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
Looking at the bestseller lists, we find that our Most Wanted Mashup includes The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck. We’re definitely moving into the holiday season. There’s also Wally Lamb’s new book Just After Sunset, and the long awaited A Mercy by Toni Morrison. In nonfiction there are two new hot titles on the list: Artie Lange’s Too Fat to Fish, and Newsweek editor Jon Meacham’s well reviewed biography of Andrew Jackson: American Lion. Look at the righthand column for the complete list of the Most Wanted.

Just below Most Wanted, we’ve begun using Under the Radar for some of our best of 2008 lists for the year. This week we have Under the Radar: Great Romances of 2008. Also, beginning this week, we will post cumulative lists of other people’s 2008 bests at the bottom of each week’s blog so that you don’t have to check a million places to find them all. Should be fun to see how many we can find!

In New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer, we’ve listed as usual, the noteworthy titles that will be published in the upcoming week. There’s not much new this week, with just a couple of nonfiction books, and only a handful of fiction titles. But we have new books by Jim Butcher, Clive Cussler, Dean Koontz and Belva Plain, just to name four. And in nonfiction, we have Calvin Trillin’s latest look at current events through rhyme. See the next entry just below this one to see the whole list. So now. . . on to the news of the week.

What Does the Election of a Black President Mean for Presidential Fiction
Novelists discuss this topic in an AP article. Some interesting insights.

Obama’s Reading List
On a related note, Barack Obama is definitely a reader himself, and according to the New York Times, his reading habits have helped book sales. What’s he been reading lately? Books on FDR. In fact, this is such a trend, that we will keep a cumulative list at the bottom of each Run Down so you can keep up with our new President’s reading. Unlike Bill Clinton, who used to read novels for escape, Barack Obama seems to be studying up for his new job. Encouraging.

Joe the Plumber Gets a Book Contract
Guess it was inevitable. Joe the Plumber hooked up with a writer and is “writing” a book in time for it to be published on December 1. It will be called Joe the Plumber—Fighting for the American Dream, and will be published by a group called PearlGate Publishing. Um, guess it tells you everything you need to know that they can find a writer and get the book published in two weeks or so. Joe has a lot to say.

Sarah Palin Gets a Book Contract
It’s only fair, right? Rumor has it that Sarah Palin will get approximately $7 million as an advance for a book. Has the publishing world gone mad? Will anyone buy either of these “books”? I’m not so sure about Joe, but Sarah will certainly sell some copies.

Mike Huckabee Gets Even
Time reports that Mike Huckabee names names in his book Do the Right Thing. He starts with Mitt Romney, moves to Fred Thompson, and continues from there. Hmm. Is he doing the right thing?

Bourne Goes to Universal
Universal Studios has bought the rights to the Jason Bourne character and a first look at other Robert Ludlum novels. It might be time to restock, guys.

What Will Be Published?
According to The Bookseller, buyers are scared. With the economy so uncertain, it’s tough to sell a book. So we know that celebrity books will be published (see above), and old tried and true names will be published (see above), but will new and midlist authors be able to make it? Probably only if libraries support them. Just my humble opinion. And it’s scary out there for libraries too. On the upside, books make a relatively inexpensive gift, so that may help during the holiday season. And what else can we do about it? Here’s a suggestion on how to be socially conscious in your book buying habits.

Novels Better At Explaining World’s Problems Than Reports
We all knew this already, but it’s very nice to have it confirmed by experts. A team from Manchester University and the London School of Economics says that not only does fiction reach a wider audience, it may do a better job than academic reports. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini “has arguably done more to educate Western readers about the realities of daily life in Afghanistan under the Taliban and thereafter than any government media campaign, advocacy organisation report, or social science research,” the report says. Another quote: “Storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest methods of possessing information and representing reality. The stories, poems and plays we categorise as literary fiction were once accepted in much the same way that scientific discourse is received as authoritative today.” The complete report is here.

Lists
Bad Sex in Fiction Short List
The Top Ten Snow Books

Authors
Clive Barnes – obituary
James Lee Burke – 2009 Mystery Grand Master
John Kenneth Galbraith - on the crash of 1929
Sue Grafton - 2009 Mystery Grand Master
Peter Matthiessen and here.
Edward Sheehan - obituary

The Obama Book Club

Cumulative Lists of the Year’s Best Books
Amazon’s Best Books of 2008 and here
PW’s Best Books of 2008
Hudson Booksellers Best Books of 2008
Best Books We’ve Read This Year – Stephen King, Amy Sedaris, Clyde Edgerton, others
RAO’s Great Romances of 2008

Your link of the week – Calvin Trillin’s new book, Deciding the Next Decider, as is Mr. Trillin’s wont, was written in rhyme. But click here to see Michiko Kakutani’s review–in rhyme! Who would have thought she had such a sense of humor?

To our U.S. friends: Have a great Thanksgiving. Everyone else: Hope you find something great to read this week!

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