First, E. Lynn Harris died on Friday which is really quite sad. I remember reading some of his books years ago, after I heard about how he had initially sold them by driving around from bookstore to bookstore across the south. He sounded so dedicated and determined that I had to check him out. I thought he was a great writer but perhaps even more so, he always sounded like a truly great person. Very sad.

I just read Ernest Hemingway: A Writer's Life by Catherine Reef (from the pub - review in my Jan column). I have a thing for Hemingway and it's kind of funny because I'm not a huge fan of all of his books but I find his life to be incredibly compelling. I have several books by and about him and I have to say that Reef has done a great job of putting together a bio that should be equally appealing to her target teen audience and adults as well. She covers his writing (of course) but it's a lot more about how he lived, the women he loved, his issues with his parents, how he could be an ass from time to time and how he likely battled bipolar disorder or at the very least depression. This book made me want to keep reading about him and also to read some of his books/short stories which is probably the best recommendation. Good stuff.

My normal knee jerk reaction is just to bash a celebrity-written picture book but My Brother Charlie by Holly Robinson Peete and her daughter Ryan sounds very good. Ryan's twin is autistic and Robinson Peete has been at the forefront of autism fund raising for years. The book is written from a sister's perspective about having an autistic sibling. And HEY - those are African American kids on the cover! I hope it is as good as it sounds and I'm not going to begrudge this family at all for writing the book. (It's due out in Spring 2010 from Scholastic - no cover online yet.)

Amy is rounding up nominations for BBAW - you can read all about it at the brand spanking new BBAW blog where there are a ton of categories to put your choice for book/lit blogs.

Susan has put out a call to read and review POC books for the month of August. As we so recently learned with the Liar debacle, minority titles and authors need to be highlighted in the blogosphere as much as possible because heavens knows, the publishers clearly don't get it.

Dovetailing quite nicely withe Susan's challenge is the ONE SHOT Southeast Asia round-up planned for August 12th. In case you missed the initial post, check it out, write about a book or author and then send me the exact url. I'll run links and quotes here in a master list (along with a post about a NF title on Cambodia that made a huge impact on me).

In case you missed it, I had a new review up over at the Voices of NOLA for The Secret Life of Walter Anderson by Hester Bass. This is a picture book biography of a fascinating American artist from Mississippi. I really liked it and learned a ton. I wish we had to spend a semester (at least) in junior high or high school learning about American artists; it would make for really interesting reading.

And also, I was up with a second post at Jacket Copy during their post modernism celebration. This go-round I wrote about Canadian author Thomas Wharton, one of my favorites. I always have to slow down in order to wrap my head about Wharton's books - they aren't easy but they are beautiful. I was very happy to be able to write about him.