Are zombies the new vampires?

September 1st, 2010

by Sarah Statz Cords

All right, I’ll admit, a simple Google search revealed that I am not as clever in this choice of topic as I thought I was. Links to other (undoubtedly more clever) stories on the subject are listed at the end of this post.

I noticed the other day as I was looking over new releases for the year that a good number of new horror books feature zombies. Of course, in terms of sheer output, vampire books are still walloping all competition.*

But what do you think about it? Are you getting readers as rabid about zombie books as they are/were about vampire books? (And was the trend, if it is one, started by the popular spoof Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?) Do vampire books, in all their genre-blending splendor, seem to be slowing down in popularity at all, or are they still flying off your shelves? As evidenced by the list of articles below, lots of critic and journalist types have an opinion on this phenomenon. But we’d like to know what the librarians actually working the public service desks could tell us about it!

*I still laugh when I think of a bookseller friend of mine saying, shaking his head, “We just keep waiting for the Twilight thing to pass, and it just won’t go away…”

August 2010:
Fiction-L discussion about books for a fan of zombie novels
From way back in April 2009: Time magazine, Zombies are the New Vampires
Murderati, April 2009: When There Is No More Room In Hell
Starpulse magazine, Oct. 2009: Are Zombies the New Vampires? (More of a take on movies than lit, but still.)
Sassy Librarian blog, Dec. 2009: Are Zombies the New Vampires?
Euclic Public Library Book Banter Blog, Jan. 2010: Zombies: The New Vampires
Just Press Play blog, June 2010: Lit of the Living Dead
The Guardian, Aug. 2010: The Walking Dead (a television perspective)
And, last but not least, a big thank you to the Lincoln (Nebraska) City Libraries post of a reader-submitted list of zombie books:
Zombies…the New Vampires.

Posted in In the News | 2 Comments »

RA Run Down

August 29th, 2010

The readers’s advisory librarian’s weekly update, from a scan of more than 100 blogs, newsletters, magazines, newspapers and television. This blog is brought to you by the Reader’s Advisor Online, the subscription database based on Libraries Unlimited’s Genreflecting Advisory series. We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to comment on any of our posts, or contact us at raoblog@lu.com.

By Cindy Orr

This Week In Books

New Titles on the Week’s Most Wanted Mashup of Bestsellers:

Fiction

  • Frederick Forsyth – The Cobra
  • James Patterson and Liza Marklund – The Postcard Killers
  • Martin Cruz Smith – Three Stations
  • Lauren Weisberger – Last Night At Chateau Marmont

    • Nonfiction

  • Rhonda Byrne – The Power

    • Also, keep your eye on:

  • Robin Cook – The Cure
  • Felix and Dick Francis – Crossfire
  • W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV – The Vigilantes
  • Tommy Spaulding – It’s Not Just Who You Know

    • To see the entire Most Wanted Mashup of this week’s bestselling titles, look to the righthand column.
    _______________________________________________________
    The New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer entries for the upcoming week include:

  • Jennifer Crusie – Maybe This Time
  • Clive Cussler with Grant Blackwood – Lost Empire: A Fargo Adventure
  • Loren D. Estleman – Frames
  • Jonathan Franzen – Freedom – one of the most anticipated books of the year
  • Allen Ginsberg and Eric Drooker – Howl: a Graphic Novel
  • Brenda Novak – Body Heat
  • Sara Paretsky – Body Work
  • Arturo Perez-Reverte – Pirates of The Levant
  • Steven Saylor – Empire

    • And many more. Scroll down to the next entry to see the whole list of noteworthy titles to be published in the next seven days, or click here.
    _______________________________________________________
    Our Under the Radar list this week in honor of National Alcohol and Drug Recovery Month is Addiction Memoirs. Look in the righthand column just under the Most Wanted Mashup for this list.
    _______________________________________________________
    And now on to the news of the week:

  • PW says Mockingjay is the “best yet,” but LA Times not only breaks embargo by publishing their review early…it contains spoilers
  • Giving President Obama an ARC of Franzen’s Freedom early causes uproar and confusion
  • The 17 most innovative academic presses
  • More on Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner complaining that women don’t get their fair share of book reviews
  • Laura Lippman’s new book I’d Know You Anywhere sells 4,739 ebooks in the first week and 4,000 hardcovers
  • Could this be a replacement for ILL?
  • Random House and Wylie Agency call a truce over ebook rights
  • Are ebooks worth the money? (Finally a mainstream article at leasts mentions libraries.)
  • Are ereader devices changing reading habits?
  • 10 reading revolutions before ebooks
  • Why Science Fiction?
  • Deep-fried Norman Mailer? Revisiting James Dickey’s Deliverance 40 years later
  • Publishers Weekly the latest to enter field of companies playing to self-publishers; and author J. A. Konrath thinks it’s a ripoff
  • So what’s this big behind-the-scenes brouhaha at Barnes & Noble all about?
  • Ebook readers encourage conversation
  • When is the last time you read fiction by a woman? (Real question put by the author…don’t know where the Atlantic headline came from.)
  • Canadian bookstore bans butt book
  • Keep your eye on The Long Ships by Frans G. Begtsson - rave review from Michael Chabon (“stands ready, given the chance, to bring lasting pleasure to every single human being on the face of the earth”) and Michael Dirda (ranks it right up there with “Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin naval adventures, Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances, the Flashman novels (and The Pyrates) of George MacDonald Fraser, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and its sequels, the Lymond Chronicles of Dorothy Dunnett, and, of course, the celebrated swashbucklers of Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini) Wow.
  • If you hear about the little 6-year-old who got a 23 book deal…well, read this
  • Banned Books grants available
  • Seth Godin becomes his own publisher
  • Art Garfunkle’s quite impressive Reading Log
  • The future of books according to science fiction
  • Sharper Image announces the Literati for October: a wireless color reader powered by Kobo for $159
  • Mystery Scene Magazine goes all color

    • _______________________________________________________
    Books on Screen

  • Jim Carrey to star in Mr. Popper’s Penguins
  • Joe Hill’s comic book series Lock and Key to be a TV series developed by Stephen Spielberg
  • 127 Hours…film version of Aron Ralston’s Between a Rock and a Hard Place

    • _______________________________________________________
    Awards

  • 2009 World Fantasy Award Finalists
  • Royal Society Prize for Science Books Shortlist

    • _______________________________________________________
    Authors

  • Jose Luis Borges – who was he?
  • A. S. Byatt – women who write intellectual books seen as unnatural
  • Nancy Freedman – obituary
  • Jackson Gillis – obituary

    • _______________________________________________________
    Lists

  • New York Magazine’s Most Anticipated Books for Fall
  • 6 Books to Read After Mockingjay
  • Spy Novels by Real Spies (there are more than you think)
  • Books to Read After Checking Out the Egg Recall List
  • Science Fiction Books That Will Stand the Test of Time
  • The 10 Greatest Works of Christian Fiction
  • Indie Biography and Memoir Bestseller List

    • _______________________________________________________
    Lighthearted Link of the Week

  • Library justice: man clobbers thief with library books

    • Posted in RA Run Down | 1 Comment »

    New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer

    August 29th, 2010

    MONDAY NONFICTION

  • Vern Yip – Designing Spaces: Transforming Every Room With Easy, Elegant Style – 9780060748036

    • TUESDAY FICTION

  • J. K. Beck – When Blood Calls (mass market) – 9780440245773
  • Roberto Bolaño – The Insufferable Gaucho – 9780811217163
  • Ken Bruen – The Devil (Jack Taylor #8) – 9780312646967
  • Jayne Castle and Jayne Ann Krentz – Midnight Crystal (mass market) – 9780515148367
  • Jennifer Crusie – Maybe This Time - 9780312303785
  • Clive Cussler with Grant Blackwood – Lost Empire: A Fargo Adventure – 9780399156762
  • Loren D. Estleman – Frames – 9780765326713
  • Christine Feehan (Carpathian) – Dark Peril - 9780425236598
  • Jonathan Franzen - Freedom – 9780374158460
  • Allen Ginsberg and Eric Drooker – Howl: a Graphic Novel – 9780062015174
  • Heather Graham – Ghost Moon (Bone Island Trilogy) – 9780778327967
  • Kelly Gay – The Darkest Edge of Dawn (mass market) – 9781439110041
  • Sarah Gray – Wuthering Bites – 9780758254085
  • Jessica Francis Kane – The Report – 9781555975654
  • Debbie Macomber – 1022 Evergreen Place (Cedar Cove) (mass market) – 9780778328063
  • Monica McCarty – The Hawk (mass market) – 9780345518248
  • Paul Murray – Skippy Dies – 9780865479432
  • Brenda Novak – Body Heat – 9780778328032
  • Sara Paretsky - Body Work – 9780399156748
  • William Ryan – The Holy Thief – 9780312586454
  • Brandon Sanderson – The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive) – 9780765326355
  • Steven Saylor – Empire – 9780312381011
  • Matthew Sharpe – You Were Wrong – 9781608191871
  • Susan Sizemore – Primal Instincts (mass market) – 9781416562146
  • Aimee Thurlo - Never-Ending-Snake (Ella Clah) – 9780765324504
  • Charles Todd – An Impartial Witness – 9780061791789
  • Carl Weber – Torn Between Two Lovers - 9780758252692
  • Cindy Woodsmall – The Bridge of Peace (trade paper) – 9781400073979

    • TUESDAY NONFICTION

  • Meghan McCain – Dirty Sexy Politics: A True Story – 9781401323776
  • Patrick Smith – Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World – 9780375425509

    • WEDNESDAY FICTION

  • Wanda E. Brunstetter – Lydia’s Charm (trade paper) – 9781602600638
  • Loren D. Estleman – Amos Walker: The Complete Short Story Collection – 9781935562245
  • Scarlett Thomas – Our Tragic Universe – 9780151013913

    • WEDNESDAY NONFICTION

  • Debra Friedland – When in Rome: How an American Woman in Italy Lost Weight Eating. Living, and Loving the Italian Way – 9780061120596
  • Bil Cornlius and Craig Groeschel – I Dare You to Change!: Discover the Difference Between Dreaming of a Better Life and Living It – 9780824948184

    • THURSDAY FICTION

  • Mark T. Mustian – The Gendarme - 9780399156342
  • Arturo Perez-Reverte – Pirates of The Levant - 9780399156649

    • THURSDAY NONFICTION

  • Tony Blair – A Journey: My Political Life – 9780307269836

    • Posted in New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer | No Comments »

    Monday Morning Virtual Caffeine: Tips for Using the RAO Blog to Jump Start Your Week At the RA Desk

    August 26th, 2010

    So it’s Monday morning and you drag yourself in to work wishing it were still the weekend. Here’s our suggestion for the second thing you should do. (Coffee is always Number 1.)

    Get yourself ready for the week by using the RAO blog. It will save you tons of time and you’ll feel a lot more in control…promise!

    So what do you need to be ready for the week?

    1) Check the updated bestseller lists.
    That’s easy enough to do, and you probably print them out and post them for your patrons every Monday already. But what you really need is just a quick look at what’s changed since last week.

    Instead of doing that grunt work yourself title by title, check the very first section of our RA Run Down published every Sunday evening in preparation for your Monday morning. The first thing we do is tell you what has changed since this week’s bestseller lists were published over the weekend. There it is all set out for you in a few words.

    Then of course, we highlight the top bestsellers from various lists on our Most Wanted Mashup. The various bestseller lists track things differently, and we mash up several to give you the most in-demand books, including paperback originals which are tough to separate from reprints.

    2) Figure out what new books are coming out this week.
    You selected and ordered them months ago, but your patrons may just be hearing about them now due to the laydown publicity, and your mind is on the reviews you’re reading this week. Take a look at our New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer list for not only the popular no-brainer stuff you’ll need to have, but also the noteworthy titles that reviewers and bloggers are buzzing about.

    We give you a little preview in the RA Run Down, but the complete list is published as a separate entry…again, brand new on Sunday night so it’s ready for your Monday morning. Here you’ll find a list of the most buzzed about new books to be published in the upcoming seven days. And, just to make it easier in case you missed ordering one, we include the ISBN.

    3) Catch up on the news of the book world.
    You need to know what your patrons are hearing about, but how do you have the time to keep up on all the newspaper columns, blogs, newsletters, and magazines out there? Not to worry…we’ve done it for you. We scan, scan, scan, over a hundred blogs, magazines, journals, newsletters and other sources every week. In the Monday morning RA Run Down you’ll find handy headlines with links to the news and important RA items from the past week.

    So there you have it…a one stop Monday morning update to make you ready for the week before you even finish your first cup of coffee.

    Oh, and when you move on to the next thing:

    4) Refresh your displays.
    You just might find some new ideas in our Under the Radar lists. We have a new one of those every Monday morning too, not to mention our monthly display brainstorming feature that might help you with display ideas since we’ve identified events and ideas related to the upcoming month.

    Check back during the week for other helpful posts including reviews of literary blogs, RA tips, reports from conferences, and much more.

    But be sure to remember to always take a look each Monday…and maybe you’ll even have time for another cup of coffee.

    Posted in From the Editor | 3 Comments »

    Display Brainstorming: September Edition

    August 24th, 2010

    by Sarah Statz Cords

    September is:
    Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Month
    Classical Music Month
    Deaf Awareness Week: Sep. 19-25
    International Self-Awareness Month
    Library Card Sign-Up Month
    National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month
    National Chicken Month
    National Coupon Month
    National Hispanic Heritage Month: Sep. 15-Oct. 15
    National Honey Month
    National Keep Kids Creative Week: Sep. 26-Oct. 2
    National Lazy Moms Day: Sep. 3
    National Preparedness Month
    National Singles Week: Sep. 19-25
    Tolkien Week: Sep. 19-25
    Update Your Resume Month
    Women’s Friendship Month
    World Alzheimer’s Day: Sep. 21
    And don’t forget: many students head back to school this month!

    Holidays in September Include:
    Sep. 6: Labor Day
    Sep. 9: Rosh Hashanah
    Sep. 10: Eid-al-Fitr
    Sep. 11: Patriot Day
    Sep. 12: National Grandparents’ Day
    Sep. 16: Independence Day (Mexico–200th anniversary of Sep. 15, 1810)
    Sep. 17: Citizenship Day (also Constitution Day)
    Sep. 18: Yom Kippur
    Sep. 22: Autumn begins
    Sep. 24: National Punctuation Day
    Sep. 24: Native American Day
    Sep. 25: National Hunting and Fishing Day

    September Famous Birthdays
    Edgar Rice Burroughs: Sep. 1, 1875
    Kiran Desai: Sep. 3, 1971
    Jesse James: Sep. 5, 1847
    Jane Addams: Sep. 6, 1860
    Elizabeth I: Sep. 7, 1533
    Jesse Owens: Sep. 12, 1913
    Roald Dahl: Sep. 13, 1916
    Agatha Christie: Sep. 15, 1890
    Fannie Flagg: Sep. 21, 1944
    Ray Charles: Sep. 23, 1930
    F. Scott Fitzgerald: Sep. 24, 1896
    T.S. Eliot: Sep. 26, 1888
    Samuel Adams: Sep. 27, 1722
    Elie Wiesel: Sep. 30, 1928

    September Historical Events:
    Sep. 1, 1939: World War II begins
    Sep. 2-5, 1666: Great Fire of London
    Sep. 4-25, 1957: Little Rock Nine/Central High School integration
    Sep. 11, 2001: World Trade Center terrorist attack, New York City
    Sep. 14, 1901: President William McKinley assassinated
    Sep. 22, 1862: Emancipation Proclamation issued

    Sources include: Chase’s 2010 Calendar of Events; Holiday Smart September 2010 calendar; Holiday Insights.

    Posted in Display Brainstorming | 2 Comments »

    RA Run Down

    August 22nd, 2010

    The readers’s advisory librarian’s weekly update, from a scan of more than 100 blogs, newsletters, magazines, newspapers and television. This blog is brought to you by the Reader’s Advisor Online, the subscription database based on Libraries Unlimited’s Genreflecting Advisory series. We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to comment on any of our posts, or contact us at raoblog@lu.com.

    By Cindy Orr

    This Week In Books:

  • Booksellers open till midnight Monday for Mockingjay

    • New Titles on This Week’s Most Wanted Mashup

    Fiction

  • Sandra Brown – Tough Customer
  • W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV – The Vigilantes
  • Linda Howard - Veil of Night

    • Nonfiction

  • Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker – The Mentor Leader

    • Mass Market Originals

  • Lorna Barrett – Chapter & Hearse (A Booktown Mystery)
  • Suzanne Brockmann – Infamous
  • Jeaniene Frost – Eternal Kiss of Darkness (Night Huntress)

    • To see the entire Most Wanted Mashup of this week’s bestselling titles, look to the righthand column.
    _______________________________________________________
    The New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer entries for the upcoming week include:

  • Terry Brooks – Bearers of the Black Staff
  • Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay
  • Kathy Reichs – Spider Bones
  • Elie Wiesel – The Sonderberg Case
  • James Baldwin – The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings
  • Scott Simon – Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption


    • And many more. Scroll down to the next entry to see the whole list of noteworthy titles to be published in the next seven days, or click here.
    _______________________________________________________
    Our Under the Radar list this week is New History Titles You May Have Missed. Look in the righthand column just under the Most Wanted Mashup for this list.

    _______________________________________________________
    And now on to the news of the week:

  • Why should we celebrate Jonathan Franzen? Because books matter
  • The chart of fantasy cover art subjects
  • This year’s 10 highest paid authors
  • A Man’s Guide to Eat, Pray, Love
  • Reading Group Guides big 10th anniversary contest for book groups
  • Authors to go on USO tour
  • Jodi Picoult thinks the New York Times favors “white male literary darlings”, and Jennifer Weiner says “Carl Hiassen doesn’t have to choose between getting a Times review and being a bestseller. Why should I? Oh, right. #girlparts,” meanwhile… Fairiness and Accuracy in Reporting says the NY Times has “an exceedingly narrow view of who’s books deserve review and who is fit to discuss them.”
  • How do you read? In sips, or gulps?
  • Okay…is the choice really between going catatonic or reading something difficult?
  • When book recommendations go wrong
  • Man Booker longlist author thinks current European fiction is dry and academic
  • What prisoners are reading in Guantanamo—including Dan Brown and Harry Potter in Arabic
  • Choose Your Own Adventure gets a makeover
  • USA Today disses Rhonda Byrne’s The Power while the Wall Street Journal wonders if the book can sell as many copies as The Secret in this economy
  • Love and Magic: Trends in Romance—free webinar Wednesday September 8
  • ebook summit: Libraries At the Tipping Point September 29 $29.95
  • RUSA online course: RA 101 by Joyce Saricks – $130
  • Check your copies of Eat, Pray, Love…sales are soaring again because of the movie
  • New Indian library appropriately named after S. R. Ranganathan
  • Farewell Libraries?
  • The guy behind Goodreads.com
  • Was Quasimodo a real person?
  • Average of public libraries providing ebooks – 65.9%
  • Into the Wild fan dies trying to reach the bus where McCandless died
  • The personal approach is what will keep independent bookstores alive
  • Statistical profile of book buyers
  • Censorship flack in Texas has YA authors boycotting festival
  • A real Percy Jackson-like summer camp
  • Dorothy Seymour Mills finally gets author credit for baseball books published by Oxford University Press
  • Will there be a <$100 ebook reader for Christmas? Looks like Kobo may have one
  • The futures of the book
  • Kansas City Public Library’s awesome parking garage
  • Emma Thompson to write new Peter Rabbit book set in Scotland
  • Deadline November 15 for the Pimp My Bookcart competition
  • Speaking up for the print book
  • Barnes & Noble is in trouble because it didn’t evolve quickly enough

    • _______________________________________________________
    Books on Screen

  • Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie: Lisbeth Salander cast
  • James Franco stars as Allen Ginsberg in Howl (trailer)
  • Viggo Mortensen and Amy Adams to star in On the Road
  • Ellen Burstyn, True Blood’s Ellen Ann Woll cast in Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
  • Idris Elba to play Alex Cross
  • Movie The Switch is a safe version of Eugenides short story

    • _______________________________________________________
    Awards

  • Nevada Barr receives National Parks Conservation Society Award
  • Geraldine Brooks wins Dayton Literary Peace Prize
  • Thurber Award Finalists
  • James Tait Memorial Prizes
  • German Book Prize Longlist

    • _______________________________________________________
    Authors

  • Margaret Atwood - interview (she freely admits to writing “speculative fiction,” which she calls a subset of science fiction)
  • Ray Bradbury – how to live to be 90 (video)
  • Robert A. Heinlein – Tor is hosting an online symposium in his honor
  • Frank Kermode – obituary
  • Ludvik Kundera – obituary
  • Laura Lippman – interview
  • Rick Moody – “Writers are more desperate than any time since I’ve been watching what’s been happening closely.” (video)
  • Edwin Morgan – obituary
  • Ian Rankin – criticizes his own early works
  • J. D. Salinger’s toilet is for sale for $1 million
  • Kurt Vonnegut – museum to open in Indianapolis
  • Betty White – signs a 2-book deal at age 88
  • Jeanette Winterson – hits out at threats to libraries

    • _______________________________________________________
    Lists

  • Back to Reality: Nonfiction for Summer’s End
  • 8 Great Literary Love Affairs
  • The Winners: NPR’s Listeners Choose the Top 100 Thrillers
  • Best Books on Pakistan

    • _______________________________________________________
    Lighthearted Link of the Week

  • 11 great librarian movies
  • Outrage builds over plans to build library next to Sarah Palin
  • Find a date based on your reading tastes
  • Better Book Titles

    • Posted in RA Run Down | No Comments »

    New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer

    August 22nd, 2010

    MONDAY FICTION

  • Yunte Huang – Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History – 9780393069624
  • Jane Porter – She’s Gone Country – 9780446509411

    • TUESDAY FICTION

  • Terry Brooks – Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara) – 9780345484178
  • Kresley Cole – Demon from the Dark (Immortals After Dark) – 9781439123126
  • Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay – 9780439023511
  • Anne Fortier – Juliet: A Novel - 9780345516107
  • Leigh Greenwood – No One But You (Seven Brides) – 9780843963991
  • Kevin Guilfoile – The Thousand – 9781400043095
  • Joyce Maynard – The Good Daughters – 9780061994319
  • Teresa Medeiros – The Devil Wears Plaid – 9781439157886
  • Kathy Reichs – Spider Bones (Temperance Brennan) – 9781439102398
  • Peter Robinson – Bad Boy – 9780061362958
  • Elie Wiesel – The Sonderberg Case – 9780307272201

    • TUESDAY NONFICTION

  • James Baldwin – The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings – 9780307378828
  • Sissela Bok – Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to Brain Science - 9780300139297
  • Richard Rhodes – The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons – 9780307267542
  • Scott Simon – Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption – 9781400068494
  • John Vaillant – The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival - 9780307268938

    • WEDNESDAY FICTION

  • David Rosenfelt – Dog Tags – 9780446551526

    • Posted in New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer | No Comments »

    Does this mean we can talk about age and books?

    August 19th, 2010

    by Sarah Statz Cords

    I was fascinated by the recent Fiction-L thread discussing the books Baby Boomers read as children and the YA books they’re reading now. Of course, it was an interesting discussion in its own right. But what got me really excited was the topic of age and how it relates to book and reading interests. Does this mean we can talk about this now?

    I’ve noticed before that RAs, in their desire to meet each reader individually*, don’t typically like to discuss such topics as age and gender and race and reading interests. (No less an RA expert than Joyce Saricks reminds us, in her Reader’s Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction, that “We must not stereotype readers. A sweet, grandmotherly lady might adore Robin Schone or other very explicit authors…p. 145.) I have always thought it was a shame, really, not to discuss this more, for the selfish reason that I find those topics FASCINATING. It is my habit, in every bookstore I enter, to take a good look round the nonfiction section and count if there’re more men in it than women. (I always hang too close to readers of SF and Fantasy, too, trying to see which authors each gender picks up).

    The topic of age and reading interests is particularly fascinating, as I think many more librarians are doing outreach reading and booktalk programs at assisted living and other eldercare facilities these days. If you had to create a one-hour booktalk for such an audience, what books would you gravitate towards? And why? To me, this is a very practical question and application.

    I personally think it’s silly to think our reading interests never change, particularly as we age. So, I may be opening a can of worms, but I really want to know. Do you notice any trends among certain age groups of readers? Do you find your own reading habits changing? (I’ll start: I didn’t really become a nonfiction fiend until my mid-twenties.) How can we use this knowledge, not really to perpetuate stereotypes, but rather, to better serve patrons of all ages?

    *Of course we totally support this desire. And I know from personal experience that it’s important not to pigeonhole readers on their looks alone; I still remember drying dishes at a family get-together with my husband’s aunts when one learned I was a librarian and asked if I liked Nicholas Sparks. I said he was very popular with many of our patrons, but that I personally prefer nonfiction books or fiction with lots more swearing and sex. There was silence all around, until one aunt ventured, “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed that.” I couldn’t help it. I like to keep aunts everywhere on their toes.

    Posted in A Closer Look | 3 Comments »

    RA Run Down

    August 15th, 2010

    The readers’s advisory librarian’s weekly update, from a scan of more than 100 blogs, newsletters, magazines, newspapers and television. This blog is brought to you by the Reader’s Advisor Online, the subscription database based on Libraries Unlimited’s Genreflecting Advisory series. We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to comment on any of our posts, or contact us at raoblog@lu.com.

    By Cindy Orr

    This Week In Books

    New Titles on This Week’s Most Wanted Mashup of Bestsellers

    The bestseller lists have changed significantly from last week. Here are this week’s new titles in the top 10 of the lists:

    FICTION

  • Philippa Gregory – The Red Queen
  • Carl Hiaasen – Star Island
  • Gary Shteyngart – Super Sad True Love Story

    • NONFICTION

  • Andrew Morton – Angelina
  • Mary Roach – Packing for Mars

    • To see the entire Most Wanted Mashup of this week’s bestselling titles, look to the righthand column.

    AND KEEP YOUR EYE ON THESE
    A few more titles that may be in the top tier soon:

  • Kelley Armstrong – Waking the Witch 1794
  • W. Bruce Cameron – A Dog’s Purpose
  • Jude Deveraux – Scarlet Nights
  • Allegra Goodman – The Cookbook Collector
  • J.A. Jance – Queen of the Night
  • Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger – Furious Love
  • Faye Kellerman – Hangman

    • _______________________________________________________
    The New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer entries for the upcoming week include:

    The biggest book of this week, with a printing of 2 million:

  • Rhonda Byrne – The Power

    • plus:

  • Eric Jerome Dickey – Tempted by Trouble
  • Frederick Forsyth – The Cobra
  • Felix Francis and Dick Francis – Crossfire
  • Laura Lippman – I’d Know You Anywhere
  • James Patterson and Liza Marklund – The Postcard Killers
  • Martin Cruz Smith – Three Stations (Arkady Renko)

  • Lauren Weisberger – Last Night at Chateau Marmont
  • Stephen White – The Last Lie (Alan Gregory)

    • And many more. Scroll down to the next entry to see the whole list of noteworthy titles to be published in the next seven days, or click here.
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    Our Under the Radar list this week is Music Makes the Difference. Look in the righthand column just under the Most Wanted Mashup for this list.

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    And now on to the news of the week:

  • Are you planning a Banned Books Week program for September 25 – October 2? Would you like to promote your program on this page? If so, sign up here.
  • USA Today: Booksellers love The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise
  • Are you going to the Guadalajara Book Fair? Want some support to help you pay for it?
  • Facebook is the novel we’re all writing
  • National Archives treasure hunters featured in Harlequin romance (Linda Turners’ His Wanted Woman – Silhouette Romantic Suspense in case anyone asks).
  • Newsweek asks…Good-bye libraries?
  • The printed book’s path to oblivion
  • Why is it “women’s literature?” Can’t it just be “literature?” … and Do flowers on the cover automatically disqualify you for awards or even serious reviews?
  • Amish inspirationals grow in popularity
  • Bowker—the latest to try to make money from aspiring authors
  • Famous authors writing under a pseudonym…why?
  • Does the language we speak shape our thought? Fascinating.
  • When pets look wrong on book covers
  • Tolkien and Dickens descendants collaborate
  • Want a vintage book cover for your ereader?
  • President Obama signs “libel tourism” law into effect
  • Alameda bookseller gets original Steinbeck manuscript
  • Book by the Financial Crisis Commission will actually earn an advance and royalties for the government
  • Novelists who predict the future
  • Why historical fiction is so popular
  • Project Gutenberg shoots for 1 billion eBooks
  • More on Dorchester (see last week’s post): royalty checks late;
  • Random House, Kobo, Fairmont Hotels partner to offer eBooks to guests…but what if they’re not finished reading when they check out?
  • Top 2 slots on the Amazon Kindle top free “sellers” occupied by video games
  • Borders lays often even more people, this time in Ann Arbor
  • War breaks out over control of Barnes & Noble
  • The Chick Lit debate again
  • Is Google’s book count mostly bunk?

    • _______________________________________________________
    Books on Screen

  • Frances McDormand producing Olive Kitteredge for HBO, plus a movie of Laura Lippman’s Every Secret Thing
  • The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff to be on Lifetime TV
  • Angelina Jolie to play Kay Scarpetta

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    Awards

  • Shamus Award nominations
  • Business Book of the Year Longlist
  • Thurber Prize Finalists

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    Authors

  • The 15 most overrated contemporary authors – Oh snap!
  • And…the 15 most underrated contemporary authors – Guess this was inevitable.
  • Seriously? The most accurately-rated contemporary authors
  • Michael Capuzzo - talks about the Vidocq Society
  • Pat Conroy - give eBooks a chance: his grandparents thought airplanes wouldn’t work too
  • Patricia Cornwell - sells two more Scarpetta novels
  • Don DeLillo - rare interview
  • Jonathan Franzen – first living author on the cover of Time magazine since Stephen King in 2000; Headline: Great American Novelist, also a video interview
  • Christopher Hitchens - on his cancer, mortality, and God (video, with Martin Amis)
  • Sally Laird – obituary
  • Laura Lippman - on the nature of memory
  • Alexander McCall Smith - his productivity is incredible
  • Marcia Muller - talks to NPR about murder
  • Nicholas Negroponte – the physical book is dead in 5 years
  • Nicholas Sparks - says comparing his own novels to a romance is like comparing Cinderella to Romeo and Juliet; thinks Cormac McCarthy is horrible;
  • Mary Roberts Rinehart - what you didn’t know about her

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    Lists

  • The Truly Best-Dressed Characters in Literature
  • Great Books About the Beach
  • Suggested Summer Reading for President Obama and What He’s Really Been Reading
  • 11 Books Predicting the Collapse of the Middle Class
  • The 50 Best Cookbooks of All Time

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    Lighthearted Links of the Week

  • Summer Reading (video)
  • Okay, this is a combination of insane, inane, and inconsistent, but it is book related
  • Imaginary Conversations About Music at the Library with My Son
  • You know you’re a 21st Century librarian when…
  • College library drops Dewey Decimal numbers in favor of Netflix categories

    • Posted in RA Run Down | No Comments »

    New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer

    August 15th, 2010

    MONDAY FICTION

  • James Patterson and Liza Marklund – The Postcard Killers – 9780316089517

    • MONDAY NONFICTION

  • Warren Bennis – Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership – 9780470432389
  • James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner – The Truth about Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know – 9780470633540

    • TUESDAY FICTION

  • James Church – The Man with the Baltic Stare (Inspector O) – 9780312372927
  • Eric Jerome Dickey – Tempted by Trouble - 9780525950585
  • Chris Ewan – The Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas – 9780312580827
  • Frederick Forsyth – The Cobra – 9780399156809
  • Felix Francis and Dick Francis – Crossfire – 9780399156816
  • Laurie Frankel – The Atlas of Love - 9780312595388
  • Timothy Hallinan – The Queen of Patpong (Poke Rafferty) – 9780061672262
  • Laura Lippman – I’d Know You Anywhere – 9780061706554
  • R.A. Salvatore – The Bear (Saga of the First King) – 9780765317919
  • Cynthia Riggs – Touch-Me-Not (Martha’s Vineyard) – 9780312648718
  • Martin Cruz Smith – Three Stations (Arkady Renko) – 9780743276740
  • Lauren Weisberger – Last Night at Chateau Marmont – 9781439136614
  • Stephen White – The Last Lie (Alan Gregory) – 9780525951773

    • TUESDAY NONFICTION

  • Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe – Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – 9780062015877
  • Richard Baker and Robert J. Schwalb – Dark Sun Campaign Setting: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement – 9780786954933
  • Rhonda Byrne – The Power – 9781439181782
  • Eliza Griswold – The 10th Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam – 9780374273187
  • Chalmers Johnson – Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope – 9780805093032
  • Milan Kundera - Encounter – 9780061894411
  • Mike Mearls – Psionic Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement – 9780786955602
  • Christopher Nolan – Inception: The Shooting Script – 9781608870158
  • Melanie Thernstrom – The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Remedies, Spells, Prayers, Myths, Misconceptions, Brain Scans, and the Science of Suffering – 9780865476813

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