Most Recent Posts

You may be hearing a lot about the National Book Awards this week — at least that's what the National Book Foundation hopes. That's because they've made some changes to the awards that they hope will get more people talking about them. Over four days starting Monday they will roll out their nominees in four different categories — beginning with Young People's literature and ending Thursday with Fiction.

It isn't the first time the National Book Awards have tried to raise their profile. These glamour awards of the book industry are a chance for writers and poets to leave the solitude of their studies and mix and mingle with some of the movers and shakers in the publishing world. But Carolyn Kellogg, who writes about books and publishing for the Los Angeles Times, says the National Book Awards have an image problem. People in the book world know that N-B-A stands for National Book Awards, but "everybody else in America thinks National Basketball Association," Kellogg says.

In recent years the National Book Awards have been criticized for nominating obscure authors whose books don't sell well as well as winners of the Pulitzer Prize or the Man Booker award. Thus the changes instituted this year: non writers such as librarians, book sellers and critics have been included in the judging panels. And instead of one announcement of five nominees in each category, this week's roll out of longer lists, 10 in each category, followed in about a month by a short list.

"I love books and I'd love to see some of these great books get more readers," says Craig Fehrman, who has written about the awards for The New York Times. "We'll see if the new format achieves that or not but it's certainly not going to be any worse than what happened in 1980 I can promise you that."

Back in 1980 Fehrman says publishers, who fund the awards, decided to revamp them entirely. The National Book Awards became the American book awards. New categories were added, the event was televised with William Buckley and John Chancellor as the hosts. The model says Fehrman, was the Oscars:

"One of the changes in 1980 was: let's create an academy just like movies, a big group of a couple of thousand people to vote on this. They even went so far as to steal technical categories from the movies which makes a lot sense when you are talking cinema but with books you end up with an award like 'best cover' ... so all these changes are an attempt to make the award more popular, and easier to market."

Several literary heavy hitters were nominated that year.

"So [Norman] Mailer, [William] Styron and [Philip] Roth, they were all up for best fiction that year, they tried to withdraw their books and say: We don't want to have anything to do with it this year. More than 40 writers signed a petition saying: We don't anything to do with this, this more populist and popular direction isn't right for us and isn't right for literary culture."

The awards ceremony was not a success. The event was scaled back over the next few years and by 1987 the National Book awards were restored. The changes introduced this year are nowhere near so drastic which is a good thing, says Kellogg.

"If you try too hard to have what you think are people-pleasing choices, then the essence of what you are doing gets lost and that is finding great books," she says.

Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the National Book Foundation, says there is no danger that the National Book Awards will become too populist. He believes the changes that were made this year have led to a rich diversity of writers and books.

"The judges had the ability to be as diverse in voices as they wanted to be," he says. "So when I'm looking at the lists and as I'm reading through the books, I am thinking: My god, this one is so different from the one I just read."

Among the authors of young people's literature who were nominated today are David Levithan, perhaps best known for Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, which was made into a film and Kate DiCamillo who won the Newbery award for The Tale of Despereaux.

NPR's Tell Me More with Michel Martin hosted a Google+ Hangout on air, focusing on "Emerging Latinos and Innovations."

Latinos are an emerging force in social media. According to the ratings company Nielsen, "Hispanic adults are 25 percent more likely to follow a brand and 18 percent more likely to follow a celebrity than the general online population."

Two of Tell Me More's regular contributors, Aracely Panameno and Manny Ruiz, shared these thoughts in advance of our Hangout.

Panameno, of the Center for Responsible Lending, says Latinos are the "come-from-behind kids" when it comes to digital media.

"Our communities accessed the Internet on the palm of their hands through smartphones," Panameno says. "Early on, few Latino families could purchase computers and Internet service at home. As cellphone technology improved, coverage grew, and data plans came down in price. Latinos embraced technology and never looked back."

"In my family, I was the first to learn programming languages since I was in high school," she says. "I was the first to buy home desktop computers, then laptops, then notebooks. I have not purchased a tablet, because it is not fully functional for what I do. My daughter, who is now 24, doesn't know what it is not to have a computer at home. ... Today, all my siblings have a computer and Internet access at home. We all have smartphones, including all our children. We all have Facebook pages. My daughter and I tweet."

Ruiz believes that using social media is not just for the family, but essential for the Latino community. Ruiz is chairman of Hispanicize, an annual gathering that brings together thousands to talk about social media and marketing, and co-founder of the Latina Mom Bloggers network.

"Social media represents the most powerful medium Latinos have ever had to find their voice and harness their growing strength socially, economically and politically," Ruiz says. "Today no brand, organization or political figure can ignore the fact that if they want to win this demographic segment over, they must engage Latinos in a full-scale way that puts social media toward the top."

As many as 5,000 Syrian refugees are moving to Germany this month after Chancellor Angela Merkel's government agreed to a U.N. request to host them. But they aren't receiving the warmest welcome in a country where a growing number of Germans are unhappy about the steady stream of asylum seekers. Fanning the flames are right wing extremists, who want Germany to close its doors to refugees.

Among their targets is Hellersdorf, a working class neighborhood on the outskirts of Berlin. The city government has placed refugees from war-torn countries in an abandoned high school there — a move that had led to multiple demonstrations, both for and against the refugees.

Many Hellersdorf residents say they opposed the protests, which were largely staged by out-of-towners, but they aren't happy their community is forced to host refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries, either. The blue-collar neighborhood filled with Soviet-era apartment blocks lacks the ethnic diversity seen in much of Berlin. It is also short on services and schools. City planners who spent billions of dollars renovating other parts of the German capital have largely ignored this community.

Wariness At Growing Numbers

"We don't know these people; they come from another country," says 25-year-old resident Enrico Kieser. "I wasn't worried so much about them raising the crime rate, but large numbers of them moving in could cause problems."

Another 22-year-old resident who would only give her first name, Nikke, says she feels less safe walking around her neighborhood with the refugees here, and accuses the male refugees of harassing women.

Parallels

For Some Syrian Refugees, A New Home In Germany

A decade ago, Atkins was undeniably the fad diet of the moment: Back then, nearly 10 percent of Americans said they were either on the low-carb weight loss plan or had tried it.

But after Dr. Robert Atkins, its namesake and mastermind, died of a head injury in 2003, the brand went downhill fast. Nutritionists berated the plan for promoting saturated fats and cholesterol-rich foods. Sales of Atkins books and food products dropped precipitously. And Atkins Nutritionals filed for bankruptcy in 2005.

The brand changed hands a few times, and was eventually bought by private-equity firm Roark Capital Group. In the meantime, the low-carb vs. low-fat diet debate continued to simmer. And then, in June 2012, the scales of science began to tip in Atkins' favor. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that patients on a low-carb diet kept weight off longer than those on a low-fat diet. (This still doesn't mean you should load up on bacon, which is what many misguided Atkins followers did in the past.)

Now Atkins Nutritionals says this renewed faith in the low-carb approach is helping the company grow again. Sales of Atkins' branded products have grown by nearly 44 percent since 2011, according to the market research firm IRI. And the folks at Aktins are are also hoping that the popularity of the paleo diet, which overlaps with Atkins in a few ways, can give the brand a boost.

"The resurgence of low-carb and paleo ways of eating definitely enhances our presence even more," Jennifer Livingston, spokeswoman for Atkins Nutritionals, tells The Salt.

Part of the Atkins strategy to win back dieters is through a frozen food line launched in January, which the company says is the first low-carb frozen food line on the market. And Atkins Nutritionals has hired a new ad agency and is plowing tens of millions of dollars into advertising, according to Advertising Age.

Livingston notes that the Atkins diet and the paleo diet are not identical: a huge part of the Atkins diet is its line of processed food, like the Chocolate Caramel Crunch bar, which paleo devotees would disdain. But Livingston says the diets share an affinity for protein as a nutrient-dense food that promotes satiety. "Like paleo, we are also rooted in eating whole foods, lean protein, vegetables and fruits," Livingston tells The Salt.

But how realistic is a true Atkins comeback? While scientists may be less skeptical about the benefits of a low-carb diet, for consumers, it's still just as tough to kick bread, cake and pasta as it was in 2003. And as we've reported, there's a growing body of scientific evidence suggesting that carbs may be addictive.