Archive for December, 2011

RA Run Down

Monday, December 26th, 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. TRY THE FREE RA DATABASE based on Libraries Unlimited’s print Genreflecting Advisory series. Give it a whirl and let us know how you like it. 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 and Sarah Statz Cords

New To the Bestseller Lists This Week:

FICTION

  • Cornwell, Patricia – Red Mist
  • James, P. D. – Death Comes to Pemberley
  • Leigh, Lora – Lawe’s Justice

    • To Be Published Week of Dec. 26, 2011, to Jan. 1, 2012:

    Fiction


  • Cook, Robin – Death Benefit
  • Gorman, Ed – Blindside
  • Hoag, Tami – Down the Darkest Road
  • Iggulden, Conn – Conqueror
  • Koontz, Dean R. – 77 Shadow Street
  • Patterson, James, Maxine Paetro – Private: #1 Suspect

    • Nonfiction

  • Immaculee Ilibagiza, Steve Erwin – The Boy Who Met Jesus: Segatashya of Kibeho
  • Rule, Ann – Don’t Look Behind You: Ann Rule’s Crime Files #15 (mass market)
  • Zaslow, Jeffrey – The Magic Room

    • This is just a sample from our picks of the week. Scroll down or click here for the complete list, including ISBNs.


    Best Books of 2011



    It’s Best Books of the Year season! Look to the right hand column for our collection of links, or click here. As we find new lists, we’ll add them at the top of the column.


    News of the Week:


    Don’t scoff at SF

    Occupy Wall Street: The book

    New York Times to sell 16 regional newspapers

    eBook News:
    Yet another thing librarians are good at: helping people use eReaders

    Read Google eBooks offline

    Will rising eBook prices send readers back to paperbacks?

    In the publishing world:
    The Borders liquidation plan is approved

    ALA Publishing acquires Neal-Schuman

    Ten Predictions for Publishing in 2012

    Who’s the celebrity behind indie publisher Perceval Press?

    The obligatory weekly post on the state of publishing (from Robert McCrum)

    Social Media tidbits:
    Are you Pinning (on Pinterest) yet?

    What IS social reading?

    Books and friendship: What a study of Facebook users reveals


    Professional Development Opportunities:


    Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults seeking papers on “21st Century Literacies”

    New ALA webinar: “Organizational Storytelling for Librarians (Jan. 10, 2012)

    Books on Screen

    New season of Downton Abbey to start Jan. 8!

    Harrison Ford, Abigail Breslin on board for Ender’s Game

    Bored to Death (based on a book by Jonathan Ames) canceled by HBO

    The first Hobbit trailer is out!

    Daughter of Smoke and Bone movie adaptation planned

    Director David Fincher talks Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sequels (oh, and this link includes some Ghostbusters sequel news too! Bonus!)

    Is Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook headed to Broadway?


    Awards


    The London Film Critics Circle has nominated a lot of movies adapted from books

    Storyville to offer reward for short fiction


    Authors


    Lev Grossman announces the working title of his new novel in the Magicians series

    The top religion author of 2011? Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow

    Ron Paul in comic book format

    Wimpy Kid author vs. Zombie Kid publisher

    Walter Isaacson (author of the latest Steve Jobs bio) now planning book on Ada Lovelace

    Sherlock Holmes: Perennially popular


    Lists

    Nielsen Bookscan’s Top DVDs, books

    10 Best Movies of 2011 (Christian Science Monitor)

    Most Overlooked Books of 2011 (GalleyCat)

    Seven free eBooks everyone should read

    Best Book Adaptations of 2011 (Flavorwire)

    Ten legendary haunts of artists and writers


    Lighthearted Links of the Week

    Genre writes to literature: “Please, please, darling let us stop this. This artificial separation between us is painful…”

    Disney characters: Steampunked!

    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    RA Run Down

    Sunday, December 18th, 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. TRY THE FREE RA DATABASE based on Libraries Unlimited’s print Genreflecting Advisory series. Give it a whirl and let us know how you like it. 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 and Sarah Statz Cords

    New To the Bestseller Lists This Week:

    FICTION

  • Cornwall, Patricia – Red Mist
  • James, P. D. – Death Comes to Pemberley
  • Leigh, Lora – Lawe’s Justice

    • To Be Published Week of Dec. 19-25, 2011:

    Fiction


  • Griffin, W. E. B. – Covert Warriors – 300,000
  • Transtromer, Tomas – The Deleted World
  • Woods, Stuart – D. C. Dead – 300,000

    • Nonfiction

  • Bertsche, Rachel – MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend
  • Kiyosaki, Robert T. – Rich Dad’s Prophecy: Why the Biggest Stock Market Crash in History Is Still Coming
  • Solin, Daniel R. – The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read

    • This is just a sample from our picks of the week. Scroll down or click here for the complete list, including ISBNs.


    Best Books of 2011



    It’s Best Books of the Year season! Look to the right hand column for our collection of links, or click here. As we find new lists, we’ll add them at the top of the column.


    News of the Week:


    Another busy week for Amazon news:
    Fallout from their price-comparison app continues to make the Internet rounds
    Even Senator Olivia Snowe takes the company to task for the app
    Now they’re revealing numbers: Amazon claims to be selling a million Kindles a week

    Tired of Best Book lists? How about top book headlines of 2011?

    Free Books! to celebrate World Book Night

    Seattle Reads 2012 picks its book

    HuffPost announces new book club

    IndieNext list for January 2012

    APA 2011 Sales Survey highlights

    Is there a market for long-form journalism in short e-book form?

    Overdrive article on e-book lending

    New books blog at New York Daily News!


    Professional Development Opportunities:


    Sale on PLA digital training kits, through December 31.

    Free Booklist webinar on Young Adults Romances, January 10

    Discussion on 21st Century Reader’s Advisory in your library

    Books on Screen

    Hunger Games cookbook to be published

    Sequel in the works for the movie Drive (from a book written by James Sallis)

    Breaking Dawn and Harry Potter were the year’s big movies

    What to Expect when You’re Expecting trailer


    Awards


    For all you anglophiles: Downton Abbey star is Booker judge


    Authors


    It was a rough week for the literary world.
    Obituaries:
    Christopher Hitchens
    Russell Hoban
    Playwright, essayist, and former Czech president Vaclav Havel
    Needleworking guru and author Erica Wilson
    Joe Simon, a creator of Captain America
    George Whitman, a founder of Paris’s Shakespeare and Company bookstore
    Children’s publisher Ned Waldman

    Charlotte Bronte probably could have used cash like this when she was alive

    Sale of Naguib Mahfouz archive causing controversy

    Denise Mina to adapt Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series into graphic novels

    Larry McMurtry is the new book critic at Harper’s Magazine

    Actor Tom Sizemore to write memoir

    Rob Lowe to publish new book

    Posthumous collection of essays by John Updike to be published

    Author Simon Winchester publishes app–on skulls, of all things


    Lists

    The Year in Film: Best Performances

    25 most beautiful college libraries

    Neil Hollands is once again doing the Best Books of 2011 Compilation at Williamsburg Regional Library


    Lighthearted Links of the Week

    What your Favorite Book of 2011 Says About You

    Alexander McCall Smith on How to Arrange Your Bookshelf

    Holiday decorating with books!

    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Author Christopher Hitchens has died.

    Friday, December 16th, 2011

    Bestselling author and all-around rabble-rouser Christopher Hitchens, 62, has died.

    Posted in In the News | No Comments »

    RA Run Down

    Sunday, December 11th, 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. TRY THE FREE RA DATABASE based on Libraries Unlimited’s print Genreflecting Advisory series. Give it a whirl and let us know how you like it. 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 and Sarah Statz Cords

    New To the Bestseller Lists This Week:

    FICTION

  • Connelly, Michael – The Drop
  • Gabaldon, Diana – The Scottish Prisoner

    • NONFICTION

  • Burpo, Todd – Heaven Is for Real (Deluxe Edition)

    • GRAPHIC BOOKS

  • Herge – The Adventures of Tintin, vol. 2
  • Snyder, Scott – Batman: The Black Mirror
  • Valve Presents: The Sacrifice

    • To Be Published Week of Dec 12-18, 2011:

    Fiction

  • Clancy, Tom – Locked On – 9780399157318
  • McInerny, Ralph M. – The Compassion of Father Dowling – 9781432825102
  • Nesbø, Jo – The Leopard – 9780307595874

    • Nonfiction

  • Buffett, Mary – The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio – 9781451606485
  • Edited by Blumenkranz, Carla – Occupy! Scenes from Occupied America – 9781844679409

    • This is just a sample from our picks of the week. Scroll down or click here for the complete list, including ISBNs.


    Best Books of 2011



    It’s Best Books of the Year season! Look to the right hand column for our collection of links, or click here. As we find new lists, we’ll add them at the top of the column.


    News of the Week:


    Amazon has had a busy week:

    Controversial app will allow shoppers to price-check, AND they’ll blatantly pay shoppers not to shop in bookstores. The ABA isn’t happy about it either.

    Amazon also continues its forays into publishing by buying Marshall Cavendish titles

    The company has also reached out to self-published authors to expand its Lending Library

    Is the fix in on e-book prices? The Justice Department is investigating.

    They’re not letting Amazon get them down: Indie bookstores report holiday sales up

    Are microfictions the new, new thing?

    Chicago Sun-Times joins New York Times behind a paywall

    Warner Brothers to delay new video releases to libraries

    Celeb memoir sales way down in the UK

    Another way of looking at “best books”

    Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobsis Amazon’s bestselling book of 2011

    The obligatory weekly piece on the future of publishing; and here’s another one, just because I love him, by John Green


    Professional Development Opportunities:


    The PLA wants to know: How is your library doing on e-books?

    Don’t forget! Nominations for the Margaret E. Monroe Award and the Louis Shores award for book reviewing are due by Thursday, December 15.

    Books on Screen

    Universal Studios Hollywood is getting its own Harry Potter theme park

    Anne Rice’s novel Christ the Lord being adapted into a film: Can’t wait to see if casting is as controversial as it was when they chose Tom Cruise as Lestat

    Does the world need a remake of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho?


    Awards


    This year’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award Winner: David Guterson!

    Judges named for next year’s Booker Prize panel

    Catherine Hall wins Green Carnation Prize


    Authors


    Elisabeth Young-Bruehl: obituary

    British poet Christopher Logue: obituary

    Novelist Gilbert Adair: obituary

    Jerry Robinson, illustrator of Batman’s Joker, dies

    Ann Patchett to sell, as well as write, books

    Kurt Vonnegut’s son not happy about Charles Shields’s new biography of his father

    Wells Tower just says no to Internet interviews

    Alan Moore joins Occupy Comics

    What keeps journalists going?

    50 Cent gets a workout book deal


    Lists

    Critically acclaimed authors who never win prizes

    Dec. 7 was the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor: Books about it


    Lighthearted Links of the Week

    Other things to do with books

    Is this what Jane Austen looked like?

    Make a secret door in your bookcase!

    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    RA Run Down

    Sunday, December 4th, 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. TRY THE FREE RA DATABASE based on Libraries Unlimited’s print Genreflecting Advisory series. Give it a whirl and let us know how you like it. 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 and Sarah Statz Cords

    New To the Bestseller Lists This Week:

    FICTION

  • Crichton, Michael – Micro
  • Evanovich, Janet – Explosive Eighteen

    • NONFICTION

  • Beck, Glenn, and Kevin Balfe – Being George Washington
  • Droyd, Ann – Goodnight iPad
  • Lady Gaga and Terry Richardson – Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson

    • GRAPHIC BOOKS

  • Bocquet, José-Louis – The Adventures of Herge
  • Green Lantern: War of the Green Lanterns
  • Johns, Geoff – Flash vol. 2
  • Legends of the Dark Knight: Marshall Rodgers

    • To Be Published Week of Dec. 5-11, 2011:

    Fiction

  • Cornwell, Patricia – Red Mist – 9780399158025
  • Desai, Anita – The Artist of Disappearance – 9780547577456
  • McCall Smith, Alexander – The Forgotten Affairs of Youth – 9780307379184


    • Nonfiction

  • Dalai Lama XIV – Beyond Religion – 9780547636351
  • Weiner, Eric – Man Seeks God – 9780446539470
  • Shange, Ntozake – Lost in Language & Sound – 9780312206161

    • This is just a sample from our picks of the week. Scroll down or click here for the complete list, including ISBNs.


    Best Books of 2011



    It’s Best Books of the Year season! Look to the right hand column for our collection of links, or click here. As we find new lists, we’ll add them at the top of the column.


    News of the Week:

    Book bloggers, have you been enjoying getting review copies? At least one publisher may be slowing down the bounty…

    Watch for your Dec. 15 Library Journal; CODES members have written an end-of-year Reader’s Shelf

    Byliner.com getting in on the fiction act

    Love those old books: check out this book-repair video

    Indie Bound releases mobile app to help readers find books

    A bests list of bookstores: America’s most beloved indies

    Fall into fantasy

    E-books yet to catch on in Japan?

    Even the President is getting more holiday shopping done than I am: Obama shops for books

    Seth Godin’s predictions on book publishing

    E-book selling tips (that could be adapted into e-books RA tips)

    Amazon wants to tell you they’re selling a lot of Kindles, but is coy about exactly how many

    They should be reading! More preteens watching TV

    Is Facebook offering IPO in 2012?


    Professional Development Opportunities:


    Nominations for the Margaret E. Monroe award close on Dec. 15

    RUSA’s Louis Shores award for excellence in book reviewing nominations close on Dec. 15

    Help us learn how readers read! Take the Citizen Reader Survey of 2011

    Books on Screen

    In the Garden of the Beasts optioned by Tom Hanks

    Light effects in latest Twilight film making people sick? No matter–it’s still made over half a billion bucks

    Another Austen mashup movie in the works

    Trailer for Pure (based on Juliana Baggott’s YA novel)

    Literary web videos, collected

    Harry Potter to Howl? Daniel Radcliffe to star as Allen Ginsberg

    William Faulkner: Coming soon to a small screen near you


    Awards


    Grammy nominations for Tina Fey and Betty White

    Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies wins Guardian first book award

    Nicanor Parra wins Cervantes prize


    Authors

    Lana Peters: obituary

    Archie Satterfield: obituary

    Christa Wolf: obituary

    Judy Blume: NPR interview

    Nicole Krauss: Interview

    Quentin Rowan apologizes for plagiarism

    Authors to watch? NY Literary Cubs

    Pippa Middleton to pen party planning book

    Real Housewife Taylor Armstrong to write abuse memoir


    Lists

    10 Books to give nonreaders

    Gift ideas for comic book readers

    New York Times Notable Cookbooks 2011

    Want to get those tweens reading instead of watching TV? Consider these 5 books


    Lighthearted Links of the Week

    Forty inspiring quotes about reading

    Famous authors’ rejection letters

    Scotland’s book sculptor returns!

    Posted in RA Run Down | No Comments »

    Margaret E. Monroe award: call for nominations

    Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

    RUSA is still seeking nominations for the Margaret E. Monroe adult services award!

    The nomination form is at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/awards/monroe/index.cfm. Below is a description of the award, from the RUSA website.

    “Established in 1985, the Margaret E. Monroe Award is a citation presented to a librarian who has made significant contributions to library adult services. The individual may be practicing librarian, a library and information science researcher or educator, or a retired librarian who has brought distinction to the profession’s understanding and practice or services for adults.

    The criteria for ’significant contributions’ will be judged by such factors as publications, leadership, measurable effectiveness of programs, influence on others, and creative and innovative concepts.”

    The deadline for nominations is December 15, 2011.

    Posted in In the News | No Comments »