World Cup Fever!

As we enter the second round of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (known to aficionados as the Round of 16), things are heating up. The top two teams from each group have advanced & now, to lose a game means you're going home, so the stakes are high! If you've just caught World Cup fever, or even if you'd just like to know a little more about the competition, consider browsing the library catalog! We have some books & media to get you started.

For a schedule of games, try ESPN.

For the most information, try the website of the International Federation of Association Football-commonly known as FIFA for the acronym of its French name, Fédération Internationale de Football Association. You can even follow the games with a live MatchCast!

To watch live games in a group setting, try local pizzeria Saggio's.

Pearl Buck in China

We recently read an article in the New York times about a new book by Hilary Spurling about author Pearl S. Buck's early years called Pearl Buck in China: Journey to 'The Good Earth'. The anniversary of Pearl Buck's birth is coming up on June 26th, so we thought, though we don't have a copy of the Spurling biography in the system at this time, we would suggest other readings by & about this award-winning American author who spent most of her life in China. Buck was, of course, most famous for writing The Good Earth, but she did write several other books for adults & children.

ABC Libraries does own copies of the complete biography of Pearl Buck mentioned in the New York Times article, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography by Peter Conn.

For books about other expatriates, try searching the library catalog or consider this list from The Guardian.

Spur Awards

Love Westerns? The Western Writers of America are meeting right now in Knoxville, Tennessee, to give out the Spur Awards, for distinguished writing about the American West. N. Scott Momaday has won the 2010 Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to the literature of the American West. Momaday, author of House Made of Dawn, is a graduate of the University of New Mexico who now lives in Santa Fe. Other prizewinners at this year's Spur Awards include Far Bright Star by Robert Olmstead & The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906-1920 by Charles H. Harris III, & Louis R. Sadler.

Happy Father's Day

Here are some movies you & your father might enjoy watching together this Father's Day!

• Old Dogs


• Father of the Bride


• Life with Father


• Big Fish


• Kolya


• Aberdeen (rated R)


• Adiós con el Corazón

Fun for Foodies!

Deemed “the Oscars of the food world,” by Time magazine, The James Beard Foundation Awards are the country’s most coveted honor for chefs; food and beverage professionals; broadcast media, journalists, and authors working on food; and restaurant architects and designers.
-from the JBF website

Awards are given for books, TV shows, restaurant design, journalism, &, of course, chefs! 2010 winners include:

• Love Soup: 160 All-New Vegetarian Recipes from the Author of The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas (book)
• Serious Eats (blog)
• Tom Colicchio (outstanding chef)

Local eatery Mary & Tito's won the America's Classics Award for restaurants with timeless appeal, beloved in their regions for quality food that reflects the character of their community. Establishments musthave been in existence at least 10 years and be locally owned.

For a full list of 2010 winners, visit the JBF website.

Celebrate Bloomsday!

"Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and relive the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses. Thursday, 16 June 1904 was the date of Joyce's first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin urban village of Ringsend."
-from the Wikipedia article

Bloomsday facts:

• it was started in 1954 by John Ryan (artist & entrepreneur) & writer Flann O'Brien
• in 1956, poets Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath were married on Bloomsday
• in Mel Brooks' 1968 film The Producers, Gene Wilder's character is named Leo Bloom in an homage to the character created by Joyce
• punk band The Minutemen have a song called "June 16th" (on the album Double Nickels on the Dime)
• long-running show The Simpsons has an episode where the family goes to Dublin & Lisa mentions Bloomsday
• U2 have a song called "Breathe" that references events on June 16th (on the album No Line on the Horizon). Lyrics include: "16th of June 9:05, door bell rings, man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer, there's three things I need you to know...")

For information on celebrating Bloomsday locally, check out this listing. The New York times also has a Bloomsday article.

Hammett Prize Awarded

International Association of Crime Writers/North American Branch awards The Hammett Prize annually for literary excellence in the field of crime-writing, as reflected in a book published in the English language in the US and/or Canada. The winner receives a "Thin Man" trophy, designed by sculptor Peter Boiger.

This year's nominees were:

• Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott


• Devil's Garden by Ace Atkins (not in ABC Libraries' catalog)


• The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry


• The Long Fall by Walter Mosley


• The Way Home by George Pelecanos

Congratulations to the winner, Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection!