BOOKPATHS

Norway

Paul Binding talks with “Norway’s literary superstar Lars Saabye Christensen.”

“Beatles, published in 1984, was Christensen's breakthrough book, achieving enormous success in Norway. It launched him on the journey to the pre-eminence he now enjoys, and which spread throughout Europe with his best-selling family epic The Half-Brother. He has come to London for a conference at University College on Norwegian writing, and to celebrate the publication – in a fine English translation by Don Bartlett – of his latest novel, The Model (Arcadia, £11.99).” – from “Interview: Norway’s Literary Superstar Lars Saabye Christensen,” by Paul Binding, The Independent

Bookpath: Casa natale Luigi Pirandello, near Agrigento, Sicily, Italy

The home where Luigi Pirandello -- -- Italian dramatist, novelist, short story writer, and winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature -- was born in 1867 was “declared a national monument” in 1949. “Three years later it was bought by the Sicilian Region who started the restoration works, reorganized the birthplace and made the path to Pirandello’s pine.” The museum houses “a large photo collection, reviews and honours, first book editions with autographed dedications, important paintings dedicated to Luigi Pirandello, and playbills of his most famous works performed in theatres all over the world." Views look out across the Sicilian countryside. “Since 1987 the museum has been a whole with Luigi Pirandello's Library...a multimedia centre on the Sicilian dramatist which keeps and offers a wide variety of works divided in monographs, rare and precious materials, periodicals.”

Visitor Information

Casa natale Luigi Pirandello
Contrada Caos, Ss 115 – Agrigento
Phone +39 0922 511102
Fax +39 0922 602299
Open daily 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Biblioteca Museo Luigi Pirandello
via Sicialian Region, 120 – Agrigento
+39 922 444111
Fax +39 922 602299
Open Monday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Websites

Regione Siciliana

Agrigento, Sicilia

London, England

Nigel Richardson takes a walk in William Blake’s London.

“Yet the spirit of the time, and of the man himself, hovers still in the alleys and the air. To conjure them you need to follow Blake and trust to vision and spirit rather than ‘corporeal’ reality. As Blake said himself, and McDevitt demonstrates on his walks, ‘He who does not imagine in... stronger and better light than his perishing mortal eye can see does not imagine at all.’” – from “Blake’s London”, by Nigel Richardson, The Times

The Cotswolds, England

Scottish writer Harry Ritchie explains why he loves the Cotswolds.

“So it's with a deep breath and real courage that I'm going to come out and say it, loud and proud: the Cotswolds - they're great. Gorgeous countryside, gorgeous, honey-coloured villages and a high incidence of cream-tea suppliers ... What's not to like? What's not to love? Well, a lot, according to received opinion and AA Gill, who last year compared the Cotswolds to a plastic fruit bowl and condemned Stow-on-the-Wold in particular as ‘the worst place in the world’. Jay Rayner followed suit - again having a go at Stow, which he claimed to be ‘completely and utterly ludicrous’, ‘a compendium of everything that is wrong about ersatz, up-itself, self-deluding, arthritic, rural Britain’. Imagine my upset. I mean, this was Stow-on-the-Wold they were talking about, one of my favourite Cotswolds towns. One I had written about with real affection as the home town of one of the characters in my novel.” – from “What a Wonderful Wold,” by Scott Ritchie, The Guardian

2007 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters.

Amos Oz has won the 2007 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters.

“The Prize Príncipe de Asturias for Literature is an honour and a joy for me particularly because I have been a great admirer of Spanish Literature all my Life. I am very grateful to the Jury for granting me this honour. Thank you". – Amos Oz

Bookpath: Martinique; West Indies

Two Years in the French West Indies (Part One – A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics, Part Two – Martinique Sketches), by Lafcadio Hearn (New York : Interlink Books (Lost and Found series), 2001)

In October 1887 Lafcadio Hearn sailed from New York to Martinique. Anticipating a stay of only a few months, Hearn remained in Martinique for two years, immersing himself in the daily lives of the people and the beauty that surrounded him. In 1890 Hearn published Two Years in the French West Indies, a book that invited, and continues to invite, readers into the tropical landscape, prior to Mt. Pelée’s violent 1902 eruption, that seduced him.

“The feathery beauty of the tree-ferns shadowing each brook, the grace of bamboo and arborescent grasses, seem to decrease as the road descends, --but the palms grow taller. Often the way skirts a precipice dominating some marvellous valley prospect; again it is walled in by high green banks or shrubby slopes which cut off the view; and always it serpentines so that you cannot see more than a few hundred feet of the white track before you. About the fifteenth kilometre a glorious landscape opens to the right, reaching to the Atlantic; --the road still winds very high; forests are billowing hundreds of yards below it, and rising miles away up the slopes of mornes, beyond which, here and there, loom strange shapes of mountain, --shading off from misty green to violet and faintest gray. And through one grand opening in this multicolored surging of hills and peaks you perceive the gold-yellow of cane-fields touching the sky-colored sea. Grande Anse lies somewhere in that direction....” – from Two Years in the French West Indies, by Lafcadio Hearn

Publisher’s Website

Project Gutenberg Online Editions

Bookpath: Pearl S. Buck Birthplace, Hillsboro, West Virginia

The home where Pearl S. Buck, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born on June 26, 1892 is a “fine historic house museum.” Guides lead visitors through “period rooms containing some of the original furniture and memorabilia of the author.” Other items relating to her work and her home state of West Virginia are also on display. “Located in the beautiful and historic ‘Little Levels’ of Pocahontas County,” the museum is open May 1 through November 1, Monday through Saturday, 9:00 – 4:30. For additional information, visit the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace website.

Bookpath: Slad, Gloucestershire, England

Cider with Rosie: a Boyhood in the West of England, Laurie Lee (Vintage Classics, 2002; and previous editions) In Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee recalls his childhood in the Gloucestershire village of Slad and the surrounding countryside following World War I.  A best seller when it was first published in England in 1959, Cider with Rosie continues to charm readers and, perhaps, to inspire a journey to Lee's Slad Valley.

“That was the day we came to the village, in the summer of the last year of the First World War.  To a cottage that stood in a half-acre of garden on a steep bank above a lake, a cottage with three floors and a cellar and a treasure in the walls, with a pump and apple trees, syringa and strawberries, rooks in the chimneys, frogs in the cellar, mushrooms on the ceiling, and all for three and sixpence a week.” – from Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee

Los Angeles

Josh Getlin talks with mystery writer John Shannon whose “novels try to capture L.A. ‘as it is now.’”

“In John Shannon's literary world, the neo-noir thriller is more than a lazy weekend read. He charges into Los Angeles neighborhoods where few mystery writers venture, shining a light on the city's sprawling, multicultural enclaves. And unlike many of his brethren, he has a political chip on his shoulder, telling taut, fast-paced stories about underdogs and big shots through the eyes of an aging, disillusioned '60s lefty.” – from “Mystery Writer John Shannon Prowls L.A.’s Dark Streets,” by Josh Getlin, Los Angeles Times

July 2007 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

Canada

The Scream Literary Festival
July 3-9
Toronto

“Fifteen years ago a young Toronto-based writer had a interesting thought... he wanted to commandeer the Dream in High Park’s Shakespearean stage on one of their off-nights and hold an outdoor poetry reading. Many of us figured that this was going to be another one of those ideas that lived and died between the second pint and last call, but Matthew Remski proved us wrong. He gathered what limited resources he had, drawing on both his friends and his bank account, and managed to get sixteen writers to the stage in an event he named The Scream in High Park.”

China

Hong Kong Book Fair
July 18-24
Hong Kong

England

Buxton Festival
July 6-22
Buxton, Derbyshire

“Buxton Festival has a special place in the hearts of music and literature lovers. Our wide-ranging opera programme now includes two full-scale Festival productions. Add an outstanding concert and literature programme and we have a unique place in the British arts scene. This is reflected by outstanding national media coverage and the trebling of our audience since 1999.”

Dartington Hall Festival - Ways With Words
July 6-16
Dartington, Totnes, Devon

“Ways With Words is a vibrant and joyful 10-day festival, a chance for those who read books to meet those who write them. The setting is glorious, the atmosphere is invigorating. People come together in spectacular surroundings to share the pleasure and power of language. The warmth and energy of this lively gathering make it a memorable occasion.”

Harrogate Crime Writing Festival
July 19-22
Harrogate

Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival
July 1-August 19
Shakespeare Centre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Ireland

West Cork Literary Festival
July 8-13
Bantry, County Cork, Ireland

"Welcome to the West Cork Literary Festival - the Writers Republic of West Cork. We have geared the festival towards the twin aims of enjoyment and achievement. We want participants to have the best tuition in workshops, the most complete information in seminars, to listen to and meet the best authors of the day at readings, and to have fun, meet others, and enjoy the unique setting of the West Cork Fishing town of Bantry.”

Yeats Festival
July 28-August 10
Sligo

Japan

Tokyo International Book Fair
July 5-8
Tokyo

United States

California

Sierra Storytelling Festival
July 20-22
North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center, Nevada City

“North Columbia Cultural Center continues keeping the tradition of storytelling alive in the historic Schoolhouse and in the pine-shaded amphitheater (the first and maybe the only one in America built specifically for storytelling).”

Hollywood Book Festival
July 28
Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles

“Come join us high above Hollywood for the literary event of the summer!”

Illinois

Newberry Library Book Festival
July 26-29
Chicago

“Feed your bibliomania at the Newberry's annual Book Fair! More than 100,000 donated books have been sorted into 50 categories for your browsing convenience. With many books priced under $2, it's easy to replenish your home library's holdings on subjects ranging from antiques to zoology.”

Michigan

77th Annual Michigan Storytellers Festival
July 6-7
Flint

Mississippi

The Thirty-Fourth Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference
“Faulkner’s Sexualities”
July 22-26
Oxford

“The 34th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference—“Faulkner’s Sexualities”—will explore for five days of lectures, panel discussions, tours, and social gatherings some of the complex possibilities of his treatment of sexuality. Among the scholars who will be appearing at the conference are John Duvall of Purdue University, Jaime Harker of the University of Mississippi, Catherine Gunther Kodat of Hamilton College, Deborah McDowell of the University of Virginia, Gary N. Richards of the University of New Orleans, Dawn Trouard of the University of Central Florida, and Michael Zeitlin of the University of British Columbia.”

New York

QBR Harlem Book Fair
July 20-22
Harlem, New York City

“QBR hosts 9th Harlem Book Fair.”

Texas

2nd International Book Fair
July 6-8
Dallas

“The J. Erik Jonsson Central Library is hosting an international book fair the first weekend in July to promote the love for books, reading and writing. The event is free and open to the public.”

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