but don’t forget the older ones.

Celebrating 100 Years of Pulitzer Prize-Winning Fiction

Each April, since 1917, the Pulitzer Prize exalts some of the highest achievements in journalism and the arts. For the fiction award, the committee honors a piece of distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published the previous year. His Family by Ernest Poole was the first book to ever receive the award. This year, the prize is celebrating its centennial. –

For me,  the next best thing to hearing an author talk about their work is reading comments from authors about their work.  There are a number of authors who have blogs and there are groups of authors who share blogs.  Because I am a mystery fan two of my favorites of these are Maine Crime Writers  and Jungle Red Writers.

This morning Katherine Hall Page writes about her new book which takes her characters to a new location on Maine Crime Writers.

http://mainecrimewriters.com

And by coincidence (or not) Katherine is also heavily mentioned as the editor of a short short anthology Malice Domestic: Murder Most Conventional on Jungle Red Writers today. Malice is the annual conference that honors and celebrates the authors of traditional mysteries (sometimes called cozies but Katherine doesn’t approve of that designation)

http://www.jungleredwriters.com

And I should be clear – frequently the authors contributing to these blogs aren’t writing about their books – they are sharing recipes, wondering what kind of hat everyone wears, fussing about the publishing business or sharing happy news.  But they are interesting people – which no doubt makes their books interesting.

But I thought this one was really interesting and – if one of the reasons you like book groups is the opportunity to find books you might have missed – you might too.

Twenty-one well known authors were asked to select a book that they thought was amazing but mostly unknown.  You can find the result here:

http://www.gq.com/story/21-brilliant-books-youve-never-heard-of

Just saw this notice from Bullfinch Restaurant in Sudbury –

Held the last weekend of April it has a long list of very impressive and interesting author events and activities held all over town.

Check out the website link for a detailed schedule

http://newburyportliteraryfestival.org/schedule-events/