The readers’ 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 here.

By Cindy Orr

This Week In Books
Welcome to Summer–officially. We’re celebrating the season with baseball books in our Under the Radar section this week, and when I saw Mark Bowden’s The Best Game Ever show up on our Most Wanted list for the first time, it kind of surprised me that it’s about football. But, as my son reminds me, if you’re a basketball fan, you are extremely excited about the upcoming NBA draft. So I guess sports are big in any season, which reminds me to recommend Netherland by Joseph O’Neill. Have I mentioned it before? If I did, here we go again. I’ve finished reading it now. And if you’re wondering where my wandering mind has taken us, the narrator in Netherland plays cricket in New York (who knew?) after the trauma of 9/11. It’s well worth the read.

New to the bestseller lists this week are a few brand name authors, namely Jackie Collins, Jeffery Deaver, James Patterson and Douglas Preston. As always, look to the right for our Most Wanted Mashup. And directly below this blog entry, take a look at our weekly New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer column for a selected list of titles to be published in the next seven days. Highlights include new books by Paulo Coelho, Ethan Canin, Diane McKinney-Whetsone, Joyce Carol Oates, Sylvia Browne, Danielle Steel, James Rollins, Deborah Crombie, Catherine Coulter, Meg Cabot, Lawrence Block, Barbara Ehrenreich, Dave Pelzer, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann. Wow, you’d think it were Fall. And that’s not even all of the titles, don’t forget to check out the complete list. And now to the rest of the news of the week.

The Breakout Book of the Summer?
The Wall Street Journal covers a book they think may be the breakout fiction title for the summer. The book has been championed by both Amazon and Costco, and as a result has been back to press seven times since its June publication. The reviews of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski have been pretty unanimously great, and we’re proud to have singled it out early even though its inital printing was modest. It’s already climbing the bestseller lists. It’s been a great year for dog lovers.

Barbara Walters Cuts the Sex
In the abridged audio version of Audition by Barbara Walters, the chapters about her affair with Senator Edward Brooke, indeed the parts about all of her relationships, were left out. According to Time, the publisher says Barbara thought they were the least important parts of her life and something has to go when you’re making an abridged version. Another reason unabridged is better…you never know if they’re going to leave out the good parts!

Romance Readers Let MSNBC Have It
Halfway down the first page of an excerpt from Danielle Steel’s new book Rogue on MSNBC.com, is an innocuous looking little insert—”Your turn! Vote: Do you read romance novels?” it says. But hordes of romance fans are understandably outraged by the slanted questions in the poll.

Here are the three choices as presented by MSNBC:

*Yes, yes, yes! Bodice-rippers are my ultimate escape.

*No way. I don’t touch those books.

*Sometimes, while on vacation or at the beach.

Okay…. so your choice is vote yes for the condescending choice of bodice-rippers, or vote sometimes because you’re ashamed, or vote no way if you’re one of those people who puts a wrapper on the romance so no one can see what you’r reading. Results so far are 52% yes, 27% no, 21% sometimes. Seems to me that means 73% said yes despite the offensive wording.

To sample some of the justified outrage of fans and writers, click here. Join the fun while you’re at it! Thanks to PW Daily for the heads up.

Richard and Judy
We have Oprah’s Book Club, but in the UK it’s Richard and Judy all the way. Four years after they began their club on daytime television, their titles account for 26% of the sales of the top 100 books in the UK. Click here to read all about the phenomenon, and to see their summer reading suggestions.

New Dennis Lehane Book Will Be Raimi Movie
Dennis Lehane’s September title—The Given Day—will be adapted into a movie directed by Spider-Man director Sam Raimi. Lehane’s book is set in turbulent 1919 Boston when WWI soldiers return and spread an influenza epidemic while the police department tries to unionize.

Can We Even Read Anymore?
The Atlantic has an interesting article about how the Internet is changing the way we read—even those of us who read a lot. Take a look here.

The Things You Find In Books
People use the funniest things for bookmarks (my favorite find was a piece of bacon once—seriously). ABEBooks.com has the story here. Care to share your worst find?

Lists
Beach Reads: Suggestions from Beach Towns
June BookSense Picks
Top 10 Books You Must Read to Save the World
Entertainment Weekly’s The New Classics – Top 100 Reads from 1983 to 2008–(perfect idea for a display)
Oprah’s Reading List for Stanford Grads
NPR’s Summer Reading – Political Books
Three Books for Teens Who Hate to Read
Reading for Place: Books for Travelers

Authors
Janet Evanovich
Alan Furst
Rupert Murdoch
Tasha Tudor Obituary
Gore Vidal Interiew – “I can’t name three first-rate literary critics in the United States”
David Wroblewski on the Golden Age of Dog Fiction

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 pm and is filed under RA Run Down. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.