Book Buzz

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S " PROFESSOR BINGO PRESENTS DAY " I'M EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS TUESDAY'S "PROFESSOR BINGO PRESENTS DAY" IS... ZAMORA'S EXCELLENT CHALLENGE BY M. K. SCOTT ENTER FOR AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY! ABOUT THE BOOK: Mason and Carter Clover only agree on two things--their baby sister Isabella is a royal pain and their favorite video game, Zamora s Ultimate Challenge, is totally awesome. But fantasy turns to reality when Zamora s evil face appears across the brothers television screen. Claiming to have kidnapped Isabella, the queen challenges the boys to a daring rescue before she takes over their sister's soul. Zamor! a s plan is to use the baby as a human vessel to travel to Earth and dominate the world. Once the brothers figure out how to get inside the video game, they are hurled into the magical land of Boysen where they meet their helpful guides: a sage, a quirky mermaid, and a Pegasus (who flies ...

The author of one of my favorite reads of 2010, Alice, I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin , is coming out with a new book titled The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb and I can't wait to read it! Release Date: July 26, 2011 SYNOPSIS In her national bestseller Alice I Have Been , Melanie Benjamin imagined the life of the woman who inspired Alice in Wonderland . Now, in this jubilant new novel, Benjamin shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who became a nineteenth century icon and inspirationand whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength. Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would define it. She was only two-foot eight-inches tall, but her legend reaches out to us more than a century later. As a child, Mercy Lavinia Vinnie Bump was encouraged to live a life hidden away from the public. Instead, she reached out to the immortal impresario P. T. Barnum, married the tiny supe...

Featuring Nicole Krauss on her new novel, "Great House"; and Steven R. Weisman on the fascinating life and letters of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Popout Original audio source (15bookreview.mp3)

By Mary Jaksch Imagine that youve been invited to a party where you dont know anyone. Youve come through the door, grab a drink, and stand there feeling like a pony with five legs. Nobody seems to pay any attention to you. After a while you start sidling to the door in order to escape. Or maybe you tough it out and start making conversation. Ok, so this scenario isnt much fun. Heres another scenario: You go to the same party. But this time the host spots you hovering on the doorstep, guides you into the room, hands you a drink and shows you around, introducing you to the other guests. That would feel a lot better, right? The difference lies in the introduction. In the first scenario, you didnt feel welcome. Whereas in the second scenario, your host connected with you. When you think of visiting a blog and reading a post, the experience is quite similar. If there is no introduction to the post youre about to read, you may feel unwelcome and leave. Why? Because the headline promised a w...

These images of Soviet architecture from the Brezhnev era are simply out of this world Soviet brutalism is not something traditionally thought of as beautiful, but Frdric Chaubin's stunning photographs, published under the facetious title CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed , should go some way to changing this. Fascinated by the massive scale of Brezhnev-era architecture, the French photographer has toured the former Soviet Union since 2003, in search of dramatic examples of these sculptural buildings. The 1970s-1990s was a strong period for Soviet architecture, especially in the peripheral republics, where outlandish designs were an expression of the striving for independence, an early inkling of the break-up of the USSR. Architects at this time picked up where they left off following the suppression of the avant-garde by Stalin in the early 1930s, and were able to capitalise on advances made in engineering in the interim period, producing buildings with enormous in...

Will the urban centres of tomorrow be built around large, busy airports? Rowan Moore does not think so The old city is no more. The future belongs to places such as New Songdo in South Korea, a wholly new city being built on an artificial island and linked by road bridge to Incheon international airport. And to 500 cities of the same size, as yet unborn, that China needs. And to Memphis, Tennessee, home of Fedex, and the UPS city of Louisville,Kentucky. These, says Greg Lindsay, showing a suitably 21st-century indifference to the ancient Greek plural of "polis", are "aerotropoli". An aerotropolis is a city with an airport at its centre, rather than its periphery, "a new kind of city, one native to our era of instant gratification call it the instant age". It is "a new phenomenon reshaping the way we live and transforming the way we do business". Cities such as London, forever dithering over a third runway at Heathrow, and Los Angeles, where nimb...

Permanent Temporariness Alastair Crooke It was in 2003 that I realised something fundamental had changed. The door to the room in which I was sitting flew open. In stalked a figure still dressed in a dark overcoat and scarf. He evidently could contain himself no longer. I was in Downing Street with the prime ministers foreign affairs adviser, David Manning; the overcoated figure bursting into our meeting was Jack Straw. He wanted to tell Manning that he had persuaded Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, to add Hamas to the EU list of terrorist movements. His tale of his conversion of Fischer was wrapped in expressions of outrage at Hamas. It wasnt so much the proscription that shocked me. A ceasefire, which I had helped facilitate, had broken down. What was new was the elation with which Straw greeted the banning. I dont know what Manning thought, but he will have been aware that the terrorist list is one of those things from which its almost impossible to get a name removed....

A remarkable tribute, in tough and rugged language, to a Chinese peasant from an undersung New Zealand poet This week's poem, "Ku Li," was begun in China during the second Sino-Japanese War. It's among the last poems by the New Zealand writer, Robin Hyde , completed not long before she committed suicide in London, aged 33, in 1939. It's a remarkable poem to have emerged from a relatively short and certainly perilous period of travel that included a trip to the frontline. Imagine a foreign correspondent currently in the Middle East producing such an empathetic, vivid and polished piece of writing against the pounding of gunfire and the pressure of deadlines. But Hyde was a remarkably focused writer. Her careers as novelist, campaigning journalist and poet were crammed into a short life beset with personal difficulties, including poor physical and mental health. Born Iris Guiver Wilkinson in Cape Town in 1906, she was taken to Wellington, New Zealand as a baby. He...

The impetus provided by limited time can bring real urgency to some writers' work In between reflecting on creative writing for this blog , and keeping up with the surge of new spring books, I have been reading Orhan Pamuk's 2009 Charles Eliot Norton lectures , just republished by Faber as The Naive and Sentimental Novelist (I note, en passant, that the last writer to use that formula in a book title was John le Carr , who last week gave his archive to the Bodleian library , striking a blow for British literary nationalism.) Anyway, Pamuk starts from Schiller's famous distinction between "naive" poets who write spontaneously, serenely and unselfconsciously and "sentimental" poets who think about their art, ie who are instinctively reflective, emotional and questioning, alive to the artifice of the written word. (In the UK, you might contrast Hughes and Larkin along these lines.) All of this leads Pamuk into some interesting re-evaluations of Flaubert,...

Another Monday, Another Mailbox!! This is a feature where we all share with each other the yummy books that showed up at our doors! WARNING: Mailbox Mondays can lead to extreme envy and GINORMOUS wishlists!! Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page , but for the month of February MM is on tour and hosted by Library of Clean Reads . Yours truly will be the MM host for April! Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend! I only have one new addition to report for review, but it looks like a really fun read! Behind the Palace Doors: Five Centuries of Sex, Adventure, Vice, Treachery, and Folly from Royal Britain by Michael Farquhar Release Date: March 1, 2011 SYNOPSIS Spanning 500 years of British history, a revealing look at the secret lives of some great (and not-so-great) Britons, courtesy of one of the worlds most engaging royal historians Beleaguered by scandal, b! etrayed by faithless spouses, bedeviled by ambitious children, the kings and queens o...

This week, Times reporter Kate Zernike discusses Tea Party politics; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; Sam Roberts talks about new findings in the Rosenberg spy case; and Jennifer Schuessler has bestseller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. Popout Original audio source (08bookreview.mp3)

Reign of Madness by Lynn Cullen Release Date: August 4, 2011 SYNOPSIS At the novel's outset, Princess Juana of Castile -- known to history as Juana the Mad -- isn't mad at all. Just fourteen and raised in the conservative, Catholic court of Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, she can't fathom that her parents might be having affairs, or that her betrothed, Duke Philip of Burgundy, will turn out to be anything but his namesake, Philip "the Good." She soon learns, amid parties and feasts after her marriage, that her new husband sees her as little more than a way to seize power in Spain -- after, of course, she provides him with heirs. Struggling to maintain her resolve after a series of bitter disappointments, from the shock of adjusting to life in the tumultuous Flemish court and embarrassment of her husband's affairs, to separation from her children, lead poisoning, and rumors of growing insanity that eventually rob her of her power, REIGN OF MADNESS is ...

Hey there everyone...it's time to announce some lucky giveaway winners! The winner of Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran plus a pair of Marie Antoinette cupcake earrings is.... Erika of 100 Stars or Less * * * * * The winner of the $100 CSN Stores Giftcard Giveaway is: Ashley of Books from Blah to Basically Amazing * * * * * The winner of The Irish Princess by Karen Harper is: Carrie Symes * * * * * The winner of The Second Duchess by Elizabeth Loupas is: Bookflame CONGRATULATIONS!!! Emails have been sent and winners notified! Thanks to everyone who entered and helped spread the word! A big thanks CSN, Michelle Moran and Karen Harper for providing the giveaway copies!

Ok, I admit when I first heard that there was another American writer in Kuching, I thought, well thats going to be confusing! Hey, have you met that American in Borneo? In Sarawak? In Kuching? You know, the writer? The one that just published a book? Im sure he feels the same way about me. Shortly after Tom McLaughlin contacted me via my website, I saw his book, Borneo Tom at the airport in Miri. I also checked out his website and read quite a few of his blog postings. Right away, I liked what Tom did. From the outset he made up his mind to bypass the typical agent/traditional publisher route that could drag out for years (and never have a book); instead he self-published his blog series about his life and adventures since moving to Borneo and crafted it into a rather nice book. First, he invested in setting up a professional website, hired an American publicist. He found his own editor (before he knew me) and also an illustrator. He knows success will take time, but he is laying dow...

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S " BRUNCH WITH BINGO DAY " I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS SUNDAY'S BOOK CHOICE IS..... THE COUNTRY HOME Decorative Details and Delicious Recipes BY SIMONA HILL ABOUT THE BOOK: When we think of a country home we immediately conjure up images of a comfortable and cosy place in which to live; where lifestyle and old-fashioned charm, rather than fashion, dictate our choice of home decor. This delightful companion is a celebration of country living and shows how you can introduce different aspects of it into your life, no matter where you live. Each of the four chapters - country style, country crafts, country gifts and the kitchen - introduce us to a different element of the country home. There are colourful paint effects for walls, floors, fabrics and ceramics, as well as ways in which to introduce country-style motifs that will add decorative details to your home. If you enjoy craft projects, there are instructions to sho...

What one man learned about his humanity by competing with artificial intelligence By Laura Miller This week's recommendation must be delivered with a caveat: Brian Christian's "The Most Human Human: What Talking With Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive," is billed as an account of the author's participation in a Turing Test, but it's best enjoyed if you don't expect to read much about the test itself. A Turing Test -- named for Alan Turing, the 20th-century mathematician who proposed it -- asks a judge to converse with two unseen entities, a computer and a human being, then attempt to determine which is which. Turing estimated that by 2000 there would exist a computer sophisticated enough to pass itself off as a person in the course of a five-minute conversation. At that point, Turing contended, "one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted." Christian played the piq...