Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

The Pulitzer Prize winners for 2009 were announced this week:

Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout -- a collection of 13 short stories set in small-town Maine that packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by Olive, the title character, blunt, flawed and fascinating.

Drama: Ruined by Lynn Nottage -- a searing drama set in chaotic Congo that compels audiences to face the horror of wartime rape and brutality while still finding affirmation of life and hope amid hopelessness.

History: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed -- a painstaking exploration of a sprawling multi-generation slave family that casts provocative new light on the relationship between Sally Hemings and her master, Thomas Jefferson.

Biography: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham -- an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life.

Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin -- a collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory.

General Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon -- a precise and eloquent work that examines a deliberate system of racial suppression and that rescues a multitude of atrocities from virtual obscurity.

e-books Popular Among Women

According to an interview with computerworld.com, Steven Pendergrast, president and chief technology officer of Fictionwise, the e-book seller purchased by Barnes & Noble for $15.7 million earlier this month, said that today's typical e-book reader is a woman, "between 40 and 50 years old, who tends to have a higher-than-average income and level of education."

He also said to expect a "huge surge" in e-book sales in 2010, in part because of the recent addition of e-book readers for iPhone and BlackBerry devices.