Archive for May, 2010

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RA Run Down

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

The readers’s 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 raoblog@lu.com.

By Cindy Orr

This Week In Books

New Titles on the Most Wanted Mashup of Bestsellers This Week

We have 6 new titles on the bestseller lists for this week:

Fiction

  • Mary Balogh – A Secret Affair
  • Lee Child – 61 Hours
  • Phillip Margolin – Supreme Justice
  • Richelle Mead – Spirit Bound
  • John Sandford – Storm Prey

    • Nonfiction

  • Jonathan Alter - The Promise

    • To see the entire Most Wanted Mashup of this week’s bestselling titles, look to the righthand column.
    _____________________________________________
    The New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer titles hitting the shelves in the upcoming week include:

    FICTION

  • Ann Brashares – My Name is Memory
  • Clive Cussler & Justin Scott – The Spy
  • Jeffery Deaver – The Burning Wire
  • Laurell K. Hamilton – Bullet
  • Oscar Hijuelos – Beautiful Maria of My Soul
  • Eric van Lustbader – Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Objective
  • Steve Martini – The Rule of Nine
  • Stephenie Meyer – The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella

    • NONFICTION

  • Dan Ariely – The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefit of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
  • Samantha Bee – I Know I Am, But What Are You
  • Cat Cora – Cat Cora’s Classics with a Twist: Fresh Takes on Classic Dishes
  • Christopher Hitchens – Hitch-22: A Memoir

    • …just to name a few. Scroll down to the next entry to see the long list of noteworthy titles to be published in the next seven days, or click here.
    _____________________________________________
    Our Under the Radar list this week is Books Dads Might Like. Look in the righthand column just under the Most Wanted Mashup for this list.

    _____________________________________________
    And now on to the news of the week:

  • Author Henning Mankell aboard Gaza flotilla stormed by Israeli troops
  • It’s been 100 years, as he requested, and Mark Twain’s autobiography will finally be published this year
  • Little Women attacked by werewolves and vampires
  • To Kill a Mockingbird 50th anniversary celebrations
  • Shelf-Awareness report on BEA
  • Joe McGinniss moves next door to Sarah Palin to research his next book
  • Book sales way up for March; eBook sales continue to skyrocket
  • Scientists prove books in the house make kids smarter
  • Scientists think creative writing can reveal the author’s personality
  • The model digital library
  • Five great summer literary festivals
  • Banner books from BEA
  • Audio Publishers Association would like your help with a survey on use of audiobooks in libraries.
  • Neil Hollands: How to write book discussion questions, part 5
  • BEA buzz books for Fall and more here
  • Flarf poetry moves to mainstream
  • Jindal book delayed
  • George W. Bush book begins with decision to quit drinking
  • First Lady Lit
  • Ghost writers and political books
  • Majority of children’s picture books contribute to rain forest deforestation according to report
  • Rebecca Vnuk: Using RA reference books for displays
  • 1912: the year the Titanic sank was the best year for science fiction ever
  • 2009 Survey of Book Buying Behavior
  • Paranormal romance: what’s the attraction?
  • RUSA Literary Tastes Breakfast tickets on sale
  • 1947 anti-Nazi novel a surprise UK hit
  • More conservative textbooks curriculum passes in Texas
  • Will Manley: How patrons pick out leisure reading books
  • 250 years and still waiting for the death of the novel
  • The 11 greatest literary feuds
  • Six finalists for Amazon’s breakthrough novel award
  • Slideshow: 20th Century publishing in Britain
  • ThrillerFest coming up soon
  • How do you think he did? Writer attempts readers’ advisory suggestions
  • BEA will restore 3-day format in 2011
  • Is Braille a dying language?

    • _____________________________________________
    Books on Screen

  • Pretty Little Liars on ABC
  • Stephen King adaptation headed to SyFy Channel
  • Netflix Dramas Based on Contemporary Literature
  • Which eBook store to choose: the Wall Street Journal compares—reading devices will come and go, but you’ll want your eBooks to stick around
  • E-Book sales jumped 252% in 1st quarter
  • Death in Venice/ Don’t Look Now – how are films different from literature?

    • _____________________________________________
    Awards

  • 2010 Nebula Awards Winners – top award goes to The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
  • Audie Awards: AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR – Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales by Nelson Mandela, narrated by a full cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Helen Mirren, Don Cheadle, and Alan Rickman (Hachette Audio)
  • Ian Thomson wins Ondaatje Prize
  • Ian McEwan wins Wodehouse Prize
  • Arthur Ellis Awards
  • Samuel Johnson Prize Shortlist

    • _____________________________________________
    Authors

  • David Baldacci’s writing schedule and interview
  • Jennifer Belle – hires actresses to read her book in public and laugh out loud
  • Jeffery Deaver – will write the next James Bond book
  • Cory Doctorow – “I give away all of my books.” ” It doesn’t really matter how great your work is; if no one’s ever heard of it, you’ll never make any money from it.”
  • Jennifer Egan – on the art of PowerPoint fiction (video)
  • Col. Robin Evelegh – obituary
  • Sarah Ferguson - scandal boosts sales of her book
  • Neil Gaiman – writes Dr. Who episode
  • Martin Gardner – obituary
  • Parnell Hall - Signing in the WaldenBooks and nobody’s there (video)
  • Victoria Hislop – rejects lucrative American film in favor of Greek job-creating series
  • Garrison Keillor – “I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea.”
  • J. A. Konrath – calls PW article about him an “epic fail”
  • Stieg Larsson – profile
  • Art Linkletter – obituary
  • Yann Martel – favorite books
  • Robert E. Müller – obituary
  • Garth Nix – authors need to adapt or perish
  • Robert Parker – what he meant to the crime fiction scene and here
  • Kim Stanley Robinson – interview – “We live in a pocket utopia, and we need the rest of the world to be utopia, or else we seem like criminals or idiots.”
  • Henry Roth - 5th novel published 15 years after his death
  • J. K. Rowling – may reconsider the ban on eBook versions of her titles
  • Rick Warren – fall book postponed indefinitely
  • Charles Yu – author to watch

    • _____________________________________________
    Lists

  • Christian Science Monitor 8 Smart Books for the Beach
  • Christian Science Monitor Summer 2010 Reading Guide
  • Time Magazine’s Summer Entertainment Book List
  • New York Post Summer Beach Preview
  • Summer Reading: When You Don’t Have to Lie About What You’re Reading
  • Bloomberg’s Top 50 Recent Business Books
  • Books You Could Have Been Jailed for Reading
  • 21 Women Entrepreneurs’ Favorite Books
  • Top 10 Troubled Males in Fiction
  • Tina Brown’s Must Reads on Privacy
  • USA Today’s Hot Summer Books
  • Big Fall Books
  • Census by the Books

    • _____________________________________________
    Lighthearted Links of the Week

  • The 50 Best “Author vs. Author” Put-Downs of All Time
  • The Sweet Valley High Drinking Game
  • Univ of Washington library students remix Lady Gaga

    • Posted in RA Run Down | No Comments »

    Most Wanted Mashup: Hottest Books of the Week

    Sunday, May 30th, 2010
    Fiction

    Nonfiction

    Posted in Most Wanted | No Comments »

    Under the Radar: Books Dads Might Like

    Sunday, May 30th, 2010

    Posted in Uncategorized, Under the Radar | No Comments »

    New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer

    Sunday, May 30th, 2010

    Readers will see these titles in bookstores for the first time this week.

    TUESDAY FICTION

  • Aimee Bender – The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake – 9780385501125
  • Ann Brashares – My Name is Memory – 9781594487583
  • Clive Cussler & Justin Scott – The Spy – 9780399156434
  • Jeffery Deaver – The Burning Wire – 9781439142738
  • Laurell K. Hamilton – Bullet – 9780425234334
  • Oscar Hijuelos – Beautiful Maria of My Soul – 9781401323349
  • Eric van Lustbader – Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Objective – 97804465398144
  • Charles Martin – The Mountain Between Us – 9780767927000
  • Steve Martini – The Rule of Nine – 9780061930218
  • Allison Winn Scotch – The One That I Want – 9780307464507
  • Danny Tobey – The Faculty Club – 9781439154298
  • Cecily Von Ziegesar – Cum Laude – 9781401323479

    • TUESDAY NON-FICTION

  • Dan Ariely – The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefit of Defying Logic at Work and at Home – 9780061995033
  • Samantha Bee – I Know I Am, But What Are You – 9781439142738
  • Laura Fraser – All Over the Map – 9780307450630
  • Alan C. Greenberg & Mark Singer – The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns – 9781416562887
  • Linda Greenlaw – Seaworthy: A Swordboat Captain Returns to the Sea – 9780670021925
  • Juliet Nicolson – The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age – 9780802119445
  • Ed Schultz – Killer Politics: How Big Money and Bad Politics Are Destroying the Great American Middle Class – 9781401323783
  • Kalee Thompson – Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History – 9780061766299
  • Robert K. Wittman & John Shiffman – Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures – 9780307461476

    • WEDNESDAY NON-FICTION

  • Cat Cora – Cat Cora’s Classics with a Twist: Fresh Takes on Classic Dishes – 9780547126036
  • Christopher Hitchens – Hitch-22: A Memoir – 9780446540339

    • FRIDAY FICTION

  • Darren Shan – Procession of the Dead – 9780446551755

    • SATURDAY FICTION

  • Stephenie Meyer – The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella – 9780316125581

    • Posted in New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer | No Comments »

    BEA has its big book: Jean Auel’s final volume

    Thursday, May 27th, 2010

    By Cindy Orr

    Big news from BEA today. According to Publishers Weekly, Jean Auel’s final volume in her Earth’s Children series will be published by Crown on March 29, 2011. The title is The Land of Painted Caves. No ISBN yet, and it’s not even listed at Amazon, but this will be huge, so word will spread fast. My advice? Put it in your catalog anyway, including the pub date. That’s the cleanest way to make your public service staff look like heroes. More info at the PW website. You might want to check the condition of the other five volumes in the series as well.

    Posted in In the News | No Comments »

    Display Brainstorming: June Edition

    Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

    by Sarah Statz Cords

    June is:
    Children’s Awareness Month
    Dairy Month
    Effective Communications Month
    Great Outdoors Month
    Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month
    National Bathroom Reading Month
    National Candy Month
    National GLBT Book Month
    National Safety Month
    Perennial Gardening Month
    Rebuild Your Life Month
    Skyscraper Month

    Holidays in June Include:
    June 13-19: National Flag Week
    June 14: Flag Day
    June 14-20: Men’s Health Week
    June 15: Native American Citizenship Day: June 15
    June 16: Bloomsday (anniversary of events in Dublin recorded in James Joyce’s Ulysses)
    June 20: Father’s Day
    June 21: Summer Solstice (Midsummer)

    June Famous Birthdays:
    Marilyn Monroe: June 1, 1926
    Jefferson Davis: June 3, 1808 (President of the Confederacy)
    Allen Ginsberg: June 3, 1926
    Larry McMurtry: June 3, 1936
    Richard Scarry: June 5, 1919
    Louise Erdrich: June 7, 1954
    Frank Lloyd Wright: June 8, 1867
    Patricia Cornwell: June 9, 1956
    Saul Bellow: June 10, 1915
    Judy Garland: June 10, 1922
    Maurice Sendak: June 10, 1928
    Jacques Cousteau: June 11, 1910 (100th birth anniversary)
    Vince Lombardi: June 11, 1913
    William Styron: June 11, 1925
    George H. W. Bush: June 12, 1924 (41st president of the U.S.)
    Anne Frank: June 12, 1929
    William Butler Yeats: June 13, 1865
    Harriet Beecher Stowe: June 14, 1811
    Joyce Carol Oates: June 16, 1938
    Garfield the Cat: June 19, 1978
    Lou Gehrig: June 19, 1903
    Octavia Butler: June 22, 1947
    Helen Keller: June 27, 1880

    June Historical Events:
    Superman comic debuts: June 1, 1938
    Tiananmen Square Massacre: June 4, 1989
    Robert F. Kennedy assassinated: June 5, 1968
    D Day (World War II): June 6, 1944
    Battle of Bunker Hill (American Revolution): June 17, 1775
    War of 1812 begins: June 18, 1812
    U.S. Constitution ratified: June 21, 1787?
    Korean War began: June 25, 1950
    Britain ceded Hong Kong to China: June 30, 1997

    Sources include: The American Book of Days (Stephen G. Christianson); 2010 Chase’s Calendar of Events; Brownielocks June Calendar; ZanyHolidays.com.

    Posted in Display Brainstorming | No Comments »

    RA Run Down

    Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

    The readers’s 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 raoblog@lu.com.

    By Cindy Orr

    This Week In Books

    Titles new to the Bestseller Lists This Week

    Fiction

  • Emily Giffin – The Heart of the Matter
  • Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – Fever Dream

    • Nonfiction

  • Sebastian Junger – War
  • Ben MacIntyre – Operation Mincemeat
  • Bill Madden – Steinbrenner
  • Geneen Roth – Women Food and God

    • To see the entire Most Wanted Mashup of this week’s bestselling titles, look to the righthand column.
    _____________________________________________
    We have a long list of New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer titles to be published in the upcoming week. Here’s a small sampling:

  • John Grisham – Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer
  • Sherrilyn Kenyon – Infinity: Chronicles of Nick
  • Lisa Kleypas – Married By Morning
  • Stieg Larsson – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
  • Julia Quinn – Ten Things I Love About You
  • Sidney Sheldon & Tilly Bagshawe – Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness
  • Sylvia Browne – Psychic: My Life in Two Worlds
  • John Waters – Role Models

    • There are many more, so scroll down to the next entry to see the whole list of noteworthy titles to be published in the next seven days, or click here.
    _____________________________________________
    Our timely Under the Radar list this week is Graduation Gift Books. Look in the righthand column just under the Most Wanted Mashup for this list.

    _____________________________________________
    And now on to the news of the week:

  • Barbara Hoffert’s BEA scouting report (if you’re lucky enough to go)
  • Terry McMillan’s sequel to Waiting to Exhale excerpted in next four issues of Essence
  • Oprah propels Women, Food and God to the top of the bestseller lists
  • Roger Ebert is writing his memoirs
  • “By the end of 2012, digital books will be 20% to 25% of unit sales, and that’s on the conservative side,” says publishing consultant
  • Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County’s BookHive named one of ALA’s Best Free Reference Websites
  • Extra chapters of Malcolm X’s Autobiography discovered
  • Arrest ordered in Christian book copyright infringement
  • Help Will Manley choose mysteries to read
  • More Star Trek themed novels coming soon
  • Things don’t look so great for Jack Reacher in the latest book (spoiler alert)
  • Amazon publishing arm to begin translating works
  • The juiciest bits from Jonathan Alter’s book on President Obama
  • Discredited author tries another book; will it work? will you buy it?
  • Andre Norton Award goes to a book that wasn’t even published (technically)
  • Publishers use digital “appetizers” for books
  • Lauren Hillenbrand has second book
  • California gubernatorial candidate apparently tried to manipulate the bestseller list for his book
  • Otaka (manga aficionados) meet in the library and study Japanese culture
  • C-Span’s Booknotes archive of author interviews
  • Dell Map Back Mysteries

    • _____________________________________________
    Books on Screen

  • Dustin Hoffman and Anthony Hopkins sign on to film The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
  • Benjamin Mee’s We Bought a Zoo to be directed by Cameron Crowe
  • Christopher Farnsworth sells the rights to his new vampire novel/political thriller Blood Oath

    • _____________________________________________
    Awards

  • Nebula Awards
  • Finalists for the Moby Book Trailer Awards
  • James Tait Black Prize Short List
  • Benjamin Franklin Awards Finalists
  • Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism goes to David Finkel for The Good Soldiers
  • J.G. Farrell’s Troubles wins the “lost” Booker Prize from 1970
  • 2010 Indie Book Awards
  • Desmond Elliott Prize shortlist

    • _____________________________________________
    Authors

  • Max Allan Collins - long interview about Mickey Spillane’s books and his role as co-author
  • Cory Doctorow – on how he found some of his favorite authors: “those writers you discover by a librarian giving you the book or by a friend pressing the book in your hand.”
  • Tim Donaghy – thinks get very messy between the ex-NBA referee and his publisher; lawsuits and restraining orders are involved
  • Barry Hannah - obituary
  • J. A. Konrath – makes publishing history by signing with Amazon instead of his traditional publisher
  • William Mayne – obituary
  • Anne Rice - her California house is for sale
  • Robert Serling – obituary
  • Rebecca Skloot - Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks used for Law and Order episode
  • Studs Terkel – his radio interviews will be digitized
  • Zane – on how she got started by self-publishing

    • _____________________________________________
    Lists

  • Lost reading list
  • Top Ten Welsh Underground Novels
  • IndieBound Poetry Bestsellers
  • Good books that almost nobody has read

    • _____________________________________________
    Lighthearted Link of the Week

  • The Hypothetical Library: Imaginary Book Covers Designed for Actual Authors
  • Who You Gonna Call? (video)
  • Win Money: Lisbeth Salander Look-a-Like Contest

    • Posted in RA Run Down | No Comments »

    New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer

    Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

    Readers will see these titles in bookstores for the first time this week.

    MONDAY NONFICTION

  • Manjit Kumar – Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality – 9780393078299
  • Charlene Li – Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead – 9780470597262
  • Robert McCrum – Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language – 9780393062557

    • TUESDAY FICTION

  • Carin Clevidence – The House on Salt Hay Road – 9780374173142
  • Christie Golden – Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies – 9780345509147
  • John Grisham – Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer – 9780525423843
  • H.T. Hamann – Anthropology of an American Girl – 9780385527149
  • Sherrilyn Kenyon – Infinity: Chronicles of Nick – 9780312599072
  • Lisa Kleypas – Married By Morning – 9780312605384
  • Stieg Larsson – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – 9780307269997
  • Julia Quinn – Ten Things I Love About You – 9780061491894
  • Kris Radish – Hearts on a String – 9780553384758
  • Michael Scott – The Necromancer – 9780385735315
  • Sidney Sheldon & Tilly Bagshawe – Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness – 9780061728303
  • Matthew Stover – God of War – 9780345508676
  • Jacquelin Thomas – Samson – 9781439109403

    • TUESDAY NON-FICTION

  • Sylvia Browne – Psychic: My Life in Two Worlds – 9780061966729
  • Zev Chafets – Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One – 9781595230638
  • Greg Gutfeld – The Bible of Unspeakable Truths – 9780446552301
  • Sashs Polakow-Suransky – The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa – 9780375425462
  • John Robbins – The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less – 9780345519849
  • Danielle Staub – The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey – In Her Own Words – 9781439182895
  • John Waters – Role Models – 9780374251475
  • David Zinczenko – Drink This, Not That – 9781605295398

    • THURSDAY NON-FICTION

  • Robert N. Butler – The Longevity Prescription: The 8 Proven Keys to a Long, Healthy Life – 9781583333884

    • Posted in New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer | No Comments »

    Most Wanted Mashup: Hottest Books of the Week

    Sunday, May 23rd, 2010
    Fiction

    Nonfiction

    Posted in Most Wanted | No Comments »

    Under the Radar: Graduation Gift Books

    Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

    Posted in Under the Radar | No Comments »

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