Barnes & amp;Noble events

Barnes & amp;Noble events
BOARDMAN -- Upcoming activities planned at Barnes & amp;Noble Booksellers in The Shops at Boardman Park, 381 Boardman-Canfield Road, include:
Children's storytime, 10:30 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday.
We Be Poetry open mike poetry reading, 7 p.m. Thursday. This will be the group's first meeting. Participants may take originals works of poetry or pieces that inspire them to read aloud.
Meet Curious George at noon Saturday. Visit with character, color and hear stories. Cameras welcome.
Focus on Fiction Writing Group, 4 p.m. March 26. Aspiring authors -- both new and seasons -- are to take samples of their writing for critique, support and ideas.
For mystery fans
POLAND -- C.S.I.-Y'town and the Friends of the Public Library of Youngstown & amp; Mahoning County will sponsor a program on the perennially popular mystery genre -- the traditional cozy -- at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday at the library's Poland Branch, 311 S. Main St.
Special guest speaker will be Barbara White, whose novel, "Murder Most Foul," exemplifies the hallmarks of a traditional cozy: small town or village setting, a crime committed off-stage, a limited pool of identical suspects, and a solution based on deductive reasoning, keen observation, intuition and uncanny insight into human nature. White will discuss her inspiration for the book and some perils and pitfalls of publishing. A question-and-answer period will follow. All mystery enthusiasts are welcome to attend.
To learn more about C.S.I.-Y'town or the Friends of PLYMC, log on to the library Web site at www.libraryvisit.org or e-mail Deborah Liptak by at dliptak@libraryvisit.org.
Bancroft Prize winners
NEW YORK -- Sean Wilentz's "The Rise of American Democracy," a long, intricate chronicle of political and social changes from the American Revolution to the Civil War, was among the winners announced Tuesday for the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history. Other recipients of the award, which has been handed out annually since 1948 by Columbia University, were Erskine Clarke's "Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic," and Odd Arne Westad's "The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times." Each receives $10,000.
Commonwealth prize
MELBOURNE, Australia -- Australia's Kate Grenville won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for "The Secret River," a novel about a convict's struggle to build a life for his family after being shipped to a 19th-century Australian penal colony. Grenville follows in the footsteps of Peter Carey, Richard Flanagan and Murray Bail -- previous Australian winners of the $17,350 best book prize.
The best first book award, worth $5,200, went to Mark McWatt from Guyana for "Suspended Sentences: Fictions of Atonement."
Winners were announced Tuesday in Melbourne.
The Commonwealth Writers' Prize rewards the best in fiction written in English, by both established and new writers, in the Commonwealth grouping of former British colonies.
Combined dispatches