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Pig Iron poetry readings

YOUNGSTOWN — Pig Iron Literary & Art Works will present its 2nd Tuesday open-poetry readings this month on Tuesday at the South, also known as Newport, branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.

Readers are invited to the 6 p.m. session at 3730 Market St.

Next month, readings will take place Jan. 12 at Tomasino’s Pizza & More, 103 Federal Plaza West, downtown Youngstown.

Readers are invited to sign up at the door for the session, which begins at 7:30 p.m.

HONORs

National Book Awards

NEW YORK — Colum McCann’s “Let the Great World Spin” has captured the fiction prize at the 60th annual National Book Awards.

T.J. Stiles’ biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, “The First Tycoon,” was the nonfiction winner; Phillip Hoose’s “Claudette Colvin” won for young people’s literature and Keith Waldrop’s “Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy” for poetry.

Winners each received a $10,000 prize.

Honorary medals also were presented to Gore Vidal and Dave Eggers.

Man Asian Literary Prize

HONG KONG — The story of a Chinese Communist Party official who moves to a community of boat people after his revolutionary lineage is refuted has won the Man Asian Literary Prize.

Su Tong was awarded $10,000 for his novel “The Boat to Redemption,” about a Chinese Communist Party official who’s expelled and exiled with his son after his false claim that he’s the offspring of a revolutionary martyr is exposed.

Su is best known in the West for his short novel “Wives and Concubines,” the basis of Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s 1991 film, “Raise the Red Lantern.”

The other shortlisted novels were three Indian works — Omair Ahmad’s “Jimmy the Terrorist,” Siddharth Chowdhury’s “The Descartes Highlands” and Nitasha Kaul’s “Residue” — and Filipino author Eric Gamalinda’s “Day Scholar.”

Founded in 2007, the Man Asian Literary Prize is awarded annually to an Asian novel that has not yet been published in English.

The title sponsor, investment company Man Group, also sponsors the annual Booker Prize.

Palin book goes platinum

NEW YORK — “Going Rogue” has gone platinum. HarperCollins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said Dec. 1 that just two weeks after publication, Sarah Palin’s memoir has sold 1 million copies.

The print run for “Going Rogue” has been increased again, to 2.8 million copies. The original printing was 1.5 million, then moved up to 2.5 million.

“Going Rogue” joins a select club of million-selling political memoirs that includes Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Living History” and Bill Clinton’s “My Life.”

BOOK DEALS

Karl Rove memoir coming in March

NEW YORK — Karl Rove’s memoir has a title, “Courage and Consequence,” and a release date — March 9.

Rove, the mastermind of George W. Bush’s two successful presidential runs and a top White House aide, signed in 2007 with Threshold Editions, a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster that has published best sellers by commentators Glenn Beck and Mark Levin.

Threshold also will release former Vice President Dick Cheney’s memoir.

Rove, who became synonymous with ruthless but effective campaign tactics, said in a statement Threshold issued that his book would be “a frank account of what I witnessed and my often-controversial role.”

Memoirs from former President George W. Bush, former first lady Laura Bush and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are also scheduled for next year.

Vindicator staff/wire reports