Breaking news from Book Expo: Selzer wins another award!

Seems like only yesterday we were announcing that Richard Selzer's Knife Song Korea won an Independent Publisher Book Award (in fact, it was just last week). Just moments ago, we received word from our people at Book Expo that it's also been awarded the 2009 Editor's Choice Award for Fiction by Foreword Magazine! Congratulations are once again in order for Richard.

Selzer Novel Wins Award

The 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards were recently awarded, and Knife Song Korea has tied for silver in the category of Literary Fiction. Congratulations to author Richard Selzer and to all of the other award winners!

Check out the full list of award winners.

Visit us at Book Expo America

Next week, we'll make our annual trek down to BookExpo America (BEA), the largest publishing event in North America. Publishers, booksellers, authors, librarians, and more will gather in New York City to celebrate publishing, books, and all things related.

We'll be featuring our newest books in the exhibit hall and many of our noted authors will be on hand for autographing sessions, including Binnie Klein, Barbara Chepaitis, Anthony V. Riccio and Silvio Suppa, and Dan Rattiner. BEA will take place from May 25-27 at the Javits Center in New York City. Passes are available to the public, so be sure to stop by and check us out!

On The Evolutionary Review

Watch Joseph Carroll discuss the journal he coedits (with Alice Andrews), The Evolutionary Review. Joe explains the journal's aim and style as well as the state of the two-cultures synthesis as it exists within the humanities and social sciences today. Enjoy!

Keep on truckin'

Available next month, Truckin' with Sam is the story of a father and son as they drive across North America in a pickup truck—talking, laughing, fighting, and bonding. The authors, Lee Gutkind and his son Sam, have launched a great website where you can listen to the Dead's "Truckin'", read excerpts from and reviews of the book, and follow the authors' promotional reading schedule (that part coming soon).

Truckin’ with Sam is an honest, moving, and often hilarious account of one father’s determination to bond with his son, a cross-country travelogue that will appeal to old dads, new dads, and women who want to know more about how dads (and sons) think and behave. Preorder your copy of this perfect Father's Day gift today.

Occultist John Dee inspires oddball opera collaboration

Sixteenth-century alchemist and occultist John Dee—often referred to as the "conjurer to Queen Elizabeth"—will soon at some point be immortalized in an opera, to be cowritten by the duo behind the cartoon rock band Gorillaz—Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett—and Watchmen author and magician, anarchist, and bearded wonder, Alan Moore. We say "at some point" because, as The A.V. Club reports, the project is in the very early stages of development. Here's a snippet from their latest report:

Albarn confirms that the story will concern the life of famed alchemist John Dee, the 16th-century thinker who blurred the line between science and mysticism with his equal devotion to mathematics and stuff like trying to talk to angels in their own language. But in addition to his dabbling in the occult, Dee was also a pioneer in navigation, a noted astronomer, served as a political advisor to Elizabeth I, and amassed the largest library in England—in short, he’s a real nerd’s nerd, right down to his fascination with the supernatural.

Obviously, a collaboration between Moore and Gorillaz based on the life of John "He Talks to Angels" Dee could turn out to be, as The A.V. Club puts it, "one of the most geek-tastic projects of all time."

Coincidentally, our book John Dee's Occultism: Magical Exaltation through Powerful Signs, by noted Dee scholar György E. Szonyi, is newly available in paperback. Renaissance Quarterly said of it:

“The scholar at whatever level interested in understanding the range and scope of occult philosophy in the early modern period, will find Szonyi’s one of the best first books to read.”

In short, it's a perfect companion for those looking to bone up on John Dee and occultism in order to fully appreciate what will surely be an eccentric opera on one of the towering figures of Renaissance mysticism.

Book review: Blows to the Head

Binnie Klein's Blows to the Head continues to garner positive reviews and attention. Here's a sampling from the latest review, from The Jewish Chronicle:

Klein offers a light-hearted, self-deprecating, and entertaining romp through her unusual experiences as a boxer, using them to connect with her current activities, her past, and her Jewish identification.

Read the full review. Also, we're happy to share Binnie's book trailer, below!