Checkout: A life at the tills

Be careful what you say at the checkout stand next time you’re in the grocery store, who knows how Anna Sam’s memoir about her life as a cashier will inspire the masses.  Check out the story on NPR.  Get the book, Checkout: A life on the tills by Anna Sam, here.

WWII for Young Readers

With my family connection to WWII (my grandparents fled Lithuania during the 2nd Soviet invasion aided by Germans) I’ve always been fascinated with the non-text book accounts of the not-so-great war.  I remember when I was in middle school coming across the Art Spiegelman’s inventive, Maus series, which plays out the Nazi saga with cats and mice and devouring it.

And today, I’ve discovered Alan’s War:  The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope by Emmanuel Guibert sitting on my desk, waiting to be read.  Turns out NPR Books did a great story about the process of creating the book  and the post contains a link to a 7 page preview of the text/illustrations.

You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons

You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons: The World on a Cartoon a day by Mo Willems.  Makes me wish I could sum up all my elaborate and wordy journal entries from my time spent in Nepal with a haiku a day, which is essentially what children’s book writer Mo Williams has done. What a journey! You won’t regret picking this up, a great on the toilet or a few pages before bed read.

John Straley to visit JPL

John Straley, Alaska Writer Laureate from 2006-2008, will join us at the Downtown Library, Saturday January 24th at 7pm as part of a 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Downtown Library Facility. Straley will read from and discuss his two latest works, The Big Both Ways (Novel) and the poetry collection, The Rising and the Rain.  A short Q&A and book signing will follow and copies of both books will be available for purchase. For more information call Jonas: 586-0436 or Carol: 586-0434

To get a taste for what’s to come here are a few links to great podcasts available through, our sisters site; JPL Podcasts,  The University of Alaska Podcasts and the interview show, It’s A Mystery.

The Rising and the Rain: an excerpt from the title poem of Straley’s first collection of poems.

What is This Thing Called Voice?

Straley leads a panel discussion at the Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference in Homer, AK in June 2008.

Gray Area:  Liars, Storytellers and Private Detectives

Recorded on October 17, 2008, at the Alaska Visionaries, Seekers, Leaders and Dreamers conference presented by the Alaska Historical Society and the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Elizabeth Foxwell speaks with John Straley

From the interview program It’s A Mystery, Straley talks about the influence of Theodore Roethke and other aspects of his “Alaska noir” mysteries with PI Cecil Younger. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the mp3 file.