PowellsBooks.Blog

• Colbert Trap: Well, folks, the big news — if you haven't already seen it on CNN or the front page of the New York Times today — is that Powell's Stephen Colbert release party was featured on last night's Colbert Report!

  If you missed it, we've got your back:

  We'd like to apologize to Mr. Colbert for ripping him off. We at Powell's cannot condone the senseless act of discounting books and wish him to know that he will receive his hard-earned eight dollars shortly in the mail.

  HOWEVER! I cannot abide his relentless slurs against not only Powell's, but the entire city of Portland.

  "Hippie stronghold"?

  "Portland is communist"?

  These charges would be libelous except he spoke them aloud, which makes them slander!

  Yes, it's true, Michael Powell has dreadlocks flowing to his knees and dresses in Birkenstocks with grey wool socks even at black-tie affairs — but who said Birks don't go with tuxedos, anyway?!

  And okay, fine, he has given all his money and belongings to his employees and lives on a commune in the forest that borrows the exact design of the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi, up to and including the fur.

  But I don't!

  And I refuse to be lumped in with Colbert's unfair (mis)characterization of our fair city. I am as capitalist and as hygienically immaculate as any true American... perhaps more so! (And yes, I am including a certain bestselling author and host of a hit TV talk show among those who may be less capitalist and hygienic than myself.)

  To show Colbert the error of his ways, I am selflessly offering to represent ALL OF US on his show in the first-ever Capitalist Hygiene Off!

  Stephen Colbert, take heed — Brockman is CALLING YOU OUT!

  Will you accept my challenge... or hide behind your desk like a very rich, morally upstanding, Americentric talk show host with impeccable standards of grooming and personal hygiene?

  The gauntlet is thrown, the first shot has been fired, and the metaphors are thorougly mixed — will you answer the call?

• Time for More Lists: In far less important news, the finalists for the National Book Award were announced — and the big names include Christopher Hitchens, Denis Johnson, and former U.S. poet laureate Robert Hass.

  The complete list:

  FICTION
  Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork
  Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance
  Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End (Read the Powell's interview with Ferris)
  Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke
  Jim Shepard, Like You’d Understand, Anyway

  NONFICTION
  Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying
  Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Read the Powell's interview with Hitchens)
  Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
  Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: A Biography
  Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

  POETRY
  Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North
  Robert Hass, Time and Materials
  David Kirby, The House on Boulevard St.
  Stanley Plumly, Old Heart
  Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006

  YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
  Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Read the Powell's Interview with Alexie)
  Kathleen Duey, Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One
  M. Sindy Felin, Touching Snow
  Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
  Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl

  The winner gets $10,000 and each of the finalists receives $1,000. The announcement will be made on November 14th — mark it on your calendars!

÷ ÷ ÷

Brockman is the head writer for the daily Book News posts on the Powells.com blog. In his free time he's hard at work on his fictional memoir, which changes titles daily.

The views and commentary posted by Brockman are entirely his own, and are not representative of the whole of Powell's Books, its employees, or any sane human being.

Books mentioned in this post

1. 
   $9.98 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

   Fieldwork

   Mischa Berlinski
2. 
   $6.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

   Varieties of Disturbance: Stories

   Lydia Davis
3. 
   $8.50 Used Hardcover add to wish list

   Then We Came to the End: A Novel

   Joshua Ferris
4. 
   $7.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

   Tree of Smoke: A Novel

   Denis Johnson
5. 
   $7.98 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

   Like You'd Understand, Anyway: Stories

   Jim Shepard
6. 
   $9.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

   Brother, I'm Dying

   Edwidge Danticat
7. 
   $17.50 Used Hardcover add to wish list

   God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

   Christopher Hitchens
8. 
   $16.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

   Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution

   Woody Holton
9. 
   $5.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

   The Historian: A Novel

   Elizabeth Kostova
10. 
    $15.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

    Tim Weiner
11. 
    $12.00 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Magnetic North

    Linda Gregerson
12. 
    $15.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005

    Robert Hass
13. 
    $16.95 New Trade Paper add to wish list

    The House of Blue Light (Southern Messenger Poets)

    David Kirby
14. 
    $16.50 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Old Heart: Poems

    Stanley Plumly
15. 
    $17.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006

    Ellen Bryant Voigt
16. 
    $11.50 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

    Sherman Alexie
17. 
    $10.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic (Resurrection of Magic #01)

    Kathleen Duey and Sheila Rayyan
18. 
    $10.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Touching Snow

    M. Sindy Felin
19. 
    $15.00 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    The Invention of Hugo Cabret

    Brian Selznick
20. 
    $16.99 New Hardcover add to wish list

    Story of a Girl

    Sara Zarr