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 at rablog@lu.com.
By Cindy Orr
This Week In Books
Hello again. Thanks for joining us for our weekly run down of news especially for Readers’ Advisory librarians. Scroll down to the next entry to see the new books hitting the shelves this week in our New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer column. Some of the highlights: The Bourne Sanction by Eric Van Lustbader, (I thought he was dead.) new books by George Pelecanos, Karin Slaughter, Mary Daheim, Mary Morrison, and Mary Jane Clark. There’s also the highly touted The Lace Reader, which will most likely be a best seller, plus of course, Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn. In nonfiction, there’s Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Nancy Pelosi’s Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters, and a couple of fun ones: Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do, and Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip.
In our Most Wanted Mashup (look to the right), we have some new titles: Lisa Gardner’s Say Goodbye, Just Too Good to Be True by E. Lynn Harris, Ridley Pearson’s Killer View, and Christopher Reich’s Rules of Deception. On the nonfiction side, we have Madonna’s brother Christopher Ciccone’s book about his sister, and, of course, we should note sadly, that Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, passed away last week.
Are you tired of politics yet? That’s the topic of this week’s Under the Radar list by Sarah Statz Cords, our resident nonfiction expert and author of The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests, one of the Genreflecting series of books which serves as the backbone of RAO. Look to the right and scroll down for that one.
And before I move away from the books you should know about, thanks to The Drop-In Database by Shelf-Awareness, we now know that Barack Obama has a new book coming. The book, a collection of Obama’s speeches, will be available at the end of September, and is such a surprise that it hasn’t been reviewed yet. Better get it on order!
Now, on to the rest of the news of this week.
Lack of Buzz Causes Buzz?
The New York Times and other media are so puzzled about why the jacket for Kathryn Walker’s debut novel, A Stopover in Venice, doesn’t mention that it’s a roman à clef that includes James Taylor, or that Walker used to be married to him. Instead, the cover and marketing play up the fact that Walker went to Harvard, earned a Fulbright fellowship, and has an Emmy Award. Knopf says this was deliberate because they want Walker to be taken seriously as an author, rather than a celebrity’s former wife who has written a book. But it seems like the tactic may be working as the media makes the point for them anyway.
Los Angeles Times Folds Its Standalone Book Section
Sadly, the LA Times has decided to publish its last Sunday book review. The Los Angeles Times Book Review has been a free standing publication for more than thirty years. Rumor has it that book reviews will be run in the Calendar section from now on.
Staycations Mean More Demand for Armchair Travel Books
Bookselling This Week has an article on booksellers who have seen a bump in the number of travel memoirs sold. The high price of gasoline means people will travel in their imaginations this summer.
Shoppers Stay Home and Click—Have You Checked Your Online Library Services Lately?
The New York Times also has a related article about shoppers who are saving money by buying online instead of driving to the store. This reminds me that we should be making sure that our libraries have good online services for readers in addition to our traditional services—which is a great segue into a mention of OverDrive’s Digipalooza event which was held here in Cleveland for the past three days. Reading eBooks checked out from the library, and listening to digital downloadable audiobooks (including a brand new service launched only a few days ago, which allows patrons access to audiobooks that will work on the iPod) is a service that’s growing like mad all across the nation and the world. Here is one blogger’s account, and another, and one more. If you missed this event, check the reports for some really good information.
Author Speaking Fees Vary Greatly
Publishers bureaus, agents…there are various ways that authors can be paid for speaking. Many do it to pay for hobbies or to put their children through college, but most find it exhausting.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Goes to High School
In January, Random House plans to publish 500,000 copies of 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows by Ann Brashares. The characters are new, but they attend the high school featured in the original Sisterhood books. No magic pants this time, though.
Forger Writes Memoir, Insists It’s the Truth
Lee Israel, an editor and biographer, has admitted that she forged over 400 letters that she sold to collectors around the country. She has now written a memoir called Can You Ever Forgive Me? She promises that her memoir is the truth, even though she made her living on lies for decades, and maybe we could believe her except the title seems a bit misleading, as she revels in the fact that she duped an author into including two of her letters in his book about Noel Coward. It was “a hoot,” she says. “Those letters never misrepresented any large truth,â€? Ms. Israel said. “They were fun, and nobody got hurt, and everybody made money.â€? Um…well, except for those she sold them to. And the New York Public Library, from whom she stole letters. Unfortunately, true or not, her book has been optioned for film.
Nonfiction Crime Book Wins UK’s Biggest Nonfiction Prize
In what was shocking news to some, Kate Summerscale has won the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize, which is worth £30,000. Her book, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, investigates an unsolved murder from 1860. Do read the whole article for a better look at the fascinating story. Ms. Summerscale quit her job as literary editor of the Daily Telegraph to research and write the book. She says she used techniques from the detective genre to make sure her story moved along quickly. It’s refreshing to find a great read winning a literary prize once in awhile!
Lists
Dylan Thomas Prize Long List
Around the World in 80 Sleuths
The Best Business Books Ever
PW July Religion Bestsellers
Bestsellers in Iran
Authors
Craig Johnson
Randy Pausch
George Pelecanos
I always like to end with something upbeat. This week I decided to plug one of the most fun and useful sites around. I absolutely love the Unshelved Book Club. If you haven’t seen these wonderful full page, full color mini-booktalk comic strips that are published every Sunday, you’ve been missing a lot….but here’s the index so you can catch up. Terrific, terrific, terrific!
