Literary Notes: Mutt Mysteries book launch is Saturday. Down the road: a talk by the author of ‘The Mathews Men.’
“Mathews Men” author Bill Geroux of Virginia Beach will give a talk Sept. 16 in Norfolk. His book focuses on the merchant mariners of World War II through the seagoing tradition of Mathews County, particularly Capt. Jesse Hodges and seven of his sons. The Merchant Marine suffered disproportionate losses in the war, a Pilot reviewer wrote, “especially in 1942 when the United States did not have enough antisubmarine ships and aircraft and had not yet grasped the need to put merchant ships into convoys and black out East Coast cities to avoid silhouetting the ships as targets. No wonder German U-boat crews called the first half of 1942 — when they sank merchant ships within sight of Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks — a ‘happy time.’ ”
Also: Nov. 18, Larry Saint and Karla Smith, “Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses”; and Jan. 20, Jeff Goodell, “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World.”
Details: Free. 5:30 p.m.; reception, signing. Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St. Brinkley Family Memorial Lecture Series; register: SloverLibrary.com/Brinkley
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Local passings: Photographer Bill McIntosh, 93, renowned for his portraits and his historical images of Norfolk, died Aug. 12. His books included “William S. McIntosh: Witness to Norfolk’s Renaissance.” A Pilot profile of him is at tinyurl.com/BillPhoto; an obituary, at hdoliver.com. ... Educator Katharine C. “Kitty” Kersey, 86, of Portsmouth — a prominent advocate in early childhood education across 45 years at ODU, and author of five books, including “101 Principles for Positive Guidance with Young Children” — died Aug. 17. A Daily Press article about her work, from 2004, is at tinyurl.com/KerseyKids ; a remembrance, at ODU.edu.
Book launch: The fourth Mutt Mysteries book is now out, from four regional authors, and readers can meet them and pick up copies Saturday in Norfolk’s East Beach. “To Fetch a Killer” is four “cozy” novellas in which dogs pair with their humans to solve murders: Maria Hudgins’ “Sandy Paws”; Teresa Inge’s “A New Leash on Death”; Jayne Ormerod’s “Bone Appetit”; and Heather Weidner’s “Wags to Riches.” (Bay Breeze Publishing, Norfolk, 262 pp.) The book launch: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Attic at East Beach, 9555 Shore Drive.
Not for sale, but hey. “Advance reading copies” — not-final versions distributed to drum up interest among reviewers and “influencers” before the books publish — are labeled, prominently, as “not for sale.” The reasoning: They don’t reflect the author’s final edits, and to sell them robs author and publisher. But people do sell them, more often now as more copies go to bloggers and other influencers, say The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian. Example: Sally Rooney’s upcoming (September) novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” $209.16 to a North Carolina seller. Publishers “have generally been willing to turn a blind eye to a small number of proofs being sold in charity shops,” but Amazon draws a hard line, The Guardian said.
Obituary notes: James Loewen, a “relentless contrarian” who wrote “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” was 79. ... Eloise Greenfield, a children’s book author and poet known for her positive portrayals of Black family life and her biographies of Black Americans and her efforts to fight racism, was 92. (NYT, Publishers Weekly)
New and recent
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. (HarperCollins, 797 pp.) The novel, the poet’s first, is Oprah’s new club pick. Jeffers nods to Du Bois’s “double consciousness” view of Black American life and threads the work with passages from his. Here, a young Black woman tries to trace her ancestry — free and enslaved Blacks, white colonialists — and “craft a life that is joyful and whole against the backdrop of the American South,” a reviewer wrote. (NYT)
— Erica Smith, erica.smith@pilotonline.com
