Books digest

LOCAL

Midget-auto racing in Ohio chronicled

NILES — Ron Pollock of Niles, a local auto racing historian, has published his third book on auto racing titled “Small Cars, Brave Hearts: Midget Auto Racing in Northern Ohio 1935-1950.”

The chronological history of midget-auto racing covers major race traces such as Canfield Speedway, Akron Rubber Bowl, Sportsman Park, Fort Miami and other, lesser known, tracks.

The races drew record-setting crowds and offered lucrative purses, which lured nationally known drivers including Duane Carter, Mel Hansen, Ronney Householder, All Bonnell, Ralph Pratt, Paul Russo and many others, who raced six nights a week.

The hardcover book is 226 pages and includes more than 400 black and white photos.

For more information about the book, call Pollock at (330) 652-7970 or e-mail him at ronpat@ getinfo.org.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

‘Game Change’ is a hit, but difficult to find

NEW YORK — The election book is back on top.

“Game Change,” an insider account of the 2008 presidential election written by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, was released Tuesday and is No. 1 on both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

It had been No. 1 on both sites a day before its official release, prompting publisher HarperCollins to already increase the print run twice, from 75,000 to 135,000, then to 155,000.

But, the book is out of stock temporarily, and the e-edition will not come out until Feb. 23, said HarperCollins spokeswoman Leslie Cohen.

Publishers, with more frequency, have been withholding the release of the digital version of new books, citing concerns that sales for the more expensive hardcover may be hurt.

Election books once were a publishing standard, starting with Theodore White’s “The Making of the President, 1960” and continuing in the 1970s with such classics as Timothy Crouse’s “The Boys On the Bus.”

But by the 1980s, as campaigns grew longer, and the media larger and faster, interest in the genre faded.

“Game Change” has been in the headlines for days, thanks to such details as Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s describing then-Sen. Barack Obama as a “light-skinned” black “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

AWARDS

ALA to announce winners of children’s lit honors

BOSTON — The American Library Association will announce the winners of the 2010 Caldecott and Newbery medals for children’s literature at 7:45 a.m. Monday during its Youth Media Awards ceremony in Boston.

The ALA will offer a live Webcast of the event at alaweb- cast.unikron.com with limited connections available on a first-come, first-served basis.

It also plans to tweet the results on Twitter at twitter.com/ALAyma and post the winners’ names on its Web site at www.ala.org/yma by 9:30 a.m.

Story Prize nominees

NEW YORK — A trio of debut collections are finalists for the Story Prize, a $20,000 award for outstanding short fiction.

Prize organizers announced the nominees are: “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders” by Daniyal Mueenuddin, a finalist last fall for the National Book Award; Victoria Patterson’s “Drift”; and Wells Tower’s “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.”

The winner will be announced March 3. Previous recipients of the prize, founded in 2004, include Tobias Wolff and Edwidge Danticat.

Vindicator staff/wire reports