Friday, October 15, 2010

River House Wins PNBA's Buzz Books Contest!

We have just received word from our good friends at Tin House that River House, the latest from Sarahlee Lawrence, a book that we have featured here on our blog once before, has just won the Buzz Books contest at at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association!

The award winning memoir has been lauded as "An engaging literary piece of work about passion, travel, love, and what it means to come home" -- Wend, and "An exquisite story of personal strength and nature" -- Fort-Wayne News-Sentinel.

This is a really great book and we're so excited that it's receiving such positive acclaim.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Granta in the New York Times

If you've been reading our blog, then you should probably know by no that the latest issue of Granta Magazine is kind of a big deal. Just last week, Granta 113, an issue devoted entirely to spotlighting 22 young, Spanish-speaking authors, was profiled in Publishers Weekly for its ingenuity in bringing the lesser known authors of one of the most widely spoken languages in the West to a wider audience.

Now Granta is being featured in the New York Times. For the past two days (the 2 and 3 of October) the New York Times has released articles on Granta and its achievements today and in the past. The Saturday edition lauded Granta's forthcoming issue, like Publishers Weekly, as an ingenious way of bringing Spanish literature to the English-speaking world. But the Sunday issue looked back on Granta's previous release, the controversial Granta 112: Pakistan $16.99. Issue 112 featured all Pakistani authors writing about their experiences in the radical country and abroad as immigrants in post 9/11 America. Although many of the pieces in the collection are harsh and unrelenting, the New York Times lauded the issue as "a glimpse of a less visible Pakistan... it shows us this side of the country while never ignoring the crueler, more vicious aspects of Pakistani society. If cross-cultural interaction can play a part in minimizing animosities and encouraging amity, this collection is a good place to start."