Miah

It's Midwest Bookselling Season .... or so it seems this week as we travel to our regional bookselling conference to meet with authors and publishers alike. there are many exciting new titles coming out this fall and winter (just in time for holiday gifts .. Wahoo!). Of particular excitement for this week though are the newly awarded Midwest Booksellers Choice awards for 2008.

Announced this evening were the winners: Nancy Horan in the fiction category for Loving Frank and in the nonfiction category Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. Both of them won my votes that's for sure! I've been telling folks about these two for almost a year.

Several other local favorites of mine which won honorable mention, Leif Enger's new book So Brave Young and Handsome, Whistling in the Dark by Leslie Kagen, and of course The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl. 

And ... you guessed it folks .... in the children's category Kate DiCamillo came up with a winner again in Great Joy. She's just an amazingly creative writer! Her cohorts in the winner's circle for children's books included Jody Feldman with The Gollywhopper Games and Anne Ylvisaker with Little Klein.

I'm off to bed now .. tomorrow's another exciting day ... we get to hear "the pick of the lists" ... publisher and author selections of their favorite books for the rest of 2008. Come bring your book club shopping with us this fall, I think we're going to have a lot of wonderful selections to talk about!

Ciao ....