by David Lipsky 

Afterword

David was six feet two, and on a good day he weighed two hundred pounds. He had dark eyes, soft voice, caveman chin, a lovely, peak- lipped mouth that was his best feature. He walked with an ex-athlete’s saunter—a roll from the heels, as if any physical thing was a pleasure. He wrote with eyes and a voice that seemed to be a condensed form of everyone’s lives—it was the stuff you semi thought, the background action you blinked through at supermarkets and commutes—and readers curled up in the nooks and clearings of his style. His life was a map that ends at the wrong destination. He was an A student through high school, he played football, he played tennis, he wrote a philosophy thesis and a novel before he graduated from Amherst, he went to writing school, published the novel, made a city of squalling, bruising, kneecapping editors and writers fall moony- eyed in love with him. He published a thousand- page novel, received the only award you get in the nation for being a genius, wrote essays providing the best feel anywhere of what it means to be alive now, accepted a special chair to teach writing at a college in California, married, published another book, and hanged himself at age forty- six.

Today, on the day that the National Book Award winners will be announced, Patrik Henry Bass, Takeaway contributor and books editor for Essence, tells us who's nominated, who he thinks will win, and who was left off the nomination list that we should be reading anyway. We also ask: Do the awards lead to bigger book sales and larger signing bonuses, or is it all just about the honor of being recognized?

Click through for the full list of books Patrik Henry Bass believes should have been nominated for a National Book Award this year.

[Watch the trailer for the just-released film "Precious"]

Before it was a film, "Precious" was a screenplay. And before it was a screenplay, it was a novel called "Push." We talk to Sapphire, who wrote the book, and Geoffrey Fletcher, who wrote the screenplay based on that novel, about what it took for the character of Clareece Precious Jones to evolve from print to screen.

John Irving, the writer famous for such well-loved and critically acclaimed books as "The World According to Garp" and "The Cider House Rules," has just released a new novel: "Last Night in Twisted River." The novel spans 50 years and follows the life and times of Danny Baciagalupo. When the novel starts, 12-year-old Danny is being raised by his father, Dominic, in a logging camp in New Hampshire. Events unfurl and Danny and Dominic end up on the run. The novel is a return to form for Irving, capturing sadness, isolation, and redemption in exquisite detail and with great humor. We talk to Irving about his new book and why he believes fear makes for better stories than happiness.

It's Friday morning and we're talking about what everyone is talking about: "Where the Wild Things Are." The highly anticipated adaptation of a long-beloved children's books hits theaters today. Director Spike Jonze and renowned author Dave Eggers worked closely with Maurice Sendak, the Caldecott-winning author of the children's classic, to create a feature-length film. Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, and Bruce Handy, deputy editor of Vanity Fair and frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, give us their take on the movie and the significance of Where the Wild Things Are.

For decades, motivational speakers like Tony Robbins have told us that positive thinking can vastly improve our lives. But Barbara Ehrenreich, the writer famous for the 2001 bestseller "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," thinks they might be wrong. Her new book is called "Bright-Sided: How The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America," and she tells us why she thinks positive thinking might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Today in Stockholm, the Nobel prize committee announced that Romanian-born German poet Herta Muller has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Muller is the author of such books as "The Land of Green Plums" and "The Appointment: A Novel." We speak to Patrik Henry Bass, books editor for Essence magazine, about why American authors so rarely win what is arguably the literary world's most coveted prize.

Google wants the world to be able read books online for free. That's great news for readers, but if reading books is free, how do authors get paid? Is the future of books neither paperback nor hardbound, but online? New York Times finance reporter Louise Story explains how authors are supposed to get paid in Google's brave new publishing world.

Conde Nast announced yesterday that it will close Gourmet magazine after nearly 69 years of taste making and recipe writing. The November issue will be its last. The decision came after a three-month study by McKinsey & Co., which looked at cutting the publishing company's costs. Along with Gourmet, Conde Nast is closing Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. The magazine, headed by longtime editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl, has been a gourmet bible for many young chefs and foodies. Joining us to talk about the demise of the magazine is chef and author Mark Bittman.

Since Senator Edward Kennedy’s death last month, everyone – from his family members and friends to politicians and pundits – has been talking about about his life and legacy. But now, we can read his life story in his own words. Senator Kennedy's memoir, "True Compass," hit bookstores yesterday. Kennedy wrote the book with co-author Ron Power; our guest, Jonathan Karp, edited it. Karp is editor-in-chief of TWELVE, the book's publisher.

They can't wait for Amazon.com to ship it. They can't wait until 9 a.m. for Barnes & Noble to open. They are Dan Brown's biggest fans, and they can't wait even a minute past midnight to get a hold of his new book, "The Lost Symbol," on the day of its release. We speak to Tom Holbrook, the owner of River Run Bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who kept his doors open last night until 1 a.m.

Fans of the "The Da Vinci Code" have waited for years for more of Dan Brown's mix of mystery, religion, history and art. At long last (and just a few years overdue) the sequel, "The Lost Symbol," will finally come out next week. It follows Brown's hero-savant Robert Langdon to Washington, D.C. for another mystery.  People are hungering for clues as to what's in the new book, so we speak to an expert: Dan Burstein, who has made a career dispelling the myths and interpreting the clues in Brown's work. Burstein even sold over 50,000 copies of "Secrets of the Widow's Son: The Mysteries Surrounding the Sequel to The Da Vinci Code" (edited by Burstein and written by David Shugarts), where he attempted to figure out what might be in the much-anticipated sequel ... despite the fact that it hadn't been published yet. His latest book, "Secrets of The Lost Symbol: The Unauthorized Guide," is due out in December.

After four years of delay, next Tuesday will see the release of the book "The Lost Symbol," writer Dan Brown's much anticipated follow-up to the "Da Vinci Code." The novel will continue the main story of character Robert Langdon and once again he'll be solving a mystery steeped in art and history this time [SPOILER ALERT!] in Washington, D.C. We speak to Motoko Rich, who covers publishing for our partner the New York Times, about how the release of this book is being seen as a make-or-break moment for the publishing industry during an economic recession.

You can read Motoko Rich's story, "Booksellers anticipate a big week," in the Times.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy completed his memoir, "True Compass," before he died last month. The hefty tome was due to hit stores on September 14th, but copies have already leaked out. New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney began reading a leaked copy of the 532-page book yesterday. He talks to us about the book's revelations on Kennedy's feelings on the infamous incident at Chappaquiddick, and his relationships with his brothers Robert and John F. Kennedy. 

Click through for a transcript of our conversation with Adam Nagourney.

Retired four star General Anthony Zinni knows something about being in command. Among other posts, he was in charge of U.S. Central Command during the run up to the Iraq war, in charge of all U.S. military operations in the Middle East. He has a new book out called Leading the Charge: Leadership Lessons from the Battlefield to the Boardroom. We asked him to apply his leadership lessons to an issue on everyone's mind: President Obama's management of the effort to reform health care.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin officially hands over power to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell on Sunday. What’s next for her and what is her legacy as Alaska's former governor? (One thing we do know: her autobiography is scheduled to come out next spring from Harper Collins.) Joining The Takeaway is Libby Casey, reporter for the Alaska Public Radio Network, to talk about Palin's legacy in Alaska, and Bernadette Malone, former editor at Sentinal, an imprint of Penguin Publishers, to talk about the autobiography.

Irish Author Frank McCourt died yesterday of cancer in New York City. He was 78. McCourt was best known for his book "Angela's Ashes," a memoir about his impoverished Irish childhood, which sold 4-million hardcover copies. The memoir was published in 1996 and won a Pulitzer Prize. Joining us to talk more about McCourt's influence is New York Times reporter Motoko Rich, who covers the publishing world.

When Harry Potter first hit the literary scene, the book sales were astronomical and fans would line up the night before, eager for each installment of the fantastical tale. The next movie in the Harry Potter series is set for nationwide release on July 15th and is getting excellent reviews. But as Harry and his fans get older, will the movie be a hit? David Edelstein, chief film critic for New York Magazine and Preethi Vaidyanathan, a 21-year old Harry Potter fan, join The Takeaway to discuss the perhaps not quite enduring legacy of Harry Potter.

Here's the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which is sure to get you excited:

Sixty years ago, George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece 1984 was published and imagery like Big Brother, Room 101, and the "thought police" entered the vernacular. It's a book that has resonated with the public, playing off the fear of government surveillance and encroachment on individual rights. Orwell's pessimistic vision didn't come to pass by 1984, but we turn to BBC arts correspondent Lawrence Pollard to discuss how the book is relevant today.

From the cinematic version of the book, here's an explanation of war:

WE LANDED AT Charles de Gaulle Airport a couple of days before Christmas. One dog, one infant, nine books on how to get along with the French, and eleven pieces of luggage, three of which had already gone missing. We drove for ninety minutes in heavy traffic, the baby howling, the wife attempting to hide her exposed nursing bosom from the driver, and the dog scratching her bottom across the floor of the minivan. At length we arrived at our new home on the Left Bank, which we’d never actually seen, except in photographs. It was a small cluster of room-sized houses in a tiny garden tucked away at the back of a courtyard of an old apartment building. We piled out of the car and rushed to the front door, a small teeming peristaltic bundle of needs and hopes and anticipations. The door failed to open. The key mailed to us by the landlord did not fit the lock.

For the next thirty minutes, we sat in the cold, dark Paris courtyard and waited, mainly because we couldn’t think what else to do. We were being punished for our sins; we had wanted to dance, now we were paying the fiddler. It had been fun, when people asked us where we lived, to say, "Well, that’s hard to say, since at the end of the year we’re moving to Paris." They were all envious, or pretended to be, which was just as gratifying. For the past six months we had been playing our new role: People Who Are About to Live in Paris. Now here we were, in Paris itself. We knew no one. We spoke so little French that it was better to claim we spoke none. We had no purpose. And that, I should have reminded myself, was the point. ... (more)