Texas Pages

From The Associated Press:

Robert Giroux, a distinguished giant of 20th century publishing who guided and supported dozens of great writers from T.S. Eliot and Jack Kerouac to Bernard Malamud and Susan Sontag, died in his sleep early Friday morning. He was 94.

Giroux, who helped create one of the most notable publishing houses -- Farrar, Straus & Giroux -- had been in failing health for a couple of months and died at an assisted living facility in Tinton Falls, N.J., Jeff Seroy, a Farrar, Straus spokesman, said.

Known throughout the industry for his taste and discretion, he began in 1940 as an editor at Harcourt, Brace & Company and had so great a reputation that when he left in 1955 to join what was then Farrar, Straus, more than a dozen writers joined him, including Flannery O'Connor, Malamud and Eliot, a close friend.

"(W)hen I faced a difficult decision about my own career, his support and encouragement saw me through a crisis," Giroux later said of the poet.

Here's what's scheduled for Sunday's books pages in GuideLive:

Three recent books offer fresh perspectives on Vietnam. We offer a look at the three books: The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, by Mark Atwood Lawrence; On Their Own: Women Journalists and the American Experience in Vietnam, by Joyce Hoffmann; and We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam, by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway.

A fictional look at another difficult piece of American history is offered by Kathleen Kent in The Heretic's Daughter. (If you missed it, here's Joy Tipping's interview with the Dallas writer.)

Speaking of Dallas, Harvey Graff paints an unflattering portrait in The Dallas Myth: The Making and Unmaking of an American City.

And an addict fact-checks his own addiction in The Night of the Gun, by David Carr.

OK, I have to share -- I've had this book sitting on my desk for a couple of months and finally got around to reading it, and if you're at all concerned about the state of the language now that the "Internets" are with us, you'll want to read it.

Mignon Fogarty stunned the newly buzzy "podcasting" world in 2006 when she started her weekly Grammar Girl podcasts and they eventually rose to No. 2 on iTunes. Suddenly, knowing where the apostrophe goes, or whether to use a colon or semicolon, became hip (and word geeks everywhere wept with glee). Now she's come out with a book, Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips For Better Writing (Holt, $14); reading it was WAY more fun (and more informative, in some cases) than those college English classes ever were. Ms. Fogarty's not starchy, but she's a stickler for correctness in every form of written communication -- e-mails, text messaging, blogging, etc. She'll have none of that lazy "Well, it's only for a blog, so who cares if it's grammatically correct?" attitude.

The playful title of the first chapter -- "Dirty Words" -- gives a hint at her sense of humor. She doesn't scold; she tries to gently help, although she does note that, despite what certain bloggers or e-mailers might suspect, "writing badly is like dressing in lime skorts and an orange plaid sweater -- people notice." She also gets into issues you've probably never thought about, such as the difference (a big one, it turns out) between a "Dear John" letter and a "Hi, John" letter. The book is sparely, but delightfully illustrated by the grammatical adventures of Aardvark (species obvious) and Squiggly (a snail.)

Republican vice presidential nominee-to-be Sarah Palin has been making buzz in book circles for several reasons.

Last week, the publisher of her "brief, upbeat biography" won the small-press lottery. Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down, had already sold out a first printing of around 7,000 books. Then came her surprise selection by John McCain.

Publisher Kent Sturgis quickly ended up with a one- to three-week backlog of orders, wriote Hillel Italie of The Associated Press. A paperback is in the works, with an expected printing of 50,000.

Sturgis told Shelf Awareness: "The incoming phone traffic at our little office, mostly from media looking for the author, kept our two lines tied up for six hours, unable to make outgoing calls because of volume. Thank goodness for cell phones!"

Beliefnet today added an interview with author Kaylene Johnson. (Thanks to colleague Jeffrey Weiss for that tip.)

But the big issue for book lovers would be the accusation that, as mayor, Palin asked the local librarian how she could go about banning books. GalleyCat has several links on the topic, including this Time article, in which former Wasilla, Alaska mayor, John Stein says:

Yahoo! News reports: Author Stephenie Meyer drops new book after Web leak.

A manuscript of the new book, 'Midnight Sun,' was leaked online, which caused Ms. Meyer's to stop work on the project and make the leaked pages available to everyone. Read them here.

If you enjoyed our way-too-timely review of Ken Wells' The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous, I'm told you can catch him 1 p.m. tomorrow on Think on KERA-FM (90.1).

I've not heard Ken speak in a public forum, but I was in earshot this summer at the Mayborn when he was telling some stories about the people in Good Pirates. And he should be worth a listen.

It should be noted that Ken deserves to be in some kind of hall of fame for finding a way to get paid to drive around and drink beer, which he did in his previous book, Travels With Barley. Which he discussed in this story.

Just when you have to go back to work, a new batch of books (but we know you, and you'll make time):
* The Heretic's Daughter, by Kathleen Kent (Little, Brown, $24.99). Dallas author's look at the Salem witch trials, told through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl. We interviewed Ms. Kent, and a review of the book will appear next Sunday in GuideLive.
* American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $26). Examines the life of a first lady with an unpopular husband. Sound familiar?
* The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood, by Helene Cooper (Simon & Schuster, $25). Memoir of a woman from a powerful Liberian family sent into exile.
* The Book of Lies, by Brad Meltzer (Grand Central, $25.99). Brings a supernatural twist to the real unsolved 1932 murder of the father of Jerry Siegel, the creator of Superman.
* Dark Curse, by Christine Feehan (Berkley, $24.95). The 16th entry in the Carpathians fantasy series.
* The Book of Animal Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong, by John Mitchinson and John Lloyd (Harmony, $19.95). An often-hilarious look at the animal kingdom, examining myths and interesting facts.
* Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters, by Bill Tancer (Hyperion, $25.95). Among facts from the data: the top "how to" search in the U.S. is about tying ties and Oprah Winfrey is the most-searched personality of the last three years.
* Sweetheart, by Chelsea Cain (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95). The author of the best-selling, truly creepy Heartsick follows detective Archie Sheridan as he investigates a series of murders. Serial killer Gretchen Lowell returns, as well.

Here's an excerpt of Alive in Necropolis, by Doug Dorst. It's reviewed today in the books pages of GuideLive.

Here's an excerpt from The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff. It's reviewed today in GuideLive.

GalleyCat has posted a link to the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards. (I thought it might be a joke, but there apparently is such a thing.)

I was going to suggest that everyone rally around their favorite Texas books blog (AHEM, cough cough) until I realized just how extensive the competition is these days. Categorizer extraordinaire Will Howard has compiled an assortment of all kinds of Texas Historical and Literary Blogs.

He even found a convenient way to organize them all: he started a blog.

With this many blogs to read, will there be any time left to read books?

Sure, it's time to head to the lake, or the pool, or, if you live near a Texas beach, to stockpile emergency goods.

But during your long and, I hope, disaster-free weekend, save some time this weekend to check out these book stories in GuideLive:

On Saturday, we'll have an interview with Cuban author Leonardo Padura, whose writing celebrates and criticizes his nation.

On Sunday, Dallas author Kathleen Kent discusses her upcoming debut novel, The Heretic's Daughter.

And on the review pages, we'll have an unfortunately timely look at The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina, by Ken Wells.

We'll also have:

A Tale Out of Luck, a Western from Willie Nelson and Mike Blakely:

The 19th Wife, fiction by David Ebershoff. (Watch for an excerpt of that.)

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami's memoir.

Alive in Necropolis, by Texas-based Doug Dorst. (We'll have an excerpt of that novel as well.)

The Little Book, a novel decades in the making by Selden Edwards

Have a good weekend.

The fall catalog for The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture held a couple of pleasant surprises this morning.

In addition to the usual lineup of salons and book groups, there's word of a "Festival of Ideas" taking place Nov. 8. Full details are not online yet, but attendees will include presidential historian Michael Beschloss, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and Center for Social Inclusion director Maya Wiley.

Then, on April 28, Stephen Sondheim is promised as keynote speaker for the Hiett Prize.

We told you about Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) earlier this month. This review, if nothing else, changed the way I merge when I'm headed into a construction zone. (And everyone else out there darn well better appreciate it.)

Now, after a heroic battle of his own on the Los Angeles freeways, John Mark Eberhart of The Kansas City Star was able to procure this interview with author Tom Vanderbilt .

From the pages of today's GuideLive: Jewell Parker Rhodes talks about what she learned from voodoo priestess Marie Laveau.

The author is just one of many appearing this weekend at Tulisoma, the South Dallas Book Fair & Arts Festival.

Former colleague and poetic blog contributor Michael Grabell, now saving the world from points east, spots this bookish entry in The New York Times' Metropolitan Diary:

Dear Diary:

He smiled beatifically and replied, "All around us."

The New York Times' Paper Cuts blog has nice words for Southern Methodist University Professor Willard Spiegelman's essasy on swimming, published in The American Scholar. Click here.

Dave Freeman was 47 and was injured in a fall at his home.

"This life is a short journey," the book says. "How can you make sure you fill it with the most fun and that you visit all the coolest places on earth before you pack those bags for the very last time?"

More from the AP:

Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, writes books faster than I read them. I mention this because I received an Alexander McCall Smith newsletter this morning annoucing the latest products of Mr. Smith's word processor.

You too can keep up with Mr. Smith at his lively and noisy Web site. Or subscribe to his newsletter by sending a blank email to sub_mccallsmith@info.randomhouse.com.

Like Joyce Carol Oates, Mr. Smith makes me tired.

First, it was angry fans demanding refunds, and critics offering tepid reviews.

Now, it's angry feminists and offended Mormons, writes Salt Lake Tribune, columnist Rebecca Walsh.

Walsh seeks to deflate the undeadly debate: "I didn't realize our standards for pulp had risen so high."

(Thanks to Shelf Awareness for the link to the column.)

What's new on the shelves this week?
* Silks, by Dick Francis and Felix Francis (Putnam, $25.95). Chronicles a particularly complex murder case for London barrister Geoffrey Mason.
* Devil Bones, by Kathy Reichs (Scribner, $25.95). The 11th book featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
* The Black Tower, by Louis Bayard (Morrow, $24.95). The author's third historical thriller, set in early-19th-century Paris.
* Laughter of Dead Kings, by Elizabeth Peters (Morrow, $25.95). The sixth suspense novel with art historian Vicky Bliss.
* She Had It Coming, by Mary Monroe (Dafina, $24). A girl witnesses the murder of a friend's stepfather on prom night.
* Epilogue: A Memoir, by Anne Roiphe (Harper, $24.95). Looks at the author's life after the sudden death of her husband of nearly 40 years.
* Creating Myself: How I Learned That Beauty Comes in All Shapes, Sizes, and Packages, Including Me, by Mia Tyler (Atria, $25). Explores the challenges faced by the daughter of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler.