George Orwell lives at G20 protests

"Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper tonight said David Japenga was taken into custody shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday after police witnessed him breaking businesses' windows during a protest along Forbes Avenue in Oakland.

Chief Harper said Mr. Japenga, who at first refused to give his name, then gave the false name of Eric Blair, broke more than 20 storefront windows and glass doors, including $20,000 worth of windows at Citizens Bank on Craig Street in Oakland. He was single-handedly responsible, Chief Harper said, for most of the $50,000 in damage done during summit protests." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 26.

Eric Blair, eh? Maybe Japenga was making an ironic statement, easy to do around law enforcement officers not noted for their appreciation of irony.

Eric Blair is George Orwell's real name, He served in Britain's Imperial Police in Burma for five years during the 1920s until he became fed up with the political injustice of the job. His novel, "Burmese Days," tells the tale.

Get outta tahn!

Tired of locked-down Pittsburgh? Get away to safe, secure Washington, D.C., this Saturday for the National Book Festival on the Mall in front of the Capitol Building.

It’s a daylong event of author readings, book signings and children’s activities sponsored by the Library of Congress. For the details.

Along with the fest, the LOC’s Center for the Book Saturday is launching Read.gov., a multimedia Web site tapping the library’s resources to highlight books, authors and illustrators.

Kids author Jon Scieszka has written the first episode of a new book for the occasion, "The Exquisite Corpse Adventure," illustrated by Chris Van Dusen.

Also adding chapters and are will be:

M.T. Anderson, Natalie Babbitt, Susan Cooper, Kate DiCamillo, Timothy Basil Ering, Nikki Grimes, Shannon Hale, Daniel Handler (a k a Lemony Snicket), Steven Kellogg, Megan McDonald, Gregory Maguire, Fred and Patricia McKissack, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson and James Ransome.

Name a winner -- from a pile of winners

 The National Book Foundation, organizers of the National Book Awards, is hyping the prize ceremony in November by running a popularity contest. It's asking the public to name the best book among six finalists that were winners in the 60-year history of the awards.

Those six are:

 "The Stories of John Cheever," Ralph Ellison’s "Invisible Man," William Faulkner’s "Collected Stories," "The Complete Stories" of Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Pynchon’s "Gravity Rainbow" and "The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty."

Tthrough Oct. 21, votes can be cast through its Web site. The winner will be announced Nov. 18, the day of the award ceremony in New York City.

New Brown book breaks records

Sept. 15 brought a shot of cash for booksellers and publisher Doubleday, a Random House imprint , thanks to a monster response to Dan Brown's new cliffhanger, "The Lost Symbol." The publisher claimed more than 1 million copies were sold in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Reuters reported:

"The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown has broken all previous one day sales for adult fiction in the first 24 hours of its release at its retail stores and online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com). The company also said that the eBook edition of The Lost Symbol is now the number one title in its eBookstore."

Doubleday yesterday also ordered an extra 600.000 copies run off to meet demand.

Time is running out to save Robert Langdon!

That’s right. You can haul Langdon’s potato out of the many fires Dan Brown tosses him in his new instant blockbuster, "The Lost Symbol," just by flaunting your knowledge of Pittsburgh literary history on PG+, the newspaper’s new subscription-only Web site for only $3.99 a month, $2.99 for newspaper home subscribers. It’s a lot cheaper than the $29.95 book.

Check out my site for the BookClub+ contest. The winner gets "The Lost Symbol" and runners-up win either "The Hemingses of Monticello" or "Home." The contest will be closing later today. Don’t miss your chance to exhibit your knowledge of Pittsburgh literati and get the hottest-selling novel for free.

bookcontest@post-gazette.com.

When 'Lost' is found or second guessing is usually right

Several weeks ago, in writing about the release plans of Dan Brown's new instant best-seller, "The Lost Symbol," I reported that the release date set by the publisher Random House was Sept. 15, that security was tight around the book, but that the New York Times would run a review Sept. 14. Janet Maslin's review did indeed run Sept. 14 while the rest of us chumps waited like a dog at the butcher's back door for the bone. The book is supposed to be in newspaper book reviewer offices Sept. 14, said Suzanne Herz, Random's head flak. We'll believe that when we see it (still at home unshaven and in pajamas.)

New material for Keillor, a new home for Poets House and a pandemic of Patterson

A "minor stroke" is the diagnosis of radio huckster and corny novelist Garrison Keillor, stricken earlier this week at his home in St. Paul, Minn. The Lake Wobegon creator says he's in shape to launch his new season of "A Prairie Home Companion" show on public radio Sept. 26, heard here on WQED-FM Saturdays at 6 p.m. As usual, the new season will recycle everything from old seasons, but look for Keillor to devote several shows to his stroke and probably one, if not two books to it.

Poets House opens its new digs in New York's Battery Park -- 10 River Terrace -- Sept. 25 after a move from SoHo. The organization, started in 1985 by the late poet Stanley Kunitz, houses more than 50,000 poetry books in its open library. The new house offers views of the Hudson, a bright performance space and a children's room. The opening celebration is Sept. 26 with a range of poets from the ordinary (Billy Collins) to the sublime (Philip Levine). Poetry-inspired songs will be mumbled by Natalie Merchant.

Novelist James Patterson, whose work has been compared to "chicken feed" because he sprinkles books around like poultry food, admits he's only interested in one thing -- making the bestseller list. Now, his goal seems assured. Publisher Hachette, owner of Little, Brown, his imprint, has signed the former corporate PR guy to a 17-book deal that includes producing 11 adult titles by 2012. No problem for Patterson since he doesn't write the books anymore. He hires "partners" who turn his ideas into prose. Note the number of "By James Patterson and ..." bylines these days.

One answer to library fund cuts: Close the library!

In case you missed this piece of depressing news, the Seattle Public Library is shutting down for a week to save about $665,000 in a city budget collapse. The main library and all 26 branches is furloughing staff and locking their doors the first week of September.

Most libraries, including Pittsburgh's Carnegie, are facing the same kind of draconian measures as the dollars dry up, the Pennsylvania State Legislature excluded, as it continues to pay itself as the state government withers.

Embargo? We ain't got no stinkin' embargo

 It was a kind of "perfect storm" in literary journalism that produced the extraordinary coverage of the yet-to-be-released autobiography of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, "True Compass" -- the Times' fealty to the Kennedy family and its obsession with snagging books before they hit the stores. The coverage Sept. 4 -- a story on the book and Michiko Kakutani's review -- were remarkable in their timing, so close to the funeral of the senator, yet more than a week before the book is to be available -- Sept. 14.

The event was out of the ordinary that the publisher, Twelve's Jonathan Karp issued a response for booksellers and the media, the first time I've ever seen one after an embargo was broken. Here it is:

"We are gratified by the intense interest in and enthusiastic reaction to True Compass by Senator Edward M. Kennedy. We also regret we are unable to make the book available to you immediately.  We are eager to share this extraordinary autobiography with you.  This is not yet possible because the book has not reached most booksellers, including major national accounts and independent stores.  We know how frustrated readers can get when they can't find a book, and we also know how frustrated booksellers can get when they cannot meet demand (or when certain accounts have an unfair advantage by selling early).  That's why we set a uniform national on-sale date of September 14, which is the earliest we can guarantee all readers and booksellers access to True Compass. "

 "While we recognize the news value of the book, one of our objectives as a publisher is to facilitate a national conversation among readers. That conversation will be better and more informed when everyone has access to True Compass on September 14th, and we eagerly await that day. At that time, we will also post the first chapter at www.twelvebooks.com.  In the interim, we appreciate your patience, your understanding, and the strict adherence among booksellers to our embargo."

Forget the blog, he's got a novel to write

Jose Saramago has his priorities straightened out. The the 85-year-old Portuguese novelist ("Blindness") announced he was ditching his blog which he started a year ago to return to being a novelist. "I have started another book and want to dedicate all my time to it," he wrote in his final blog entry Aug. 31.