Coming this fall: a newly published autobiography that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote before she decided to retool her life story into the Little House on the Prairie books. Originally intended for an adult audience, Pioneer Girl gives a decidedly unsanitized account of Ingalls Wilder’s life, including love triangles, deadbeat fathers and episodes of drunken abuse. In The Telegraph, Rosa Prince compiles a preview of the new book.
Roughing It
The City That Reads
Before adopting the relatively unimaginative (and highly debatable) moniker “The Greatest City in America,” Baltimore, MD was for a time known as “The City That Reads.” In an essay for Poets & Writers, Jen Michalski explains how the city’s bookish reputation endures despite the motto change.
2012 Costa Award Finalists Announced
The 2012 finalists for the Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book Awards have been anounced. In the “Novel” category, they are Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May, The Heart Broke In by James Meek, and Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart. The Costa site has lists of the nominees in all categories.
Speaking in Tongues
“What do I want to say with this new language that I can’t say in my native language—or any other language that currently exists?” From The Lord of the Rings to A Game of Thrones, Josephine Livingstone explores the history of invented languages, over at The New Republic.
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I Know I Would
It’s almost December. Wouldn’t you rather be surfing in Fiji?
Hidden Treasures
What if a treasure hunt in a book crossed over into the real world? Author Kit Williams buried a prize and left clues to its location in his novel, Masquerade. The search drove England crazy. Our own Hannah Gersen maps the imaginary in her essay about how authors organize their manuscripts.
“The C closest to the center”
In the LA Times, Jim Ruland reviews Middle C, the new book by Year in Reading alumnus William H. Gass. For another take on the novel, go read “best-read man in America” Michael Dirda in the Washington Post, or else check out Greg Gerke on the author’s Life Sentences.
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Mia Couto Wins Neustadt Prize
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