"Authors’ libraries serve as a kind of intellectual biography."

What happens to them after the owner dies?

Esteban Bellán, a young Cuban New Yorker, became the first Latin American professional baseball player in the United States in 1871.

These are among the key findings of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, a nationwide poll conducted from May 19 through June 6, 2010, among 3,412 Americans age 18 and older, on landlines and cell phones, in English and Spanish. Jews, Mormons and atheists/agnostics were oversampled to allow analysis of these relatively small groups.

Previous surveys by the Pew Research Center have shown that America is among the most religious of the world’s developed nations. Nearly six-in-ten U.S. adults say that religion is “very important” in their lives, and roughly four-in-ten say they attend worship services at least once a week. But the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey shows that large numbers of Americans are uninformed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions – including their own. Many people also think the constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools are stricter than they really are.

When education and other demographic traits are held equal, whites score better than minorities on the survey’s religious knowledge questions, men score somewhat better than women, and people outside the South score better than Southerners.

How much do you know about religion?

And how do you compare with the average American? Take the short, 15-question quiz to find out and let me know how you did?

The 4th annual Dominican Book Fair in New York will be held from Friday October 1st to the 3rd at Boricua College, 155 st. and Broadway in Manhattan.
212-234-8149

"A true cultural fiesta with music, theater, cinema, arts and crafts, paintings, dance and all the colorful manifestations of the Dominican people.”

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self  by Danielle Evans

Perez Hilton announces his new website, www.TeddyHilton.com, a blog for his pet-loving fans, notably named after his beloved mini Goldendoddle. Perez Hilton’s new website, www.TeddyHilton.com, combines his passion for animals and celebrity blogging by focusing primarily on stars and their pets with an entertaining and satirical twist. Perez Hilton, the internationally known celebrity blogger, has branched out with yet another new endeavor in the form of a website, not to leave his current websites www.PerezHilton.com, www.CocoPerez.com and www.UnratedPerez.com behind, but as an additional source for readers and viewers to stay up to date on celebrities and their pets. The website launched the week of Sept 5th and has already received positive feedback and star buzz. “I’m very excited for Teddy Hilton.com to be the ultimate destination for people to get information on celebrities and their pets, funny animal videos, activism and much more,” Perez says of his new website. “The response to the website since I launched it this week has been overwhelmingly positive and I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be so it’s very exciting. I’m having so much fun working on it. I hope that people continue to enjoy it, find it, and share it with their friends."

According to paidcontent, PerezHilton.com daily page views had hovered in the 7 million to 10 million range (in 2009) and he has allegedly has been offered at least $20 million dollars to sell the blog.

• You read books in series.
• You want to keep track of what to read next.
• You want recommendations on what to read next.
• You want to know when new books are coming out.

FictFact is a tracking site focused on book series. Let us know what books/series you've read and we'll let you know what you need to read next and what's coming out soon. Registration is free, so let us know how you like it, and what series, books & authors we might be missing.

www.fictfact.com

Seems like a pretty useful site for readers but they still quite a few bugs to work out and probably could use some funding to really max out the sharing features and redesign the layout and get rid of the icky ads.

Healer: A Novel by Carol Cassella

From national bestselling author Carol Cassella comes the story of one doctor’s struggle to hold her family together through a storm of broken trust and questioned ethics. Claire is at the start of her medical career when she falls in love with Addison Boehning, a biochemist with blazing genius and big dreams. A complicated pregnancy deflects Claire’s professional path, and she is forced to drop out of her residency. Soon thereafter Addison invents a simple blood test for ovarian cancer, and his biotech start-up lands a fortune.

Overnight the Boehnings are catapulted into a financial and social tier they had never anticipated or sought: they move into a gracious Seattle home and buy an old ranch in the high desert mountains of eastern Washington, and Claire drifts away from medicine to become a full-time wife and mother. Then Addison gambles everything on a cutting-edge cancer drug, and when the studies go awry, their comfortable life is swept away. Claire and her daughter, Jory, move to a dilapidated ranch house in rural Hallum, where Claire has to find a job until Addison can salvage his discredited lab.

Her only offer for employment comes from a struggling public health clinic, but Claire gets more than a second chance at medicine when she meets Miguela, a bright Nicaraguan immigrant and orphan of the contra war who has come to the United States on a secret quest to find the family she has lost. As their friendship develops, a new mystery unfolds that threatens to destroy Claire’s family and forces her to question what it truly means to heal.

Healer exposes the vulnerabilities of the American family, provoking questions of choice versus fate, desire versus need, and the duplicitous power of money.

About the Author

Carol Wiley Cassella majored in English Literature at Duke University and graduated from medical school in 1986. She currently practices anesthesiology in Seattle and was a freelance medical writer specializing in global public health advocacy for the developing world. She is the mother of two sets of twins and is working on her next novel. Visit the author at www.carolcassella.com.

www.carolcassella.com

Awesome remix - I love the original too:

Say word!

The Lady Matador's Hotel: A Novel Cristina Garcia

National Book Award finalist Cristina García delivers a powerful and gorgeous novel about the intertwining lives of the denizens of a luxurious hotel in an unnamed Central American capital in the midst of political turmoil. The lives of six men and women converge over the course of one week.

There is a Japanese-Mexican-American matadora in town for a bull-fighting competition; an ex-guerrilla now working as a waitress in the hotel coffee shop; a Korean manufacturer with an underage mistress ensconced in the honeymoon suite; aninternational adoption lawyer of German descent; a colonel who committed atrocities during his country’s long civil war; and a Cuban poet who has come with his American wife to adopt a local infant.

With each day, their lives become further entangled, resulting in the unexpected—the clash of histories and the pull of revenge and desire.Cristina García’s magnificent orchestration of politics, the intimacies of daily life, and the frailty of human nature unfolds in a moving, ambitious, often comic, and unforgettable tale.

About the Author

Cristina GarcÍa is the author of four novels: Dreaming in Cuban, The AgÜero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, and A Handbook to Luck. GarcÍa's work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into a dozen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. She is currently the artistic director for the Centrum Writers Exchange in Port Townsend, Washington and has taught literature and writing at numerous universities. In 2009-10, she will be a Visiting Professor and a Black Mountain Institute Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

www.cristinagarcianovelist.com

Love poetry that stuns you with its fierceness!



Visit Lenellemoise.com

There are very few experiences quite as enriching as losing yourself within the pages of a book. Reading inspires, educates, empowers, entertains, touches the soul, sparks the imagination and opens the door to a world of soul-enhancing rewards.

Be it Mexican-American/Chicano, Cuban, Argentinian… Latino authors from every nationality continue to cross boundaries and experiment with language furthering our rich and complex literary tradition that dates back many centuries.

At tonight’s party, we’ll be talking about the rich variety of books authored by Latinos that are available, in both English and Spanish, our Latino literary tradition, your favorite books [Latino or non-Latino], and the ways we can help create a life-long love of reading in our young ones.
We’ll also discuss how publishers are embracing the digital world, traditional books vs. E-books and the future of the publishing industry.

As you know, part of our mission at #latism is to promote reading among Latinos in their communities, and to raise awareness about the richness of our culture. So as a member of our thriving #latism community, we’d like you to help us shape a Latino book drive program and its implementation. Your ideas are welcome and details will be discussed during the party.

As a reward for your support of all things #latism, we’ll also be raffling a brand-new Kindle to a lucky winner!!

Visit latism.org

Pretty classic!

The video was produced by the California Digital Library’s mass digitization team. It shows how the UC Libraries work with our partner organizations to scan books and make them findable online. It also demonstrates several ways you can use these newly digital books, and explains how they’re preserved for the long term.

www.megmedina.com

Awesomeness!:

The University of Arizona has put online a database of its collection of non-US children’s books — the world’s largest collection. The database, which contains information on more than 30,000 books, is called The World of Words: International Collection of Children’s and Adolescent Literature. It’s available at http://wowlit.org/.

Via Researchbuzz

I was lucky enough to get a preview of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature by Ilan Stavans, Edna Acosta-Belén, Harold Augenbraum, María Herrera-Sobek, et al. earlier this summer, and, I was so glad. This is a must have for any Latino household or literature loving reader. Consider it not a compendium but a treasury of Latino thought and writing.

A dazzling and definitive compendium of the Latino literary tradition.
This groundbreaking Norton Anthology includes the work of 201 Latino writers from Chicano, Cuban-, Puerto Rican-, and Dominican-American traditions, as well as writing from other Spanish-speaking countries.

Under the general editorship of award-winning cultural critic Ilan Stavans, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature traces four centuries of writing, from letters to the Spanish crown by sixteenth-century conquistadors to the cutting-edge expressions of twenty-first-century cartoonistas and artists of reggaeton.

In six chronological sections—Colonization, Annexation, Acculturation, Upheaval, into the Mainstream, and Popular Traditions—it encompasses all genres, featuring such writers as José Martí, William Carlos Williams, Julia Alvarez, Oscar Hijuelos, Cristina García, Piri Thomas, Esmeralda Santiago, and Junot Díaz.

Twelve years in the making, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature sheds new light on "nuestra America" through a gathering of writing unprecedented in scope and vitality.

On the Making of Latino Literature
Q&A about the book with the editor
More: Stray questions for ilan stavans
Listen at NPR: The Accents of Latino Literature

 In NYC? Don't miss the Presentation of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature
Thursday, September 30, 2010 7:00 p.m.
Americas Society: 680 Park Avenue New York, NY

Love it? send your tweets to @NortonAnthology

Free event:
Fri. Oct. 08, 2010, 12 to 7 Media Conference at Casa Frela Gallery
Fri. Oct. 08, 2010, 8 to 12 Artist Reception at Casa Frela Gallery
Sat Oct. 09, 2010, 9 to 5 Art Walking Tour
Sat Oct. 09, 2010, 7 to 9 Saturday Artist Party at The Taller Boricua
Sun. Oct. 10. 2010, 9 to 5 Art Walking Tour
Sun. Oct. 10, 2010, 6 to 8 Closing Party at Floor4Art

Walk with us in our beautiful Central Harlem neighborhood on Saturday & Sunday, October 9th and 10th, 2010 from 9AM to 5PM. The tour features the work of over 60 artists living and working in Harlem. Enjoy a relaxing weekend and discover new artwork, galleries and meet artists from Harlem’s vibrant art scene.

Casa Frela Gallery located at 47 West 119th Street is the starting point where maps will be distributed to all tour participants, highlighting the various stops on the walking tour including open artist studios, museums, and cultural and historic venues. All forms of art will be featured including sculptures, ceramics, painting, photographs, etchings and prints and textiles.

Casually scroll through Central Harlem at a convenient pace, buy original artwork from emerging to established artists, visit with the artists and gallery owners or sit down and rest at one of the many sponsoring organizations that are offering services to make your visit as pleasurable as possible.

Working together Harlem art galleries, businesses and organizations have created an exciting art venue free and open to the public. Please come and join us! This tour is sponsored by Casa Frela Gallery and is a part of Open House New York – OHNY 2010.

For further information about the tour please visit the Casa Frela Gallery website at www.casafrela.com or call the information hotline at 212-722-8577.

Ingrid Betancourt tells the story of her captivity in the Colombian jungle, sharing powerful teachings of resilience, resistance, and faith.

Born in Bogotá, raised in France, Ingrid Betancourt at the age of thirty-two gave up a life of comfort and safety to return to Colombia to become a political leader in a country that was being slowly destroyed by terrorism, violence, fear, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. In 2002, while campaigning as a candidate in the Colombian presidential elections, she was abducted by the FARC. Nothing could have prepared her for what came next. She would spend the next six and a half years in the depths of the jungle as a prisoner of the FARC. Even Silence Has an End is her deeply personal and moving account of that time. Chained day and night for much of her captivity, she never stopped dreaming of escape and, in fact, succeeded in getting away several times, always to be recaptured. In her most successful effort she and a fellow captive survived a week away, but were caught when her companion became desperately ill; she learned later that they had been mere miles from freedom.

The facts of her story are astounding, but it is Betancourt's indomitable spirit that drives this very special account, bringing life, nuance, and profundity to the narrative. Attending as intimately to the landscape of her mind as she does to the events of her capture and captivity, Even Silence Has an End is a meditation on the very stuff of life-fear and freedom, hope and what inspires it. Betancourt tracks her metamorphosis, sharing how in the routines she established for herself-listening to her mother and two children broadcast to her over the radio, daily prayer-she was able to do the unthinkable: to move through the pain of the moment and find a place of serenity.

Freed in 2008 by the Colombian army, today Betancourt is determined to draw attention to the plight of hostages and victims of terrorism throughout the world and it is that passion that motivates Even Silence Has an End. The lessons she offers here-in courage, resilience, and humanity-are gifts to treasure.

Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle Ingrid Betancourt

Love!

Pedro Almodovar has cast Concha Buika in his upcoming film "La Piel que Habito", also starring Antonio Banderas.

Love these ads for the new season of opera at The Met

Combating #SundaySadness



Favorite quote: "Lonely is healing, if you make it."

HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.

There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).

And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting life's magic things in reach.

And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.

you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

Loving yourself means letting go of all your fears and all the things that hold you back.

Okay, this is NSFW (and potentially offensive) so click at your own risk but I thought it was a clever (and about time) spin on Ask a Mexican:

Via RandiGirl

ToyotaLatino launched a new "somos muchos LATINOS" campaign on Facebook.

The new campaign features a series of limited-edition decals that pay homage to different countries and regions such as "somos muchos CHILENOS", "somos muchos MEXICANOS", "somos muchos BORICUAS", etc.

The decals can be ordered for free (up to 5 per person) via facebook at www.facebook.com/ToyotaLatino.

In a post at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Steve Rendall and Zachary Tomanelli investigated the racial breakdown of the book reviewers and authors in two important book review venues, the New York Times Book Review and C-SPAN’s After Words. They found that the vast majority of both reviewers and authors were white males. Overall, 95% of the authors and 96% of the reviewers were non-Latino white (compared to 65% of the population).

Can't wait to see this!

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, here's a post dedicated to the first Latina (Puerto Rican) librarian in NYC.


"Belpré passed away in 1982, having received the New York Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture that same year.

Her archives are held and maintained by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York.






Belpré's name lives on in the fields of Latino and American librarianship and Latino and children's literature as a source of inspiration. The Northeast Chapter of REFORMA named its librarian achievement award in her honor in the 1980s.

In 1996, REFORMA national named its first children's book award after her as well. The Pura Belpré Award is presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth."

“The librarians of America will not stand by and let ignorance rule,” says ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. “For every would-be book burner, there are thousands of readers who will speak out for the freedom to peaceably assemble and read whatever they choose.”

Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010
10AM - 6PM

200 Authors,
175 Vendors,
13 Venues,
Expanded “Bookend” Events
all Weekend
9/10-9/12!

www.brooklynbookfestival.org
 

And don't miss the Las Comadres/La Casa Azul Bookstore
booth #131
Sunday Sept. 12, 2010
11am - 5pm

AUTHOR BOOK SIGNING SCHEDULE

11:30 a.m. Cristina Garcia
11:50 a.m. Torrey Maldonado
12:10 p.m. Lemon Andersen
12:30 p.m. Alberto Ferreras
12:50 p.m. Ada Limon
1:10 p.m. Ana Galan
1:30 p.m. Daisy Martinez
1:50 p.m. Brando Skyhorse
2:10 p.m. Michelle Herrera Mulligan & Sofia Quintero
2:30 p.m. Esmeralda Santiago
3:00 p.m. Sandra Rodriguez Barron
3:20 p.m. Daniel Serrano
3:40 p.m. Dahlma Llanos Figueroa
4:00 p.m. Sergio Troncoso

Move over Gosselin gang, there’s a new batch of babies on block! TLC has ordered eight episodes of a new baby-booming reality series called ‘Sextuplets Take New York,’ which follows a Latino couple billed as having the first Hispanic sextuplets born in the U.S. “Born weighing less than two pounds each and given little to no chance for survival, the Carpio sextuplets are six little miracles,” says the release.

The family from Queens, N.Y., includes dad and mom Victor and Digna Carpio and their 22-month-old sextuplets, four boys and two girls: Genesis, Joel, Justin, Jezreel, Jayden and Danelia. The couple also has a nine-year-old son. The show follows the Carpios as they struggle with a tight budget, a busy schedule, and a seven-kid brood that requires 50 diaper changes a day. “We fell in love with them,” said Nancy Daniels, senior VP of production and development at TLC, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “All of our shows look at interesting families and interesting live. They’re struggling with taking care of a lot of small children who are all the same age and overrunning their house.”

The ‘Sextuplets’ join TLC’s multiples family-oriented programming slate, which also includes ‘Kate Plus 8‘ (yes, another new special is coming); the Duggar family of ‘19 Kids and Counting‘; and the recently announced ‘Quints by Surprise.’

The ‘Sextuplets’ take over TLC, premiering Sept. 14th.

Bimexicano: Nuestros Clasicos Hechos Rock (Nacional Records; out today on iTunes), is a compilation celebrating 200 years of Mexican Independence with reinterpretations of classic rancheras, boleros and folk songs for your to enjoy...

You can sample all the tracks here, including my favorite Besame Mucho.

I am not a morning person, most people who know me know this and perhaps that is why I love this new ad from the folks at Quaker. It embodies everything about mornings that I both wish I embraced and makes me feel bad about missing out on. The message is inspirational and has a cinema like feel to it. Yes, it's a tad cornballish but who cares. It speaks to all the dreamers. It's great marketing. And, who doesn't like outmeal?

The 10th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 3rd and 7th streets from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are honorary chairs for the event. The festival, a celebration of the joy of reading for all ages, is free and open to the public.

The website for the 10th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the U.S. Library of Congress, features “vote for your favorite Book Festival author.” Book-lovers will be able to select from among the roughly 500 authors who have appeared at the nine previous National Book Festivals or will appear at this year’s festival, using an alphabetical listing or voting from the page that includes each author’s biography and photograph. The top 10 vote-getters will be displayed on the voting page, with daily updates.

“One of the ways we’re observing the 10th year of the festival, celebrating ‘A Decade of Words and Wonder,’ is to make our festival website more interactive and lively,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “We’ve had a wealth of authors at the festival, and this is one more way for their fans to show their allegiance.”

The website also has new multimedia offerings―including clips from interviews with past Book Festival authors―and a countdown clock ticking away the days, hours, and minutes remaining until the festival opens. More than 70 authors now are slated to appear at the event on Saturday, September 25, 2010. The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., situated between 3rd and 7th streets on the National Mall. To learn more about the National Book Festival or to cast a vote for your favorite author, visit the festival website.

Sign up here: Bloggerssoiree.eventbrite.com

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted I know - but I've been busy. So let's just keep it moving... Here's a round up of things I've been meaning to share:

Jodi Picoult on White Male Literary Darlings

Will East Harlem’s La Marqueta Rise Again?

The ten top paid authors
Great round up of Chicano activism book picks

Deep essay on music as a spiritual experience: Brad Mehldau writes on "Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Beethoven and God," filtered through the lens of German authors and philosophers.

James De La Vega Closed Up His Shop

Photo Essay: People reading books all over the world.

Flavorpill's Required Viewing: 10 Essential Hip-Hop Films

More charges of sexual abuse have emerged from T. Don Hutto, a Texas immigration detention center that held men, (sometimes pregnant) women, and children until 2009 and now holds about 500 women.(via Colorlines & Postbourgie)

New York magazine lists 20+ most anticipated books of the fall.

Robert Rodriguez‘ “Machete” comes out this week.

A Latin food-inspired vegan cookbook, anyone?
Viva Vegan!

Love these:

Sex and Sidi: An Urban Lit Author in Harlem



20 Interesting Things: Augmented Reality


Gustavo Arellano, who writes the nationally syndicated “Ask a Mexican” column, has been named managing editor of the OC Weekly.

On the rise and fall of Modern art:
The Mona Lisa Curse

The Phantom Tollbooth, or, The Democratizing Principle of Literature

A Free Program Rich in Afro-Latino Culture, Film and the Arts is Newly Offered in El Barrio

PBS CELEBRATES HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH