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
One of the big books of this coming week is likely to be The Dark Side by Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. Mayer says “Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes.” Oh, and then there’s Christopher Ciccone’s Life with My Sister Madonna. He says she’s a narcissist. Can you believe it? We also have new fiction by Lisa Gardner, Jeff Abbott, Christopher Reich, Ridley Pearson, Luanne Rice, and Tana French. As always, our Monday New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer list keeps you up-to-date on titles to be published in the upcoming seven days. Scroll down to the next entry for these and the rest of the titles for this week.
Our second Monday list is our Most Wanted Mashup—our take on what library patrons will be looking for this week. New to the list is Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais, which despite an ad in the New York Times calling it “grizzly,” is absolutely not about bears! We also have Linda Howard’s Death Angel and Brad Thor’s The Last Patriot. For nonfiction, The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace is a new one. Look to the right for the complete list.
And finally, our third Monday Under the Radar list for the week is by Sarah Statz Cords, and it’s called “Essays for Summer: Collections on Every Subject Under the Sun.” Check for that one just under the Most Wanted Mashup in the right hand column as always. And now on to the news of the week.
Bugliosi Book Climbs the Bestseller Lists Despite Lack of Reviews
Despite the fact that it was largely ignored by the mainstream media, Vincent Bugliosi’s newest book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder is climbing the lists, according to the New York Times (which didn’t review it). Bugliosi says he has had no luck getting on the usual television book shows, and the Don Imus radio show wouldn’t even take an ad for it. John Meacham, editor of Newsweek said, “If it’s selling well, it’s another sign that the traditional channels of commerce have been blown up. If a dedicated part of the Internet community wants to move something, it doesn’t need a benediction from the mainstream media and might benefit from not having one.â€? The book was promoted primarily online, and through more than one hundred radio interviews. The implication for libraries is that we need to be watching more than just reviews to keep track of what’s out there. Everything is changing, folks, everything.
The Next Rambo?
The AP says David Morrell’s graphic novel about Captain America “could even be read as a parable of Man, who is basically alone and bound to occupy a permanent place in public consciousness just as the Rambo novels and movies have.”
Barack By the Books
According to Laura Miller in Salon, if Barack Obama is elected, he will be one of the most literary presidents in recent memory. Obama has read deeply and widely, largely holing himself up in his apartment alone when he went to Columbia.
American Wife - Rubbish or Delicious?
Coming soon…a novel that graphically explores the sex life of a fictional George and Laura Bush. Curtis Sittenfeld, the author, says the main character is inspired by Laura Bush, but isn’t Laura Bush. The book will be released just before the Republican Convention, which is set to begin on September 1. Many are calling the book rubbish or even worse, but Maureen Dowd says in the New York Times that it’s the kind of book Laura Bush might curl up to read if it weren’t about Laura Bush. Dowd calls it a “well-researched book that imagines what lies behind that placid facade of the first lady.” Publishers Weekly calls the novel “uneven,” with a “weak conclusion that doesn’t live up to the fine storytelling that precedes it.” Booklist gave it a starred review and said about the author, “what she does here, in prose as winning as it is confident, is to craft out of the first-person narration a compelling, very human voice, one full of kindness and decency.” The Huffington Post calls it “a fictional examination of the life of the First Lady that mingles real facts and incidents with the author’s imaginative, fanciful, sometimes sexually charged musings. The result is a masterful highbrow-lowbrow mash-up that satisfies as ass-kicking literary fiction and juicy gossip simultaneously.” You should know about this one!
Control of Andre Norton’s Unpublished Works to Be Decided by Tennessee Court of Appeals
A dispute between Norton’s caretaker, Sue Stewart, and a lifelong fan of her writing, Victor Horadam, has ended up in court, with a victory for Horadam, and has gone to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Norton left a will and a video about her intentions. “In the video, about a few months before her final execution of the will, she says she wants everything to go to Sue,” said attorney Dicken Kidwell. “In that video, she says, ‘All I have is yours.’ I don’t know how it could be much more explicit.”
In Memoriam, Thomas M. Disch
We’re sad to report that Thomas M. Disch, science fiction author and critic, committed suicide last week. He was 68. Disch was said to have been fighting depression for several years since the death of his long time partner. He was also worried about being evicted from his apartment. Listen to his last interview with Bat Segundo here. Barista reports that Disch used up all his money when his partner Charles was sick, and his landlord recently won an appeal on the basis that the apartment was rented to Charles, not Thomas. Terrible.
Lists
Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Shortlist
Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards
What Would Jesus Read? beach reading with a purpose
August Indie Next- independent booksellers recommendations for August
June IMBA Mystery Bestsellers
July PW Christian Marketplace Bestsellers
The Nancy Pearl Wanderlust Award for Great Airplane Reading
Authors
Elizabeth George
Jumpa Lahiri - wins world’s richest short story prize
Stephenie Meyer - the next J. K. Rowling?
Janwillem van de Wetering obituary
David Wroblewski
And finally, for something totally fun, check out the Pimp My Bookcart contest, brought to you by Unshelved. See you next week!
