If you're a Guy Fieri fan, you probably already know that the Food Network star is bringing his road show to Raleigh on November 21.

What you may not know is that Quail Ridge Books & Music is giving away a pair of tickets to the event and two of Fieri's books. The drawing will be held next Tuesday, November 17. Pick up entry blanks at the store.

Lulu.com, the Raleigh-based online book publisher, has inked a deal with Yahoo that will expand its potential audience.

Yahoo will post Lulu's weRead book discovery application on its redesigned homepage starting today.

The tool allows readers to use Facebook and other social networking sites to find new authors and recommendations from other users. Readers also can catalog their book collections and rate books and authors.

Posting the application on Yahoo's popular home page also could increase interest in Lulu's self-published authors and drive traffic to its main Web site. Yahoo ranked third in Internet visitors in August, after Google and Microsoft.

Long-time readers of the N&O may have noticed on the cover of Sunday's Arts & Living the return of a familiar staff byline.

Elizabeth Leland was the author of "You are the gift", a feature article about the concept of acknowledging a kindness by "paying it forward." The subject of the excellent piece was a Charlotte woman who paid it forward all the way to Cambodia after she was involved in a wreck on a Georgia highway and was cared for by a stranger. 

Elizabeth, an award-winning writer at The Charlotte Observer, was an N&O staff writer covering courts and politics some 20 years ago. Among her recent state and national honors are a Green Eyeshade Award from the Society for Professional Journalists, a Women in Communications Award and recognition for her work from the National Association of Black Journalists. We are pleased that a merger of the News & Observer and Charlotte Observer features staffs returns Elizabeth to the N&O pages under a staff byline.

Under the merger, features writers in both cities contribute content for features sections published daily by the N&O and the Charlotte Observer. We have a similarly merged state Capitol Bureau and a sports staff for the two McClatchy-owned newspapers.

The combination of the features staffs is our latest effort to maximize for readers in Raleigh and Charlotte the benefit of more reporting resources and writing talent.

Linda Williams

Senior Editor 

In his new book, “Dick Vitale’s Fabulous 50 Players & Moments in College Basketball,” the ESPN analyst, with co-author Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News, rated the top March Madness players and moments. But I had not seen an interesting little book, "The Enlightened Bracketologist; The Final Four of Everything," published last year, that showed up today in the Sports department. And by "everything," editors Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir meant everything from marital arguments to Shakespeare insults, with contributions from different experts and journalists. First up: March Madness Moments.

    Congratulations to Rob Christensen!

    The N&O's chief political writer has won The Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction for his book, "The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics," published by UNC Press in the spring.

    The book chronicles North Carolina politics in the 20th Century. Christensen, who has been an N&O reporter for 35 years, covered for the paper the notables whose influence began in the latter quarter or so of the century, including Jesse Helms, Jim Hunt, Harvey Gantt and Elizabeth Dole. He is currently writing about the race for the senate and governor, as well as covering the unusual circumstance in recent history of a close race for president in our state. 

    Here is one of the book excerpts the N&O published in April. 

    Linda Williams

    Senior Editor 

The North Carolina Literary and Historical Association has announced the winners of the 2008 North Carolina Book Awards. 

The six finalists for Britain's most prestigious literary award, the Man Booker Prize, have been announced:

“The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga

“The Secret Scripture” by Sebastian Barry

“Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh

“The Clothes on Their Backs,” by Linda Grant

“The Northern Clemency” by Philip Hensher

“A Fraction of the Whole,” by Steve Toltz

Just back from the latest installment of The Monti, where we heard a fine tale by our favorite outdoor storyteller. We also heard an outrageously funny story by Melissa Delbridge, author of Family Bible. Turns out Delbridge has an alter ego, one that surfaced when I pulled out my knitting (as I am wont to do when I sit in a place for more than a minute). Melissa said, "You're a knitter? I almost brought my knitting, but then I didn't. I knit socks." She looked like she really wanted to get into the endless shawl. 

btw, you haven't heard from us lately, because we like pictures and the new blog software doesn't. The techs are working on it. Meanwhile, we'll keep you posted on non-visual things as best we can.

Craft on, dude. 

Faster than a short-short story, able to bend thick spines with his
bare hands, "Look, in the corner of the library, it's a student, it's a
professor, no it's Super Reader."