It's Opening Day...

...of the Major League Baseball season, even though the Chicago White Sox' home opener was postponed today due to snow. And Accent on Books is ready to step up to the plate with some books for the season.

Baseball Prospectus, 2009 (paperback). The ultimate book for statheads, with everything a Patriotic American needs to know about our National Pastime. Profiles and predictions for hundreds of major league players, plus all the top prospects.

Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee, by Allen Barra (hardback). He may be best known to the general public as the most popular (if unintentional) American philosopher since William James, but the man could flat out play baseball. As Yogi himself said, "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him." Barra gives Berra the biography he deserves, with lots of great photographs.

Baseball in Asheville, by Bill Ballew (paperback). Here in Accent on Books' hometown we may not have a major league team, but the Asheville Tourists have a surprisingly long and even distinguished history, as this fun photographic chronicle reminds us. Babe Ruth once played here, Willie Stargell was a member of the team -- and Thomas Wolfe was a batboy!

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, by Kadir Nelson. I mentioned this one in an earlier post about the various children's book awards given out by the American Library Association, but it deserves a second mention. A dazzling, eloquent book that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike.

The Importance of Cheese Containers of a Certain Dimension

Back in February I announced that the list was being narrowed in the process of naming the Oddest Book Title of the Year, in a contest sponsored by The Bookseller, a British magazine. The winner has been named, and I think you'll agree it's a worthy one. The oddest title has been determined to be The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, a tasty volume published by Icon Group International. Yet, as distinguished as this title is, the decision to make it the winner could not have been an easy one when you consider the other finalists:

Baboon Metaphysics
Curbside Consultation of the Colon
Strip and Knit with Style
The Large Sieve and Its Applications
Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring

More on this auspicious competition can be found here.

National Poetry Month

Get out your papers, pens, laptops and rhyming dictionaries (if you're a traditionalist) -- April is National Poetry Month. This annual event is celebrated by bookstores, libraries and other organizations throughout the country to recognize the important contributions that poetry and its practitioners make to our culture. You can sign up to have a Poem A Day delivered to your e-mail inbox free of charge. And The Read on WNC has a lot of good information up about poets here in Western North Carolina, including links to their websites.

We have some great events planned for the month at Accent on Books, the first one scheduled for April 10. Page 854 will have more information as it becomes available, or you can check our website anytime.

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village -- blow? show? throw?

Accent on Facebook

Thanks to Byron, our erstwhile marketing genius, Accent on Books now has a Facebook page! So if you are a member of Facebook, drop by our page, get the latest scoop on what's happening with us, and consider becoming a Fan. And if you're not yet a Facebook member (a Facebookie?) maybe here's a reason to become one.

After all, we'd love to have a lot of fans. It can get surprisingly hot in the mountains in August. (Sorry.)

Hope Through Literacy in the Palestinian Territories

The Astrid Lindgren Prize was set up by the Swedish government to promote children's literature and children's cultural rights. It is the world's richest children's literature prize and has been awarded since 2003 to individuals such as Maurice Sendak, Philip Pullman and Katherine Paterson.

This year, for only the second time, the recipient was an organization: The Tamer Institute for Community Education. Founded in 1989 during the first Palestinian intifada, the Tamer Institute works to promote reading, writing and literacy among children in the West Bank and Gaza, especially in those areas where access to formal education has been curtailed. According to a statement on their website, the institute's "philosophy is centered on the idea that learning environments for children and young people can only be created among youth who are encouraged to read, write and participate in dialogue while working in small groups united by a common dream and joint aspirations." The Lindgren judges praised the group's "perseverance, audacity and resourcefulness."

More can be found here

Friday, 3/27, at Accent on Books: Cheri Jones

The power of poetry to explore areas of thought and experience that prose cannot touch is obviously something Cheri Jones understands well. This is clearly shown by her new book, Chains, which Jones will be presenting at Accent on Books this coming Friday beginning at 6:00 PM.

Chains is an appropriate title for this sequence of poems which portrays several generations of a family struggling with and against each other, bound as they are by chains of love and hate, kinship and madness. Although the characters are fictitious, the book is illustrated with photographs which add a powerful dimension.

Cheri Jones will be introduced Friday night by another acclaimed local poet, Marijo Moore. We hope you'll be able to join them for this special event at Accent on Books.

"To show my disdain for your policies, I shall read a 17-century French novel!"

When it comes to areas such as politics and literature, the French are sometimes just a bit different. A recent example is an increasingly popular way to express opposition to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Rather than taking to the streets with torches and pitchforks, President Sarkozy's disenchanted constituents are buying and reading copies of La Princesse de Cleves, a novel published anonymously in 1678, that's generally held to be the work of one Madame de La Fayette. A novel of romantic intrigue amongst the royalty, it is considered to be of great historic importance; however, Sarkozy has over the years repeatedly expressed his dislike of it and his opinion that "knowledge of is was not useful."

Sarkozy's bad reviews have now made this novel all the rage in France. According to The Telegraph, badges with the slogan, "I am reading La Princesse de Cleves," quickly sold out at the recent Paris book fair, and public readings of the book have been taking place at various locations including the Sorbonne.

While Accent on Books takes no official stance on the policies of the French President, we will be happy to order La Princesse de Cleves, for anyone who wants a copy. Paperback editions, in English translation, are available from both Oxford World Classics and Penguin Classics. However, last I checked, both editions, interestingly enough, were temporarily out of stock.