also currently the pop culture blogger for BlackBook Magazine, where he writes a popular twice-a-day blog. He has thrice been a finalist for Glimmer Train story prizes, and was also a finalist for the 2009 Canteen Prize for New Writers, and the Gulf Coast Fiction Prize. In 2007 he was honored as a Distinguished Lecturer by the Lewis and Mildred Resnik Institute for the Study of Modern Jewish Life at SUNY, New Paltz. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat.
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how andrew shaffer hides the holiday pickle
- EB
- December 23, 2010
As we get ever closer to Christmas, here’s another guest post from one of our authors: the esteemed Andrew Shaffer, whose new book, Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love, comes out just after the new year and would make a great “I returned crap people bought me and now I have all this store credit” gift for yourself.
Hide the Pickle by Andrew Shaffer:
December 25, 2008. It’s early morning, a light dusting of snow on the ground outside at my parents’ house. Coffee is brewing. Three generations of family are gathered around the artificial Christmas tree, in anticipation of a “surprise” that my mother has promised. “This year, I thought we would start a new tradition,” she says. “We’re going to play ‘hide the pickle.’”
Cue wide eyes, confusion, nervous laughter.
“Is this like ‘hide the sausage’?” my brother asks.
My mother ignores him, explaining instead that “hide the pickle” is a Czech tradition — and the first of us to find the pickle ornament hidden within the Christmas tree will have the privilege of opening the first present of the morning.
#
I called “BS” on the story and hit the Web to find out more about this supposed “tradition.” According to Internet lore, “hide the pickle” is actually a German — not Czech — tradition. One version of the legend, frequently copied from the Internet and packaged with glass pickle ornaments sold in the United States, reads:
A very old Christmas eve tradition in Germany was to hide a pickle deep in the branches of the family Christmas Tree. The parents hung the pickle last after all the other ornaments were in place. In the morning they knew the most observant child would receive an extra gift from St. Nicholas. The first adult who finds the pickle traditionally gets good luck for the whole year.
A team of writers at About.com found several flaws in the legend. First, St. Nicholas visits German children on the 5th or 6th of December, not early Christmas morning. Second, children open their presents on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas Day. “But the biggest problem with the German pickle tradition,” according to About.com, “is that no one in Germany seems to have ever heard of it.”
“Growing up in Germany, celebrating Christmas often at my sister’s house in Stuttgart, living then in the south in Freiburg, I never came across a pickle on a Christmas tree,” wrote one anonymous poster in an online forum. “This thing must have been hidden very well!”
Some people see “hiding the pickle” as nothing more than a perverted American hoax. On Cafepress, you can buy a t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan, “I got your Christmas pickle right here!”, complete with a rather phallic vegetable adorned with a Santa Claus hat. However, there are two separate legends purporting to be the origin of the pickle tradition, according to B. Francis Morlan:
One is a family story of a Bavarian-born ancestor who fought in the American Civil War. A prisoner in poor health and starving, he begged a guard for just one pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and found a pickle for him. The pickle by the grace of God gave him the mental and physical strength to live on.
The other […] is a medieval tale of two Spanish boys traveling home from boarding school for the holidays