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
Well, there isn’t much new on the shelves this week, as publishers pushed their big titles out early enough for holiday shopping. In fact, Iris Johansen’s Treasure is the sole title on our New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer list this week. There are a handful of nonfiction titles, though. Scroll down to the next entry to see the complete list, including a book by Michael Phelps, the best swimmer ever.
In our Most Wanted Mashup, our compilation based on several bestseller lists, the new titles this week include Arctic Drift by Clive and Dirk Cussler, Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz, and of course The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling. On the nonfiction side, the only new title is Rick Warren’s The Purpose of Christmas. We continue with our genre picks of the year in our Under the Radar list. This week, we have Great Mysteries of 2008. As always, look to the right hand column for Most Wanted and Under the Radar.
And don’t miss our end of year feature—a cumulative list of links to various best-of-the-year lists as they are published. So, no need for you to go back through earlier posts. Just check at the bottom of the most recent Run Down, and you’ll find all the lists we’ve discovered to date. The New York Times has a new feature that’s worth notice…print ready promotional material for their Ten Best titles. Check here in case it’s something you can use.
Now, on to the news of the week—most of it pretty depressing, unfortunately. In fact, there’s hardly anything new to report this week except for the book industry’s bleak outlook. As usual, libraries are very busy when the economy is bad, and this is the time of year when many readers advisors out there in library land are publishing their picks of the year. Good: this would be a very good year to encourage people to buy books as gifts.
Layoffs in the Publishing Industry
The headline says it all. There was some very bad news from several publishers in the past week–especially on Wednesday, which some are now calling Black Wednesday. Random House, the world’s largest publisher, made huge reorganization changes, Thomas Nelson laid off 10% of its staff, further job losses were announced at Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster and others. And many longtime booksellers and publishers are calling this retail season the worst in memory.
From Johnny Depp to Dick Clark
Variety has a story of several books whose movie rights have been purchased by Johnny Depp for production. Titles include In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches, Inamorata by Joseph Gangemi, and The Bomb in My Garden by Mahdi Obeidi and Kurt Pitzer. Dick Clark, on the other hand, has bought the rights to the Chicken Soup series for television.
Authors
Patricia Cornwell - interview
Annie Leibowitz - interview
Toni Morrison - video interview
Alex Ross – wins Guardian First Book Award for The Rest Is Noise
RAO’s Cumulative List of 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 – by Stephen King, Amy Sedaris, others
RAO’s Great Romances of 2008
Kansas City Star’s Noteworthy Books of 2008
NPR’s 10 Best Cookbooks of 2008
San Francisco Chronicle’s Holiday Books
NPR’s Best Gift Books of 2008
NY Times 100 Notable Books of 2008
Michiko Kakutani’s Favorites of 2008
Janet Maslin’s Favorites of 2008
Hudson Booksellers Best Books of 2008
Penguin Authors What to Get, What to Give
NY Times 10 Best Books of 2008
NY Times Notable Crime Fiction of 2008
NY Times Best Travel Books of 2008NY Times of 2008
NY Times Best Visual Books of 2008
NY Times Best Cookbooks of 2008
NY Times Best Gardening Books of 2008
NY Times Notable Children’s Books of 2008
The Boston Globe’s Seasons Readings
Penguin Authors: What to Give & What to Get
USA Today’s Stunning Science Books for Holiday Giving
USA Today’s Holiday Guide Gift Books
LA Times Favorite Books 2008
London Times Books of the Year
Stephen King’s 10 Best Books of 2008
Spoken Word Grammy Award Nominees
The Millions: a Year in Reading
Harvard Book Store’s Holiday Hundred
Lighthearted Link of the Week
This week’s lighthearted link isn’t really all that funny unless you’re able to laugh at some pretty weird stuff…which apparently I am. Have a good week. This is a great time of year for weeding.
