The Happy Booker

Small Change, Big Impact

R. L. Stine, author of scary books for kids,  sends us this Halloween email just in time for the holiday:

Of course, Halloween is my favorite time of the year. I'll be out scaring folks wherever I can.

But I wanted to write to you today about something that is truly scary to me — the prospect of children growing up without books. I find it terrifying that children who live in low-income communities have few, if any, new books of their own.   

That's why I'm so happy to be a part of First Book. First Book has provided over 60 million new books to kids in need. Yet there are still too many more children waiting for new books of their own.

Will you make a special Halloween donation to First Book so that we can reach them all?

Each $2.50 donation will provide one wonderful new book to a child who desperately needs books. For $25, you can fill an entire backpack with ten new books for a child to enjoy.

I can't think of a better holiday gift. Please make a donation now.

Your generosity gives me goosebumps!

With thanks,

R.L. Stine

Linksy-Daisy

Sharing means caring:

Margaret Atwood in the Times on our Life and Debt, complete with literary references and a sane perspective.

Oprah warms to the Kindle, calling the electronic reader her " favorite new gadget."  Visitors to the Oprah site get a promotional code that gives $50 off the purchase price through next Friday only, and Amazon is giving another ten percent off the Kindle version of Oprah's latest book club selection, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

FYI: Books on Oprah's Kindle include The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, The Audacity Of Hope by Barack Obama, Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones by Suzanne Somers, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, and Crack The Fat-Loss Code: Outsmart Your Metabolism And Conquer The Diet Plateau by Wendy Chant.

Could a What's on your Kindle? ad compaign be far behind?

Sad Links:

An incredibly moving account of David Foster Wallace appears in the October issue of Rolling Stone. (excerpt here, but  you're going to have to visit the newsstand for the complete article and we assure you it's worth it. )

RIP: Novelist Tony Hillerman died of pulmonary failure on Sunday. He was 83 and lived in Albuquerque. (Times obit)

Book Deal That Made Us Happy

From Publishers Lunch:

Lee Gutkind's THE TORAH HUNTER, following Rabbi Menachem Youlus, who
not only writes and repairs torahs but also is on a quest to save lost
or missing ones throughout the world despite the dangers he encounters
from neo-Nazis and the like, to Amy Cherry at Norton, by Andrew Blauner
at Blauner Books Literary Agency (world).

You can read more about this remarkable man here, from the New York Times.

Pesky Palin Poll

 
" So, is the Palin poll now "scientific"? Absolutely not. It is still subject to large scale efforts on the left and the right to mobilize people to vote. The poll has become something of a Rorschach test, a tiny political marker in a tightly contested race. Over the past two weeks, the results of the poll see-sawed back and forth from a majority saying "No" to a majority saying, "Yes". At the moment the single-voter system was implemented, it was close to a tie: 50% say Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President, and 48% say no. Those results, in my view, are actually a measure of the mobilization and manipulation efforts by partisans on both sides."

—PBS on Palin Poll

End of an Era

 
After thirty-six years Olsson's, Washington's oldest independent book and music stores, closes its doors.

"...Through it all, our best and brightest served Washington's best and brightest with love and distinction. I'm very proud of what we accomplished."  —John Olsson, principal owner