The 2012 National Book Award finalists were announced this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the first time they’ve been announced on television. This year’s list of finalists includes a number of familiar literary faces, as well as some relative unknowns. In particular, Domingo Martinez woke up this morning to discover himself listed among nonfiction giants Anne Applebaum, Katherine Boo, Robert Caro, and Anthony Shadid-all of whom have won Pulitzers. Mr. Martinez lives in Seattle, and his Amazon author page says, “He lives awkwardly in a small 1930s apartment building on lower Queen Anne, enjoying the absence of sunlight.” Today must feel a little less awkward.

The fiction list features two relative newcomers, both debut novelists who’ve written exceptional war novels (and both Fullbookstore Best of the Month selections). Of Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Amazon Senior Editor Neal Thompson wrote, “With fierce and fearless writing, Fountain is a writer worth every accolade about to come his way.” Now that includes being nominated for an NBA. Amazon Senior Editor Jon Foro was equally effusive of Kevin Powers’ debut Yellow Birds, writing “Powers, an Iraq veteran, eyes the casual violence of war with a poet’s precision but without romanticism, moving confidently between scenes of blunt atrocity and almost hallucinatory detachment with Hemingway-like economy and prose that shimmers like desert heat.”

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When publisher IDW announced their hardcover collection of Doug Wildey’s Rio, I immediately recalled a favorite television show from the late 1980s, Paradise (later renamed Guns of Paradise). The western drama starred Lee Horsley, and here he was on the cover of a comic book! Well, maybe not quite. Artist and writer Doug Wildey began chronicling the adventures of his outlaw-turned-presidential-pardoned-special-agent Rio in 1983 and worked on the character until his death in 1994, so perhaps the producers of Paradise were influenced by Rio or perhaps grizzled, bearded men in the Wild West look similar under a cowboy hat.

What IDW has done, however, is produce something unique. Several of the Rio tales contained herein have been in and out of print across multiple publishers for years, but two stories, “Red Dust in Tombstone” and “Reprisal” see publication for the first time. But here’s where things get very special: “With the exception of 10 story pages, all the images in this volume were scanned directly from Wildey’s original artwork.” In addition to 272 pages of incredibly rendered fisticuffs, ambushes, and gun fights, the reader is treated to a glimpse at the true process of creating a comic book, along with Wildey’s smudges, hand-corrected letters, and yellowed corners. Rio’s adventures feel authentic because now they are; this is as close to experiencing Wildey’s method as I can imagine.

Rio is a man trailed by friends and enemies. His relationships tumble across his boots and through his sights. Wildey doesn’t spend time explaining backstories or narrating motives; the blood spills as it may, and the storytelling on display is never formulaic. Panels are lively, riddled with bullet lines, rain streaks, and occasionally shaped like a torn photograph when the narrative calls for it. Rio escapes by foot, horse, and boat, surrounded by rich vistas and handsome characters. As Mark Evanier notes in his introduction, even Wildey’s illustrative methods were unique. A self-taught artist, Wildey freely mixed media, including oil, acrylics, Magic Marker, and more, giving his pages a sense of surface and terrain.

Longtime fans will want to quickly flip to the two new stories—“Red Dust in Tombstone” is one of the strongest stories in this collection and “Reprisal,” in its unfinished state, is a rare look at an artist at work. The result is a book that will appeal to comic fans, western readers, and art aficionados—in short, just about everyone who appreciates great stories beautifully told.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning writer Tony Kushner, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the President, “Lincoln” is shaping up to be one of the biggest movies in recent memory.

The movie is based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s masterpiece Team of Rivals, a huge best seller and winner of the Pulitzer. So it makes sense that Simon & Schuster would give the book a new cover… and it’s a good one.

James Dashner’s Maze Runner Trilogy is one of my absolute favorites for YA in recent years.  A plague, a government experiment, non-stop action and plot twists–Dashner had me from the first book and he didn’t disappoint except in making this a trilogy.  I wanted more, and sometimes you get what you wish for: last week The Kill Order released and this fabulous prequel to The Maze Runner went a long way toward answering my many questions about the time before Thomas entered the Glade. In fact, we loved it so much around here that we made it one of our picks for Best Teen Books of August. 

After writing these four books we figured Dashner might have a good idea of what would be useful to have in the event of an apocalypse (weapons? duct tape? toothpaste? hot dogs!?) so we asked for his Top 10 list of must-have items, you can check it out below.

Earlier this summer we had a chat with the author (who still has a hint of that smooth Georgia accent, btw) and in the video interview below we learned more about The Kill Order, a new series he’s launching this month for middle graders starting with The Infinity Ring: Mutiny in Time, AND a new YA series he’s working on (!).

James Dashner’s Top Ten Things I’d Want During the Apocalypse:

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When I think of a wildly successful self-published author, I usually think of YA author Amanda Hocking and the novels that made her the talk of the publishing world a year ago. Hocking’s eBooks have now been successfully brought to print from a major publisher and she’s following up the popular Trylle trilogy with a new series, Watersong, that combines contemporary teen life and underwater mythology.  The first book, Wake, released this week and the addictive paranormal suspense novel has already received praise from customers and reviewers alike. 

Hocking is our featured Summer Reading author this week and we’ve got an embarrassment of riches from her.  In the exclusive essay below Hocking talks about getting trapped on a houseboat while writing Wake, plus her recommended summer reads (and why she loves them) and a video in which she answers fan questions.   What’s your favorite Amanda Hocking novel or series?

To get in the right mood to write Wake, I thought it would be fun to rent a houseboat to do some writing. For 10 days, my roommate, my dog, and I were scheduled to be on a houseboat on the Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota. The Boundary Waters is an incredibly beautiful area, and the landscape definitely played a part in the inspiration for the fictional town of Capri in the Watersong series.

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