Former UN Chief Kofi Annan to Write Memoir

Penguin Books has bought the rights to Kofi Annan's memoir. Kofi Annan was the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Kofi Annan also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.

"Finally, I get to tell my own story," Mr. Annan said in a statement.

The Penguin Press described the book as "a personal biography of global statecraft, as much memoir as a guide to world order, past, present and future."

It will include detailed accounts of the Ghanaian diplomat's interactions with a range of world figures, including former President George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat.

Mr. Annan and the UN were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.

Kofi was the UN Secretary-General for ten years so he should have lots of stories to tell about his interaction with world leaders and dealing with serious issues like 9/11, natural disasters and the Iraq War.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Recession Session Live!

A 3:AM, Beat the Dust, Lost Elation Showcase:

Some of the best minds of our generation take on the summer of discontent in The Recession Session Live! Readings, DJ sets, and a burlesque act, including: Tom McCarthy, Stewart Home, Chris Killen, Paul Ewen, Danny King, Lee Rourke, Tim Wells, Darran Anderson, Mark SaFranko, David Oprava, Vic Templar, Jenni Fagan, Christiana Spens, hosted by Steve Finbow, Joseph Ridgwell & Melissa Mann - plus Cherri Shakewell.

From 7:30pm until late, 24th April 2009

Downstairs at The Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3BL .

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http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/recession-session-live/

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Beach report

In the past when I have come home we have been in such mad rush to do so many things and see so many people that I haven't spent much time at the beach. This is particularly annoying as my mother lives all of three minutes from it. (I'm not exaggerating - we actually timed ourselves coming home the other day.) This visit we decided to make the beach a priority so my son could really get to know and love it a bit like I do. Basically I wanted to give him a little taste of my own childhood which was spent in the water so much that I've often wondered how my brother and I don't have webbed feet.

While I was an all-day beach kid growing up I've been happy to spend just an hour or two there this time. (Those all day episodes are long over - thanks to all the skin cancer scars.) Today we went at noon which is a time I normally avoid but it was low tide and we are on a serious shell collecting binge. So, covered in sunscreen (which did an amazing job - not a bit of burn is to be found on me), we hit the beach that I grew up on. (My son calls this "Pepere's Beach" as it is where my father parked his beach chair for 25 years.) Here's what we saw:

One Pompano pulled in by a surf fisherman who gleefully looked forward to eating it for dinner
One shovelhead shark pulled in by another surf fisherman (he let several kids including my son touch it before he set it back into the water)
A bunch of crabs who proved to be uncatchable
A bunch of sand fleas who continue to creep me out even after all these years
One living sand dollar; something I have never seen in my life (and was promptly returned to the water so it could do whatever sand dollars do)
One sand dollar broken in half which we brought home and is very wicked cool (it was long dead)
Roughly one million shells and we took home a crazy amount of them

Oh - and a bunch of spring breakers who made inappropriate bathing suit choices. (Does no one look in the mirror anymore????)

I think one of the things that has frustrated me as a reader growing up in Florida is how rare it is to find writers who can capture just how crazy stupid and yet also deeply wonderful this state is. (John D. MacDonald is still the master.) You had to be on the beach today, with people from toddlers to eldery enjoying themselves, to appreciate how delightful it can be here. Yes - the summers are hell on earth (and I mean that literally) but there are days of grace that make me remember my childhood all over again like it has just been minutes gone by and not decades. My son ran screaming into the water today, laughing and splashing with abandon and the ghost of my seven-year old self was right there with him. I watched them both streak by me and was glad to be here to see it; glad to fall in love all over again with that little girl who never wanted to leave the beach.

I could have stayed all day; I hope my father saw us.

[The shovelhead, also known as the bonnethead, is the smallest of the hammerhead species.]

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Thagomizer, HSK, quark

At the Telegraph, Tim Martin on some matters of terminology left unplumbed by the excellent-sounding Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction (here is the blog post by author Jeff Prucher that seems to have spurred Martin's piece):

The present collective nouns for a group of baboons ? by rights, either a troop or congress ? are, it seems, under threat from an interloper to their territory that comes straight from an old episode of Not the Nine O?Clock News. The sketch in question, featuring a talking gorilla called Gerald who rips his captor and teacher to intellectual shreds on a television show (?It?s a whoop, professor, a whoop of gorillas. It?s a flange of baboons?), has proved so popular online that its central gag has merged with serious primatology. The lexicologists at the OED?s Ask Oxford website now cheerfully list ?flange? in first place as a collective noun for baboons.

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http://jennydavidson.blogspot.com/2009/04/thagomizer-hsk-quark.html

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Dramatic endings

Deborah Solomon interviews Joyce Carol Oates in the Times Magazine: "The cleaning is something I use as a reward if I get some work done. I go into a very happy state of mind when I?m vacuuming. I think some of my male colleagues, like Philip Roth and Don DeLillo, are completely denied this pleasure."

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http://jennydavidson.blogspot.com/2009/04/dramatic-endings.html

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Saturday Word Play- Multiplying Like Rabbits

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http://bookmineset.blogspot.com/2009/04/saturday-word-play-multiplying-like.html

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Snatch this award from my hand, Grasshopper

I am a double recipient of a Grasshopper Award, from D.J.'s Krimiblog and Mysteries in Paradise. Thanks, Dorte and thanks, Kerrie, though why am I so often associated with green creatures?

This award seeks to recognize good bloggery, throwing around words like taught, entertained and inspired. I blush a deep shade of green.

But what blogs make me think of insects of the suborder Caelifera in the order Orthoptera?

Well, how about:

1) Declan Burke's Crime Always Pays, a wellspring and an inspiration presided over by a doting father figure to a sprawling range of Irish-crime-fiction-related projects and blogs including

2) Adrian McKinty's Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which is more than just a cool name. Drop him a note and let him know how much you love U2 and Clive James.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

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d.html

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Harriet and Isabella

Harriet and Isabella by Patricia O’Brien is the story of Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister Isabella Beecher Hooker and their estrangement over whether their brother Henry was really guilty of adultery or not. The book starts in 1887 with Henry lying comatose on his deathbed after suffering a stroke. There is nothing that can [...]

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http://somanybooksblog.com/2009/04/10/harriet-and-isabella/

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A Rhyme for Good Friday

Here's a poem for Good Friday; like many Easter poems I find that the ones which resonate for me are war themed. This one is by Siegfried Sassoon, well known WWI poet from England.


Stand-To: Good Friday Morning

I?d been on duty from two till four.
I went and stared at the dug-out door.
Down in the frowst I heard them snore.
?Stand to!? Somebody grunted and swore.
Dawn was misty; the skies were still;
Larks were singing, discordant, shrill;
They seemed happy; but I felt ill.
Deep in water I splashed my way
Up the trench to our bogged front line.
Rain had fallen the whole damned night.
O Jesus, send me a wound to-day,
And I?ll believe in Your bread and wine,
And get my bloody old sins washed white!

- Siegfried Sassoon

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http://indextrious.blogspot.com/2009/04/rhyme-for-good-friday.html

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Catch-up

Ugh, my life has not had nearly enough novel-reading in it recently - once I get really busy with the semester, I do not have the attention to spare to ensure the right pipeline of light reading...

I did pick up a few crime novels the other week, in one of those moods where somehow (implausibly) nothing unread in my apartment seems at all appealing and I feel that the pristine bookshelves of the local chain bookstore must hold something more magical for me. So: Laura Lippman's Life Sentences, which I enjoyed quite a bit but which was rather cast into the shade by Richard Price's truly extraordinary Lush Life (I think the book's only significant flaw is that you could not really say it shows much of a sense of humor).

Well worth reading, though it is also not exactly funny (unless you have a very gruesome sense of humor), is Dave Zeltserman's Small Crimes - I thought it was really excellent - sort of Jim Thompson by way of Charlie Williams - I like these first-person novels, noir on a very modest and sly and insinuating scale - highly recommended.

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http://jennydavidson.blogspot.com/2009/04/catch-up.html

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