Book Buzz

This week: Daniel Handler, Alex Kuczynski and best sellers. Popout Original audio source (21bookupdate.mp3)

This Week: Author Calvin Trillin, "House of Meetings" by Martin Amis and "Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty" by Tim Sandlin. Popout Original audio source (13bookupdate.mp3)

This Week: Author Michael Thomas, "The Notebooks of Robert Frost," and best seller news. Popout Original audio source (03bookupdate.mp3)

You might have already bought it. Maybe you loved it. Maybe you hated it. Maybe you listened to the great Copyblogger radio show about it. What is it? Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions . Its Guy Kawasakis most recent book, and it was a smash hit. But this post is not about that book. Sorry, Guy. Instead, this is a post about the myriad triggers that lead readers to pick up a copy of Enchantment and about the strategies Guy Kawasaki has used to make himself one of the most likable authorities around. This is a post about how you can make a little bit of that Kawasaki magic work for you and it all starts with creating a stamp of approval. Why you need a stamp of approval Guy Kawasakis ventures carry a stamp of approval that catapults his books to bestseller lists before theyre even released. Get your hands on that magic stamp, and you can catapult your own work your blog, your product or service, your business to heights youve never seen before. Im not go...

I've been a huge fan of author Karleen Koen 's ever since reading Through A Glass Darkly and Now Face to Face and now she is back with a new novel titled Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV that is out in stores today! I recently had the pleasure of reading Before Versailles and it was unputdownable! Today I am thrilled to bring you an interview with Karleen Koen and with thanks to Random House I have 2 copies of Before Versailles to give away. It was a treat and a pleasure to have the opportunity to interview one of my idols and I hope you enjoy it. Now, on to the interview.... I see that you dedicated Before Versailles to X and Louise de Vailliere. Is it safe to assume that X is for the Man in the Iron Mask and what made you decide to dedicate this novel to Louise de Valliere? X isn't for the man in the iron mask, but I love the idea, so now, thanks to you, the man in the iron mask is part of X. I think Louise de la Valliere was so important to Louis XIV's...

Posthumous publications fall into three distinct varieties In his study of late style , written shortly before his own death from leukaemia, Edward Said invoked a concept of lateness quite divorced from the traditional view . Rather than seeing it in the standard terms of maturity, a lifetime's accrual of experience and knowledge resulting in a rounded, all-encompassing vision, Said proposed to investigate those composers and writers whose late style was marked by "intransigence, difficulty and unresolved contradiction", that rage against the dying of the light heard at its most paradigmatic in the mingled elegance and fury of the late quartets of Beethoven. On this view, late works express the antagonism of age, a state in which we become less rather than more reconciled to the world, hurling imprecations at our carers, refusing the cliches of tranquil reflection. But what of those latest of late works, the ones that only appear after the final demise of their creators? ...

THE ART OF SAYING GOODBYE BY ELLYN BACHE ABOUT THE BOOK: She was the thread that wove their tapestry together. With a group of women as diverse as the ladies from Brightwood Trace, you might not think them to be close. There's Julianne, a nurse with an unsettling psychic ability that allows her to literally feel what her patients feel, Andrea, a strong fortress sheltering a faltering core, Ginger, a mother torn between being a stay-at-home mom or following her career aspirations, and Iona, the oldest, whose feisty, no-nonsense attitude disarms even toughest of the tough. Not exactly the ingredients for the most cohesive cocktail . . . Until you add Paisley, the liveliest and friendliest of the clan, who breathed life into them all. But when their glowing leader falls ill with cancer, it's up to these women to do what Paisely has done for them since the beginning: lift her up. Overcoming and accepting the inevitability of loss, the women draw closer than ever; fi...