"I do everything late in life," said 55-year-old Kurt Corriher, author of the debut thriller Someone to Kill (Forge). "I have my children late in life -- I have a son who’s nine, and a daughter who’s 13 -- and I publish a novel late in life."

Finalists for the Book Sense Book of the Year were announced on February 13. Detailed below are the finalists in the two Children's categories -- Children’s Literature and Children’s Illustrated.

In a March 11 ceremony, held at the Tishman Auditorium at New York University Law School in New York, the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced the winners of its annual book awards. The fiction prize was awarded posthumously to W.G. Sebald for Austerlitz (Random House). Sebald died in an automobile accident in December 2001. His agent, Andrew Wylie, accepted the award.

George P. Pelecanos, the crime-fiction author whose Hell to Pay (Little, Brown) is a Book Sense 76 pick for March/April, started laying the groundwork for a writing career when he was still a youngster -- although he didn't know it then.

In its quest to "Bring the Past Alive," the History Channel is offering a number of documentaries based on outstanding books of nonfiction.

A three-year-old girl falls off a second-floor balcony, lands on her head and breaks her skull. Three days later, she's playing in the snow, fully recovered -- an astounding medical success. But what if this accident had occurred in a remote village in the Indian Himalayas with an American woman doctor performing the surgery for the first time while carefully consulting the medical textbook open in front of her? In this experience, you not only have a chapter from Craig Joseph Danner's self-published novel, Himalayan Dhaba, but also a page from his life.

The 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists were announced on Friday, March 2. Established in 1980, the Times’s annual Book Prize rewards excellence in English-language writing in nine different categories, ranging from biography to fiction to history to poetry. And, notably, several Book Sense 76 picks are among in the list of 45 finalists (including three of the five titles in the first fiction category).

In conjunction with BookExpo America, a number of organizations have come together to launch a campaign to encourage New York City residents to join a citywide book group. Earlier this month representatives from the organizations voted to select as the featured title the novel Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee, (Riverhead Books).

There are several key dates in the career of children’s author Jack Gantos.

In 2001, Gantos received a Newbery Honor for Joey Pigza Loses Control.

His novel Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key was a National Book Award Finalist in 1999.

In 1976, his first book, Rotten Ralph, was published.

And in 1972 he spent a year in prison.

The New York Public Library announced five nominees for its second annual Young Lions Fiction Award [YLFA], which recognizes the work of authors age 35 or younger. Remarkably, each title nominated was a Book Sense 76 pick during 2001-- proving yet again that independent booksellers know what makes for excellent literature.