Awards, Readings, & News– The National Book Awards are in, and if I do say so myself, it seems I picked a winner back in September when I gave Tree of Smoke 5 stars in my review for Paste Magazine.
– Former poet laureate (US) Robert Hass, who taught at Berkeley when I was there, won the poetry award for Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 published by Ecco/HarperCollins
– Joan Didion, who in 2005 won the National Book Award for nonfiction for The Year of Magical Thinking, was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
– Poet Cathy Song will give a reading from Cloud Moving Hands tonight at Punahou School’s Luke Lecture Hall Wo Center, 7.30 (626-1481). The event is free and will be Song’s only public reading from the collection. Read Lesa Griffith’s article about Song in the Honolulu Advertiser.
– In the Guardian, Jeanette Winterson’s book club explanations of her book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit evoke hard to ignore reactions.
– Ira Levin joins Norman Mailer in our goodbyes.
Literary Lotus 
I’ll email you after December 1. I’m flying out today for Thanksgiving. When we get together after speaking to Frank Schaeffer, I’ll query the group about times in February.
That’s interesting to know–I haven’t read much of her, and hadn’t heard of Johnson before I reviewed TREE OF SMOKE, an excellent introduction!Email me about the talk. 🙂
Oh yeah… wanna talk to our group in February?
Hey, I love Denis Johnson.Not enough people know about him.Anyway, I read Didion’s last book. Actually, I’ve read all of them. I have to say that this was the book where the distance from arch adviser to being completely engaged in what happened was closed.This was the book that had the most heart and all of her.