Two Featured Authors Make Washington Post Bestseller Lists

Two Gaithersburg Book Festival featured authors made their debuts on Washington Post bestseller lists this week.

• Eleanor Brown's "The Weird Sisters" made its debut on this week's Washington Post hardcover fiction bestseller list at #10. See the full bestseller lists.
• Douglas Waller's "Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage" made its debut on this week's Washington Post poli/sci list at #7. See the full list.
  

What books do you think deserve to be on the bestseller lists?

Douglas Waller's "Wild Bill Donovan" Getting Rave Reviews

GBF featured author Douglas Waller must be on cloud nine these days after a string of stellar reviews for his new book, "Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage." Among the kudos:

• The New York Times calls it an "entertaining history..." Read the full review.
• The Wall Street Journal calls it a "fast-moving and well-written biography." Read the full review.
• The Los Angeles Times calls it a "splendid biography," "fascinatingly instructive," and "thoroughly entertaining." Read the full review.
• The Associated Press calls it a "fascinating biography" and says the book is "replete with fascinating anecdotes and tales of derring-do that offer the stuff of espionage thrillers combined with political chicanery and historical fact." Read the full review.

Congrats, Doug! Can't wait to see you on May 21 at the Gaithersburg Book Festival!

Passing Childrens' Books Down to the Next Generation

Parenting magazine recently polled its readers about the top books that parents pass down to their kids, and the reason why the parents love them so.

My all-time favorite - "Harold and the Purple Crayon" - is on the Parenting list. I've loved that story, and its imaginative, artistic boy, since first discovering it in the waiting room of my childhood dentist's office. My second favorite - "The Lorax" - wasn't on the list. My grandmother read me that book, and now it has become one of my son's favorites. The underlying message about the importance of protecting the environment, the consequences of greed and the overwhelming need for useless things like "thneeds" ring even more true today than when I read "The Lorax" more than three decades ago.

Are any of your favorites included? If not, tell us which ones you've shared with your kids, and why these books are so important to you.

Noted Author Rachel Simon to Speak at Gaithersburg Arts Barn on March 9

Although unable to participate in the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 21st, noted author Rachel Simon will appear at the Arts Barn in Kentlands on Wednesday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss “The House on Teacher’s Lane,” her moving account of how the physical upheaval of renovating her townhouse led to a dusting off of relationships, and a new appraisal of the importance of community.

The author event is a kickoff for the May 14 Kentlands House and Garden Tour, with its theme of “Redo and Renew.” The Rachel Simon talk is free and open to the public, and books will be signed.

The Arts Barn is located at 311 Kent Square Road in Gaithersburg. Get directions.

Simon’s appearance is co-sponsored by the Kentlands Community Foundation, the Kentlands Garden Club and the City of Gaithersburg.

GBF Welcomes Its Newest Sponsor: Verizon

The festival is pleased to announced its newest sponsor, Verizon, which committed to a Pavilion level sponsorship.

Find out more about sponsorship opportunities and levels on the festival website.

Why should your organization sponsor the festival? Check out a great column about this topic on the Gaithersburg Patch. The column includes a quote from Briana Gowing, who works in external affairs with Verizon Maryland: "...one of the Verizon Foundation's signature philanthropies is literacy. We look for ways to increase interest in reading. The book festival allowed us to show our support for the city and foster the goals of our foundation."

USA Today Reviews "The Paris Wife" by GBF Featured Author Paula McLain

USA Today reviewed "The Paris Wife" by GBF featured author Paula McLain yesterday, calling it "evocative" and a book that women and book clubs are going to "eat up."

Read the full review.

Washington Independent Review of Books Reviews "Wild Bill Donovan"

The brand-new Washington Independent Review of Books, a website dedicated to book reviews and writing about the world of books, posted a review of "Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage" by GBF featured author Doug Waller as one of its first reviews. The Review praised Waller's "meticulous detective work" in researching this story and his "always sterling" writing.

Read the full review.

Featured Author Paula McLain: Q&A in Shelf Awareness

Industry e-newsletter Shelf Awareness published a Q&A today with GBF featured author Paula McLain ("The Paris Wife").

Learn more about McLain, Hadley and Hemingway and the challenges of writing a novel about real people.

Listen to Featured Author Doug Waller on Diane Rehm

Did you miss Diane Rehm's interview with Doug Waller, author of "Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage"? Don't fret!

It's posted online here. Go take a listen, then come to the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 21 and talk with Waller yourself.

PW Q&A with Featured Author Louis Bayard

Publishers Weekly magazine recently did a quick Q&A with Gaithersburg Book Festival featured author Louis Bayard about his newest book, "The School of Night," which the magazine called "a superb intellectual thriller."

Read the interview and then come ask Bayard your own questions at the festival on May 21.

Featured Author Paula McLain Interviewed in Elle magazine

GBF featured author Paula McLain was interviewed in the March issue of Elle magazine about her new book, "The Paris Wife," a historical novel about the first Mrs. Ernest Hemingway. In this fascinating interview, McLain shares where the idea for this novel came from and what it was liking telling a story about two people who really existed.

The article calls her new book a "mesmerizing and helluva-good-time novel." Now that's a great review! Read the interview.

Alex Berenson Makes Washington Post Bestsellers List

Good news for another Gaithersburg Book Festival author! Alex Berenson's politically-charged thriller, "The Secret Soldier," joined the Washington Post's fiction hardcover list at #7 this week. Read more. Then make sure you come see him at the GBF on May 21.

Doug Waller on Diane Rehm Show Monday

Check out GBF Featured Author Doug Waller, author of Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage on the Diane Rehm Show this Monday at 11am.

This looks like a really interesting story about an important, but largely unknown figure in American history.

Come meet Waller on May 21st, and, of course, read more about our Featured Authors.

Great Review of "Moon Over Manifest"

Last month, Clare Vanderpool's debut novel Moon Over Manifest won the top prize in children's literature, the Newbery Medal. This review in the Montreal Gazette tells us why it's "unforgettable".

Clare Vanderpool will be a Featured Author at the 2011 Gaithersburg Book Festival. Come meet her on May 21st, and read about more of our Featured Authors.

Detroit News reviews "Radioactive"

"Marie and Pierre Curie's inspirational and tragic story has been told in biographies, children's books, films and TV miniseries, but Lauren Redniss has revived it with astounding creativity and beauty," says John McMurtrie in the Detroit News.

Ms. Redniss will be a Featured Author at the 2011 Gaithersburg Book Festival. Come meet her on May 21st, and read about more of our Featured Authors.

Author Paula McLain Talks Motherhood

Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife: A Novel, which chronicles the love affair between Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley, recently wrote about her experience learning to be a mother for Real Simple magazine. Read her Life Lessons article online.

GBFs "Sister" Authors

GBF author Meg Waite Clayton ("The Wednesday Sisters" and the forthcoming "The Four Mrs. Bradwells") recently welcomed GBF author Eleanor Brown ("The Weird Sisters") onto her blog where Brown wrote about her "first novel." Why did I put quotes around the phrase first novel? You have to read to find out.

A Sneak Peak at Sarah Pekkanen's Skipping a Beat

Thanks to twitter (@sarahpekkanen), we just found a sneak peak from Chapter One of Sarah Pekkanen's almost-published "Skipping a Beat." (Official release date: Feb 22)

Can't wait to read it ...

Win! Win! Win!

Okay. So I stole that heading from author Eleanor Brown's blog. Why?

Because she's doing a drawing on her blog and one lucky reader/entrant will win a signed copy of Eleanor's book, "The Weird Sisters," which recently received a rave review in the Washington Post, and a signed copy of "Skipping a Beat" by Sarah Pekkanen, which comes out next week.

Go enter. (You only have until 8 p.m. TODAY to do so!)

Oh, and have we mentioned that both FABULOUS authors will be at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 21?

Does Anyone Visit Bookstores Anymore?

When was the last time you visited a bookstore?

That's what the Washington Business Journal wants to know. We're encourage by the results that popped up when we last looked, though we'd love to see "a week ago" take a bigger lead.

• A week ago 42%
• A month ago 32%
• Within the last 6 months 23%
• Within the last year 0%
• Not in more than a year 3%

Go. Vote.

And if you want to, tell us what you bought the last time you were at a bookstore.

From the Written Word to the Big Screen

In honor of GBF featured authors who will soon see their words hit the big screen -- such as Mary Downing Hahn whose book "‘Wait Till Helen Comes" will mark actress Jennifer Love Hewitt's directorial debut -- we thought we'd ask a question of our readers: What do you think are the best movies based on books? And, if you're feeling generous, why do you think a particular book-based movie was so successful?

Get Thee to a Bookstore to Buy "The Weird Sisters" by Eleanor Brown

Washington Post critic Ron Charles quotes Polonius's good advice to "read on this book" and advises anyone who knows "a Stratfordian who's always quoting the Bard" to "get thee to a bookstore" in his mostly positive review of "The Weird Sisters" by Eleanor Brown.

Charles also calls the book smart and hopeful. Read the full review.

Brown is a Featured Author at the 2011 Gaithersburg Book Festival. Come meet her on May 21st, and read about more of our Featured Authors.

Short Story Contest Fun Facts

We thought we'd share some more fun facts about the entries we received for our high school student short story contest. Our judges are hard at work winnowing down from 114 entries to the 10 finalists. As they read the entries, they're noticing some trends...

• 43% of stories referenced a mother who was dead or absent or made no mention of a mother while mentioning other relatives. (Does this mean there are a lot of high school students without mothers? Or just some wishful thinking by teens who are angry with their parents? Not sure...)
  
• 25% referenced a dead or absent father
• 18% included an angry or stoic father (Yet we didn't see many -- if any -- angry or stoic mothers.)
• 23% of the stories that began with the "Don't open the box..." line included a reference to Pandora from Greek mythology.
• 2% of all the stories mentioned Taylor Swift. (How exciting that Greek mythology beat out pop culture... of course, a "Don't open the box" opening line might have tipped the scales in Pandora's favor.)

Stay tuned here to read the 10 finalists...

Twitter and #mostromanticbooks

Twitter trend today: posting your favorite romantic books with the #mostromanticbooks hashtag.

Right now we're seeing lots of classics -- "Pride and Prejudice," "Wuthering Heights," "Gone with the Wind" -- stand the test of time when it comes to romantic reading...

If you're looking for books with more recent pub dates (compared to P&P and the others listed above), we're seeing "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, "Like Water for Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel, and "My Name is Memory" by Ann Brashares.

And for young adults, so far we've seen "Two-way Street" by Lauren Barnholdt, "Peony in Love" by Lisa See, and "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman mentioned.

So what are your favorite romantic books?

Some Unconventional Picks for Valentine's Day

Looking for a romantic read this Valentine's Day? It doesn't take much searching on the web to find "top 10" lists of romantic books.

The Independent's list includes classics like "Pride and Prejudice" and "Wuthering Heights" as well as more modern tales like "We Are Now Beginning Our Descent" by James Meek. The Examiner takes a different take on the genre by recommending the 10 Best Romantic Novels for People Who Hate Romance with titles ranging from "Pride and Prejudice" to sci fi's "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis to Audrey Niffenegger's "The Time-Traveler's Wife." And earlier this week the Washington Post published a list of five books for Valentine's Day.

But lest you think we don't care about love at the GBF, here's our own list of perhaps unconventional books (by our featured authors) that could make good Valentine's Day gifts for the people you love:

Good news for Louis Bayard's upcoming novel

Good news for mystery writer Louis Bayard. Publishers Weekly gave his upcoming novel, The School of Night, a starred review, calling it a "superb intellectual thriller." Expecting to hear more about this one, which comes out in late March.

Bayard is a Featured Author at the 2011 Gaithersburg Book Festival. Come meet him on May 21st, and see more on our Featured Authors here.

GBF Author Q&A with... Poet Linda Pastan

This is the first in a series of Q&As with authors that will be featured at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 21.

Name: Linda Pastan
Books: 13 volumes of poetry, most recently "Traveling Light."

-------------------

Where do you find inspiration?
Everywhere / Anywhere

What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Read!!!!

What are you reading right now?
Though I am always reading poetry, I also read about a novel a week. In between more serious books, I read good mysteries -- they are like eating sorbet between courses to cleanse the palette. At the moment I am reading "Silence Of The Grave" by Arnaldur Indridason.

What's your favorite opening line from a book? "There is a certain shade of red brick -- a dark, almost melodious red, sombre and riddled with blue -- that is my childhood in St. Louis." -- From "First Love and Other Sorrows" by Harold Brodkey (Before I became a serious poet, I wrote short stories and loved Brodkey's -- almost knew them by heart!)

Read more about Linda Pastan on the Gaithersburg Book Festival website or poets.org.

So there you have it. A sneak peak into what inspires and appeals to a former Poet Laureate of Maryland.

Stay tuned for more Q&As from other featured authors.

Alex Berenson's Picks

Spy novelist Alex Berenson picks his favorite books about Americans abroad in The Daily Beast today. And, by the way, his new book, The Secret Soldier came out this week.

Alex Berenson is a GBF Featured Author this year. Come meet him on May 21st, and see more on our Featured Authors here.

GBF High School Student Short Story Contest

So as anyone who's been following GBF news knows -- and let's face it, who ISN'T following GBF news, right? -- we added a new component to this year's festival: a short story contest for high school students living in Maryland, Virginia, or D.C.

Students were challenged to write a story in 1,000 words or less that started with one of three lines provided by Sarah Pekannen, author of The Opposite of Me (2010) and Skipping a Beat (2011).

First piece of AMAZING news: We got 114 entries! In our first year! As the exclamation points demonstrate, we're excited.

National Book Festival to expand; Should we?

The Library of Congress has decided to expand the National Book Festival to two days. It was reportedly made possible by a $5 million donation from financier and philanthropist David M. Rubenstein. Nice.

GBF Committee member Becky Meloan immediately poses the question: Is this the future of the Gaithersburg Book Festival?

What do you think? (You can answer "yes" without being held responsible to raise $5 million... but we'd welcome the help!)

Interview with Clare Vanderpool, Newbery award winner

Clare Vanderpool, the 2011 Newbery Medal winner is interviewed in today's Kids Post. In case you don't remember, since 1922 the Newbery Medal has been awarded annually by the American Library Association to the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year.

So happy to report that Clare will be with us in Gaithersburg on May 21st!

"Radioactive" is hot!

The New York Times gives a glowing review to GBF author Lauren Redniss's Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, calling it a "story with a hefty half life". Part art, part biography, part science, part love story... this one looks great!

Disability in the Age of Prozac

Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic, has an interesting piece in Psychology Today. Whitaker's thesis is causing quite a stir in the mental health community and this could be a hot topic when he speaks to us on May 21st in Gaithersburg.

Featured Authors in the News: Daniel Rasmussen

The New York Times Book Review calls 2011 GBF author Daniel Rasmussen's American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt "chilling and suspenseful".

By the way, he was GREAT on C-SPAN's Book TV this past weekend! You can catch it here.

GBF Featured Authors in the News: Eleanor Brown

NPR interviews GBF Featured Author Eleanor Brown about her new novel, "The Weird Sisters", which is now a New York Times best-seller.

Welcome!

Hi book lover. Okay, so we're assuming you're a book lover if you're interested in the Gaithersburg Book Festival. We think it's a safe assumption.

This is our first post... a welcome post. And we're excited to launch our new blog. What will you find here that's different than our website? Two items immediately spring to mind:

1. Q&As with some of our authors that we hope will whet your appetite and make you want to come to the festival to hear more from these amazing voices
2. Short stories. Yup, you read that right. Short stories. We ran a short story contest for high school students this year and we're going to post stories from the 10 finalists leading up to the festival. Then, at the festival, the students will get a chance to read their stories out loud and we'll announce a winner. (The winner gets a $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble.) We've just started reading through our 114 entries -- wow! We can't believe we got that many -- and can't wait to start announcing and showing off our finalists.

We'll post other updates as we get closer to the festival itself. And we hope we'll hear from you. Have a question about the festival? Email us. We'll do our best to answer online.

In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to our e-newsletter so you can hear the latest news every month!

And, as always, Happy Reading!