Parties planned for ‘Breaking Dawn’ release
Ever since J.K. Rowling published her final Harry Potter novel, the publishing world has been looking for a replacement. They seem to have settled on Stephenie Meyer.
Meyer’s young-adult novel “Breaking Dawn” will be released, Potter-like, at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. And a number of area bookstores, from Auntie’s Bookstore to the University of Idaho Bookstore in Moscow, are holding special Friday-night prerelease parties. Even Spokane’s Tinman Gallery is getting into the act.
“Breaking Dawn” is the fourth and final installment in Meyer’s “Twilight Saga,” which includes “Twilight,” “New Moon” and “Eclipse.” According to her publisher – Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – more than 5.5 million copies of the “Twilight Saga” are in print.
“Twilight,” a movie adaptation of which is due for a Dec. 12 release, tells the story of a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire. But he’s a vampire who belongs to a circle that has sworn not to drink human blood. Things get complicated when a couple of the vampire’s enemies target his new love.
For further information about the parties and availability of Meyer’s books, contact your favorite store.
Page to screen
Road trips always make for good stories. The ones that actor Ewan McGregor has made with his friend Charley Boorman have been good enough to warrant a couple of books.
The first, 2005’s “Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Around the World,” was followed by “Long Way Down: As Epic Journey by Motorcycle from Scotland to South Africa,” which was released a couple of weeks ago.
The popularity of the first book is likely why the BBC decided to turn both road trips into a pair of documentary miniseries. Directors David Alexanian and Russ Malkin then made “Long Way Down” into a feature film, which will screen one time only at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium Cinemas, 2416 N. Old Mill Loop.
“Long Way Down” is two hours and five minutes long and is not rated. Tickets are $10. For further information, go online at www.fandango.com.
Is YA the way?
Writing for the July 20 New York Times Book Review, author Margo Rabb told of the good, and bad, aspects of her novel “Cures for Heartbreak” getting published as a young-adult title.
Seems that some people can’t get over the notion that young-adult literature is somehow lesser than so-called adult fare.
One of the people Rabb quotes is Seattle author Sherman Alexie, whose novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” won last year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
“A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. is the Garden of Eden of literature,” Alexie told Rabb.
“Some acquaintances felt I was dumbing down. ‘Wouldn’t you rather have won the National Book Award for an adult, serious work?’
“I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian – and that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.”
Don’t be a hater
In its sixth volume, the Journal of Hate Studies – which is published by the Gonzaga Institute for Action Against Hate – is tackling the topic of hate and gender. A couple of notable inclusions are interviews with Jane Elliott and Nonie Darwish.
Elliott was a third-grade teacher in Iowa when, following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., she devised an exercise involving eye color. To make a point about racism, she labeled those with certain eye colors as superior, those with other colors inferior. The exercise has come to be known as the “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” experiment.
Egyptian-born Darwish is the founder of the peace-activist group Arabs for Israel.
To order copies of the journal, call (509) 313-4665.
Book talk
•Tinman Book Club (“Life of Pi,” by Yann Martel), 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, Tinman Gallery, 811 W. Garland Ave. Call (509) 325-1500.
The reader board
•J.A. Jance (“Damage Control”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Monday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Call (509) 838-0206.
•David Guterson (“The Other”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•John Dalmas (“The Helverti Invasion”), Timothy Zahn (“Dragon and Liberator”), Mark Ferrari (“The Book of Joby”), signings, 3-7 p.m. Thursday, NorthTown Mall Barnes & Noble. Call (509) 482-4235.
•Mary Cronk Farrell (“Fire in the Hole”), Claire Rudolf Murphy (“Free Radical”), readings/discussion, 11 a.m. Saturday, South Hill Branch of Spokane Public Library, 3324 S. Perry St. Call (509) 444-5385.
•Christine Marie Johnson (“The Tree with No Limbs”), signing, noon-3 p.m. Saturday, Valley Hastings, 15312 E. Sprague Ave. Call (509) 924-0667.