Countdown to Southern Festival of Books 2011: Three Weeks -- Session Schedule & New Website!

2011 SFB Poster by Nashville artist Bryce McCloud

The Southern Festival of Books is only three weeks away, and just in time for attendees to take advantage of it, Festival organizers Humanities Tennessee revamped their website and added features that make it easy to plan your time at the Festival.

Specifically, they've added a feature that allows you to peruse the SFB schedule -- posted last week --  and create your own custom schedule. Festival goers simply register for a free account on the Humanities Tennessee website, then visit the schedule page and follow their directions:

Once you have [signed in], there will be an option called Attend Session. Simply click that button to the side of any session, and a personalized list of your preferred sessions will be created for you to view and to print. 

At the top of the sessions schedule is a button called My Sessions, which leads you to your personal schedule.

They have also made the online schedule interactive in other ways for the first time in the Festival's history, as users can also "click on the author name in a session to view that author’s bio, title, and website information" (via the website).

Both of these options are amazing additions for a type-A personality like mine. In the past, I have begun combing the author list months ahead of time, researching upcoming book releases and author websites in order to plan my own schedule for the Festival. Although the schedule would appear online in the weeks just before the Festival, I usually printed it, then also wrote all over my Festival program and schedule during SFB. There have without a doubt been sessions I missed, even with my meticulous planning.

This tool makes it nearly impossible, as even co-current sessions can be listed on your own session schedule. That way you can see exactly what's going on and choose according to which is most important.

Also great for nerdy bookworms like myself (and multiple-year Festival-goers), Humanities Tennessee has created an Archive feature which allows users to view schedules from all previous years of the Festival.

Friday seems to be a big day this year, although it's usually a day I largely forego because of work. This year I just may have to take one of my days off in order to attend, because I can't bear the thoughts of missing River Jordan, Stewart O'Nan, or Michael Lee West -- all of whom will appear on Friday only.

Additionally, as up-to-date technology seems to be the way things are going this year, Humanities Tennessee also announced this week that the first-ever SFB mobile app will be launched before the start of the Festival. According to their website, it "will allow users to navigate the Festival site, locate parking, and build personal schedules of authors and events." Utter awesomeness!

I'll be tweeting live from the Festival, I'm sure. So be forewarned if you follow me on Twitter! And which sessions will I be attending definitively? Here's a quick "must" list, although obviously others will be added:

Friday:

River Jordan (part of a panel on faith)

Michael Lee West (with Crazy in Alabama author Mark Childress)

Saturday:

Chris Bohjalian

Erin Morgenstern (author of the much-hyped upcoming debut novel The Night Circus)

Ann Patchett

Tom Perrotta

J.T. Ellison 

Sunday:

Clyde Edgerton

Only Time Will Tell Begins the Clifton Chronicles with a Cliffhanger That Will Keep Readers Coming Back for More

Never has a book title been more accurate. We've been talking in my classes this week about titles, what they mean, and how they affect your feelings about a story. We did an activity in which the class read a single Raymond Carver short story, but with half reading it under the title "Small Things" and half reading it under the title "Mine."

After my hoax was discovered (they uncovered the truth when we began listing reasons why the titles fit each story), they then showed their opinions physically by standing on one side of the room or the other, depending on which title they felt was a better fit.

Jeffery Archer has plenty of writing under his belt, enough that a title is most likely a simple thing for him to choose. But Only Time Will Tell is particularly telling because it works on so many levels for this latest Archer novel. For one thing, it is a literal message for the reader.

Archer's latest work is the first in a planned five-part series, meaning that from the get-go the reader understands that much will not be decided in this first installment. Rather, the story is set up and characters are introduced. I am a fan of series novels, but not always of planned trilogies and the like. However, going into a read with that knowledge did cause me to allow a little more leeway. Usually, I like a plot that is wrapped up tightly at the end of a book. In this case, I will truly have to tune in to future publications in order to know what happens next. And I'm perfectly okay with that.

Archer's title also works because the characters in the book, like the reader, are also left hanging. As much of the plot is left open-ended, the characters' conflicts are not worked out. In fact, while some small issues are concluded, many more begin just as the book ends.

Only Time Will Tell is the story of Harry Clifton, birth up through his mid-twenties. Born in England to a working-class family, he often skips school in favor of visiting the docks where his uncle works or conversing with a neighborhood man called Old Jack. He has a gift, however, and that gift of a beautiful voice works in his favor and pushes him onward to better things. He begins to excel in schoolwork, and winds his way through various grammar and prep schools.

In the course of Harry's life as a schoolboy, we see him develop friendships with boys from all walks of life. We also learn much about his family's background. His mother, though uneducated, works hard in order to give Harry a better life than the life she had. His father, however, is a mystery that persists. Arthur Clifton disappeared when Harry was a boy, but Harry believes his father was killed in World War I, as that's all he's ever been told. Harry's mother questions whether or not her husband was actually Harry's father, as she had a one-night affair just before their wedding.

Through various voices -- Harry's, his mother's, and Old Jack's, just to name a few, Archer spins a tale that should delight his readers both old and new. Only Time Will Tell begins a saga that will, through the five books in the set, span more than a hundred years. The story is a bit melodramatic, but perfect for readers who love to devour a good plot. The novel has no lack of betrayal, secrets, and surprises.

Jeffery Archer is the author of fifteen novels and a wide array of short stories, as well as plays and children's stories. My two favorites are As the Crow Flies and Sons of Fortune, stories which also span large periods of time and are also family sagas.

Countdown to Southern Festival of Books 2011: Four Weeks -- A Meditation on Time, Or: My, How the Time Does Pass Quickly (When You're Old)

My, how time does slip by. In only four weeks, SFB 2011 will be upon us -- which means in only three weeks I will be turning the big 3-0. Last weekend my childhood girlfriends and I, all of whom are also turning thirty, made a quick-as-lightening trip to the beach (a.k.a. "Turning 30 on 30a"). We celebrated by laying around on the beach by day, eating ourselves stuffed-to-the-gills-full of excellent southern seafood at night.

The pool view from our balcony

We stayed at the amazing Sanctuary by the Sea, which I couldn't recommend any higher. The condo was beautifully appointed, as were both pools, the common areas, and the boardwalk to the ocean. It was a stone's throw from all of the eateries and shops at Grayton Beach and Seaside, of which we took full advantage. We visited my favorite grocery store anywhere, hands down -- the Publix at Santa Rosa beach -- but we also ate in some of the area's best restaurants.

Our Bud & Alley's Attempt -- Menus! No Service.

Our first night we began at Bud & Alley's Roof Deck, but after some truly deplorable service (as in, we were largely ignored, then asked to "turn in" our menus without the waiter ever having asked for our orders), we made our way across Seaside's square to the Great Southern Cafe. This restaurant lived up to its name, being both "great" and "southern."

Grits a Ya Ya, photo from Flickr

Several of us indulged in their specialty, the "Grits à Ya Ya: A delectable Southern specialty of our smoked Gouda cheese grits smothered with a sauce of fresh cream, sautéed Gulf shrimp, spinach, portobello mushrooms, applewood-smoked bacon, garlic, and shallots" (from the restaurant's website). Yes, it's every bit as good as it sounds. We wrapped up the night listening to live music at Pandora's in Grayton Beach, a venue I was familiar with from a trip earlier this summer. Fun, all around.

Mandy & I at Hammerheads, circa 2006

The next night (after a hard day spent lounging in the sun once again), we made our way to Sandestin's Baytowne Wharf area.  It is a water-side mini-city created explicitly for tourists. I described it to a group member who hadn't been before as a kind of "Disneyland for grownups," which she agreed later was accurate. There are restaurants, nightlife, and shops on cobblestone streets that have never seen car tires, as they were created to be pedestrian-only. We tried to get into Hammerheads, which is located on the water and also features live music, but were turned away at the door (somewhat expected after our Bud & Alley's experience the night before).

Poppy's Crab Legs (& High-Fashion Bib)

The Hammerhead's host recommended that we go next door to the much-less-crowded Poppy's Seafood Factory (that link is to The Crazy Lobster, as the same people own Poppy's, but haven't created a website for it yet -- the food looks largely similar). At Poppy's we had excellent seafood, if somewhat sub-par service. The crab legs and steamed shrimp were some of the best I've ever eaten. And no one can mess up drawn butter, right? Suffice it to say, the meal was delicious.

We then made our way to the dueling piano bar Rum Runners, where we sang along to "Rocky Top," "Don't Stop Believing," and -- for my friend Caroline -- "Sweet Caroline." I couldn't have asked for a better group of girls to turn thirty with... Since growing older seems to be a necessary part of life. I still have three weeks at 29, though, and I'm holding on to every second of it!

One week after my birthday, I will be in Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books. All of that was a really long way to say: my, how times passes quickly! Southern Humanities will soon be posting the SFB schedule (usually within a week or two of the Festival). October 14-16 in downtown Nashville, on and around Legislative Plaza, it's the place to be this fall! I am very excited that several of my friends will be joining me for sessions that weekend. My aforementioned friend (and fellow English major) Caroline has been out of town for many SFBs in a row, but she will finally be in town for this year's Festival, and I couldn't be more excited.

Eating at Provence last October during SFB

In addition to visiting Festival sessions and eating at Provence's downtown library location, we have also ventured across the river to Nashville's Oktoberfest in historic Germantown. This year, the German festival kept its usual weekend (the actual weekend of my birthday), while SFB moved one weekend later. As Oktoberfest is also always fun, I may just have to make a trip to Nashville two weekends in a row!

I would be remiss if I did not mention that my friends also threw me an early bachelorette party at the beach, as well. When we arrived at the condo, they had decorated for me (see picture to the right).

And on our road trip down, we opened a series of gifts (one for each hour of the ride) from my fabulous friends Mindy and Mandy. One of them was a set of cups, personalized for each of us. Mine, as you can (kind of) see in this (very fuzzy -- in a car!) photo, says "Bride to Be." So cute.

In short, time flies quickly -- especially as an adult. Thirty came so slowly, yet so quickly. And so will the Southern Festival of Books. More on the Festival (and especially Michael Lee West's novel Gone With a Handsomer Man) next week!

Reading Aloud in the Classroom: Suspenseful Short Stories

T-shirt Design @ BookLoverTshirts.com

Today was the kind of day English teachers daydream about. The short stories we read in class over the course of the last two days literally made my kids exclaim in delight (and horror). Both stories were pieces with building suspense, plot twists, and surprise endings. My kids absolutely loved them. "How do you know?" as the Differentiated Instruction video on YouTube asks. "Because they told me. They said, 'This is fun,'" I say, like the teacherbot in the video.

No, really. They did. So what kind of short stories make kids say they like them? That reading them was fun? Actually, two titles I found in a surprising place -- our textbooks. My seventh graders read "Duffy's Jacket" by Bruce Coville, while eighth grade read "The Landlady" by Roald Dahl. Both are slightly scary and somewhat dark, and guess what? Middle schoolers love them.

Coville's "Duffy's Jacket" is told from the point of view of fifteen-year-old Andrew. His family goes camping one weekend, but ends up sleeping in an old, abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. His (somewhat clueless) mother and aunt make a run into town for supplies (like light bulbs, which the house is largely missing), and chaos ensues. Andrews is convinced someone is following him and his cousins through the woods; the kids find writing on a wall inside the house; and then, the scratching starts.

Kind of like in the old scary story where the "voice" creeps in the door, up the stairs, and into your room, the thing in "Duffy's Jacket" scratches at the door to the house. Then it breaks down the door, comes up the stairs, and. . . returns Duffy's jacket. Needless to say, my seventh graders were entirely on the edge of their seats, then laughing their heads off (with a little bit of relief) at the end.

The eighth graders weren't quite so lucky (or relieved), as Dahl's "The Landlady" has a much creepier ending. Set in mid-century Great Britain, seventeen-year-old Billy Weaver is strangely drawn to a particular boarding house. He has intentions to move on to a public house that's been recommended by a train porter, but something about the boardinghouse compels him to ring the doorbell.

Billy meets "the landlady" and is perfectly charmed -- despite the fact that anyone with even mediocre observation skills would immediately notice something in the house has gone awry. For one thing, there are no other guests -- and there haven't been for almost two years. Additionally, the landlady seems bent on serving tea to a guest who protests that he isn't thirsty. Compounded with these oddities are the remarks the landlady continuously makes about how she was "waiting for him" to come and how "everything is ready" for him.

As things become more and more strange, Billy continues to be blissfully unaware of his mistake in staying there. Rather, he seems to believe that he hit upon a streak of good luck in finding the place. Although I don't want to spoil the ending for you, let's just say things get a little bit "A Rose for Emily" in the final paragraphs of the story. One student in the back of the classroom pulled at his hair and screamed, "Nooo!!" at the end. But he was smiling -- and the rest of the class loved it.

Now, let's hope that neither they (nor I) suffer bad dreams tonight as a result of reading it. Dahl is exactly the right amount of strange for the middle school crowd -- still a bit childish, but delightfully creepy, too.

With both stories, we worked on the students' prediction skills. Using a chart to list questions ("What will happen next?"), predictions ("I think ___ will happen because _____."), and, finally, checks ("Yes, I was right," or "No, I was wrong."), we wound our way through the twists and turns of each of these stories. As we stopped -- at particularly telling or exciting parts -- the students begged to go on. I believe they sharpened their predicting skills, however, and also enjoyed a good read at the same time.

Ready Player One Visits Both the Future and the '80s in Fantastic Style

Believe it or not, I finished a book about a futuristic video game in less than two days. I, reader of southern literature and women's fiction, with a mystery thrown in here and there, loved it. You've heard me say this before (although not that often), but this is truly one of the best books of the year. It was named one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month for August 2011. The film rights were optioned by Warner Brothers before it was published. It's been reviewed in The New York Times, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly.

Suffice it to say Ready Player One is already a hit. But it's about a virtual-reality video game -- and it's set in the future. The main character and narrator is a geeky teenage boy gamer, the kind that never leaves his console. Not even for school. In the year 2044, when the novel is set, even getting a public education is available on the internet in the virtual reality world of OASIS. So what about this novel could have possibly appealed to me? In a word: everything.

The premise of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One is every bit as geeky as it sounds. Cline is the creator and screenplay writer of 2009's ode to Star Wars geekdom, Fanboys. He spent his youth playing Atari games and fiddling with early computers. He likes to visit comic book stores while riding around in his DeLorean. And his character in Ready Player One, Wade Watts, is his (virtual) literary twin.

Main character Watts is a gamer at his best (or worst). He has few friends, save a couple he's met in OASIS. His real life is a sad series of disappointments. He lives with his aunt in "the stacks," a tenement housing nightmare in which trailers were stacked one on top of the other in order to accommodate the influx of people to larger cities. Most of his time in real life is spent in his "hideaway," hidden from the world, submerged in OASIS.

The brainchild of two children of the '80s, OASIS originally served as a temporary escape into an internet-based virtual reality. But as the world energy crisis worsened, the infrastructures of most formerly-strong countries crumbled, and wars raged, OASIS grew both in importance and in function. When the book opens, most people spend their days in the virtual world rather than the real one. The currency of OASIS is more stable than any other form of currency around the world. Earning points in OASIS translates into money in the real world, as most everything can be bought via OASIS and delivered to your home -- food, clothing, and other goods.

People create avatars that interact in OASIS, and have the ability to keep their true identity anonymous. This was of great importance to the creators, and winning a Supreme Court battle secured this right for all of mankind. Wade takes full advantage of this right, making his avatar a thinner, better-looking version of himself, with a name -- Parzival -- that has little to do with him.



When James Halliday, one of the creators of OASIS, passes away, a contest is introduced to the world. Halliday's entire billion-dollar fortune is up for grabs to the first person to "find his egg." He begins the contest by emailing a video of himself (as avatar Anorak) to every player of OASIS on the planet. The video contains a four-line verse containing a clue about the hunt. With those four lines, an international (virtual) obsession begins:

The Hunt, as the contest came to be known, quickly wove its way into global culture. Like winning the lottery, finding Halliday's Easter egg became a popular fantasy among adults and children alike. It was a game anyone could play, and at first, there seemed to be no right or wrong way to play it. The only thing Anorak's Almanac [a collection of hundreds of Halliday's undated journal entries] seemed to indicate was that a familiarity with Halliday's various obsessions would be essential to finding the egg. This led to a global fascination with 1980s pop culture. . . . A new subculture was born, composed of the millions of people who now devoted every free moment of their lives to searching for Halliday's egg." (7-8)

Four years later, the first name appears on Halliday's website, set up to mirror a 1980s video game scoreboard: Parzival. Long after the world declared the egg "impossible to find" (8), Wade Watts, "an eighteen-year-old kid living in a trailer park on the outskirts of Oklahoma City" (9), finds the first key. In doing so, he re-fuels the world's obsession with finding the egg, and sets a series of events into motion chronicled in Ready Player One.

Ernest Cline & his DeLorean

Ready Player One has all the elements necessary for a successful novel: interesting characters with whom readers can sympathize, an action-packed and fast-moving plot, and an incredibly detailed setting (actually two, if you take into account both Cline's descriptions of earth in 2044 and the richly-described virtual OASIS world).

The constant stream of allusions to 1980s pop culture enrich the novel in ways I'm sure I don't completely understand after a single reading. Several chapters in, I had to resist the urge to start over and keep a list of all the references so that I could look them up later. While many of these are gamer-related, just as many have nothing at all to do with video games and everything to do with being a child of the '80s. Cline mixes Dungeons & Dragons with Family Ties and Rush.

Wade Watts is a memorable character who I hope to read more about in future Cline novels. As I mentioned above, Ready Player One is reportedly in the hands of Warner Brothers to develop into a film. Although recreating the rich virtual worlds of OASIS will be challenging, I look forward to seeing the adaptation in theaters.


Ernest Cline has in incredibly interesting website, which I got lost on for an hour or so before returning to finish this post. He includes everything from the inception of the movie Fanboys to a hilarious account of his childhood. Cline also writes a blog that goes back several years. The book itself also has a Tumblr blog with updates and excerpts from the novel, as well as clips and photos from some of the '80s references in the novel.

Countdown to Southern Festival of Books 2011: Six Weeks -- Let's Talk Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta is an old-hand at the whole being-an-author thing. He's also no stranger to adapting those books for the big screen. His most recent novel, which was released last week, is making the jump not to film, but to the small screen. The Leftovers has been optioned by HBO and is in the process of being developed into a new series for the hit-producing cable channel.

After publishing a collection of short stories titled Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies in 1994, Perrotta published his first novel The Wishbones in 1997. He then sold the unpublished manuscript of his novel Election to Hollywood director and producer Alexander Payne.  

Election was published as a novel after the interest in it as a screenplay. Both the film and the novel were highly successful. The film, which starred Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick as a student candidate and teacher, respectively, was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe award. Payne went on to make films such as About Shmidt, Sideways, and -- this year -- Cedar Rapids. Perrotta continued on a similarly successful literary career.

Perrotta published his third novel, Joe College, a couple of years after Election debuted to critical acclaim in both book and film genres.

It was followed by the wildly successful novel Little Children, which became Perrotta's second book-to-film adaptation success story. According to Wikipedia, Little Children was named on "numerous 'Best Books of 2004' lists—including those of The New York Times Book Review, Newsweek, National Public Radio, and People magazine." The novel was translated to film with Perrotta serving a pivotal role in its adaptation. The movie, starring Kate Winslett and Jennifer Connelly, was nominated for several Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and SAG awards. 
 

The Abstinence Teacher, Perrotta's fifth novel, was published in 2007. This novel was also optioned for film prior to its book release date. Initially, the directors of Little Miss Sunshine (one of my all-time favorite movies) were involved in translating the book to screen, but as of this year it was reported by IMDB that Lisa Cholodenko, director of last year's The Kids Are All Right has taken over as director.

Several years have passed between Perrotta novels, but his popularity seems to have grown rather than diminished. I began hearing buzz about his new novel The Leftovers many months ago, and quickly added it to my to-read list. I was fortunate enough to win an audio version of the novel from Carrie at her book blog nomadreader. Because of my previously-mentioned busy last few weeks (and the fact that I'm less than two hours from completing my current listen, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad), I haven't yet started it. However, my plan is to definitely complete it prior to SFB in a little over a month!

Jacket Copy reported via Variety in early August that The Leftovers was being developed by HBO into a new series, and I nearly jumped for joy. HBO is known for making quality television, and literary adaptations seem to be their latest wins. True Blood (now in its fourth season) and Game of Thrones (which began filming season two in July) have been their most recent hits based on book series. No doubt The Leftovers will be a winner, as well.

Perrotta will be appearing at the Southern Festival of Books this fall in Nashville, Tennessee. The Festival runs from October 14-16 at Legislative Plaza. For more on Perrotta and The Leftovers, visit his website. The Leftovers has been reviewed by Stephen King in the New York Times, named as an Amazon Best Book of the Month for August 2011, and discussed on NPR's Fresh Air and Weekend Edition.

Book News: A (Small) Rant, Authors Playing Sports, Literary Baby Names & Cemeteries, and Bacon in Book Titles

I hit my limit this week -- the "I really can't fit any more hours into the day -- there are only 24 -- and I don't have enough time for anything" limit. Because my work comes before play, that meant school was the focus rather than the blog. School was actually the focus more than anything: spending time with loved ones, reading, watching television, working out, blogging.

There have been many days in the last three weeks when I've worked 10 or 11 hours at school, then come home to work an additional three, four, or five hours at night. I haven't been getting much sleep, and I (obviously) haven't had time for any "free time." (A bit of an exaggeration... I went to a Titan's game on Saturday night. But before I left on Saturday, I was busily doing paperwork and printing off curriculum materials to browse on the way to Nashville!)

There are a whole host of reasons I feel more stressed this school year, but one in particular is the Tennessee state legislature's systematic war on teachers. You can read a bit more about that here, but suffice it to say that Race to the Top has nothing to do with sound education. And nothing in common with the wildly-successful Finnish school system I mentioned last week. We teachers in Tennessee will continue to do the best we can possibly do in order to help our students be the best they can be. Perhaps at some point our stress level will decrease as a result of intelligent law- and test-making, with the focus becoming actual student achievement rather than data from a single standardized test score. (Whew. Okay. Off my soapbox.)

Because it is a holiday weekend (and because I worked for about four hours last night preparing for the rest of the week), I feel a little bit "freer" tonight. So, a blog post, in light version.

Virginia Woolf Playing Cricket

Flavorwire's post about authors playing sports (with photographs). Yes, you want to click on over. The first photo is Agatha Christie in 1920s swimwear, on a Hawaiian beach beside a surfboard. Enough said. (via The Book Bench)

Also from Flavorwire, a list of literary baby names for your perusal. Interesting reading, even if you aren't expecting a little one anytime soon.

Bronte Vault, via The Literary Cemetery

Since it's getting to be slightly fall-ish (in month, if not in weather), here is a list of ghoulish literary trips: a Publisher's Weekly blog post that attempts to discern which is the most literary cemetery out there.

I love this twist on Dahl's The BFG!

Twitter exploded with the literary hashtag #replacebooktitleswithbacon this week. They're funny. They're really, really funny. Even southern author Mary Kay Andrews got in on the action yesterday, as did mystery writer Kathy Reichs. (via Jacket Copy, although I noticed the trend on my own Twitter feed!)

The Hunger Games (the movie, not the book) debuted its first trailer at MTV's Video Music Awards last Sunday. As MTV's VMAs are not always on my watch-list, I caught up with the video on YouTube after the fact:

 

I simply can't wait to see Katniss come to life onscreen.

I'd like to tell you all about the fabulous review books I've read this week. But as aforementioned, I've had little time for reading pursuits. I do have a stack of excellent reads waiting for review that have just been published or are about to be, including:

• Jeffrey Archer's Only Time Will Tell
• Ernest Cline's Ready Player One
• Celia Rivenbarks' You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl 

Perhaps this weekend will afford me the time to read and review. For now, however, I'm going to curl up with the next book in Sara Shephard's Pretty Little Liars series, Killer, which one of my students let me borrow this week. A little light reading and an episode from the last season of Big Love on my Galaxy tab via HBO Go, and I'll be as happy as a clam.

Have a fabulous weekend, and happy reading!