January 2012
YA Wednesday: More Young Adult Award Winners
Earlier this week, the winners of the American Library Association (ALA)’s top children’s and teens awards were announced at their annual midwinter conference. It’s the most exciting day of the year for those of us who love kid’s lit as the Caldecott, Printz, and Newbery are akin to the film industry’s Oscars®.
However above and beyond these three awards, the ALA...
The Books Behind the 2012 Academy Awards
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should tack a couple more words onto that mildly pretentious name of theirs… The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and books. This morning, the Academy announced their nominees for the Oscars, and books were well-represented. In fact, many of the nominated movies started out as books.
Take a look at the Best Picture category...
2012 Children's Book Award Winners Announced
This morning I got up at 5 a.m. to see (via webcast) the 2012 winners of the biggest awards in children’s publishing—the American Library Association (ALA) awards. The film industry has their Golden Globes® and their Oscars®, and we have the Caldecott and Newbery Medals, the Coretta Scott King Award, and the Michael J. Printz Award. Unlike most other book awards, the major...
An Epic Failure from My Bread Machine
Yes, folks, haste really does make waste! Yesterday, I realized that my week ahead is going to be quite busy. Therefore, I shifted into high gear. I started by loading my bread machine with the ingredients for basic white bread. I make this bread all the time. It always turns out great, and my Zojirushi rarely fails to crank out a perfect loaf!
Well, yesterday was different. I loaded the...
Where There's Smoke, There's Roast Chicken
My daughter made roast chicken at her apartment the other night and before dinner was served, a fire truck showed up. She was crimson with embarassment, but the bird eventually turned out golden and juicy.
To get her meal rolling, I had walked her through the steps I take to prepare Barbara Kafka’s suberb recipe from her 1995 book, Roasting: A Simple Art. It involves cranking up the heat...
Finalists Announced for the National Book Critics...
Finalists for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle awards were announced today at Artists Space in New York.
Among this year’s presenters were recent NBCC finalists and winners Jennifer Egan (fiction), Siddhartha Mukherjee (nonfiction), Elif Batuman (criticism), Kathleen Graber (poetry), Yunte Huang (biography), Darin Strauss (autobiography), and Parul Sehgal (Nona Balakian Citation).
...
"Go The F**k To Sleep" Author Adam Mansbach
A year ago, Adam Mansbach was a respected author, poet, and musician known for his thoughtful novels, lectures, and raps. Fast forward a bit, and he’s the guy who got the F word into a children’s book title. That book grew from Mansbach’s satiric Facebook post one morning after his two-year-old daughter refused to go to bed. Mansbach told Facebookers to look for his forthcoming...
Jim Henson's Lost Project Found in the New Year
Lost for over forty years, the late Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand is “the only feature-length screenplay written by Henson that he was never able to produce during his lifetime,” according to the back cover copy. Thanks to publisher Archaia Entertainment and artist Ramón K. Pérez, Henson’s generations of fans can finally experience what may be one of his most singular projects.
A few pages into...
George R. R. Martin Interviews Bernard Cornwell
We’re happy to share this interview between George R. R. Martin and Bernard Cornwell, whose new book, Death of Kings, goes on sale today.
GRRM: It has long been my contention that the historical novel and the epic fantasy are sisters under the skin, that the two genres have much in common. My series owes a lot to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and the other great fantasists who came before...
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Basketball Legend and Kids'...
Have you ever wondered who invented the ice cream scoop? Or performed the first open-heart surgeries? In What Color is My World? basketball legend and author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar introduces kids ages 8 and up to the lost history of African-American inventors responsible for a host of things we take for granted every day.
Ella and Herbie are twins who are helping their mother fix up their new...
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Basketball Legend and Kids...
Have you ever wondered who invented the ice cream scoop? Or performed the first open-heart surgeries? In What Color is My World? basketball legend and author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar introduces kids ages 8 and up to the lost history of African-American inventors responsible for a host of things we take for granted every day.
Ella and Herbie are twins who are helping their mother fix up their new...
Graphic Novel Friday: The Annotated Sandman by...
Unless you were abducted by aliens decades ago and have only just been deposited back on Earth, you’ve no doubt heard of the iconic Sandman comics series, for which Neil Gaiman is credited as the principle architect. The Sandman, which ended in 1996, is one of the most acclaimed titles in the history of comics. The basic premise, following the adventures of Dream, ruler of the worlds of dream and...
10 Books Jack London Might Enjoy Reading on the...
Happy Birthday, Jack London. To so many readers, your name stands for self-reliance, bold individuality, love for nature and animals, and an adventurous soul. On this day, January 12th, when you would have been 136 years old, we considered what books you might want to read. Here’s our list:
Into the Wild by John Krakauer - The story of a young man who travels to Alaska to live in the...
Omni Exclusive - Chapter Two of John Green's "The...
As promised, Omnivoracious brings you Chapter 2 of John Green’s new novel, The Fault in Our Stars. Enjoy!
The Fault in Our Stars
chapter two
Augustus Waters drove horrifically. Whether stopping or starting, everything happened with a tremendous JOLT. I flew against the seat belt of his Toyota SUV each time he braked, and my neck snapped backward each time he hit the gas. I might...
2011 Philip K. Dick Award Finalists Announced,...
The Philip K. Dick Award finalists for best original Science Fiction published in paperback form in the United States have just been announced:
A Soldier’s Duty by Jean Johnson (Ace Books)
After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer Press)
Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
The Other by Matthew Hughes (Underland Press)
The...
Media Monday - Here's to a New Year
Happy New Year! 2011 in books was really special. We can only hope to see the same kind of breadth and quality this year. With a whole new year of books ahead of us, let’s get started….
New York Times
In honor of the political season, the Sunday Book Review has a section called “Bipolar America,” which juxtaposes books about leftward leaning politics with those from...
Omni Exclusive - Chapter One of John Green's "The...
Omnivoracious is happy to bring you Chapter 1 of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Tune in tomorrow for a video, followed the next day by Chapter 2.
Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my...
Happy New Year! 2011 in books was really…
Happy New Year! 2011 in books was really special. We can only hope to see the same kind of breadth and quality this year. With a whole new year of books ahead of us, let’s get started….
New York Times
In honor of the political season, the Sunday Book Review has a section called “Bipolar America,” which juxtaposes books about leftward leaning politics with those from...
Praise The Lard!
On Sunday afternoon, I did a fried chicken demo for my daughter and her friend, Isabel. They’ve been asking me to show them how-to for some time and it was a happy coincidence the date we settled on was also the birthday of legendary chowhound, Elvis Presley.
I picked this particular spot on the calendar because I knew my husband would be off skiing. It drives him bananas when I fry...
Ten Books to Read in the New Year
As resolutions go, the promise to read more books is pretty painless. In fact, it’s quite enjoyable. Here are some book suggestions, designed to uplift and enlighten, in these first weeks of the new year.
The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen R. Covey
An ageless book that offers a blueprint for being more effective in your both your personal and work life, The Seven...
Eugenides at Amazon
If only our company shared its name with one of the biggest rivers in Mesopotamia— then this post could have been titled “Eugenides at Euphrates.” (Cue rimshot and grimaces.) To ring in the New Year we’re posting a few of our favorite author visits, and one of my favorite authors is Jeffrey Eugenides. His novel The Marriage Plot was a Top-10 selection in the 2011 Best...
December 2011
Here's To Hoppin' John And A Very Lucky New Year
Don’t you just love holiday traditions that revolve around food?
One of my favorites is the practice of serving the rice and beans dish known as Hoppin’ John on New Year’s Day in the hope that it’ll bring you good luck in the coming year. It’s said to have originated among slaves, who had used black-eyed peas to represent coins, which were meant to impart future...
Forecasting A Few Food Trends For 2012
While poring over a recent post on the James Beard Foundation Web site predicting which foods will be hot/hot/hot in the coming year, I couldn’t help wondering what these pronouncements were based on. Was it a kind of chicken-or-the-egg scenerio?
Does a dish or a culinary technique become big because it’s riding some imaginary wave of popularity? Or does the simple act of forecasting...
Three Movie Deals for SF/Fantasy by Lauren Beukes,...
As recently reported by the SF/Fantasy pop culture site io9.com (here and here) and others, three great novels are being developed for the big screen: Lauren Beukes’ Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Zoo City, Cherie Priest’s Hugo-nominated Boneshaker, and Charles Yu’s critically acclaimed How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.
This is in part a coincidental series of events, as the...
Happy Boxing Day! Who's Up For Curry?
For our neighbors to the North, the day after Christmas looks a lot like our Black Friday, a time for competitive bargain hunting. But this “bank holiday” goes way back to pre-retailing times.
Thanks to Wikipedia for filling us in on the nitty gritty: As long ago as the 17th century, this day was traditionally recognized as a time for the upper crust to be charitable and generous to...
Exclusive Interview with Christopher Paolini
It’s been a heck of a year for Christopher Paolini. In November he released Inheritance, the fourth and final book in the best-selling fantasy series he started writing at the age of fifteen. Inheritance was an instant hit, and in less than a month became our tenth best-selling book of the year.
In between packed tour stops at schools, bookstores, and libraries, Christopher made time to visit...
Holiday Gift Books for Cooks
The ways people cook are as varied as the people doing the cooking. Aside from wanting to prepare a great meal, we cook for a variety of reasons: sometimes to rekindle family dinner memories, and other times to to discover something new and wholly different. If you’re from the south, or admire that region’s culinary charm, you might want to take a look at Paula Deen’s Southern...
Holiday Gift Books for the Genius in Your Life
People who read books tend to be pretty smart, so there are a lot of good books out there for (and by) smart people. Take Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. He won the Nobel Prize in 2002, and now he’s a best-selling author. I’d say his book was selling like hotcakes if hotcakes filled you with knowledge instead of carbohydrates— so maybe you could say it’s...
Why We Picked Them - #86 - #90
We continue with an explanation of why we picked the books we picked for the 2011 Best Books of the Year list.
#90 – Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller
There’s no question that Alexandra Fuller is a wonderful memoirist. Her first book Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is a vivid portrayal of her white family’s life in Rhodesia while the pillars of colonialism...
YA Wednesday: Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler on...
What if you could get a glimpse of your future through Facebook? Sounds pretty cool, right? Then imagine seeing that future while you’re a teenager—even better! Now here’s the real kicker: imagine this is all happening in 1996, when the Internet came through a phone line, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used it. Authors Jay Asher (Thirteen...
Media Monday - The Holidays and Work Go Together...
The holidays are looming over us like the tree I saw at Rockefeller Center last week: big, bright, twinkly, and able to cause the more pressing aspects of life to temporarily fade out of view. I’ll admit that the upcoming holidays already have me under their spell. It looks to me like others are enchanted as well. Along with mailing some presents, I’m not so sure that some of the...
The Restorative Powers of Cooking
The worst thing about having a broken arm is that I’ve been virtually banished from the kitchen. It’s amazing how many tasks require two hands! And, as much as I’ve tried to stay positive, that change in my daily routine has been making me cranky.
Last week, though, while watching an old episode of The French Chef on Amazon’s Instant Video, the one where she walks us...
December 12 Weekly Open Thread
The weather outside may be frightful, but here in the back of the garage it’s so delightful—a perfect climate-controlled 72 degrees Farenheit. C’mon in and join the conversation.
The Car Lust Global Operations Center mailbox, carlustinfo@amazon.com, like any publicly-posted e-mail contact, gets its share of spam. We got one last week that was amusing because the spammer’s...
Media Monday - 'Tis the Season for Best-of Lists
Once Black Friday hits, the best books of the year lists start emerging like cicadas. I’m tempted to write something about their sudden, overwhelming numbers and the piercing noise these lists create, and how they both fascinate and repulse me (as real cicadas do), but the truth is I really like best of the year lists. Having read my fair share of books through the year, I find BOTY lists...
Spending Some Quality Time With The French Chef
So, after busting my arm, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the couch, trying to hold still. Which is a challenge for somebody who’s used to being overscheduled.
The best discovery I’ve made during my recovery is a treasure trove of vintage cooking shows on Amazon’s Instant Video, with 10 seasons of The French Chef rising to the top. (Available for free to Amazon Prime...
Your best friend calls you and tells you he/she's...
We at Amazon had the pleasure of receiving this exclusive video from Patricia Cornwell, author of the popular Scarpetta series—which, as a a body of work has won just about every award available to mystery/thriller writers, as well as being a cult favorite among fans. In anticipation of the latest Kay Scarpetta installation, Red Mist, Cornwell offers a meta-perspective of her...
November 2011
Media Monday - Cyber Monday Edition
The month of November leading into the holiday shopping season has been hectic and busy here at Amazon. I have missed writing Media Monday, and hopefully a few of you have missed reading it. It’s late here in Seattle, the end of a long Cyber Monday, and I’ve been looking forward to writing this since this morning.
First things first: For those readers who like biographies, I highly...
President Clinton talks to Amazon about his new...
Amazon was lucky enough to talk to President Bill Clinton about his new book Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy, a book that the Los Angeles Times calls “a rallying cry for Americans to see beyond partisan politics and sets out a blueprint for a return to prosperity.”
Click here to listen to President Clinton
Q&A with Neil Gaiman: Author, DC Comics Superstar,...
DC has sent us this exclusive Q&A, in which they talked to Neil Gaiman about his appearance on ‘The Simpsons,’ the Sandman series finally being available digitally, and more.
DC: How does it feel to have all ten volumes of Sandman available digitally for the first time?
NG: A relief. Now that so much reading is being done on tablets and eReaders, I was getting embarrassed when people...
Best Children's Picture Books of the Year
2011 has been a wealth of riches for children’s picture books, so choosing the top 10 was like choosing among your favorite nieces and nephews. This year is remarkable for the number of iconic, award-winning authors who gave us new books, exemplified by our top two picks—one by Eric Carle, author of the beloved classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and the other by William Joyce, who has...
Best Children's Middle Grade Books of the Year
The top 10 middle grade books of this year cover a broad spectrum of genres, from the poetry of Shel Silverstein’s posthumous work, Every Thing On It, to the adventure and mythology of The Son of Neptune; the second book in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan, who has been wildly successful in creating books that even reluctant readers are clamoring for.
At the pinnacle of our best...
November - National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness...
November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, and in light of that here are two videos from Kate Whouley, author of Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words: Travels with Mom in the Land of Dementia.
Quite Possibly The Booziest Book Event Ever:...
Author Brad Thomas Parsons has been making the rounds in Portland, Ore., and Seattle to showcase his new release, Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All with Cocktails, Recipes & Formulas.
This exhaustive study of a slightly obscure subject is anything but dry and academic. Parsons — formerly senior books editor at Amazon — tells the tales behind these tasty tinctures...
Beautiful Wedding Brunch Inspires Party Planning
This weekend, I attended my very first morning wedding, a beautiful ceremony which was followed by a spectacular brunch buffet. The bride and groom love breakfast and the spread was lovely and mighty filling. The brunch included everything from bagels and lox to eggs benedict, made-to-order omelets and super yummy salads, home fries and much more. It was an elegant platform for morning comfort...
Hunger Games Trailer Blows Fans Away
Fans (including the many on the Amazon Books team) got their first look at the official trailer for The Hunger Games movie this morning. Based on the first book of Suzanne Collins’s beloved trilogy, the film—which hits the big screen March 23, 2012—still has to deliver on some major expectations, staying faithful to a world and characters that command a fanbase as fiercely...
It's Time to Announce Amazon's Best Books of the...
After countless hours of reading, meeting, discussing, and voting, it’s time for the Amazon editors to announce our 2011 Best Books of the Year. In many ways the most difficult part about compiling a list like this is not what you put in— it’s what you leave out. Here’s the Top 10, because that’s what traditionally gets the most attention. From The Art of Fielding...
Make It Or Buy It? A Great Guide
As my cooking skills have improved over the years, I’ve been delighted to find that so many impressive foods really aren’t that hard to make at home. Marshmallows, butter, bagels, meringues, macarons — we feel pretty confident about them all. But just because we can make these things doesn’t always mean that it’s worth the time and effort. Now Jennifer Reese of The...
How I Wrote It: Erin Morgenstern + NaNoWriMo =...
November is National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo), when aspiring novelists attempt to bang out a manuscript in thirty days. In this exclusive Author Interviews @ Amazon, Erin Morgenstern tells senior editor Chris Schluep how her breakout, best-selling novel, The Night Circus, was born during a 2005 NaNoWriMo session, and honed during a subsequent November session.
>The Night Circus...
Téa Obreht's "The Tiger's Wife" -- Our November...
November’s Book Club pick is The Tiger’s Wife, by the talented debut author Téa Obreht. This is a big month for Téa—not only has the paperback of her best-selling novel just been published, but she’s also on the short list for the National Book Award (to be given out on 11/16).
And now, for the next week, Téa will answer your questions.
The detail page for The Tiger’s Wife has an essay from...
A Call To Action: Random Acts of Dinner
I love cooking for people. For a few months last year, I made dinner two nights a week for neighbors, a busy couple with young kids. They gave me money for groceries and a little something extra, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a catering job. It was a labor of love and they showered me in compliments, a mutual admiration society kind of arrangment. (Pictured on the left was one of my...