In Stock Again at Amazon.com

Amazon finally has You Are a Dog back in stock. Makes my heart go all aflutter.

Labels: Amazon, Amazon.com, author, dog, dog book, dogs

A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke died today. The Universe has just gasped and seems just that much smaller. Blessings. Give. Love. The only aliens are those we refuse to touch.

Labels: author

Comments (View)

Axis of The Liar's Diary

Cog here, pretending to be wheel, or second hand, or protective glass. Or time itself. Though time itself is important, is critical, is something to be considered. For Patry Francis. Therefore we give a moment of ourselves, for time, for a moment, as the body recovers. The whole of the story and the organization and the creation of the day, the time, the moment, is told over at LitPark, where I attempt to keep html marks from wandering off to neverland, but where I take no other real responsibility. I lead you there for more stories than I could hope to create here. Take a tissue, if you're the sort who sometimes requires a tissue. Or take one anyway. And feed yourself with a book. The Liar's Diary by Patry Francis. And watch the snow for a moment. Or feed a bird. Or call a friend. Give a gift.

Blessings.

Axis of The Liar's Diary

(further updates can be found in the comments section... if you know of news, etc, please leave a note for us there)

LitPark

The (very long) list of participants in "Liar's Diary Blog Day" lifted directly from LitPark:

The video preview of the book:

Labels: author, axis, links

Comments (View)

Roy Kesey All Over for Readings of All Over

If you live near any of the following places (or are going to be within a stone's throw of them), I urge you to go see Roy, who will be promoting his newly released bookish type thing (and reading from it, I presume) titled All Over.

All Over by Roy Kesey
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

October 23: Ann Arbor
Shaman Drum Bookshop
311-315 South State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734.662.7407
Reading starts at 7:00 PM
http://www.shamandrum.com/bookshop/

October 24: New York
Happy Endings
302 Broome Street @ Forsyth
212-334-9676
(B,D to Grand Street or F, J, M, Z to Delancey)
Reading with Benjamin Percy and Min Jin Lee starts at 8:00 p.m.
Hosted by Amanda Stern
After-party at Grotto: 100 Forsyth Street, just around the corner from Happy Endings
http://www.happyendinglounge.com/flash.html

October 25: Chicago
The Fixx Reading Series
The Fixx Coffee Bar
3053 N Sheffield Ave.
Chicago, IL
Reading with Elizabeth Crane starts at 7:30 p.m.
Hosted by Amy Guth
http://chicago.citysearch.com/profile/41879483/chicago_il/fixx_coffee_bar.html

October 26: Memphis
Burke's Books
936 South Cooper
Memphis, Tennessee 38104
Phone: (901) 278-7484
Fax: (901) 274-8863
Signing from 5-6:30 p.m.
Reading with Corey Mesler starts 7 p.m.
www.burkesbooks.com

Nothing in the World by Roy Kesey
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

October 27: Asheville, NC
Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe
55 Haywood Street
Asheville, NC 28801
Tel: (828) 254-6734
Signing at 3:00 PM
http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp;jsessionid=abcC0zplMg9VZg7TOzQur?s=storeevents&eventId=358205

October 29: Greenwood, MS
TurnRow Books
304 Howard Street
Greenwood, MS 38930
(662) 453-5995
turnrow@turnrowbooks.com
http://www.turnrowbooks.com/index.php
Time: TBA

October 30: New Orleans
Octavia Books
513 Octavia Street
New Orleans , LA 70115
504-899-READ (7323)
http://www.octaviabooks.com
Reading with Pia Earhardt starts at 6 p.m.
(PS: This is the one I want to go to... anybody want to send me to NOLA for Halloween? Um, me and my family? Because there is no way in hell I'm leaving my family for Halloween? Even for Roy and Pia?)

November 2: Iowa City, IA
Borden NonFictionNow Conference
University of Iowa
Iowa Memorial Union, Iowa City
Panel Discussion with Philip Graham, LeAnne Howe, Roy Kesey, Michele Morano, Xu Xi
Travel Writing: To Simmer or Not to Simmer
8:45-10:15 a.m.
https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/conferencereg/login.aspx

The Best American Short Stories 2007 (The Best American Series) by Houghton Mifflin

The Best American Short Stories 2007 (The Best American Series) by Houghton Mifflin
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

November 5: Urbana-Champaign, IL
University of Illinois
809 South Wright Street
Champaign, IL 61820
Tel. 217.244.2118
Carr Reading Series: Author's Corner, Illini Union Bookstore
Reading starts at 4:30pm
http://www.union.uiuc.edu/bookstore.htm

November 7: Davis, CA
University of California at Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
(530) 752-1011
Room 126, Voorhies Hall
Reading starts at 6:30 p.m.
http://www.ucdavis.edu/index.html

The Best American Short Stories 2007 (The Best American Series) by Houghton Mifflin
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

November 8: Ukiah, CA
Mendocino College
1000 Hensley Creek Road
Ukiah, CA 95482
(707) 468-3000
Center for the Performing Arts
Room 5310
Reading starts at 7:30 p.m.
http://www.mendocino.edu/

Check your shedule and go see Roy and the rest. You will be flabbergasted at how impossibly good his fiction is.

Blessings.

Labels: author, fiction, friends, readings

Comments (View)

Nobel Prize? Literature? Doris Lessing.

And thank God.

The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition (Perennial Classics) by Doris Lessing

The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition (Perennial Classics) by Doris Lessing
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

I haven't read a Doris Lessing book in ages. But just this moment I'm remembering that I need to flip back and do some more of that. A good thing to do.

Blessings.

Labels: author, blessings, writing

Comments (View)

Frank Herbert's Birthday Is Today

I would title this "Happy Birthday Frank Herbert," but the man is dead, so that hardly seems appropriate.

Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 1) by Frank Herbert

Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 1) by Frank Herbert
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

In any case, Dune remains one of the strangest damn books I've ever read, and one of the most powerfully engaging and moving and fabulous. If you haven't read Dune, you should, even if you are too far above science fiction (with your head in the clouds) to read it.

Also? Mr. Herbert was born in Tacoma. It takes some doing to become a best-selling novelist from Tacoma. And that may be enough right there for me (and you) to mention it.

[link Frank Herbert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Labels: author, birthdays, books

Comments (View)

Was Big Brother Watching George Orwell?

You bet your bippy they were. And why? Well, for various reasons, but I bet the most salient and revealing of those comes from the document in question telling of his communist tendencies:

1984 by George Orwell
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

He dresses in a bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours. [From The Shadowland Journal: The Orwell Files]

Well. Of course. They would have excellent reason to suspect him of all kinds of espionage and child-spanking then, as well.

Labels: author, politics, writer

Comments (View)

Sherman Writes a Kids Book

And it's set in Spokane.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

And he's talking to Renee Montagne on NPR about the book.

[link NPR : Author Sherman Alexie Targets Young Readers]

I'm thinking I want to read this. I've had my arguments with Mr. Alexie in the past, most of them in my own head. Maybe it's time to set them aside and just read a book.

Blessings.

Labels: author, books, local author, Spokane

Comments (View)

O.J. Goldman Book Un-Un-Published

I'm thinking they should retitle the O.J. Book to If I Did (Of Course He Did, Why Else Would He Write This Book, and of Course the Goldman Family Deserves to Profit of the Retelling of His Confession to Murder, Why Wouldn't They) It.

I fail to see how turning O.J.'s book into the Goldman Family's book changes it into anything but an opportunistic, trashy scrap of murder-pr0n, but I'm willing to let you tell me how I'm wrong, if I'm wrong:

stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

Bloomberg.com: Muse: "Beaufort Books said late yesterday that it will publish O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" after acquiring the rights to the controversial title. The book is a supposedly hypothetical account of how Simpson, a former football star, might have murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald L. Goldman in 1994. It was originally backed by editor Judith Regan and scheduled for publication last November by News Corp.'s HarperCollins."

Here's what I know. If he did it? Then we are having the wrong discussion. Because the discussion ought to be about how he did it and still gets to play golf during the week.

Don't kid yourself into thinking it can't happen again. It happens somewhere new every freaking day.

Labels: author, book, books, writing

Comments (View)

A Strange Scent from an Enormous Mountain (or Something Smells Like Stink)

How very very odd, and very very sad, this letter from Robert Olen Butler to his grad students will make you... make you... I don't know what it will make you, but it will make you do something... likely you will scratch your head and go back to whatever else you thought you should be doing. And that, quite frankly, would be the most appropriate response.

stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

Money Changes Everything: Elizabeth Dewberry Left Robert Olen Butler To Join Ted Turner's Collection - Gawker: "Rumors will soon be swirling around the department, so I want to tell the full and nuanced story to the five of you among the graduate students and ask that you clarify the issues for any of your fellow grad students who ask. This sort of thing can get wildly distorted pretty quickly. You can feel free to use any part or all of this email to do so. I really appreciate your help.
Put down your cup of coffee or you might spill it.
Elizabeth is leaving me for Ted Turner."

stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

You may also respond with "Who is Robert Olen Butler and why the hell should I care about his breakup?" I suppose once his wife manages to break free from the "shadow of the pulitzer" she'll be living in the bright shiny gleam of Ted Turner's teeth.

The more I think about this fiasco, the more it makes me want to say, "what the hell?"

Now then. Just go back to important things, will you? I'm sorry to have bothered you.

Thanks to Pia for discovering this for us. It's always lovely to wake up to a story of people far more kucfed up than us.

And blessings. To you.

Labels: author

Comments (View)

A Dog Year Movie

How cool is it that one of my favorite dog books (A Dog Year) by one of my favorite dog book authors (John Katz) is being made into a movie staring Jeff Bridges as Mr. Katz.

stores: abebooks | alibris | amazon | barnes & noble | booksense | powells
tools: bookfinder | goodreads | librarything | shelfari | worldcat
engines: a9 | google | swicki | snap | winzy

I mean, Jeff Bridges? He was the star of TRON, you know? And, um, Starman. And The Big Lebowski, for crying out loud. He's The Dude! How can you not love The Dude? The Fisher King? The Last Picture Show?

Get out. I'm all smeaty just thinking about it, and I don't even know what the heck "smeaty" would be.

Carry on.

Blogged with Flock

Labels: author, book, dog, movie

Comments (View)

Books by Terry Bain

Twitter Updates

Wag Newsletter

My Blog Log

Google Friend Connect

Recently at Bainbooks.com

Bainbooks.com Archive

In Stock Again at Amazon.com

A Space Odyssey

Axis of The Liar's Diary

Axis of The Liar's Diary

Roy Kesey All Over for Readings of All Over

Nobel Prize? Literature? Doris Lessing.

Frank Herbert's Birthday Is Today

Was Big Brother Watching George Orwell?

Sherman Writes a Kids Book

O.J. Goldman Book Un-Un-Published

A Strange Scent from an Enormous Mountain (or Something Smells Like Stink)

A Dog Year Movie

Dipity Timeline