Breaking News from Jessica Zellers

You’ve read the column. Now see the act.

“He Reads/She Reads� columnists Kaite Mediatore Stover and David Wright have taken their show on the road for a one-time only performance.

Your humble blogger would like to take this opportunity to reassure Kaite that the dress did not, in fact, make her butt look big. The dress looked very nice on Ms. Stover, though it was too flowery for my personal tastes.

Sorry. I’m getting distracted.

Jane, you ignorant slut…

Sorry, sorry. Here we go, really:

Kaite and David write the “He Reads/She Reads� column for Booklist. This session was a development of that column. David kicked things off with the manly perspective. Have I mentioned that the man is insane? He already did a program today. Ye gods.

Those folks in the audience who showed up hoping for scholarly research on gender and literacy soon realized that they were in entirely the wrong session. The discussion was funny and casual and irreverent. Still though, a few legitimate findings were shared from the get-go:

Men read less than women
Men value reading less than women do
Men read less fiction and “literature� than women do
Men read more factual and informational stuff than women do
Men read magazines, like women, but read more newspapers than women do
Men read more graphic novels and comics than women do
Men still read more SF than women do
Men don’t really want to read books about women, or by them
Men have narrower tastes than women, and possibly deeper
Men are completists and collectors
Men like reading about stuff that interests them, like sports, hobbies, etc.
Men don’t really want to talk about what they read.

(“Men don’t really want to talk, period,� wise-cracked this blogger.)

Then David showed some slides of pseudo-romance covers. I never did figure out how they were germane to the presentation, but they were hilarious.

“Men like romances where men fight some people, get paid in nookie, and then move on,� said David. “We call these Westerns.�

Westerns are about, ahem, “fightin’-n-fornicatin’.� Louis L’Amour is all well and good, but he doesn’t have enough nookie for real guys. What men really want are the series Westerns, with authors such as William W. Johnstone, Terry C. Johnstone, Richard S. Wheeler, and Matt Braun. Forget the literary Western stuff.

Then Kaite took a turn, with info that complemented David’s findings:

Women read more than men do.
Women value reading more than men do.
Women read more fiction and literature than men do.
Women read less factual and informative books than men do.
Women read magazines and newspapers.
Women like reading books about women, men, families, tragedy, comedy, history, etc., and they don’t care who wrote the book.
Women have very broad tastes and will tolerate experimental fiction a little more than men will.
Women enjoy talking about what they read.
Women will stick with a book longer than men will, hoping it gets better.
(“Like with relationships,� quipped this blogger.)

Women like to read romance, Kaite said. It is escapist literature for us. It is the biblio equivalent of a piece of fudge. It’s our version of a night of peace and quiet. We like chick lit, too. It’s fun and frothy, with a lot of heart, hope, and humor.

But sometimes we want to spice it up with something more than hearts and flowers. In that case, try Blood Music, about a woman who realizes that the publicity about a serial killer sounds awfully like they’re describing her husband. Another good choice is Night Woman, about a woman who’s been writing critically acclaimed novels, but whose husband has been getting the credit; what happens when the husband dies? Or try Jodi Picoult for books with substance.

We like these deep, meaty books, said Kaite. We like to read about nutty families and relationships, with a healthy dose of maternal sacrifice, teenage angst, and dysfunction.

Well and good, said David, but when men are stressed, we do not curl up by a fire with Rosamunde Pilcher and talk through our problems. We’d rather think about guns and killing things. Don Pendleton’s Executioner series, for instance, or other series of similar ilk, with titles like (I’m not making this up) The Enforcer, The Expeditor, and The Penetrator. Not enough libraries buy these. You don’t even have to catalog them. Just keep a collection.

Superheroes are still popular with men, said David, as well as mysteries, especially older crime fiction. Try the Parker books by Richard Stark, about a professional thief. Ever had a guy patron who had James Patterson in his hand, saying “I dunno, it’s just too slow?� Parker’s for that guy.

The age of the hard-boiled men’s paperback age is over, and it’s dearly missed, but the Hard Case Crime series (featuring authors such as Lawrence Block) is bringing back the lurid cover. Woohoo! And Ian Fleming’s books have been re-released with some delightfully smutty, misogynistic covers.

Then we got to hear from Kaite again, with her slant on graphic novels. She resisted them for a long team because it seemed that all of them were either superheroes or dorky dweeby guys. All the women had huge breasts, “positively pneumatic.�

“I don’t know any woman who can face her problems in a thong and a metal bikini top,� said Kaite. Me neither.

But none of the women in the graphic novels Kaite finally selected are wearing thongs (or if they are, we don’t know about it). There’s some substance to go along with the Zap! Bam! Pow! scene.

For instance, there’s Smoke and Guns, about dueling cigarette empires in New York. The women were constantly blowing up stuff and seeking revenge, while smoking cigarettes and maintaining perfect makeup. It’s a completely escapist, blow-em-up, woman-centric book.

Or try Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, a memoir of growing up in a funeral home, and about the secret life of her father.

[Aside from the blogger: Yes, please try Fun Home. This is the most cerebral, intellectually challenging book I’ve read in years. It’ll make you feel smarter and cooler.]

Or there’s Cancer Vixen, by Marisa Acocella Marchetto, a nonfiction chick lit memoir. It’s witty, with lots of fashion and shoes.

Or switch tracks completely. Why not try sports? Christine Brennan wrote Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating’s Olympic Gold Medals, as well as Inside Edge: A Revealing Journey into the Secret World of Figure Skating. There are thoughtful analyses of this cutthroat sport. The uniforms might be made of sequins but these athletes are as tough as any hockey players. Besides, everyone knows that women love ice skating. While you’re at it, give them Joan Ryan’s Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters. Too girly? Then try Nanci Kincaid’s novelization of football, told from the point of view of many different women. The title is, ahem, Balls: A Novel.

Then David came back for a bit, launching us right into a talk about men and machines. There’s Delilah, by Marcus Goodrich, or Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, or Wasp, by Eric Frank Russell. Or then again there’s Catapult: Harry and I Build a Siege Weapon, by Jim Paul.

Men also like fantasy, but none of the girly feminist crap like Marion Zimmer Bradley. For the exact opposite of The Mists of Avalon, read The Conquering Sword of Conan, by Robert E. Howard.

Bear in mind, too, that guys love maps, and atlases, and especially historical atlases. These shouldn’t just be reference books. Men want to take them home and pore over them.

Another great male genre is Arctic exploration, including books such as The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson. Then you’ve got misadventure books, such as Redmond O’Hanlon’s Trawler, or anything by Richard Marcinko, who is testosterone squared.

Eh, let’s talk about girl stuff again, said Kaite. Look at Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America’s Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry, by Mary Lisa Gavenas, or Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. These books present science and social commentary in an accessible way.

Of course there are books about cooking and crafts to consider. Hidden Kitchens gives us history, geography, philosophy, and some lore along with those recipes, and Debbie Stoller is starting a revolution one stitch at a time with Stitch N Bitch.

(Note from the blogger: Debbie Stoller rocks. It doesn’t matter if you can knit or crochet. That’s not the point.)

And finally, said Kaite, we women like to read about working. There are books about traditional women’s jobs, such as Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress, by Debra Ginsberg, and Other People’s Dirt: A Housecleaner’s Adventures from Cape Cod to Kyoto, by Louise Rafkin. Or, of course, Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women, by Alexa Albert. There are also books about women in non-traditional jobs, such as Caroline Paul’s Fighting Fire.

The session more or less ended here, with questions that followed. It left me feeling a little bit alarmed. Every book David talked about sounded really cool to me, whereas nearly every book Kaite described sounded awful. Because of this program I’m having a gender identity crisis. Thanks, Kaite and David. Thanks a bunch.

The Q&A session is described below. Not everything is transcribed verbatim, but the spirit of the questions is preserved.

Question from audience: Do you worry about stereotyping in the columns?

Kaite: Yes. I try to avoid whiny, try to avoid man-bashing. I try to find worthwhile ways for women and men to pass their time. I try to find things you might not have heard about, books that maybe need a second chance at life.

David: I don’t avoid stereotypes. I propagate them. I take a light approach to it. I embrace the stereotypes. I know that there are plenty of very literate men who aren’t going to be interested… but there aren’t any columns out there for the regular men readers. That’s my ideal audience.

Question from audience: Most of what you’re saying is entertaining, but it has real consequences. Women in my library control most of the collection decisions. A lot of books for men are (unintentionally) being left out.

David: Yeah. We think about race and culture and all that; we need to think about men, too. If you’re getting Harlequins, you should get male adventure series. And then you need to market them.

Question from audience: Humor me and cross up the stereotypes. What do you want to confess?

Kaite: I love those lost-in-the-wilderness books, and books about extreme sports, and about disasters. I loved Into Thin Air. In a nutshell, I like the books where the guys get lost and it’s crazy. I read a lot of sports fiction and nonfiction.

David: I am more of a fiction reader than a nonfiction reader. Does that count? That’s not typically guy. I hear women complain all the time, “Oh, my husband just reads nonfiction, I can’t get him to read a novel.�

But I’m a readers’ advisor so I make a point of reading outside my comfort zone. I have read romance novels. It really was excruciating for me. It was really hard for me to get through.

[Blogger note: You should have seen his face. Looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.]

I had to read a lot of Zane recently. You know, it’s easier just to look at pictures.

Question from audience: I have a book club comprising men and women. They rely on me to help them select their books. Do you have any recommendations?

David: Do a mix of fiction and nonfiction. Read The Ha-Ha, by Dave King. It’s a book about war and violence, but also about communication and relationships. Or read The Grace That Keeps This World by someone… It’s set in the Adirondacks. It’s about a man and his sons, beautifully written.

Kaite: Read Everything Changes, by Jonathan Tropper. It has similar themes as to what David mentioned, but it’s more accessible and lighter. Or read American Shaolin by Matt Somebody. It’s a guy book, about an American man who wants to be a kung fu master like in the movies, so he moves to China, and he becomes a Shaolin master. It’s got sports, it’s got spirituality, it’s got a very fast pace, exploration of culture, humor.

David.: How about Golden Spruce? Kinda like The Perfect Storm, a compelling read for almost anyone who picks it up.

Question from audience: All the guys are in nonfiction. Many of them come in and they have a circuit. They get the newspaper, the stock tables, US News and World Report. Then they leave. How to we convince them to look at a book?

Kaite: Put stuff in their way. Leave some stuff on their tables. Be a little surreptitious about what you’re going to push.

David: I agree, it’s about marketing. And that’s great and it’s important. But, if in the final analysis, reading for these guys means factual business stuff… embrace that. It’s no more of a problem than your women who just read romances. If that’s what they do then that’s what they do.

Question from audience: How do you approach readers?

David: The fiction collection I have is bigger than many of the libraries you work in. We have to stalk readers. I do go up to people to see if I can help them. “Are you finding what you need?� or even “Hey, how’s it going,� especially if it’s a guy. Never ask guys if they need help. They’ll never admit it.

People don’t come to a library knowing they can get reference, let alone RA. You can’t sit back and do it. Seventy-five percent of the interactions I get are the ones I deliberately start. And do displays. And have an armload of books as a prop, so it doesn’t look like you came over specifically to creepily talk to them.

Kaite: We do some roving. I let them know that I’m in the vicinity. I do approach an awful lot of our patrons, though, like David, I avoid “Can I help you?� because I’m not trying to sell clothes. That seems to work very well, having a non-confrontational demeanor.

Question from audience: I was a bookseller for eight years before we went to library school. I had a lot of male customers who bought a lot of books, yet I find I can hardly move SF at our library. Do you think that men are more likely to buy books, rather than come to the library?

Audience answer: if it’s a series, yeah, people would rather buy it.

And that’s all from me, folks, for this conference, anyways. Now I have to go and seriously contemplate what it means to have a woman’s body and a man’s reading tastes.

Muckraking by Jessica Zellers

David Wright is insane. He’s doing two presentations in one day.

So he’s insane, but he’s also a library celebrity. He writes for, like, everyone in the library world. He’s a readers’ advisor with the Seattle Public Library, and I privately suspect that he’s read every book ever written. That’s how knowledgeable this guy is. It’s disgusting. Makes the rest of us look like chopped liver.

David moderated the presentation. Guess who needed moderating?

C’mon, guess.

Okay, I’ll tell you. There were three people. One was Carrie Somebody, a senior publisher with HarperCollins. (Sorry! Didn’t catch her last name!). One was Kelly Link, one of the hottest—and best—new names in fantasy and short fiction.

And the third person was Zane. If you haven’t heard of Zane by now, you’ve been living in a cave at the bottom of a remote mountain somewhere. A cave with, like, dragons guarding the moat around it. Sounds neat. I’ve always wanted a moat.

So, right, the presentation. David started by explaining the age group in question, young adults—not the 13-18 crowd, but the folks one rung up, the twenty-somethings. We don’t see them in the library too often. They graduate and get a job and a life but they don’t go to the library. It’s like the library waves bye to them when they leave college: “So long! Come back when you have kids!�

And yet, says David, twenty-somethings are some of the most exciting and enthusiastic readers to serve. They’re looking for meaning in what they’re reading. It’s not just a pastime for them.

Why aren’t the twenty-somethings coming into the library? Well, face it: libraries aren’t exactly cool. And it’s not like you can go out, get a tattoo, and transform into a cool person. Tattoos aren’t the answer. If you’re out of touch and get a tattoo, you’ll just be an out-of-touch person with a tattoo.

[Commentary from the blogger: I have five piercings and two tattoos, but I’m twenty-six. I think I’m supposed to.]

So don’t run out and get pierced unless you really want to. If you want to impress your twenty-somethings, you have to be conversant in the kinds of things these readers are looking for. That’s what makes you cool.

How do you get in touch with what they’re reading? Forget the standard mainstream media. Oprah can’t help you with this. Instead, try the alternative media, including underground publications and blogs. If you’re not reading the online community, you’re losing touch with the younger crowd. That’s all there is to it.

But don’t despair! You may be able to find some common ground with these folks in the older authors. The twenty-somethings aren’t just reading the most recent or the hottest authors. You may have a lot of success with cult fiction, for instance.

For instance, you can try pushing Dostoevsky, who incidentally is this blogger’s very favorite novelist. Know why alternative, anti-mainstream culture is called “underground� culture? It’s because of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. You might also have luck pushing Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, and Hunter S. Thompson. Sure, they’re older, but they are unfiltered and real and genuine.

Or try some of the newer cult authors, the post-modernist sorts such as David Foster Wallace, Mark Danielewski, and several others whom I will not admit that I’ve never heard of.

Or go whole hog and get yourself acquainted with an emerging genre, slipstream, aka neo-fabulism. These surreal books leave the ground of naturalism and take you into strange and wonderful places. Try Haruki Murakami, for instance, a weird but very accessible writer who includes lots of pop references. Or try Kelly Link, who starts out normal but then sends you to really odd places.

The point to remember is that slipstream is not your typical, mainstream sort of genre. It’s moving around all the edges you want to put around it. This is what it means for a lot of readers. It’s something just a little different.

Who else might work for your twenty-somethings? There’s Chuck Palahniuk, who takes special pains to be visceral and shocking. Or maybe try Indie Lit star Dave Eggers. (Remember him? He wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). Or just try getting ideas from the books Best American Nonrequired Reading and Best American New Voices or magazines McSweeney’s or The Believer.

Memoirs, especially those concerning dysfunction and addiction, tend to be popular. You can call on Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar, or go with something more recent, such as Running with Scissors or Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. These books are striking for their tone: despite the horrific events, they are disaffected, droll, and disturbingly funny.

And then of course there’s Lynda Barry. (This blogger would like to take the opportunity to implore you to introduce yourself to Lynda. One! Hundred! Demons! is a good starting point, or you could go with my personal favorite, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies!)

Then David said something which I think is very much worth quoting verbatim:

“If you’re one of those people who’s still on the fence about graphic novels, you really need to get off.�

This means you.

David regretted that he was unable to spend much time discussing graphic novels, but he recommended using Drawn and Quarterly as a good way to get a feel for what’s going on with GNs these days.

Then David moved on to talking about Street and Urban fiction. A bit of definition, here: Street Lit is a violent genre. It’s about life on the streets, about thug life. Its characters are usually racial minorities. Street Lit is a sub-genre of Urban Lit, a broader term for literature about racial minorities, but which does not necessarily include a violent component. Street Lit is an exploding genre, with Vickie M. Stringer, Iceberg Slim, Chunichi, and Donald Goines being some of the biggest names.

Though Street Lit books are violent, they don’t usually preach. They don’t moralize. They just tell it like it is.

The hallmark book of Street Lit is The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah. It’s a wonderful crime family saga, not dissimilar to the Sopranos, if you want to think of it like that.

“You need to read this,� said David. “It will give you something in common with so many of your readers.�

Let me repeat that again, because I think it’s so important: you need to read The Coldest Winter Ever.

Very many Street Lit authors are self-published, or else started off that way before they got big. Vickie M. Stringer, (founder and publisher of Triple Crown) for instance, decided to write a book about her experiences while she was in jail doing time for drugs. The publishers didn’t want it, so Stringer published it herself, a process that’s much easier now than ever before.

The ease of self-publishing means that we’re seeing movements from the ground up. We’re getting to see new authors coming out of nowhere. It’s actually a selling point. The raw voice of the self-published Street Lit author is authentic. It’s life on the streets from people who really know what it’s like. It’s not the sissified mainstream version. It’s the real deal.

What should delight every librarian in the land is that books are part of the hip-hop culture. There’s bling, there’s jewelry, and now there are books. The books are bringing people into the library who are not used to reading.

“And then,� said David, “we get to Zane.�

Zane writes erotica: frank, freaky erotica. It is very graphic, titillating, and exciting. What’s interesting about Zane’s books is that she started online a decade ago. She just wrote a few erotica pieces and tossed them online. It snowballed from there. She came out of nowhere. Now she’s opened a bookstore called Zane’s Endeavors, she’s gone mainstream with Strebor, and she’s expanding into videos, film, lingerie, and sex toys. It’s entrepreneurial craziness.

So, David summarized, remember this:

No tattoos or piercings are required
Listen to your patrons
Pay attention to what they’re reading
Find clues as to what they like in pop culture: TV, magazines, websites, and blogs. “Even an hour every week [with this stuff] will make you cooler, really.�

Then we got to hear from the panelists. These transcriptions are not necessarily verbatim, but the spirit of the comments has been preserved:

Carrie: I think what we’re finding is that what was old is new again. We’re seeing a lot of young writers out there.

Kelly: The biggest change we’ve seen is the way that readers find books. If you read a novel and love it you go online and find an interview the author’s done, find people talking about it. We need more communication between the online communities and libraries. A lot of people now, when they’re looking for books, are going to blogs first.

Zane: I have a blog on MySpace. I do read and recommend a lot of books. I started out on the Internet. I never intended to put out a book until people clamored for it. Word of mouth is very, very important. This year we’re doing 60 books—five books a month.

David: What if librarians are new to this? What can they do?

Carrie: Do MySpace. It’s really easy. Start making friends. Meet authors, people in the community, local coffee shops, local bookstores… Encourage patrons to blog on that MySpace page. I can’t figure out my TiVo, so for me to be able to do this—that’s how technically easy it is. MySpace is free. I highly recommend it.

Kelly: One of the things the lit bloggers do is, they create community, they create connections. Because there are a great many readers now who are not just fans of one category of fiction but who want to browse in lots of places. When I was in my 20s I would go around to the different genres and I would feel a little bit self conscious. Now there are a lot of readers out there who read in different genres.

David: There’s this whole kind of question of genre, for librarians. What does genre matter anymore?

Kelly: I worked in a children’s bookstore for a long time. Categories are useful for finding books. But the more you read, the more fearless you come about seeking out books that aren’t necessarily intended for you in your genre. Genre is useful but there’s more adventure if you’re going to a lot of different sections. Find ways to encourage the readers who like to migrate between these different categories.

Zane: Try to get the email of everyone who comes into the door of your library. That’s one way I’ve been successful in keeping up with readers. It’s a way to let people know what’s coming out.

David: Zane, this is something that librarians deal with a lot: your books are seen as controversial. There are concerns among some communities about graphic sex in books. There are no euphemisms in your books, no “manhoods rising.� What about age appropriateness?

Zane: There’s nothing I can do to prevent younger readers from reading my books. They’re intended for twenty-somethings, but I know I have a lot of younger readers. As for the controversy, no, I don’t sugarcoat anything. But my books are about a whole lot more than that: I believe that women shouldn’t be walking away from sex, no more than men. Also, most women aren’t comfortable discussing sex. I think if I can empower women to talk about sex it will trickle over into other areas of their lives. It can make them more confident. America is still a sexually repressed country. We accept violence more than sex. How come it’s okay to see someone’s head chopped off on TV but not to see sex?

David: Why don’t men read erotica?

Zane: Well, I know a lot men who do, but my books are usually written for women, women’s issues. A lot of men write to me and tell her that their wives are hot now, after having read my books.

…Then we had questions from the audience.

Audience question: Are there any recommendations for more conservative communities?

Carrie: I’d go back to the classics, like Brave New World or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Audience question: Thanks for Magic for Beginners, Kelly. Thanks, Zane, for bringing new readers into the library. Would it be possible for you to direct people to the library, have them ask the library to request these authors?

Panelists: Yes!

Audience question: Your books keep getting stolen, Zane. What can we say to our collection development librarians who don’t want to keep buying you?
Zane: Keep buying me anyway.

David: It’s worth the money of having stuff in the library that’s so cool that people don’t want to bring it back.

Audience question: I just want to recommend librarything. It’s super cheap. The suggester and unsuggester work very well. People are using their own tags.

Carrie: Blogs, tags, and word-of-mouth are vital for book recommendations.

Kelly: My favorite form of recommendations are the staff recommends displays. And any kind of display that throws together books you might not normally see together. It’s drawing from different genres, something that encourages readers to go a little bit deeper, places they might not normally go.

David: That’s the heart of RA. And for folks who still think that Web 2.0 is not relevant:
There is Web 2.0 for book lovers. We may be uncomfortable not being in a position of authority, but it’s there.

Audience question: I’m a collection development librarian. If you’re spending money to put items on the shelves to give your readers what they want… you can’t put a price on that.

[Wild applause from whole room]

Audience question: Zane, we can’t keep you on the shelf. Are you embarking on a teen book? Please?

Zane: Yes. Kids are impatient, so I want to get four written before I launch, but maybe 2008.

…And that’s it from me, folks. Did you catch that last bit? Zane’s working on a book for teens! Yippee!

Expert reporting by Jessica Zellers

Each year I make a point to see the Alex Awards. Last year, for instance, I got to sit directly in front of Neil Gaiman. Afterwards I got to shake his hand.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the same hand that is typing this post has touched the living flesh of Neil Gaiman. The man is beyond hot.

But I digress.

The reason I make a special point of going to the Alex Awards is because the books are always awesome. Ten Alex Awards are given each year to adult books that have appeal for teens.

The great thing about teens is that they’re impatient. They’re not going to slog through sleepers. They want books paced at a good clip; they want dialogue to spice things up; they want everything in the plot to be on point.

That’s a bit of a generalization, but generally it’s true. Teens won’t put up with the same crap adults do. That’s why I love the Alex Award winners.

The Alex Awards are named in honor of Margaret “Alex� Alexander Edwards, who believed that teens should have complete access to adult books, back when that was a radical idea. The Alex committee takes it mission seriously. These folks read 17,000 pages last year in their quest to pick out the best adult books for teens.

The committee members booktalked the ten winners, which I have briefly (and probably ineffectively, but bear with me) summarized below:

Book of Lost Things, by John Connelly. If Stephen King and the Brothers Grimm had a love child (biologically impossible, but humor me, okay?), the son would be John Connelly. A 12-year-old boy in World War II slips into an alternate world and then tries to find his way back in this very twisted fairy tale.

The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig. Who knew homesteaders could be so interesting? Set in the early twentieth century, this book is about history, change, and community.

Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska, by Michael D’Orso. This is the true story of basketball, community, and growing up in frosty Alaska. You don’t have to like basketball to like the book. No, really.

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. A 93-year-old man tells his story in flashbacks. Immerse yourself in the life of a circus worker, the animals he cares for, the forbidden love he can’t deny.

Color of the Sea, by John Hamamura. You’ve got samurais, you’ve got Japan, and you’ve got honor in this vivid historical epic novel of loyalty, courage, and war. Samurai warriors! How can you go wrong?

Floor of the Sky, by Pamela Carter Joern. It’s the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, Grandmother Toby is about to lose her land to the bank, and 16-year-old Lila is preggers. Doesn’t sound like things are going so hot, but Lila slowly learns to love Nebraska as she begins to uncover the tragic story of her grandmother’s past.

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, by Michael Lewis. Don’t like football? Doesn’t matter. You’ll still like this book, the compelling personal story of a football player and the development of the left tackle position.

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. This is a fresh take on a coming-of-age story. Meet Jason, a 13-year-old in Britain in 1982, as he learns about pain, life, and new beginnings.

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. You’re probably already familiar with this book, after all the buzz it got last year. It’s a creepy gothic ghost story of secrets, betrayal, and cruelty.

The World Made Straight, by Ron Rash. Drugs, violence, and remarkably unpleasant people populate this tale of hard knocks in down-and-out Appalachia. The question is whether Travis will be able to overcome the odds against him.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Alex winner I want to read most, because Ron Rash hails from my neck of the woods in Western North Carolina, the place I grew up.

How do I know this? Because he said so himself. As soon as the booktalks were finished, Ron Rash stood up and talked about his books and about reading. He started with a story about his childhood, when his grandfather would read The Cat in the Hat aloud. Pretty impressive, considering that the grandfather was illiterate. He invented a story to go along with the pictures, and changed it each time he “read� it aloud. It took Ron a few years to realize that most books have a fixed story.

The best regional writers tend to be the most universal, says Ron. Faulkner’s Missippippi and Marquez’s Colombia are exotic and yet compellingly familiar. All good literature has universal appeal, and that’s what Ron strives to do with his Appalachian mountains. He avoids sentimentalizing the region, though he confesses that he loves to evoke the language of Appalachia.

(Allow me to point out that he says it the right way. It’s App-uh-latch-uh. Maybe they say it differently up North, but from our part of the country, “app-uh-lay-shuh� just doesn’t cut it.)

Ron recalled a time he was in a convenience store in Boone, North Carolina. A young woman wearing a nice smile and not too much else walked in.

“Girl doesn’t have enough clothes on to wad a shotgun,� somebody remarked. This is the sort of evocative regionalism that Rash tries to include in his writing.

Ron then proceeded to regale us with an excerpt from his first novel. It was enough to make a girl homesick.

Aside: afterwards, I walked up to introduce myself, though I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who got a free copy of his book. I just wanted to say hi.

“Where are you from?� he asked.

“Weaverville,� I said.

His eyes got wide. “Are you really?�

So then we had a great little chat about Western North Carolina and how great it is. Then he tried to talk me into giving him my hat.

“Trade you a copy of my book for it,� he said. Sorry, pal. You’ll have to pry my fedora from my cold dead fingers.

After Ron read from his book, Jeanette Walls talked to the audience, giving us the perspective of an Alex winner one year after the fact. Her memoir The Glass Castle won an Alex last year.

Jeanette started by letting everyone know that the award means a lot to her, coming from librarians. It also means a lot to her that teens read it. She hadn’t wanted to write her life story. She was afraid she’d lose her job if people knew the truth about her past.

But then she wondered to herself, What if a privileged teen read the book and learned what it was like to grow up poor?

Even better, what if an underprivileged teen read the book and took hope from it?

This is exactly the sort of thing that’s happened. Teens going through a rough time have read Jeanette’s book and realized that they’re not alone. And some funny stories have come out of it. For instance, there was the eleventh grader who had never read a book in his life, but who read Jeanette’s book cover to cover. Why? “This here is a fine white trash story.�

And then there was the time an African-American woman came up to her. “Thank you for writing this book,� she said. “Until I read this, I thought only black families acted this crazy.�
This blogger freely confesses that she got teary-eyed a few times, listening to Jeanette talk. Jeanette’s had a difficult life, but her story has helped a lot of other folks get through their own problems.

I’ll conclude with a bit of advice that has served me well. The Alex winners are great for teens, obviously; that’s the whole point of them. But don’t forget to recommend them to your adult readers. They’re great choices for adults who want fast-paced, compelling, entertaining reads.

Crack reporting by Jessica Zellers

Through a marvelous stroke of luck, I managed to crash the Orbit luncheon on Saturday. Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group. Orbit has been publishing Science Fiction and Fantasy in the United Kingdom since 1974, but now they’re hopping across the pond to the United States.

May I first mention that I got to spend lunch sitting next to the Orbit Publishing Director, who is dreamy. He has this to-die-for English accent. The man could have recited the periodic table of the elements and I would have been spellbound.

The poor man made the mistake of asking me if I liked to Science Fiction and Fantasy. I think he was just trying to be polite. There’s no way he could have anticipated that speculative fiction is my very favorite type of reading. Luckily for him, he was able to escape my dissertation-length discussion because he was the first featured speaker.

Tim started by telling us a little bit about Orbit in the UK. It was launched in 1974, at the same time as the invention of the disposable razor.

“It was therefore a year of considerable cultural significance,� said Tim.

Orbit is the UK’s leading SF/F imprint, with 70+ titles published per year. Their publishing strategy is short and to the point: “To publish the most exciting SF and Fantasy for the widest possible readership.� Major Orbit authors include Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, and Tad Williams.

(Aside: Have you read Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series? It’s awesome. Read it while you’re waiting for George R. R. Martin to get off his duff and write the next book.)

SF/F currently constitutes about 10% of the fiction market, but Orbit believes that it should take up more. Why? SF/F takes up far more of the market in other forms of entertainment (movies, TV, computer games) and in children’s books. It’s time for adult books to follow suit. Orbit hopes to move things along by publishing books for people who like their fiction to be challenging, exciting, engaging, and a lit bit different. The majority of these new titles will be published in trade paperback, which is a fair bit more attractive than mass market editions.

And—this is just fabulous—Orbit is going to do something about the cover art. “We believe that imaginative fiction deserves imaginative covers,� said Tim. Maybe the reason that SF/F has a reputation for being juvenile, formulaic, and silly is because of all those stereotypical covers. You know what I’m talking about—the busty ladies, the lustrous-waving-hair macho men, and the hideous beasties trying to capture said busty ladies. Orbit’s going to try to make the cover art look a little bit more respectable.

Tim then told us about some of the highlights of launch season, including Brian Ruckley’s Winterbirth. It is a big, brutal, bloody epic fantasy. It’s set in a world of ice and blood, in a bleak, inhospitable land based on Scotland. It’s not the sort of world where magic comes along and saves the day. It’s a brutal tale of warring clans.

I. Am. SO. Excited. This book sounds right up my alley. As soon as I get back from conference, I am going to have to call in sick so I can read the galley.

Another launch season debut will be Jennifer Rardin’s Once Bitten, Twice Shy, an urban fantasy with a kickass heroine and vampires. The main character is an assistant assassin. Cool!

Another debut will be Black Ships, by Jo Graham. It has beautiful cover art. There are these lovely moody blue tones and a partial image of a woman’s face. Tim told us that Black Ships develops character, though, and place in a beautifully eloquent, beautifully economical way. But then he stopped talking because Jo Graham herself took over.

It’s a historical fantasy, she explained, a retelling of The Aeneid, in the same way that The Mists of Avalon is a retelling of the Arthurian legend. Jo first encountered The Aeneid as a high schooler taking Latin. Because she was working with a foreign language, she read it very, very carefully. (“Ah! He sat on the horse, not under it!�)

“The Aeneid is a historical novel, of course,� said Jo. Right, Jo. Of course it is. We all knew that. Er.

Inspired by The Aeneid, Jo sets her novel in 1200 BCE, a time of great crisis. Except for Egypt, all of the great empires are collapsing. Literacy in Greece has actually disappeared.

These days, archaeologists seem to think that the battle of Troy was actually two separate wars, ten years apart. Jo’s novel Black Ships (coming out in March of 2008) works on the premise that slaves were captured in the first war. It’s told from the point of view of one of the slave girls.

Then Jo read an excerpt. Though she only read the first two pages of the novel, it was apparent that the language is lovely, concise, and evocative.

This is one to look out for. You heard it here.

Ace reporting by Jessica Zellers

First, the most important part: I was in the same room as Judy Blume. Aieeee!!!

Second, a guilty confession: I don’t listen to audiobooks. I think it’s wonderful that they exist and I have absolutely no prejudice against them; it’s just that I don’t care to interact with a text by listening to it.

So this was a vital session for me. If I’m not going to listen to audiobooks, I need every bit of supplemental knowledge I can get, so that I can help library patrons. And, though the session was not about readers’ advisory per se, I still learned quite a bit that was useful. (Plus there was, you know, the Judy Blume thing.)
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