All the news that’s fit to capsulize!

QUILL YOU PLEASE VOTE?
Nominations for the 2nd annual Quills Awards were announced yesterday, honoring the best in books among 20 categories. Well, at least they say “best,” but Tyler Perry is nominated in the humor category for DON’T MAKE A BLACK WOMAN TAKE OFF HER EARRINGS. (Really? Were only five humor titles published last year?) The nominees are all over the board and appear to have been picked randomly, although they did have the good sense to nominate James Swanson’s MANHUNT in two categories, and it remains our favorite non-fiction title of the year (for damn good reasons, hoss). Other titles nominated that we’ve reviewed here include Stephen King’s CELL, Christopher Moore’s A DIRTY JOB and Raymond Khoury’s startlingly mediocre THE LAST TEMPLAR. So go vote now in their laborious one-category-at-a-time process before Sept. 30, at quillsvote.com. The awards ceremony will be televised on NBC stations Oct. 11, to even fewer viewers than the least-watched episode of JOEY. However, if we can get Elizabeth Kostova (a winner for last year’s THE HISTORIAN) to show up in a slightly more revealing dress than she did before, that could change.

DIVIDING UP YOUR ‘TRANSGRESSIONS’
While we’re on the subject of last year’s best, the Ed McBain-edited anthology TRANSGRESSIONS – our year-end pick for one of 2005’s three best books – is coming out in paperback. Or make that four paperbacks. Rather than issue the 10-novella collection in a sure-to-bust-its-spine edition, Forge has chosen to package two to three of the crime tales together in a series of mass-market paperbacks. Thus, VOL. 1 with Lawrence Block and Jeffery Deaver and VOL. 2 with John Farris and Stephen King are already available. Following in October are VOL. 3 with McBain, Walter Mosley and Donald E. Westlake, and VOL. 4 with Sharyn McCrumb, Joyce Carol Oates and Anne Perry. We wholeheartedly recommend them all.

IT’S HARD ENOUGH JUST MAKING IT TO BORDERS
The 11th Annual La Forêt des Livres – or, for the foreign language-impaired, The Forest of Books Festival – will take place on August 26 and 27 in France. Renowned French author, Gonzague Saint Bris is founder and host of the festival, and invites members of the literary community and the public to his family chateau in the village of Chanceaux-Près-Loches, Touraine, France. This free public festival has greatly expanded during the past 10 years, with last year’s festival boasting 150 authors and 30,000 visitors. This year, Bris will sign copies of his newest work, THE WORLD OF JULES VERNE. So whaddaya say? Doing anything this weekend? Let’s grab some plane tickets and go!

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