News of the Bookworld:
The PEN American Center announced the winners of the 2011 PEN Literary Award Winners.
Detroit poet Philip Levine became our new Poet Laureate this week.
The Millions has this interview with Lev Grossman, author of the big bestseller The Magicians. The sequel, The Magician King, went on sale this week.
Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of Manchurian Candidate, will adapt Stephen King’s forthcoming novel 11/22/63.
Abrams announced a massive first printing for their upcoming Oprah book, The Oprah Winfrey Show: Reflections on an American Legacy – 500,000!!! This is an O-fficial Harpo project. Still waiting to find out if they’re giving away a new car with every purchase. Fingers crossed.
Babar the Elephant turned 80 this week.
A Seattle law firm filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and the country’s major publishers, alleging that the agency models by which ebooks are priced are against a variety of state and federal laws.
Move over, Snooki: the Kardashian sisters are publishing a novel.
The Washington Post is reorganizing the staffing and structure of its book coverage, but swears nothing will change.
As the riots in London hit a frenzied pitch, booksellers sought police protection.
Surprise, surprise, Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire will be a movie in 2013.
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New of the BookPeople World:
The big, big news this week is our Big Nate Cartooning Workshop with cartoonist and author Lincoln Peirce. It’s happening Saturday, August 27 & Sunday, August 28th. Get all the details, including the registration form, on our website. Space is limited, so if your budding cartoonist (ages 8-12) is interested, get us that form fast!
On Wednesday, two of us got up at four o’clock in the morning to get on a six a.m. flight to Chicago where we spent a long day learning wonderful new ways to better serve you via our website. It’s going to take some time, but we’re giving the face of BookPeople on the web a total makeover. So if one day in the next couple of weeks you happen to go to www.bookpeople.com and it looks like a FrankenMonster, please remember that beauty takes time. And a few technical difficulties we will work quickly to correct, thanks for your patience.
We booked two awesome kid’s events for September this week: a special music/art performance and signing with the author and illustrator of the very cool Pete the Cat books, and a talk and book signing with the author of the adorable Llama, Llama books.
Plans are in the works for a big Halloween party here at the store, like none we’ve ever put on; we’re also already looking ahead to Christmas, if you can believe it, and dreaming big dreams about a festive (and delicious) holiday contest.
That takes care of it. Enjoy the weekend. Read a book. Or several.
BookPeople 