This year’s National Book Award winners were announced Wednesday night at a dinner in New York City. The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles, won the $10,000 National
Book Award for Nonfiction. The fiction prize went to Irish-born writer Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin, a novel about New York in the 1970s. Keith Waldrop’s Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy took the poetry award and the award for Young People’s Literature went to Phillip Hoose for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, the true story of an African American teenager who challenged segregation in 1950s Alabama.
The Finalists included:
Fiction
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Nonfiction
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)
Poetry
Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Viking Penguin)
Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Young People’s Literature
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)
David Small, Stitches (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)
All titles are available in LINKcat.
November 19th, 2009
Molly
The South Central Library System is moving into a new building, and as a result we will be experiencing some service outages from Friday, November 20 through Monday, November 23. On November 20, LINKcat and digital catalog information will be inaccessible. Outages are possible through the remainder of the weekend and the following Monday.
Please call your library to check on the availability of materials when LINKcat is down. We apologize for the inconvenience.
November 18th, 2009
Alicia
In the last week we’ve answered our first two reference questions via Twitter. While it might not be the fastest or most private way to contact us with a question, we’re happy to answer the questions we see via Twitter or Facebook or our other social media accounts.
Which brings us to the answer to one of those two reference questions, which is more complex than Twitter’s 140 characters allow… One of our followers, in response to a post announcing our excitement that we now offer e-book and iPod compatible audiobook downloads through the OverDrive Digital Download Center, requested that a sidebar search category be created for Mac users to find compatible downloads.
Madison Public Library is part of a statewide consortium that runs the OverDrive Digital Download Center, a collection of nearly 5,000 downloadable audiobooks, video, music and now e-books. We can’t update the sidebar options to say “Plays on Mac” but if you look at the sidebar, you can choose either “iPod-compatible Audiobooks” or “View all MP3 Audiobooks” to find titles you can use. iPod-compatible audiobooks can be transferred to an iPod or iPhone through iTunes on either a Mac or a PC. MP3 audiobooks can be played on a Mac OR transferred to iPod or iPhone. Also, if you do a title or author search, there are icons for each title showing what formats the title come in. Screenshots of menus and download steps for getting OverDrive Media Console are on our Flickr photostream.
Background info: Audiobooks comprise the largest part of the Digital Download Center collection. Most are - for various digital rights management reasons - available only as WMA (windows media audio) files for playing on a PC or WMA-compatible devices. Recently, one fourth of the WMA titles became iPod compatible when users access the files using the most recent version of the OverDrive Media Console (software required to use OverDrive). As of today, there are 4065 WMA audiobooks, 218 MP3 audiobooks, 1000 iPod compatible WMA audiobooks, 318 videos, 178 music albums, and 232 eBooks in the collection.
November 17th, 2009
Tana
A picture is worth a thousand words, and what wonderful stories those pictures tell! Kathleen Horning, Director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be appearing at the Sequoya Branch Library on Thursday, November 19 at 7:00 p.m. to speak on the art of children’s picture book illustration. The presentation will include slides of art from recently published picture books.
Horning is the author of From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s Books, a look at some of the best in children’s literature and a guide to selecting and reviewing books for young children. School Library Journal deems her “one of the most influential librarians you’ll ever meet - and one of the kindest.” She has served on many awards committees, including the Newbery Award Committee and the Coretta Scott King Award Committee, and formerly worked at the Madison Public Library as a children’s librarian for a number of years. Horning recently wrote an article on Wisconsin picture book illustrators for the Fall 2009 issue of Wisconsin People & Ideas Magazine.
Although Horning’s presentation is intended for adults, interested children ages 10 and up are welcome to join us. Register online or call 266-6385. This event is made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Madison Community Foundation to the Sequoya Library to develop the Art of the Picture Book Collection.
November 16th, 2009
Alicia
It’s that time of the year when “Best of” lists abound. Here’s another one! Find new titles to read from the library or get a start on holiday shopping with the top picks for 2009 from the editors at Amazon.com:
- Let the Great World Spin: A Novel by Colum
McCann.
- Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder.
- Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel.
- Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin.
- Beautiful Creatures by Margaret Stohl.
- Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad.
- The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.
- The City & The City by China Mieville.
- Stitches: A Memoir by David Small.
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba.
See the Top 100 Editors’ Picks.
November 16th, 2009
Molly
November is National Adoption Month.
The library has many books that deal with a variety of aspects of adoption, from domestic to international adoptions to preparing your family and overcoming unforeseen challenges. Visit our National Adoption Month booklist for newer titles.
November 12th, 2009
Molly
It’s been an exciting week for us at the library with all the focus on the Central Library. But there are wonderful things going on in our branch libraries, too, particularly the South Madison Branch Library, currently under construction and scheduled to open in 2010. You can help us share the excitement during three special events this Saturday, November 14.
First, join the Foundation and the Friends of the South Madison Branch Library at 10:30 a.m. to celebrate the 2009 publication of the book, Challenging the Professionalization of Adult Education: John Ohliger and Contradictions in Modern Practice. Enjoy a light brunch and listen to South Madison Librarian, Chris Wagner (John Ohliger’s wife), read from and talk about the book. John Ohliger was a Madison educator, peace activist, public intellectual and co-founder of WORT Radio. He was a lover of libraries, especially the South Madison Branch Library.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase with proceeds benefiting the new South Madison Branch Library. RSVP IS REQUIRED BY November 12. RSVP to (608) 250-5758 or email cwagnerz@yahoo.com
Next, learn about the progress of the South Madison Branch Library capital campaign and how you can turn your ordinary purchases into donations for the South Madison Branch by participating in the Foundation’s SCRIP program. On-line demonstrations and registration on the SIMPLIFIED SCRIP website will be offered throughout the day. Prizes will also be available.
Finally, enjoy The Mystery of the Rabbit and the Hot Chocolate and Other Adventures at 1:30 p.m. at the UW Space Place (meet at the library and walk over). Families will enjoy learning songs and singing games in two languages with bilingual storyteller and singer Clare Norelle. There will be face painting with Nuria and light refreshments.
Find out more about the South Madison Branch Expansion on the library’s web site or sign up for periodic email updates.
November 11th, 2009
Tana
The Madison Common Council adjourned for the night near 12:30 a.m. - watch the continued discussion live on Madison City Channel on your TV or online beginning 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, November 11.
During Tuesday evening’s Council discussions, an amendment was approved to explore the possibility of a community garden on the roof of the Central Library and another amendment was approved to ensure that construction would not begin until the tax credits were available.
Read more at City council agrees on Central Library plan (Wisconsin State Journal online, 11/11/09) or Laptop City Hall: Annual City Budget Live Blog, Day 1 (Capital Times online, 11/11/09) or follow the project on the library’s web site.
November 11th, 2009
Tana
The Madison Common Council begins discussing the 2010 Capital and Operating Budgets today at 5:30 in Room 201 of the City-County Building at 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Not able to attend? Watch the meeting live on Madison City Channel on your TV or online or view the Mayor’s most recent blog comments.
Do you have questions about the public library project? View background information about the project on our web site. It’s not too late to contact your alderperson to show your support or ask your questions, or to sign up for updates on the project.
November 10th, 2009
Tana
Wisconsin authors are teaming up with the Sequoya Branch Library and the Madison Public Library Foundation for a series of events to help you learn more about the Madison Community Foundation’s 2009 Library Endowment Matching Challenge Grant program. Meet some of your favorite local authors and hear about their latest works at these presentations held at the Sequoya Branch Library.
On Saturday, November 14 at 2:00 p.m., join Agate Nesaule for “Healing the Trauma of War and Exile”. Nesaule is a retired professor of Women’s Studies and American Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She is the author of the award-winning autobiographical novel A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile. Nesaule will speak about her new novel, In Love With Jerzy Kosinski.
View the full schedule of author appearances as an Adobe PDF.
November 10th, 2009
Alicia
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