Popular Japanese storyteller Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Woodk, Wind-up Bird Chronicle) was recently awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, given annually through the cooperation of the Franz Kafka Society and the city of Prague, Czech Republic. Kafka is said to be a favorite of Murakami since he first read the Czech author’s works as a teenager. Murakami named the leading character of his novel Kafka on the Shore after Franz Kafka to honor him.

According to the organizers, the award is given to authors whose works exhibit “humanistic character and contribution to cultural, national, language and religious tolerance, existential, timeless character, generally human validity and ability to hand over a testimony about our times.” Past winners of the award have also received the Nobel Prize for Literature and Murakami has also been said to be a likely candidate for the prestigious prize.

Recently released:

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
by Haruki Murakami

Description:
Following the best-selling triumph of Kafka on the Shore comes a collection that generously expresses Murakami’s mastery. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining.

Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami’s characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be the closest of all.
About the Author

About the author:
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into thirty-eight languages, and the most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe.

Murakami likes unagi, Smirnoff Vodka, and Radiohead. Learn more about the author from his website.

Thank you to the faculty, library, parents, and students of Brent International School Subic for welcoming us again this year. The school holds an annual Halloween parade where students are dressed up as their favorite literary characters. During the parade each student holds the book where his or her character is from. It’s a great way to encourage children to read and to send the message across that reading is important!

Have you ever been to a convention for readers before? RodCon 2007 will be the first of its kind in the country and we’re very excited about it. This is most likely the first in a series of articles we will be doing on RodCon 2007 as we will make sure we let you know of developments the closer we get to the event date.

RodCon 2007 is a two-day literary convention from February 3 to 4 at the Hotel Intercon Makati, organized by Read or Die Inc. RodCon focuses on readers and the serious craft of reading. Here’s what you can expect from RodCon 2007:

• Panel discussions ranging from lectures to discussion groups to workshops to book signings and launchings. The panels are multi-track, which means they will take place continuously throughout the convention.
• Specially themed book exhibits of book genres or author collections.
• Screenings of movies based on books.
• Lotteries, free books, signed book auctions, quiz shows, a book bingo.
• A dealers room with booksellers ranging from your favorite bookstores to your neighbor’s garage sale.
• The first ever Pinoy Readers Choice Awards.

The convention seeks to bring together readers, writers, publishers, government and school organizations and book dealers to highlight the importance of reading and literacy in building an open world for every Filipino through books. All proceeds of the event will be donated to UNICEF in partnership with AHON Foundation.

For information on ticket prices and other details, please visit the RodCon website.

Excerpted from a press release:

The largest collection of Darwin’s writings ever published will appear on the website The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) on 19 October 2006. Never before has so much Darwin material, and so many rare and widely dispersed items, been brought together in one place and made available free of charge. This site currently offers more than 50,000 pages of searchable text and 40,000 images of both publications and transcribed manuscripts. Most of the materials are available both as fully formatted electronic text and colour images of the originals. Darwin’s works are also available as free machine-read audio mp3 files.

As vast as the collection now is, there is much still to come. The site currently contains about 50% of the materials that will be provided by 2009, the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of species. Forthcoming materials include further editions and translations, images of the majority of the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library, more editorial introductions, notes, transcriptions and technical facilities for printing and larger images. New content is continually being added.

From October 20 to November 17, the Dutch will be reading one book together.

During a campaign called “The Netherlands Reads,” the Dutch government will be giving away 575,000 copies of the novel Dubbelspel by Frank Martinus Arion to library patrons. Based on the latest census, that’s about one book for every 28 persons. Readers are then encouraged to discuss the book with each other, effectively turning the nation into one big book club.

The campaign was inspired by “One Book” reading programs in the US, the first of which happened in Chicago in 2001 with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. “One Book, One Chicago” made the well-loved classic a bestseller all over again and inspired cities in America and in Europe to launch their own city/nationwide reading programs.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had our own “One Book” campaign? Just imagine, Filipinos reading one book and talking about it. For once, maybe politics and personalities can take a backseat to a book. If you are someone who can do something like this (or if you know someone, please let them know) and if you think we can help, we’ll be glad to help.

About the book:
Dubbelspel (Double Play), was a bestseller back in 1973 by then first-time novelist Arion. Here is a description of the book taken from babelguides.com –

The title of Arion’s large and powerful Caribbean novel refers to an epic open-air game of dominoes, which lasts all afternoon and into the evening. Though it is ostensibly a relaxed and friendly occasion, underlying suspicions, jealousies and conflicts gradually surface. The game culminates in murder and suicide under the glare of public attention.

The two men on the winning team, Janchi and Chamon, are involved in adulterous relationships with the wives of their opponents, the host Bubu Fiel, a taxi-driver, and Manchi, a pompous bailiff. With great skill Arion reveals the past history and underlying motivations of the four players at the same time as creating a convincing atmosphere of heat and squalor and painting an affectionate but critical picture of Curaçao society.

The book is dedicated significantly to ‘women of courage’. In the novel it is Solema, who eventually leaves Manchi for Janchi Pau, who most clearly represents the courage, vision and energy required to emancipate the island from the colonial yoke and subservience to multinational oil companies. However, Bubu’s wife Nora, with her determination to secure an education at any cost for her bright son and constant desperate efforts to ward off impending financial disaster, exhibits her own, humbler kind of heroism.

The characters are stereotypes but effectively drawn and the explicit post-colonial political agenda (the Caribbean island of Curaçao is a Dutch dependency, and Dutch is still an official language there) does not detract from the liveliness of the action. The author’s deliberately formal style contrasts with the snatches of his native creole, Papiamento. It gives a unique flavour to the book, whose classical force the author has yet to surpass in any of its successors.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl

Description:
Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge—and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah’s friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide—or misguide—her.

Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class and containing ironic visual aids (drawn by the author), Pessl’s debut novel is complex yet compelling, erudite yet accessible. It combines the suspense of Hitchcock, the self-parody of Dave Eggers, and the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt with a dazzling intelligence and wit entirely Pessl’s own.

About the Author:
Marisha Pessl graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University.

A book club reading guide is available from the publisher.

Publishers of the Star Wars novels are offering fans the privilege of naming the next Sith Lord. The winning name will be used as the official character name in the book Star Wars: Sacrifice (Legacy of Force series) by Karen Traviss. The winner will also be mentioned in the acknowledgment page of the book. A true fan’s dream.

Wait, what’s that? Sorry, it looks like the official rules say only legal residents of the US are eligible to enter. Awww… It would have been fun to see a “Darth (Tagalog word)” in the Star Wars universe.

Visit the contest page if you don’t mind spoilers.

LINK TO CONTEST

Based on the Steven Spielberg animated movie.  Includes 3-D poster and glasses.

Attack of the Monster House in 3-D!
by Lara Bergen

Description:
In order to destroy the Monster House, DJ and his friends need some questions answered. So, they set off to talk to an expert on ghosts, demons, and the paranormal, the wisest pizza-delivery guy on earth, known to all as Skull. The wise Skull tells them that the only way to kill the Monster House is to strike it at the source of life: its heart.

But can the kids strike the beast’s heart and still manage to get out of the house alive? Find out in this spooky 3-D story with 3-D poster and glasses!

Google recently launched “The Literacy Project,” a website designed to bring together reading resources for students, educators, and literacy organizations. In it you can find a video using scenes from a Bollywood movie to read along to, academic papers on dyslexia, and links to related web logs. There is also a section showing locations of literacy organizations worldwide.

At the moment, the Philippines has only one entry, the Notre Dame Foundation for Charitable Activities Women in Enterprise Development (WED) in Cotabato City. Hooray for them. Hopefully more local organizations will discover this site and take part in sharing and learning how to combat illiteracy.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

Description:
Standing on the fringes of life…offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

This is the story of what it’s like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie’s letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

About the Author:
Stephen Chbosky grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the University of Southern California’s Filmic Writing Program. His first film, The Four Corners of Nowhere, premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win Best Narrative Feature honors at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. He is the recipient of the Abraham Polonsky Screenwriting Award for his screenplay Everything Divided as well as a participant in the Sundance Institute’s filmmakers’ lab for his current project, Fingernails and Smooth Skin. Chbosky lives in New York.