BOOKPATHS

JANUARY 2006 LITERARY EVENTS

"To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company." -- Andre Gide

Colombia

Hay Festival Cartagena
January 26-29, 2006
Cartagena, Colombia
http://www.hayfestival.com/cartagena/eng-default.asp

"This Fiesta was born out of a conversation with the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, a regular guest at our Festival in Wales. He recommended Cartagena de Indias as the perfect home for a celebration of Latin American culture, and has guided the project to fruition." The guest of honor at the first Hay Festival Cartagena is Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Egypt

Cairo International Book Fair
January 17-29, 2006
Cairo, Egypt
http://www.cibf.org/en/index.cfm

"Being always renovated and expanded, the Cairo International Book Fair currently occupies a high ranking coming next to the International Frankfurt Book Fair with respect to the number of books displayed, the involved publishers, and the number of visitors."

England

The Wordsworth Trust Weekend Arts and Book Festival
January 20-22, 2006
Grasmere, England
http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/conferences/festival.htm

"The annual Weekend Arts and Book Festival is a residential course of lectures and workshops organised by the Wordsworth Trust. The Festival takes place at the Prince of Wales Hotel on the shores of the lake at Grasmere, just a hundred yards from Dove Cottage, the Wordsworth Muesum and the Jerwood Centre."

Scotland

Winter Words Festival
January 26-29, 2006
Pitlochry, Scotland
http://www.perthshire.co.uk/index.asp?lm=341

"After the success of the inaugural Winter Words Festival, Pitlochry Festival Theatre will be playing host to Highland Perthshire's second literature festival...."

United States

Florida

Key West Literary Seminar
"The Literature of Adventure, Travel, and Discovery"
January 5-8, 2006
Key West, Florida
http://keywestliteraryseminar.org/

"Travel to Key West in January, 2006 for a literary adventure. Join us for three days of readings, informal talks, panel discussions, intimate conversations and festive Key West parties as we bring together some of the most adventurous and well-traveled writers of our times."

ZORA! Festival
17th Annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities
January 21-29, 2006
Eatonville, Florida
http://www.zoranealehurstonfestival.com/

"Goals: To celebrate the life and work of 20th century writer, folklorist and anthropoligist, Zora Neale Hurston; to celebrate the significance of her hometown, Eatonville, Florida, known as the nation's oldest incorporated African American municipality; and to celebrate the cultural contributions people of African ancestry have made to the United States and world culture."

Georgia

The Fifth Annual Stitching Stars Storytelling Festival
January 7, 2006
Historic Seney-Stovall Chapel, Athens, Georgia
http://www.clarke.public.lib.ga.us/events/specialevents/stitching.html

"The name of our event was inspired by the book Stitching Stars : the Story Quilts of Harriet Powers, by Mary E. Lyons. Harriet Powers, an African American quilter, was born in captivity in Madison, County, GA in 1837. Powers later moved to Clarke County where she created two story-quilts which now hang in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA."

Nebraska

Kearney Storytelling Festival
January 16-21, 2006
Kearney, Nebraska
http://www.nebraskastoryarts.org/kearney.html

"Gather round and hear the stories as the Kearney Storytelling Festival celebrates a decade of storytelling with Winter Tales 2006...."

Nevada

Cowboy Poetry Gathering
January 28-February 4, 2006
Elko, Nevada
http://www.westernfolklife.org/site/content/view/137/123/

"The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is a week-long celebration of life in the rural West, featuring the contemporary and traditional arts that arise from lives lived caring for land and livestock, fixing fences and raising families. Poetry, music, stories, gear, film, photography, food – all contribute to the texture of an event that has become an annual ritual for thousands of people who value the people and cultures that live and work in the West."

New York

The New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend
January 5-9, 2006
The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY)
http://www.nytmarketing.com/alw/index.htm

"5 days of spectacular offers and events commemorating our 5th Anniversary. This year's celebration of the arts around the world is bigger and better than ever."

"Read books. They are good for us." -- Natalie Goldberg

Still looking for a perfect gift? Molly Ivins offers "A Procrastinator’s Holiday Book List.”

“Look at this, fellow procrastinators -- almost two weeks before the actual day, and here I am to solve all your shopping problems with the annual one-stop, hit-the-bookstore with less than 24-hours-to-go, all-purpose Procrastinator's List.” – Molly Ivins

The Charles M. Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa, California

40 Years
A Charlie Brown Christmas

The Charles M. Schulz Museum continues its commemoration of the 40th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas "with an exhibition of books, figurines, and archival artifacts from the last forty years...including the toy piano used to record Schroeder's plinking piano notes from his reluctant rendition of Jingle Bells." The exhibition continues through January 9, 2006. Visit the Charles M. Schulz Museum website for more information.

The text of Bill Moyers’ address delivered on December 9, 2005…for the 20th anniversary of the National Security Archive is available on the Common Dreams website. He offers a thoughtful and cautionary look at politics and journalism.

“I am taking your time with all this hoping you will understand why I have become something of a fundamentalist on the First Amendment protection of an independent press, a press that will resist the seductions, persuasions, and intimidations of people who hold great power - over life and death, war and peace, taxes, the fate of the environment - and would exercise it undisturbed, in great secrecy, if they are allowed.” – Bill Moyers

Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian, shares her “top 10 books for winter nights” in The Guardian.

“I have a penchant for the erudite literary mystery.” -- Elizabeth Kostova

North America

"Coming back to Wild America in my middle age, I realized that this book, whose meaning for me has evolved with the decades, might serve yet another purpose -- that half a century was a pretty good benchmark from which to gauge the land Peterson and Fisher saw. I could retrace their journey and see how the continent's natural soul -- and ours -- were faring at the dawn of the twenty-first century." -- from Return to Wild America : a Yearlong Search for the Continent's Soul, by Scott Weidensaul

Return to Wild America : a Yearlong Search for the Continent's Soul, by Scott Weidensaul (New York : North Point Press, November 2005)

Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher described their 1953, 100-day, 30,000 mile, journey around North America in Wild America : the Record of a 30,000 Mile Journey Around the Continent by a Distinguished Naturalist and His British Colleague. Fifty years later, Scott Weidensaul retraced their journey, sharing his adventure in the recently published Return to Wild America : a Yearlong Search for the Continent's Soul. Join Weidensaul on his travels to Cape St. Mary's, Monomoy Island, Shenandoah National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains, Everglades National Park, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Monterey Bay, the Rogue River, the Olympic Peninsula, the Pribilof Islands, and other North American places. Tragic loss and hope interweave throughout the book, giving readers insight into the "soul" of today's "wild America." For information and an excerpt from Return to Wild America : a Yearlong Search for the Continent's Soul, visit the publisher's website.

Reading Return to Wild America : a Yearlong Search for the Continent's Soul will inspire a reading or re-reading of the original. Wild America, by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher, remains in print. Visit Mariner Books for information.

"So, yes, at times the journey was a depressing one. And yet I found, to my surprise, a far more optimistic picture emerging from my travels than I ever expected." -- from Return to Wild America : a Yearlong Search for the Continent's Soul, by Scott Weidensaul

The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts

Edith Wharton’s 2,600-volume library will return to the Mount, the estate she designed and built in Lenox, Massachusetts. Once the library is reinstalled, “scholars and Wharton aficionados” will be able to “view the volumes that not only shaped Wharton’s development but also reflected the broad sweep of her interests….” Alan Cowell writes about the “complex” financial transaction behind the purchase and the importance of the acquisition in today’s New York Times.

World

The Peace Book, by Todd Parr (New York : Little Brown, 2004)

The Peace Book, by Todd Parr, gently explains the “abstract concept” of peace to young children. What better gift can children, and the world, receive during this holiday season? Visit the publisher’s website for more information on The Peace Book, a “printable color page,” and other activities, and Todd Parr’s website for a colorful look at the author and his work.

Philip Roth gives a rare interview to Danish journalist Martin Krasnik. See The Guardian for the surprisingly candid result.

"It was the interests in life and the attempt to get life down on the pages which made me a writer - and then I discovered that, in many ways, I am standing on the outside of life". Philip Roth, from interview with Martin Krasnik

National Public Radio's Alan Cheuse recommends books for “holiday time, sacred days, time outside of ordinary time, when it’s possible to find free hours for reading during a day usually given over to work.”