Friends Reading Group,
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
7:30 - 9:00 PM
We have multiple copies here for checking out, but suggest that you don't wait until the last minute. The Known World is such an absorbing book that many readers don't realize that Madison County Virginia does not exit. It is fictional, as are the characters. It is the writer's skill that makes everything and everyone seem so real. This book won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Edward P. Jones grew up nearby, in Washington, and was previously known primarily as a short story writer. His first published book was Lost in the City, a collection of short stories, a sort of Dubliners for DC, and nominated for a National Book Award.
NPR story
Interview from the African American Review Spring 2000, before the publication of The Known World
Washington Post online interview
A bit of information about Lost in the City from the New York Review of Books. You can read the whole article, "Gone with the Wind", for free by coming into the library, asking for the 10/21/2004 edition, then starting on page 14. Do it when you come in to check out The Known World.
If you go to our magazine articles database you can find the full text of "The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River" which was published in Grand Street.
Jones wrote an interesting piece about his mother, "In the Name of the Mother", which was published in Essence 12/01/2005. You can read that online in elibrary, or read the print copy in the library.
How long has it been since you last wrote a real letter? To be mailed with a stamp? We are surprised to see people doing it all the time on the computers in the library and next door in the computer center. They want models and instructions as well as directions to the nearest post office (it is uptown on Laurel, near the clock).
808.6 MAGGIO How to say it : choice words, phrases, sentences & paragraphs for every situation
651.75 HELLER The 100 most difficult business letters you'll ever have to write, fax, or e-mail : clear guidance on how to write your way out of the toughest busiess problems
and there are many books that address the question of cover letters and the rest of the job application process.
in the J room ...
J 808.6 DRAGISI How to write a letter by Patricia Dragisic.
J 395.4 LEEDY Messages in the mailbox : how to write a letter written and illustrated by Loreen Leedy.
J 808.6 JAMES Sincerely yours : how to write great letters by Elizabeth James and Carol Barkin.
and for fun ...
846.709 CORRESP Correspondence : models of letter-writing from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century written by Roger Chartier, Alain Boureau, and Cecile Dauphin, translated by Christopher Woodall.
616.89 VANCE Letters home : how writing can change your life by Terry Vance.
For your next letter to the Pope ...
R 395.52 FORMS Forms of address : a guide for business and social use
Or check an almanac, either in the library or online - Forms of address.
Are you saving your e-mail?
920 C249 Adams-Jefferson letters; the complete correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams and well as 973.4 B988 The book of Abigail and John : selected letters of the Adams family, 1762-1784
816.08 F899 Letters of the great artists from Ghiberti to Gainsborough and Letters of the great artists from Blake to Pollock both by Richard Friedenthal
826 S395 A treasury of the world's great letters from ancient days to our own time, containing the characteristic and crucial communications, and intimate selected, edited, and integrated with biographical backgrounds
792 S534 Bernard Shaw's Advice to a young critic : and other letters
814 F585 Darlinghissima : letters to a friend Janet Flanner
817 S915 Edward Streeter's Dere Mable: love letters of a rookie
and we have several hundred other collections of interesting letters
See also:
Some examples of excellent letters
Last letters home from Iraq
Love in Lancaster
And for some basic advice:
How to write the various sorts of letters you need for a job application
How to write a business letter
How to write a love letter
Grant writing
Reminder - the Friends Reading Group meets tonight at the library at 7:30 and the book is Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. (You are welcome even if you didn't read it, or started but didn't finish.)