Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Listen to the Interview w/Josefina Lopez, author of HUNGRY WOMAN IN PARIS & REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES
Friday, March 27, 2009
More Bookish Communities

filedby.com - Is a book community focused around authors and authors get really nice profile pages, however premium pages aren't free and as we know 'not free' isn't very cool in the web world. Yet they've got some publishers behind them and also offer less known authors a chance to really promote themselves. One drawback I found however, is when you sign up as a reader there is no way to import your book list but they're currently in public beta so let's hope they take care of that.
You can read the full press release here
shortcovers.com/ - This site is multifaceted and really well integrated, you can buy books, enjoy the book community, and also access snippets, reviews and more from your mobile or ereader as well as your desktop.
You can download the app here: shortcovers.com/mobile
Money 101
20 Free Online Finance Courses - Take Money Classes From the Comfort of Your Home via generation x finance
Libraries and Innovation
Thursday, March 26, 2009
More on LookyBook: In Search of an Angel

Like Magnetic Poetry? Have Some Spare Time?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Where The Wild Things Are - The Movie

Part of me, is thrilled to see the film version and part of is me laments having my own version (the one in my childhood memories) be replaced or disturbed by the movie version.
You can read more about the movie here: Wake Up, the Where the Wild Things Are Trailer Is Here
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Post-Apocalyptic Novels

And although the don't have Blindness listed here a great link to Discover 20 post-apocalyptic novels
* Photo credit: berzerkoX

Saturday, March 21, 2009
I'm a Nuyorican
True Life: I'm A Nuyorican Video
"The Women of El Barrio, an advocacy group of Puerto Rican women, have also spoken out on the TV episode, calling it "a disgraceful representation of an entire body of people."
At Latina.com, blogger Mariela Rosario wrote, "To showcase Nuyoricans only as a struggling, victimized and ignorant community is a huge mistake on MTV’s part.""
Read MTV not getting 'Nuyorican' love
You can also let America know this is not who 'we' are: Sign Petition: www.facebook.com/group
Friday, March 20, 2009
Lookybook Bids Adieu
Regrettably, we have come to the last page in our adventure together. Thank you for your enthusiasm, support, and patronage.There’s a brand new frontier ahead. Please continue to support the creators and publishers of fine children’s picture books by exploring all the new and inventive ways they will be brought to you.
Some of you may remember that Lookybook was a fantastic UK-based book community built around children's picture books that you could interactively flip through.

It was named one of Time's 50 Best Websites of 2008.
Update: Lookybook closed simply due to lack of resources.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
US & Cuba Project Saves Rare Hemingway Papers Digitally
"An important collection of papers belonging to the American writer Ernest Hemingway has been saved for posterity, thanks to a unique joint rescue mission involving communist Cuba and the United States....
Phase one is now complete - 3,197 pages of documents have been restored and then scanned on to digital archives."
A look inside Ernest Hemingway's Cuban home
via news.bbc.co.uk
Poetry: Textflow
You can view more flows here or sign up for the Beta to compose your own soon.
Very cool!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
El Barrio Herstory/March Event: "Powerful Womyn, Powerful Words"
Don't miss it!
Performers:
Alina Galliano
Elisha Miranda
Glenys Javier
Letisha Marrero
Marcela Poveda
Michelle Herrera Mulligan
Raven Blackstone
Rhonda Cox
Seary
Shirley Velasquez
Sofia Quintero
Sujeiry Gonzalez
Vanessa Martir
Veronica Caicedo
Saturday March 28, 2009
6pm - 8pm
East Harlem Cafe
1651 Lexington Ave (@ 104th St.) El Barrio, NY 10029
www.eastharlem-cafe.com
Free event-RSVP suggested: lacasaazulbookstore@gmail.com
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Prequel to The Shadow of The Wind Coming This Summer
You can watch the book trailer here in English

"THE ANGEL'S GAME was massive in Spain. 600,000 copies were sold in the first week, and it went straight in at number one. Spain's first print run was one million copies and the launch was the largest ever seen. The book has sold almost 1.6 million copies in Spain to date and has also been number 1 in Italy, Germany, Portugal, Norway and much of Latin America."
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Two More Posthumous Novels from Roberto Bolaño
www.telegraph.co.uk

Sunday, March 08, 2009
Celebrating Womenhood - Where were you when you had your first period?

The genius behind the book, Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, amazingly was still in high school when the idea of collecting women's stories about getting their period for the first time. Rachel is heading to Yale next year. She is also donating all the proceeds of My Little Red Book to women’s health charities so that it may benefit girls beyond its readers.
"The accounts range from light-hearted (the editor got hers while water skiing in a yellow bathing suit) to heart-stopping (a first period discovered just as one girl was about to be strip-searched by the Nazis). The contributors include well-known women writers (Meg Cabot, Erica Jong, Gloria Steinem, Cecily von Ziegesar), alongside today's teens. And while the authors differ in race, faith, or cultural background, their stories share a common bond: they are all accessible, deeply honest, and highly informative."
I think this is an absolutely phenomenal idea - I mean don't we all have our own story and don't you wish your mom, or grandmother or sister or any other woman had shared hers with you too?
You can browse the book here:
Visit http://www.mylittleredbook.net/ to learn more or submit your own story
Read the stories
Watchthe video stories
Sign-up for the e-newsletter.
You can also join the group discussion on www.facebook.com
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Isabel Allende: Tales of passion from TED '08
Learn more here: www.ted.com/isabel_allende.html
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima" Being Made into a Movie
BLESS ME, ULTIMA has been challenged/banned historically and is also a novel on former First Lady Laura Bush's Top 10 Reading List for All Ages.
Jon Stewart on Twitter
“For the uninitiated, here’s how Twitter works — I have no f------ idea.”
Pretty funny!
via Techmeme
Monday, March 02, 2009
Bookstores in the Bronx
Using the IndieBound Goggle mash-up app, no indie bookstores are located in the Bronx. As seen here:
That one bookstore in the bottom left corner is in Manhattan. So I checked agaisnt Google Business locator in Maps, and I found only 3 major bookstores, some college bookstores and a few Christian retailers.
Contrast that against the total population of the bourough with the fact that "50.7% of the total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race (23.3% of Bronx's population were Puerto Ricans) and at least 524,410 residents were born abroad/overseas, according to Wikipedia.org.
If the Bronx is really on the up and up, I think we need more bookstores in that area.
The 2009 Best Translated Book Awards
Two of the finalist were Chilean Roberto Bolaño’s posthumous "2666" translated from Spanish byNatasha Wimmer, and "Senselessness" by Salvadoran Horacio Castellanos Moya and translated by Katherine Silver.
From the article: ""Translation of Spanish-language literature is leading the way of this whole translation boom we’re seeing right now.""
"...readers may find translations of contemporary works more appealing because the U.S. has been "overrun by writing programs and commercialism ... a similarity in writing."
Do you agree? What's you favorite translated work or author?
You can click here to download the official awards press release.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
John Leguizamo's Work in Progress

The show opened Friday, Feb. 27th and runs through March 11th.
Now I've seen most of his one-man shows ("Mambo Mouth, the Tony-nominated Sexaholix (later taped for HBO; Emmy Award) and Freak: A Semi Demi Quasi Pseudo Autobiography") and movies and I can tell you he's fantastically funny (and loony). In fact, in one scene during one of the shows I forget, which he jumped off the stage and sat in my lap.
Apparently the show is literally a work in progress since this is description on the site:
"Yo, wat up?
Wat’s crackin?
Me that’s what.
I’m retooling, reworking, redoing a brand new show. Help, me help you get some anti recession. And anti depression hilarity. Come on down and be a part of history in the making.
Watch me trip up and mess up and you can twitter it to your friends, " I saw john f*&#k up. Ha! ha!" I'm not mad atcha. No haters allowed. Nor hating allowed. Help me come up with a title for my new show.
Come on down and represent. Watch me put down. Cause you know I can. "
You can buy tickets at www.smarttix.com or call (212) 868-4444, or visit the Barrow Street Theatre Box Office.