The Pulitzer Prize in fiction will be announced in April. Unlike Britain’s Booker Prize, the Pulitzer does not release a shortlist of titles under consideration, which leaves speculation wonderfully wide open. With the world as our oyster—or more specifically, American fiction published in 2011—we may begin the debate. Sometimes the favorite wins (Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad in 2011) and sometimes a dark horse steals the prize (Paul Harding’s Tinkers in 2010). Several titans of American literature who have yet to win a Pulitzer Prize published works this year. Don DeLillo, Ha Jin, Denis Johnson, and Ann Patchett have won just about every other fiction award, but none owns a Pulitzer. On the other side of the spectrum, Tea Obreht debuted with a critical and commercial success in The Tiger’s Wife. So too has Jesmyn Ward. Her second novel, Salvage the Bones, won the 2011 National Book Award and is Austin’s current Mayors’ Book Club selection. Will there be new blood or will one of the titans complete his trophy case?
Below are fifteen notable works of fiction that PPrize.com thinks have a shot at winning the 2012 Pulitzer Prize. Of the fifteen titles I have only read two: Ward’s Salvage the Bones and Johnson’s Train Dreams.
- Tea Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife (2011 National Book Award finalist)
- Don DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
- Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding
- Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!
- Eleanor Henderson’s Ten Thousand Saints
- Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones (2011 National Book Award winner)
- Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams
- Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic (2011 National Book Award finalist)
- Ha Jin’s Nanjing Requiem
- William Kennedy’s Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes
- Kate Christensen’s The Astral
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Andrew Krivak’s The Sojourn (2011 National Book Award finalist)
- Published by the Bellevue Literary Press, a unique publisher founded and operated by the New York University Medical School whose mission is to publish books at the intersection of art and science
- Edith Pearlman’s Binocular Vision (2011 National Book Award finalist)
- Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder
- T.C. Boyle’s When the Killing’s Done
Below are the answers to the Black History Month trivia quiz. Did you guess correctly?
The 84th Annual Academy Awards ceremony happened last night, but with omissions. 
Time travel has been a staple of science fiction since H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine, over one hundred years ago. You can travel through the history of Austin, Texas using the Austin Past & Present kiosk, which is on loan from the Austin History Center. Austin Past & Present is a collecion of eight videos which summarize Ausitn's history from prehistoric times to the present and over 300 slide shows comprised of over 1600 images, accompanied by stories told by Austinites themselves. A user-friendly interface allows access to this treasure trove either through a timeline or through icons on a map of Austin. The kiosk contains a video monitor, a tracking ball and a button to control the cursor, and a pair of headphones. 
ns are a much-neglected genre. And many people think of California and Texas when they imagine the American West, but its heart is also found in states like Washington, Montana, and Nebraska, as illustrated by some new westerns at the library.
Two potentially overwhelming things: 1) Searching and applying for jobs and 2) taking full advantage of the huge number of resources available to you through your local library! And wouldn’t you know the library even has job resources available to you!
6, the first public library in Austin opened its doors in a small rented space at 819 Congress Avenue. The idea for a free public library began in 1913 when Mayor A. P. Wooldridge began championing for a library. He convinced the State Legislature to pass a bill deeding the state land across 9th Street from Wooldridge Park for municipal library use and employed architect Hugo Kuehne to design a library. Kuehne traveled the country looking at other public libraries, but the project faltered when the US entered World War I and was left unfunded. But the idea of a public library never faltered, and a group of citizens, led by members of the local chapter of the Association of University Women (AUW), started a drive to raise funds, via subscriptions, to fund and open a library.
During a discussion of various jobs, I remarked to my friend that I would rather take a physically/emotionally strenuous job with short hours and great pay than a safe and comfortable job with longer hours and mediocre pay. This statement came back to haunt me as I was watching The Wages Of Fear (La Slarie De La Peur). The first half of the movie centers on the unemployed roustabouts that are stuck in the small town of Las Piedras in South America. The only way in or out of the town is the airstrip, but the price is unattainable for the men as they are an international assemblage of the mostly insolvent and undocumented. The only industry is an American oil company that dominates the town. This oil company needs to transport two trucks of nitroglycerine, but lacks the proper safety equipment to truck it over the treacherous mountain range. A highly lucrative offer is made to drive these suicide machines and the derelicts swarm to answer. The second half of the movie is one of the tautest action sequences put to film. Mettles are tested; true characters are revealed and noxious fumes are insufflated. The tension is so tangible that you can almost feel every pothole and bump in the road.
During that same employment discussion, the topic of the ideal occupation came up. The popular answer (mine included) was to get paid to travel around the world á la Anthony Bourdain. Fishing With John is the realization of on man's ambition to accomplish somthing similar. He not only makes this dream of travel a reality, but also manages to one-up travel show documentaries wtih legendary guests and an artistic agenda. I mean would you rather go on a fishing trip to Thailand or would you rather go on a fishing trip to Thailand with Dennis Hopper? John Lurie of the band "The Lounge Lizards" embarks on fantastical fishing trips to exotic locales with the likes of Jim Jarmush, Tom Waits and Willem Dafoe. The fact that Lurie knows little to nothing about fishing just adds spice to the mix. The actual episodes are a Dadaesque mix of travel documentary and scripted/improvised performance art, with one of the best narrators ever. The Tom Waits episode definitely stands out as pushing that weird blur between premeditation and spontaneity. At one point it takes a turn for the worse and deftly reaps the "Is he being facetious of is he actually furious?" dilemma. The answer is that Waits did not talk to Lurie for two years after the filming. Like in all good journeys, limits are pushed and the journeymen come through tempered by the ordeal and we, the intellectual participants passing through with them, are changed as well.
February 15, 2003 saw arguably the largest collective gathering of humans in history. From Rome to Istanbul to Melbourne to Austin people gathered in protest of the imminent intervention in Iraq. Whether you abhor America’s involvement or champion the intervention, the sheer scope of February 15, 2003 continues to impress: 3 million in Rome, 1 million in Madrid, 1 million in London, and participants in over 150 American cities. Never before have so many humans gathered in coordination. They were a tapestry of generations fearful of the known and the unknown to come. As with any grand polarizing governmental act, numerous books follow its wake. Below are a few recent books concerning Iraq, the United States, and the past decade.
“Black History Month was established in 1976 to celebrate the bicentennial of the formation of the United States by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. It replaced Negro History Week, established in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, a pioneering historian of African Americans who had founded that association and the Journal of Negro History in 1915. The second week of February was chosen to honor Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, both of whom were born at that time.” This information comes from APL’s electronic resource 
Did your lawn die last summer? Are you looking for new landscaping? Can you say "ah-GAH-vay"?
What do Charles Dickens, Frederick Douglass, Laura Ingalls Wilder and I all have in common? Aside from being incredibly famous writers, we also share a February 7th birthday! But the real star of the birthday this year is English author Charles Dickens who was born 200 years ago on Tuesday. Dickens left us with a rich collection of literature, a bevy of colorful (and sometimes wicked) characters, and countless phrases we’ve worked into everyday use. To wit, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” from the novel Tale of Two Cities and referring to grumps as ‘scrooge’ are two of the more apparent examples. But he’s also responsible for referring to doctors as ‘sawbones’ and coining the neologisms ‘butter-fingers,’ ‘flummox,’ ‘tousled,’ ‘boredom,’ and ‘kibosh.’ Plus, with this list of words we have an excuse to occasionally use the phrase ‘Dickensian Neologisms.’
