Archive for April, 2011

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How can the library be our third place?

Friday, April 29th, 2011

by Sarah Statz Cords

I’ve just started reading a book titled The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, by Ray Oldenburg. First published in 1989, I’m reading a copy that was re-issued in 1999. I’m not very far along in it yet, but I believe the gist of it is that “great good places” (or “third places”) give people a place outside of home and work where they can gather together and enjoy a little socializing and community. I’m not very good at socializing, personally, but still the idea of these types of “third places” is very appealing to me.

When I do feel the need to get out into the community, I do often like to browse bookstores. I don’t really strike up conversations with others, but I do like to wander and see what types of people are browsing in what types of sections (who’s reading business books today? Who’s looking at the new nonfiction display?), and I love to sit in the coffee shop and eavesdrop on conversations and spy on book covers. But with the recent closing of my local Borders (not to mention the widespread shuttering of video rental, music, and other brick-and-mortar stores), I’m rather left to wonder, where will I go to eavesdrop when all the bookstores close?

This is a depressing thought personally, but I think it indicates a huge opportunity for libraries. How do you think libraries can work to become “third places” even more than they currently are? Host more book groups? Events? Partner with other community organizations and businesses for promotions? Let us know what you think. In the meantime I’m off to see what the new displays are in my local library, and maybe spy a bit on other readers wandering a bit in the stacks.

Posted in A Closer Look | No Comments »

RA Run Down

Sunday, April 24th, 2011

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. Also check out our free newsletter with more in-depth articles at Reader’s Advisor News.

By Cindy Orr

New Titles On the Bestseller Lists


Fiction

  • Jodi Picoult – Sing You Home

  • Nora Roberts – Chasing Fire

  • Lisa Scottoline – Save Me

  • David Foster Wallace – The Pale King

    • and watch:

  • Kyung-Sook Shin – Please Look After Mom

  • Sister Souljah – Midnight and the Meaning of Love

  • Nonfiction

  • Katie Couric – The Best Advice I Ever Got
  • Kerry Patterson, et al. – Change Anything
  • Nikki Sixx – This Is Gonna Hurt
  • Myron Wentz, Dave Wentz – The Healthy Home

    • Watch:

  • Stephenie Meyer – The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide

    • Mass Market Paperback

  • David Michaels – Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Combat Ops
  • Jodi Thomas – Texas Blue

    • To see the entire Most Wanted Mashup of this week’s bestselling titles, look to the righthand column.

    To Be Published This Week:

  • Sherryl Woods – Moonlight Cove (mass market) – 9780778329794 – 555,000 copies
  • Christine Feehan – Savage Nature (mass market) – 9780515149333 – 500,000 copies
  • Rachel Gibson – Any Man of Mine (mass market) – 9780061579110 – 450,000 copies
  • Lori Foster – When You Dare (mass market) – 9780373775712 – 350,000 copies
  • Debbie Macomber – A Turn in the Road - 9780778329831 – 300,000 copies
  • John H. Davis – Twilight of the Godfathers – 9780060195670 – 290,000 copies
  • Jerry Hall – Jerry Hall: Self-Portrait – 9780062016300 – 250,000 copies
  • Madeline Hunter – Dangerous in Diamonds (mass market) – 9780515149340 – 210,000 copies
  • Rob Lowe – Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography – 9780805093292 – 300,000 copies

    • This is just a sample. Scroll down or click here for the complete list.

    Under the Radar List

    Look to the right hand column just under the Most Wanted Mashup for our Under the Radar List. This week it’s Yummy Buzz: New Nonfiction Foodie Titles.


    News of the Week:

  • Roger Ebert – “Why do I think reading is important? It is such an effective medium between mind and mind. We think largely in words. A medium made only of words doesn’t impose the barrier of any other medium. It is naked and unprotected communication. That’s how you get pregnant. May you always be so.”
  • Good news for once: W H Smith will open 50 new bookstores in the UK
  • The truth behind the Laura Ingalls Wilder books
  • Nominate and vote for the best and worst book trailers
  • When we read, we psychologically become part of the community described in the narrative
  • Who is the common reader nowadays?
  • College basketball star Kemba Walker admits he’s just finished reading his first book cover to cover
  • Study shows 1 in 4 readers trust book suggestions from Ellen DeGeneres, and 1 in 5 parents would pick The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss to pass on to their children
  • Greg Mortensen’s insane defense
  • Piracy is a huge problem…but if that’s true, why are eBook sales growing so quickly?
  • In defense of military science fiction
  • The attraction of paper books
  • I come here to praise Frank and Joe Hardy. . .
  • The New Yorker book club
  • Manga pioneer Tokyopop closes US office
  • Which books don’t sell?
  • Library of America publishing schedule for 2011 includes Kurt Vonnegut
  • Salman Rushdie chooses books for NY hotel rooms
  • Can there ever be a Great American Novel?
  • Los Angeles Review of Books, “the first major, full-service book review to launch in the 21st century” has a preview edition up
  • Borders still $50 million short
  • Stephen Hunter’s rant about the BBC’s snubbing of speculative fiction in their World Book Day coverage morphs into a petition signed by 85 other authors as well
  • There’s a clear link between reading a good book and getting a good job
  • Cheap eBooks crowd the bestseller lists
  • Singer Morrissey of The Smiths says he’d consider publishing his book with Penguin if they designate it a classic
  • Webinar: Christian Fiction Spring Round-Up – May 5

    • Books on Screen

  • Justin Cronin’s The Passage headed to film
  • Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur is in production
  • Video from the set of The Hobbit
  • Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad will be an HBO miniseries
  • The 10 Most Badly Bungled Classic-Book-To-Film Adaptations
  • Trailer for Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, coming to the big screen in August
  • Hugh Laurie will play Mr. Watts in the movie version of Mr. Pip
  • Dragonriders of Pern will finally be a feature film
  • HBO orders a second season of Game of Thrones already

    • Awards

  • Beryl Bainbridge, five time Booker nominee, finally wins one for Master Georgie…posthumously
  • Nominees for Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards
  • Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction go to Jennifer Egan for A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, History to The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner, Biography to Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow, and Poetry to The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by Kay Ryan
  • 2011 Lukas Prize winners
  • Shirley Jackson Award finalists
  • YALSA Teens’ Top Ten nominees
  • 2011 Thriller Award Winner nominees
  • The Dagger Awards longlist

    • Authors

  • Beverly Barton – obituary
  • John Buchan – profile by Michael Dirda
  • Does the novel have a future?
  • Jennifer Egan – won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, then the Pulitzer Prize, and now she’s one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world
  • Lev Grossman – has little affection for authors who are “placing a premium on the difficulty of the reading experience”

    • Lists

  • The Best Books on the American Civil War
  • A Roundup of Books on the Gulf Oil Spill
  • Biblical Fiction for Easter and Passover from RA for All
  • Top 10 Quest Narratives
  • “No one dies but the best friend”: RIP Secondary Characters

    • Lighthearted Link of the Week

  • Just what you’ve been waiting for: book-scented fragrance

    • Posted in Most Wanted | No Comments »

    Most Wanted Mashup

    Sunday, April 24th, 2011

    Posted in Most Wanted | No Comments »

    Under the Radar: Yummy Buzz—New Nonfiction Foodie Titles

    Sunday, April 24th, 2011
    • Lisa Abend—The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria’s el Bulli
    • Grant Achatz—Life, on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness
    • Annia Ciezadlo—Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War
    • Gabrielle Hamilton—Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
    • Ben Ryder Howe—My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store
    • Aki Kamozawa—Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
    • Graham Kerr—Growing at the Speed of Life
    • John F. Mariani and Lidia Bastianich—How Italian Food Conquered the World
    • Geneen Roth—Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations about Food and Money

    Posted in Under the Radar | No Comments »

    New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer

    Sunday, April 24th, 2011

    TUESDAY FICTION

  • Cherry Adair – Hush (Lodestone) – 9781439153826 – 250,000 copies
  • Chris Adrian – The Great Night: A Novel – 9780374166410 – 50,000 copies
  • Anna Campbell – Midnight’s Wild Passion (mass market) – 9780061684302 – 150,000 copies
  • Chris Cavender – A Pizza to Die For – 9780758229526
  • Sandra Dallas – The Bride’s House – 9780312600167 – 100,000 copies
  • Christine Feehan – Savage Nature (mass market) – 9780515149333 – 500,000 copies
  • Lori Foster – When You Dare – 9780373775712 – 350,000 copies
  • Rachel Gibson – Any Man of Mine (mass market) – 9780061579110 – 450,000 copies
  • Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper – Beneath a Starlet Sky – 9780312544423 – 75,000 copies
  • Janice Hamrick – Death on Tour – 9780312679460 – 15,000 copies
  • Jenny Han – We’ll Always Have Summer – 9781416995586
  • Madeline Hunter – Dangerous in Diamonds (mass market) – 9780515149340 – 210,000 copies
  • Siri Hustvedt – The Summer Without Men – 9780312570606
  • James Jaros – Burn Down the Sky (mass market) – 9780062016300 – 100,000 copies
  • Sherrilyn Kenyon – Born of Shadows (The League) – 9780446573252 – 75,000 copies
  • Kris Kennedy – Defiant – 9781439195901 – 100,000 copies
  • Sarah Maclean – Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart (mass market) – 9780061852077 – 250,000 copies
  • Debbie Macomber – A Turn in the Road - 9780778329831 – 300,000 copies
  • Isaac Marion – Warm Bodies – 9781439192313 – 100,000 copies
  • Fern Michaels – Southern Comfort – 9780758227171 – 150,000 copies
  • Rachel Morgan – Bound By Darkness (mass market) – 9781439176047 – 125,000 copies
  • Francine Prose – My New American Life – 9780061713767 – 50,000 copies
  • Harry Turtledove – The Disunited States of America (Crosstime Traffic)(YA) – 9780765328243
  • Sherryl Woods – Moonlight Cove (mass market) – 9780778329794 – 555,000 copies
  • Stuart Woods – Bel-Air Dead (Stone Barrington) – 9780399157363 – 300,000 copies

    • TUESDAY NONFICTION

  • Howard Blum – The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush – 9780307461728
  • Howie Carr – Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano: Whitey Bulger’s Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld – 9780765326393 – 100,000 copies
  • Gilbert Gottfried – Rubber Balls and Liquor – 9780312668112 – 100,000 copies
  • Bob Greene, et al – 20 Years Younger: Look Younger, Feel Younger, Be Younger! – 9780316133784 – 750,000 copies
  • Jane Gross – A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents–and Ourselves – 9780307271822
  • David D. Hall – A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England – 9780679441175
  • Brianna Karp – The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness: A Memoir (trade paper) – 9780373892358 – 100,000 copies
  • Mark Kurlansky – What?: Are These the 20 Most Important Questions in Human History–or Is This a Game of 20 Questions? - 9780802779069 – 50,000 copies
  • Rob Lowe – Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography – 9780805093292 – 300,000 copies
  • Demetri Martin – This Is a Book – 9780446539708 – 150,000 copies
  • Leigh Montville – Evel: The High-Flying Life of Evel Knievel: American Showman, Daredevil, and Legend – 9780385527453 – 100,000 copies
  • E. Duke Vincent – The Camelot Conspiracy: A Novel of the Kennedys, Castro and the CIA – 9781590206393
  • Michael Zukoff – Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II – 9780061988349 – 200,000 copies

    • WEDNESDAY FICTION

  • Camilla Läckberg – The Preacher – 9781605981734

    • THURSDAY FICTION

  • Roddy Doyle – Bullfighting: Stories – 9780670022878 – 20,000 copies

    • SUNDAY FICTION

  • Rosalind Laker – The House by the Fjord – 9780727880055
  • J.M.G. Le Clezio – Mondo and Other Stories – 9780803230002
  • Philip Gooden – The Durham Deception – 9780727869951
  • Cora Harrison – Scales of Retribution – 9780727869968

    • SUNDAY NONFICTION

  • John H. Davis – Twilight of the Godfathers – 9780060195670 – 290,000 copies
  • James Fadiman – The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys – 9781594774027
  • Jerry Hall – Jerry Hall: Self-Portrait – 9780062016300 – 250,000 copies
  • William R. Handley – The Brokeback Book: From Story to Cultural Phenomenon – 9780803226647
  • Lawrence Kudlow – The Rising Tide: Why Tax Cuts Are the Key to Prosperity and Freedom - 9780060582692 – 150,000 copies
  • Sarah Cedar Miller – Strawberry Fields: Central Park’s Memorial to John Lennon – 9780810997868 – 15,000 copies
  • Richard Schilling – Portraits of the Prairie: The Land That Inspired Willa Cather – 9780803222601
  • Timothy S. Susanin – Walt Before Mickey: Disney’s Early Years, 1919–1928 – 9781604739602

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

    OverDrive system to offer Kindle compatibility

    Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

    Great news:

    Amazon and OverDrive each issued a press release today announcing that they will work together to provide access to eBooks in the Kindle format for lending by libraries. OverDrive’s explanation is here, and Amazon’s is here.

    This may remedy perhaps the most common complaint with OverDrive’s service so far…that it was not compatible with the Kindle, which has the largest share of the eReader market. Here’s hoping that it also will provide libraries with access to eBooks that have been published exclusively by Amazon.

    Library Journal has a longer explanation, and other media outlets will undoubtedly be covering it in more depth as details become available.

    Posted in Noteworthy | No Comments »

    Can we even be sure it was three cups of tea?

    Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

    by Sarah Statz Cords

    Or was it two? Or four?

    One of the biggest book stories of the week has been the allegation, first made by CBS’s 60 Minutes news program, that large chunks of Greg Mortenson’s bestselling 2006 memoir, Three Cups of Tea, have either been exaggerated or completely made up.


    I have been following the story with interest, as I personally disliked the book (I’ll admit I didn’t read the whole thing; I got bored, and I didn’t care for Mortenson’s “voice”). I’m not usually happy when memoirs are debunked, as I feel such incidences are damaging to the credibility of all memoirs, but I didn’t feel overly surprised or disillusioned to hear that parts of Three Cups of Tea might have been exaggerated, or to learn of charges that Mortenson’s personal finances and speaking tours/book promotions are a little too closely entwined with the finances of the charity he established, the Central Asia Institute (CAI).


    Does that sound convoluted? I’m trying to step very, very carefully here. I’m willing to believe most of the 60 Minutes report (and Jon Krakauer’s allegations), but I seem to be in the minority: I read several pages of the comments at the CBS site, and most readers were unhappy with the reporting of this story, charging CBS with irresponsible journalism and for making sure that “no good deed goes unpunished.”


    What about you? Convinced that Mortenson is telling the truth, or Krakauer is, or that they’re both playing fast and loose with some facts? Will this be the memoir meltdown that finally derails the memoir popularity train?

    Posted in In the News | 2 Comments »

    RA Run Down

    Sunday, April 17th, 2011

    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. Also check out our free newsletter with more in-depth articles at Reader’s Advisor News.

    By Cindy Orr

    New Titles On the Bestseller Lists



    The bestseller lists had a huge turnover this week. Here are the titles that weren’t there last week:

    Fiction

  • Cassandra Clare – City of Fallen Angels
  • Mary Higgins Clark – I’ll Walk Alone
  • Michael Connelly – The Fifth Witness
  • Diane Mott Davidson – Crunch Time
  • Richard Paul Evans – Miles to Go
  • Beverly Lewis – The Judgment
  • Danielle Steel – 44 Charles Street

    • Nonfiction

  • Tina Fey – Bossypants
  • Shep Hyken – The Amazement Revolution
  • Ashley Judd, with Maryanne Vollers – All That Is Bitter and Sweet: A Memoir
  • Manning Marable – Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
  • Jillian Michaels – Unlimited
  • Jesse Ventura, Dick Russell – 63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read

    • Mass Market Paperback

  • Christina Dodd – Taken by the Prince
  • Lora Leigh – Navarro’s Promise

    • To see the entire Most Wanted Mashup of this week’s bestselling titles, look to the righthand column.

    To Be Published This Week:

  • David Baldacci – The Sixth Man (King and Maxwell) – 9780446573108 – 800,000 copies
  • Nora Roberts – Chasing Fire – 9780399157448 – 800,000 copies
  • Iris Johansen – Eve – 9780312651206 – 400,000 copies
  • Ted Dekker – The Priest’s Graveyard – 9781599953342 – 250,000 copies
  • Marcia Clark – Guilt by Association – 9780316129510 – 200,000 copies

    • This is just a sample. Scroll down or click here for the complete list.

    Under the Radar List

    Look to the right hand column just under the Most Wanted Mashup for our Under the Radar List. This week it’s Earth Day 2011 (April 22)—New Environmental Titles.


    News of the Week:

  • Malice Domestic mystery conference – Bethesda, MD April 29-May 1
  • Going to BEA? Don’t forget Library Journal’s Day of Dialog
  • Jonathan Franzen on David Foster Wallace’s Suicide: one reader asks if this is a memoir, reportage, a way to get the last word?
  • Random House creates new US-UK imprint called Hogarth
  • $100,000 600-year-old book found in Utah
  • Bitter Borders images
  • Should reading be promoted as a legal drug?
  • Facebook gets most user response on Thursdays
  • 60 Minutes investigation alleges that Three Cups of Tea is full of inaccuracies. Author Mortensen stands by the information
  • eBook service growing in UK libraries
  • In Defense of the Book As Container
  • Harris Poll show that a majority (56%) of Americans believe that no book should be banned completely; 26% were not sure; 18% believe some books should be banned; opinions on banning books are linked to political philosophy, education level, and age
  • Delayed paperbacks hurting bookstores
  • eBook sales up 202.3% in February and eBooks pass an important milestone: selling more than all other formats; see details all nicely laid out here
  • The richest crime writers
  • UK literary agents consider revising code of practice so they can become publishers
  • David Foster Wallace’s Pale King revives questions about whether unfinished works should be published poshumously
  • YALSA looking for a member-manager for The Hub
  • Disney will print 1.5 million copies of Rick Riordan’s next title
  • PC Magazine: consumers will get more and more comfortable with trusting the cloud for access, and not worrying about ownership of content
  • Publishers at London Book Fair think hottest YA books are trending from paranormal romance to dystopian and postapocalyptic stories

    • Books on Screen

  • Tobey Maguire cast in Life of Pi
  • Daniel Radcliffe will star in Susan Hill’s Woman in Black
  • Sally Field will play Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln film (based on Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, with screenplay by Tony Kushner)

    • Awards

  • Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist: Obreht, Donoghue, Krauss, others
  • IMPAC Dublin Prize shortlist – Joseph O’Neill, Marilynne Robinson, Robert Edric, Ross Raisin, Muriel Barbery, Christoph Hein, Gerbrand Bakker, and Zoë Heller; entries by some of the big names called “sloppy”

    • Authors

  • Suzanne Collins – her next YA book will deal with teens whose parents are deployed to war…something that she experienced with her own father
  • Roald Dahl – his stories will appear on cereal boxes
  • L. J. Davis – obituary
  • Walter Isaacson – working on authorized biography of Steve Jobs
  • Richelle Mead – talks about her plans for Bloodlines, the upcoming spinoff of Vampire Academy
  • Craig Thomas – obituary
  • Walt Whitman – papers in his handwriting found in the National Archives

    • Lists

  • Top 10 books that are best read when people tell you you’re too young for them
  • 15 Most Famous Cafes in the Literary World
  • Top 10 Historical Novels of the Past Year
  • Smart Comedy
  • Top 10 Books of the South

    • Lighthearted Link of the Week

  • 20 Insanely Creative Bookshelves

    • Posted in RA Run Down | 3 Comments »

    Most Wanted Mashup

    Sunday, April 17th, 2011

    Posted in Most Wanted | No Comments »

    Under the Radar: Earth Day 2011 — New Environmental Titles

    Sunday, April 17th, 2011

    Posted in Under the Radar | No Comments »

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