The Hugo Award (Science Fiction) winners were announced.  The best novel award was an unheard of tie between China Miéville’s The City and The City and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl.  Even rarer still, I managed to read both of these fantastic novels.  (Check out my reviews for The City and the City and The Windup Girl.) I enthusiastically recommend both.

Bringing me back to reality – the Booker prize shortlist has been announced, and I have read none of the finalists. The chosen few:

• Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America
• Emma Donoghue, Room
• Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room (not out yet in US)
• Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question (not out yet in US – available on Kindle though.  Boo!)
• Andrea Levy, The Long Song
• Tom McCarthy, C (Published yesterday in the US)

I love the UK cover for Parrot and Olivier in America. Want. (UK on the left, US on the right)

This Tuesday I will be processing the sensory overload that was the Decatur Book Festival over my tacos.  For a nice recap (like the one I hope to pen someday), check out the excellent work at the Publisher’s Weekly blog.

At the Decatur Book Festival: Tell the Bookie Monster what you’re reading kids.

Aaron Munoz is Ignatius

Saturday.  Wake up early.  Run.  Wait ’til everyone else wakes up.  Feed them.  Put the littlest one back to sleep.  Miss the Llama, Llama Red Pajama author at 10:00.  Fret.  Feed them again.  Catch Marta to the Square in time to watch the genius that is Todd Moye discuss Freedom Flyers for about 5 minutes before the screaming baby and squirming 6 year old require us to leave.  Race over to hear David Levithan and Terra McVoy tell their wonderful teenage novel tales.  Get kicked out for reasons mentioned above.    Elbow someone out of my way to watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie story-tell about how to avoid only telling the single story.  Get kicked out.  Find those authors teaching us the Method Behind The Magic: How to Create a Fantastical World (I LOVE that stuff).  Get kicked out.  Find Tim.  Give Tim the small children.  Explain the need to potty alone, and never return.  Get a good seat in the Ridley Pearson room, ALL BY MYSELF.  Drop an F bomb because I’m also supposed to be in the Diana Gabaldon room listening to her talk about magnificent thrusting Scots in kilts.  Find Tim and pretend I was lost.

Sunday.  Repeat.  This time I will miss The Ladybug Girl parade, although missing something even later in the morning only makes me grumpier.  We might be able to catch The Emily Windsnap author; I do have a 6 year old daughter, after all.  2:30 and it’s potty time again so I can catch Lev Grossman without getting kicked out.  Then Brian Jordan (like that will happen) at 3, Ingrid Law (loved Savvy) at 4, and the Hardest Working Author At The Book Festival/One Woman Powerhouse Laurel Snyder at 4:30.

OK.  That’s my plan.  What’s yours?

Brandon’s second novel, Citrus County – which I have not read – yet, was featured recently on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.

Her children’s picture book Inside the Slidy Diner is a favorite with the young reader in my home and introduced the family to our adopted catch phrase “Clatter and din! Hullabaloo!”  We’re actually able to work that into conversation more often than you would think.

Her novel for middle readers Any Which Wall was just named one of the 25 Books that all young Georgians should read.

On the occasion of the release of another novel for middle readers, Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, Laurel Snyder took the time to submit herself to a BGB interview, which you can check out here.

Her most recent picture book (just out last week), Baxter, The Pig Who Wanted to be Kosher, is awesome and was instant classic over at my house.  While waiting for the bus, Baxter meets a man who is headed home for Shabbat. Baxter is so enamored by the man’s descriptions of the upcoming celebration that he wants to join in, too.  Hilarity ensues as Baxter sets out to become kosher.  He doesn’t know what “kosher” means exactly, but he’s a determined pig.  He eventually learns from a young rabbi (a female rabbi, no less) what Shabbat is all about and finally gets an invitation to join in.  The illustrations are wonderfully comic and offer knowing chuckles for adult readers.  Snyder dedicates the book to “anyone who has ever felt excluded, which is to say…everyone.” It’s a wonderful story of inclusiveness and a great introduction into Jewish religious ideas for young readers.  Buy it for the glossary alone.

And if that weren’t enough, Snyder has another novel for middle readers coming out later this month, Penny Dreadful.

One of the events that I am truly looking forward to takes place on Saturday at 1:45PM.  Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be in conversation “Tavis Smiley-style” about storytelling with Lain Shakespeare of the Wren’s Nest. Adichie is the author of the brilliant Half of a Yellow Sun (read our reviews here and here) as well as the novel Purple Hibiscus and the short story collection That Thing Around Your Neck.

The best part of this event is that BGB is totally responsible.  You can read all about how awesome we are at the Wren’s Nest Blog.