National Book Festival: For Your Listening Pleasure

#nbf Heads up: The first batch of podcast interviews with 2009 National Book Festival authors are now online here, on iTunes here (link opens in iTunes client) and on iTunes U here (link opens in iTunes client).

Included in the first round are Junot Diaz, Rickey Minor, James Patterson, George Pelecanos, Nicholas Sparks and David Wroblewski–with more to come.  And they’re all free for the listening!

You can read more about the National Book Festival here, and don’t forget to follow us on on Facebook and on Twitter (@librarycongress), which explains the hashtag at the beginning of this post.  (Digression: Is it a coincidence that hashtags appear to make a hash of the English language?)

In a first for the Library, you can also sign up to receive text/SMS message alerts by texting BOOK to 61399.  (Standard messaging rates apply)

O Shenandoah, I Long to Map You

In a world where we can keep tabs on our own backyards from our desks at work, via satellite, it’s difficult to imagine the impact one man armed with notebooks and pencils could have in 1861 as the Civil War began to rend our young nation.  Generals on both sides of that conflict desperately needed good topographical information …

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The Joys of Jabbing Jefferson

When revolutionary-turned-president Thomas Jefferson still walked the streets of Washington, D.C., there were people who wanted to give him a good jab with their index finger and hand him a piece of their minds. These days, here on Capitol Hill, you can give Thomas Jefferson a jab … and dig a little deeper into his …

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Strictly Business

With all the various reading rooms available at the Library, did you know there is one with a reference alcove dedicated to business? The 5th floor of the John Adams Building on Capitol Hill, home to the Science & Business Reading Room, has a staff of business reference specialists to assist with your business-related questions …

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But Wait … There's More!

This year’s Library of Congress National Book Festival already promises the biggest lineup of literary stars this side of the Crab Nebula. Book-lovers can look forward, on Saturday, Sept. 26, to hearing from David Baldacci, John Grisham, John Irving, Julia Alvarez, Judy Blume, Ken Burns, Gwen Ifill and Jodi Picoult–not to mention celebrity chef Paula …

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