People

Skylight Books, the six-year-old bookstore in the art-steeped La Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, will host an unusual photography exhibit from February 2 to March 1, titled Memorial for the Skylight Diaspora by Rebecca Tuynman. Artist and art educator Tuynman is a neighbor and frequent customer of Skylight Books. The exhibit will include a series of her portraits and responses to postcards distributed inside of books sold at the store.

By Bernie Sanders

A half a century ago, George Orwell used the famous phrase "Big Brother is watching you" in his novel 1984. Today, under the provisions of the USA Patriot Act, Big Brother will indeed be watching us every time we use a public library. Or buy a book.

Picture thousands of New Yorkers waiting on line for hours to see what all the newspapers, critics, and advertisements are raving about. Twelve-year-old Ralph Albert Blakelock could see the queues for tickets from his Greenwich Village home, Glyn Vincent tells us in The Unknown Night: The Genius and Madness of R.A. Blakelock, An American Painter (Grove).

Those who link carnival food with corn dogs and gyros are missing out on almost sixteen centuries of outstanding Italian cuisine. Food fit for a banquet or a carnival (which comes from the Latin phrase for "removal of meat") is offered by Boston-area chef and food writer Franco Romagnoli in Cucina Di Magro: Cooking Lean the Italian Way (Steerforth Press, January 2003).

Meet M (the Minotaur, for those who prefer full names). Having escaped the labyrinth, he now works as a line cook at Grub's Rib in North Carolina, where he manages, despite his poor eyesight and horns, to have only occasional accidents. He moves regularly but for the moment M lives in Lucky-U Mobile Estates, population 10, where he repairs weathered vehicles in exchange for rent. Mostly, though, he tries to keep a low profile.

Jason Starr, it would seem, is the perfect author to help kick off Vintage Crime/Black Lizard's ambitious 2003, 13th-anniversary campaign, "The Year of the Lizard."

Emmy-winning writer and comedian Ellen DeGeneres will address the book industry in a solo comedic benefit performance Saturday evening, May 31, 2003, at BookExpo America (BEA) in Los Angeles. The appearance was announced by BEA show management on January 9, and the news was the first update on BEA's headline Author Events.

When the critically acclaimed debut novel Three Junes won the National Book Award for fiction last November, a number of people were caught off guard. Count among them author Julia Glass.

"I didn't expect to win.… It was a complete shock," she said in a recent interview from her Manhattan home.

Commodore Matthew Perry, an American Naval officer, is generally credited as the man who, with his 1854 expedition, opened Japan to trade with the West. However, author Giles Milton, who previously proposed (in Nathaniel's Nutmeg) that New York City might still be a Dutch colony but for the spice trade, would like to bring English sailor William Adams to readers' attention.

Katherine Paterson sobbed the first time she read Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (Scribner). Cynthia Ozick reread E.M. Forster's The Longest Journey (Vintage) twice a year because it educated her heart. Mark Twain inspired E.L. Doctorow to write from a child's perspective. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights fueled Alice McDermott's passion for the storyteller.

Writer and activist Daniel Ellsberg arrived at a recent panel co-sponsored by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the Free Expression Network (FEN) just moments before the scheduled 5:30 p.m. start. With a winning smile and a mien that combined bookish uncle with friendly academic, Ellsberg looked engaging and relaxed, especially for a man who had been arrested that day at a Manhattan anti-war rally at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

Life is full of mysteries.

Consider career choices.

Whitney Terrell of Kansas City comes from a family of painters: His great-grandfather was a professional artist. His insurance-executive grandfather painted throughout his life and had pictures "all over the city." Terrell's uncle was an artist, and one of his sisters is a painter who works in advertising.

It might have been predicted, then, that if Whitney Terrell felt an urge to make art, he too would be a painter.

As listeners of National Public Radio's Morning Edition finished breakfast, drove to work, or settled into the first tasks of the day on December 12, they heard the voice of independent bookseller Nancy Olson of Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh, North Carolina, telling them that "there are so many good books this season….

Anu Garg and Al Gore share more than initials. Both are authors of new books co-written with their wives, and both were treated to warm receptions last month at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, where they spoke and signed books, just days apart.