Notes: David Halberstam Dies; Store Changes
Sad news.
David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest and more than 20
other books on a range of subjects, died yesterday in a car crash in
Menlo Park, Calif. He was 73.
The New York Times's long obituary nicely noted that Halberstam
alternated "books with a weighty theme with one that might seem
of slighter import but to which he nonetheless applied his considerable
reportorial muscles." Many of those books were about sports, including
The Summer of '49 and The Breaks of the Game. His more serious works
included The Children, The Fifties and Firehouse.
Halberstam recently finished The Coldest Winter: American and the
Korean War, which is scheduled to be published in September by Hyperion.
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George Skanse Jr. plans to close the Book Gallery, his used and rare El
Paso, Tex., bookstore, by the end of the year, according to the El Paso Times. The culprit: property taxes that Skanse said had doubled in recent years.
Still, Skanse told the paper he will continue to sell online and may reopen in smaller space eventually.
Founded in the 1950s by Skanse's father, the store has 300,000 books
and specializes in Southwest, regional and El Paso history books. The Times
called the Book Gallery "one of the largest bookstores in the Southwest
and a favorite Central El Paso hangout for writers and bookworms,"
among them Cormac McCarthy.
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Barnes & Noble plans yet another simultaneous store closing and opening: it will take place in April 2008 in Glendale, Calif., near Los Angeles, where the company will open a new location in the Americana at Brand on Colorado Street between Central Avenue and Brand Boulevard. The day before that store opens, the B&N at 245 North Glendale Avenue will close.
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Libraries
continue to add books and other material in a variety of languages to
serve immigrants, and in Minnesota many are for the most recent
newcomers, including Hispanics, Somalis and Hmong, the AP (via Forbes) reported.
Among other programs: one launched in January by the State Library of
Ohio to attract more Hispanics; Austin, Tex., libraries' New Immigrant
Centers; Houston libraries' increasing selection of titles in
Vietnamese; and the ALA's Dia de los Ninos/El Dia de los Libros
(Children's Day/Book Day) on April 30.
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Brunch & Bullets, the second of two inaugural thriller luncheons sponsored by the International Thriller Writers,
takes place on Saturday, May 5, in Greenwich, Conn., at 11 a.m. The
organization is honoring member R.L. Stine with a Silver Bullet Award
"for the amazing contribution he has made to fostering the love of
reading in tens of millions of young people over the course of his
wondrous career."
Besides Stine, attending authors should include Michael Palmer, Doug
Preston, Joe Finder, Stephen Coonts, Lincoln Child, F. Paul Wilson, Jim
Fusilli, Wendi Corsi Staub, Peter Spiegelman, Peter Blauner, Chris
Grabenstein, Jon Land, Carla Negers, Lawrence Light, M.J. Rose and
Linda Fairstein.
For more information about the event, which will raise money for local chapters of Reading Is Fundamental, go to regonline.com.
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The first thing that struck me about this book (other than the urge to circle "smarter" with a red pen) was discovering just how difficult playing baseball is and what the players have to go through to get to the majors. Unlike other sports, the farm system weeds (and nurtures) quite effectively, so the majors players are good, something to keep in mind next time you want to shout insults: "So when you see a hitter swing at a bad pitch or watch a good one, feel free to yell at him, but keep in mind that all he did was guess wrong against one of the world's best pitchers who has spent his entire life preparing to strike him out."