BTW News Briefs

Rowling Interview by Patchett to Be Webcast

J.K. Rowling will make an in-person appearance at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center on October 16 for an interview about The Casual Vacancy (Little, Brown), her first title for adults. Rowling will be interviewed on stage by Ann Patchett and will take select audience questions. Rowling also will sign copies of her new book for each audience member.

Details about bookseller access to a live webcast of the event will be available from the publisher soon.

Tickets for the event are being sold on a first-come, first-serve basis, starting September 10. Prices range from $44 to $37.

Center for Fiction Announces Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize Shortlist  

The Center for Fiction has announced the eight debut novels short-listed for its 2012 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. They are:

• Absolution, by Patrick Flanery (Riverhead Books/Penguin)
• Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson (Grove Press)
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain (Ecco/HarperCollins)
• The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Girlchild, by Tupelo Hassman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Seating Arrangements, by Maggie Shipstead (Alfred A. Knopf)
• The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey (Reagan Arthur Books/Little, Brown)
• The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers (Little, Brown)

The 2012 winner will be announced on December 11 at the Center for Fiction’s Annual Benefit and Awards Dinner in New York City. The winner will receive a $10,000 cash award and the other short-listed authors will receive a $1,000 award.

Fifty ABA member booksellers across the country acted as first-tier readers for the prize, and The Center for Fiction is working with ABA on ways for stores to promote the eight shortlisted novels.

At its December 11 dinner, the Center for Fiction will also present the 2012 Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fictionto Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of The New Yorker.

MIBA Names Booksellers Choice Award Winners

This year’s Midwest Booksellers Choice Award winners, as voted by the bookseller members of the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association (MIBA), are:

• Adult Fiction: Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (Hachette)
• Adult Non-Fiction: Cheryl Strayed, Wild (Random House)
• Poetry: Todd Boss, Pitch (W.W. Norton)
• Children’s Literature: Brian Selznick, Wonderstruck (Scholastic)
• Children’s Picture Book: Loren Long, Otis and the Tornado (Penguin)

The awards will be presented on October 4 during the Heartland Fall Forum, the combined trade show of MIBA and the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association, in Minneapolis. The event is open to members who are registered to attend the show. Midwest author Michael Perry (Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and a Road to Roughneck Grace, Harper) will emcee the book awards reception.

NAIBA Announces Books of the Year

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association’s (NAIBA) Books of the Year, announced this week, are:

• Carla Cohen Free Speech Award: Americus, by MK Reed and Jonathan Hill (First Second) 
• Fiction: Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles (Penguin)
• Nonfiction: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo (Random House)
• Picture Book: I, Too, Am America, by Langston Hughes; illustrated by Bryan Collier (Simon & Schuster)
• Middle Reader: Wonder, R. J. Palacio (Knopf)
• Young Adult: Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore; illustrated by Ian Schoenherr (Dial/Penguin)

The winners will accept their honors at an Awards Banquet on Saturday, September 29, during the NAIBA Fall Conference at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia.

Before Columbus Foundation Announces American Book Award Winners

The Before Columbus Foundation has announced the winners of the 33^rd Annual American Book Awards, honoring outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions.

The awards will be presented on Sunday, October 7, at a ceremony, open to the public, on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley.

The 2012 American Book Award winners are: 

• Annia Ciezadlo, Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War (Free Press)
• Arlene Kim, What Have You Done to Our Ears to Make Us Hear Echoes? (Milkweed Editions)
• Ed Bok Lee, Whorled (Coffee House Press)
• Adilifu Nama, Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes (University of Texas Press)
• Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard University Press)
• Shann Ray, American Masculine (Graywolf Press)
• Alice Rearden, translator; Ann Fienup-Riordan, editor, Qaluyaarmiuni Nunamtenek Qanemciput: Our Nelson Island Stories (University of Washington Press)
• Touré, Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now (Free Press)
• Amy Waldman, The Submission (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Mary Winegarden, The Translator’s Sister (Mayapple Press)
• Kevin Young, Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (Knopf)
• Eugene B. Redmond, Lifetime Achievement Award

10 Fall Flicks Based on Books

USA Today provided a look at “10 highly anticipated movies this season” based on books, which range from classics such as Anna Karenina and Wuthering Heights to the final installment in the Twilight series.

The upcoming movies include:

• The Paperboy, based on Pete Dexter’s 1995 drama-mystery (release date October 5)
• Wuthering Heights, based on the 1847 English classic by Emily Bronte (release date October 5)
• Cloud Atlas, based on the 2004 sci-fi novel by David Mitchell (release date October 26)
• Anna Karenina, based on Leo Tolstoy’s 1887 classic (release date November 16)
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2, based on the second half of the final book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series (release date November 16)
• Life of Pi, based on Yann Martell’s 2001 Booker Prize-winning novel (release date November) 21
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 prequel to the Lord of the Rings series (release date December 14)
• Les Miserables, based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 French novel (release date December 14)
• On the Road, based on Jack Kerouac’s ode to youthful adventure (release date December 21)
• Jack Reacher, based on One Shot, the ninth book in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series (release date December 21)