David Cherry's blog

2011 National Book Awards Finalists

Submitted by David Cherry on Wed, 10/12/2011 - 1:52pm

National Book Award medal - courtesy of the National Book FoundationThe finalists for the 2011 National Book Awards were announced on October 12. As usual the list is a mix of relative unknowns and old reliables, critically acclaimed bestsellers and small press prestige titles. The NBA, along with the Pulitzer, is the most coveted prize awarded to American writers. The roster of past winners reads like a Who's Who of the last half century in American letters. They include Jonathan Franzen, Ha Jin, Cormac McCarthy and Alice Walker for fiction; Patti Smith, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe and Maxine Hong Kingston for nonfiction; Galway Kinnell, Elizabeth Bishop, W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams for Poetry; and Sherman Alexie and Jeanne Birdsall for young people's literature.

Canaries in the Coal Mine: Banned Books Week, September 24 - October 1

Submitted by David Cherry on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 10:19am

ALA Banned Books Week 2011 LogoEven as you read this, some nameless canary is sitting alone at a keyboard pecking away at one or another of your dearly-held and unquestioned truths. With time and because of that canary's work, that truth will be shown to be false. And you will be better for it. We all will.

Hispanic Heritage Month: Seven Nobel Laureates and a Might-Have-Been

Submitted by David Cherry on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 10:53am

Cover Art: La Casa Verde by Mario Vargas LlosaThey don’t hand out the Nobel Prize in Literature to just anybody. Unlike the Pulitzer and National Book Award, which are given for a single work, the Nobel is awarded for an author’s entire body of work. The result is that the prize isn't given out to the latest hot young thing, the flavor of the month, the flash-in-the-pan, the one-hit-wonder. The Nobel is awarded for sustained excellence.

Lit Geek Heaven: Pennsound Audio Archive

Submitted by David Cherry on Tue, 09/20/2011 - 1:23pm

Pennsound Website Banner

Pennsound's mission is to collect, and make available to the public free of charge, recordings of contemporary authors and poets reading their own work, as well as to preserve recordings of authors from the past.

South Houston Branch Renovations Begin October 1.

Submitted by David Cherry on Mon, 09/19/2011 - 2:37pm

South Houston Branch LibraryRenovations are set to begin on the South Houston Branch. The library will be open until 5:00 PM Saturday Oct. 1, with work scheduled to start on Monday October 3. The grant-funded renovations will include an update of the existing facilities and the addition of a computer lab. While the South Houston Branch is closed, customers may use the nearby Parker Williams Branch located at 10851 Scarsdale Boulevard, Suite #510. Renovations are currently underway at the Jacinto City Branch, and the Galena Park Branch will be remodeled in the near future. We will share more information about these projects as it becomes available.
 

Hispanic Heritage Month @ Your Library

Submitted by David Cherry on Fri, 09/16/2011 - 2:27pm

Hispanic Heritage MonthIn honor of the diverse cultures that comprise Harris County, the Harris County Public Library and its branches will celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month starting September 15 and running through October 15. Programs, activities and displays will be offered at branches throughout Harris County.

Harris County continues to be shaped by, and to benefit from, its vibrant Hispanic community. Harris County Public Library hopes to educate, inform and entertain the citizens of Harris County during this month celebrating the contributions of Hispanics to the cultural and economic life of our nation.

HCPL's Summer in Review

Submitted by David Cherry on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 3:09pm

Midnight Notes on the Poet H. D.

Submitted by David Cherry on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 8:40am

Portrait of H. D., courtesy the Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org)When we think of the poet H. D. (born Hilda Doolittle) we see her as through a prism, or perhaps more fittingly as the subject of a cubist portrait. She is fragmentary--a series of planes that don't quite make a whole but which carry undeniable significance.

2011 Adult SRP Drawing Winners

Submitted by David Cherry on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 8:55am

The Most Famous Top-Secret Place on Earth

Submitted by David Cherry on Fri, 09/02/2011 - 3:02pm

Cover: Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base by Annie JacobsenArea 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base / Annie Jacobsen

I don’t believe in those big-headed, squat-bodied extra-terrestrials with the unhealthy interest in the lower reaches of the human intestinal tract. Yes, I do suppose someone is out there, if only because the place is so big the laws of probability demand it. I just figure they are not in the habit of venturing into the vast vacuum of space for a cocktail or two with the boys, then, after a few too many, ending up in Iowa making crop circles in some hapless farmer’s field of sorghum.

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