entertainment

Is there irony in the fact that an author who is promising to hand-write one letter a day in 2013 is using the Internet to get the word out?  Of course there is, but let's put irony aside and instead rejoice at the idea. I repeat: hand-written letters. Pen to paper. Sent to anyone--you, me, anyone--who requests one. Up to 365 people, I assume.

Randy Osborne.

Randy Osborne is an Atlanta, Georgia, writer and storyteller, and he has experimented with other unconventional literary projects before--in particular, "Narrative Urge,"  the literary mystery I wrote about a year ago after receiving in the mail an anonymous envelope which contained a clue written as a haiku, a snippet of writing, and $10.

 Osborne also published a story called "Missed Connections" through daily ads posted on Craigslist (until he was blocked for repeated postings; then the project moved to www.missedconnections.com).

He announced his Letter a Day project on the Narrative Urge Facebook page, promising, "handwritten, not-very-good penmanship (but legible, I think) letters on actual paper. ... You will receive an original, somewhat newsy, most likely meandering but sincere letter, such as you might once upon a time have gotten from a person who was not a stranger to you."

All you have to do is ask. You can contact Randy Osborne via his Facebook page, or through his Web page.

Cheryl Strayed

Over the next five months, Club Book will bring eight writers to metro libraries, including New York Times best-selling authors Cheryl Strayed, John Sandford, Arthur Phillips and Pam Houston.

Club Book is a program of the Metropolitan Library Service Agency, funded in part through Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. All events are free and open to the public.

Here’s the lineup:

Pam Houston: 7 p.m. Feb. 5, Maplewood Library, 3025 Southlawn Dr., Maplewood. Houston, author of “Cowboys Are My Weakness” and “Waltzing the Cat,” is a novelist, essayist, editor and teacher. Her new novel is “Contents May Have Shifted.”

Lorna Landvik: 7 p.m. Feb. 28, Prior Lake Library, 16210 Eagle Creek Av., Prior Lake, and 2 p.m. April 21, Chanhassen Library, 7711 Kerber Blvd., Chanhassen. Landvik, who lives in the Twin Cities, is the best-selling author of “Patty Jane’s House of Curl,” “Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons” and other novels.

Li-Young Lee: 7 p.m. March 18, St. Anthony Park Library, 2245 Como Av., St. Paul. Li-Young Lee is a poet and memoirist, the author of “Behind My Eyes” and “The City in Which I Love You,” winner of the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection. His memoir, “The Winged Seed,” won an American Book Award.

Cheryl Strayed: 7 p.m. March 19, Central Park Amphitheater, 8595 Central Park Pl., Woodbury, and 7 p.m. March 20, Galaxie Library, 14955 Galaxie Av., Apple Valley. Strayed, who grew up near McGregor, Minn., and attended the University of Minnesota, is the author of “Wild,” a memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. The book was an Oprah Book Club 2.0 selection and has been optioned for film. She is also the author of “Tiny Beautiful Things” and “Torch.”

Arthur Phillips: 7 p.m. April 18, Stillwater Public Library, 224 3rd St. N., Stillwater. Phillips was born in Minneapolis and is the author of five novels, including “Egyptologist,” “Prague” and “The Song Is You.” His most recent novel is “The Tragedy of Arthur,” about the supposed discovery of a lost Shakespeare play.

Brenda Langton: 7 p.m. April 24, Hennepin County Library-Southdale, 7001 York Av. S., Edina. Restaurateur Langton established and ran Cafe Kardamena and Cafe Brenda and now operates Spoonriver, all specializing in local and organic cuisine. Langton is the author of “The Spoonriver Cookbook,” and has been a judge for the James Beard Foundation’s annual cookbook awards.

John Sandford: 7 p.m. May 8, Rum River Library, 4201 6th Av., Anoka. As a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, John Camp (pen name: John Sandford) won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories about a farm in crisis. Now a fiction writer, he is the author of the “Prey” series and the series featuring Virgil Flowers. His newest book is “Silken Prey.”

Benjamin Percy: 7 p.m. May 29, Hennepin County Library-Southdale, 7001 York Av. S., Edina. Percy is a novelist and essayist, author of “The Wilding” and, forthcoming in May, “Red Moon,” as well as two collections of short stories, “Refresh, Refresh” and “The Language of Elk.” He is a regular contributor to Esquire and is writer-in-residence at St. Olaf College in Northfield.

James Franco.

Actor James Franco is also, you might know, director James Franco, and musician James Franco, and model James Franco, and MFA-holder--make that double-MFA-holder---James Franco, and, yes, poet James Franco.

Franco, who earned an MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College and an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College, has long been interested in writing. His work has appeared in Esquire, McSweeney's, and elsewhere, and he is the author of "Palo Alto," a collection of stories, and "Strongest of the Litter," a poetry chapbook.

Graywolf Press of Minneapolis will publish Franco's debut poetry collection, "Directing Herbert White," in April of 2014. Graywolf poetry editor Jeffrey Shotts said in a press release that Franco's poems are, in part, "a series of portraits of American successes and failures from within Hollywood. ... But they are also smart and highly aware notes of caution of what can happen when the filmed self becomes fixed and duplicated, while the ongoing self must continue living and watching."

He has also appeared in the movies "Milk," "Pineapple Express," and "Howl," in which he portrayed poet Allen Ginsberg.

 THE OLIVE FAIRY BOOK By Andrew Lang, introduction by Jane Yolen (The Folio Society, 272 pages, $84.95)

 Yes, $85 is a lot of money to spend for a collection of stories that are also available for less than $10 in paperback — or free on Kindle. But oh, this book is lovely. And oh, how it immerses the reader in the magical world of fairy tales the way an all-digital e-file never could. The Folio Society has long been known for making beautiful editions of classic books, and they have been releasing Andrew Lang’s colored fairy tale collections — green, yellow, blue, red, and others — two a year since 2003.

This edition of “The Olive Fairy Book” is whimsical, magical and mysterious, as befitting the world of magic. It’s big — lapsized — but not heavy. It’s slipcased in a dark-red box. The book jacket is embossed, olive and red, and the endpapers are olive and gold. New (but old-fashioned) full-page illustrations by English artist Kate Baylay are entrancing — maidens with long, rippling hair, star-studded night skies, bloodthirsty tigers, heart-shaped apples, mysterious onion-domed castles in the distance.

The stories collected here are from all over the world — France, India, Turkey, and beyond. “It is my wish that children should be allowed to choose their own book,” Lang writes in his preface to the original edition. “Let their friends give them the money and turn them loose in the book shops!”

It is hard to imagine a child who would not make a beeline to this one. The book is available on the Folio Society website, where it notes that delivery by Christmas is guaranteed for orders through Dec. 18.

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO By Marco Polo, edited by Morris Rossabi (Sterling Signature, 377 pages, $40.

This is another beautifully made book, another to stir the soul and get the imagination flying. In Marco Polo's own words (translated by Henry Yule and revised by Henri Cordier), you can re-live his amazing 13th century travels through the Far East, all the way to China and the court of the Kubla Khan.

Marco Polo's style is arcane, but that only adds to the sense of wonderment in the scenes he describes: "In this region" (he is writing about Tibet) "you find quantities of canes, full three palms in girth and fifteen paces in length, with some three palms' interval between the joints. And let me tell you that merchants and other travellers through that country are wont at nightfall to gather these canes and make fires of them, for as they burn they make such loud reports that the lions and bears and other wild beasts are greatly frightened, and make off as fast as possible; in fact, nothing will induce them to come nigh a fire of that sort."

The book is fully illustrated with antique maps, illuminated manuscripts, occasional photographs, and ancient scrolls and paintings. A book for dreamers, for travelers, for history buffs.

Jana Pullman.

Fine books, bound in leather with gold leaf, handmade end papers, hand-sewn silk endbands, leather-edged slipcases or hand-made boxes: These are the specialty of Jana Pullman, who has been named the 2013 Book Artist Award winner.
Pullmam lives in Minneapolis and teaches at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and is a faculty member at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul.

She is a book artist, printmaker, papermaker and book conservator, but she is best known for her exquisite bindings, which often incorporate both new materials and ancient processes.

Pullman attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the University of Iowa, earning an MFA in 1988. She moved to the Twin Cities in 1997.

Her work has been displayed in galleries for decades and has been exhibited across the United States as well as in France and England.

Earlier this year, she won the design award for the 2012 Helen Warren DeGolyer Triennial Competition for American Bookbinding.

The Minnesota Book Artist Award, sponsored by Lerner Publications and presented by the Minnesota Book Awards and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, recognizes a Minnesota artist for excellence of artistic work and significant contributions to the books community.

Previous winners include Bridget O’Malley and Amanda Degener of Cave Paper; Regula Russelle, and Wilber H. Schilling.

The award will be presented April 13 at the Minnesota Book Awards gala in downtown Minneapolis.