by Cindy Orr

George R. R. Martin’s much in demand latest volume in his Songs of Ice and Fire series will be published on July 12:

George R. R. Martin – A Dance with Dragons. Bantam. $35. 9780553801477.

I dare you to put it in your catalog and see how many holds you have by the end of the day. If you try this, please let us know how it works out for you. (I’m serious.) Yes, of course his fans know about the announcement. They are checking your catalog right now, trust me.

Also, the HBO miniseries based on this series will air beginning on April 17, which will most likely cause a lot of interest in all the books in the series:

1. A Game of Thrones
2. A Clash of Kings
3. A Storm of Swords
4. A Feast for Crows
5. A Dance with Dragons

Justice Antonin Scalia advised a group of mostly Republican Congress members to get a copy of The Federalist Papers and read it, underline it, and dog-ear it. Well, hopefully patrons won’t dog-ear or underline your library copy…you do have a copy, right?

The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) has announced the finalists for the 2010 NBCC Awards. The awards will be made on March 10.

Fiction

Jennifer Egan – A Visit From The Goon Squad. Knopf.

Jonathan Franzen – Freedom. Farrar, Straus And Giroux.

David Grossman – To The End Of The Land. Knopf.

Hans Keilson – Comedy In A Minor Key. Farrar, Straus And Giroux.

Paul Murray – Skippy Dies. Faber & Faber.

Biography

Sarah Bakewell – How To Live, Or A Life Of Montaigne. Other Press.

Selina Hastings – The Secret Lives Of Somerset Maugham: A Biography. Random House.

Yunte Huang – Charlie Chan: The Untold Story Of The Honorable Detective And His Rendezvous With American History. Norton.

Thomas Powers – The Killing Of Crazy Horse. Knopf.

Tom Segev – Simon Wiesenthal: The Lives And Legends. Doubleday.

Autobiography

Kai Bird – Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978. Scribner.

David Dow – The Autobiography of an Execution. Twelve.

Christopher Hitchens – Hitch-22: A Memoir. Twelve.

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto – Hiroshima in the Morning. Feminst Press.

Patti Smith – Just Kids. Ecco,

Darin Strauss – Half a Life. McSweeney’s.

Criticism

Elif Batuman – The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Terry Castle – The Professor and Other Writings. Harper.

Clare Cavanagh – Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West. Yale University Press.

Susie Linfield – The Cruel Radiance. University of Chicago Press.

Ander Monson – Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir. Graywolf.

Nonfiction

Barbara Demick – Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Spiegel & Grau.

S.C. Gwynne – Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. Scribner.

Jennifer Homans – Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. Random.

Siddhartha Mukherjee – The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Scribner.

Isabel Wilkerson – The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. Random.

Poetry

Anne Carson – Nox. New Directions.

Kathleen Graber – The Eternal City. Princeton University Press.

Terrance Hayes – Lighthead. Penguin Poets.

Kay Ryan – The Best of It. Grove.

C.D. Wright – One with Others: [a little book of her days]. Copper Canyon.

The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974 at the Algonquin, is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization consisting of some 600 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns. It is managed by a 24-member all-volunteer board of directors.

Mystery Writers of America has announced this year’s Edgar Award Nominees for the best mystery fiction and nonfiction:

BEST NOVEL

Caught by Harlan Coben (Penguin Group USA – Dutton)

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

Faithful Place by Tana French (Penguin Group USA – Viking)

The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books)

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (Tom Doherty Associates – Forge Books)

The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books)

The Serialist: A Novel by David Gordon (Simon & Schuster)

Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto (Simon & Schuster – Scribner)

Snow Angels by James Thompson (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard (Random House – Bantam)

The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn (Henry Holt)

Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski (Minotaur Books)

Vienna Secrets by Frank Tallis (Random House Trade Paperbacks)

Ten Little Herrings by L.C. Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press)

BEST FACT CRIME

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (Univ. of Nebraska Press – Bison Original)

The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in Jim Crow South by Alex Heard (HarperCollins)

Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery by Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham (S & S – Scribner)

Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr and the International Hunt for his Assassin by Hampton Sides (Random House – Doubleday)

The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr (Knopf)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Wire: Truth Be Told by Rafael Alvarez (Grove Atlantic – Grove Press)

Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making by John Curran (HarperCollins)

Sherlock Holmes for Dummies by Steven Doyle and David A. Crowder (Wiley)

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendevouz with American History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton)

Thrillers: 100 Must Reads edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner (Oceanview Publishing)

BEST SHORT STORY

“The Scent of Lilacs” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Doug Allyn (Dell Magazines)

“The Plot” – First Thrills by Jeffery Deaver (Tom Doherty – Forge Books)

“A Good Safe Place” – Thin Ice by Judith Green (Level Best Books)

“Monsieur Alice is Absent” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Stephen Ross (Dell Magazines)

“The Creative Writing Murders” – Dark End of the Street by Edmund White (Bloomsbury)

BEST JUVENILE

Zora and Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press)

The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler (Albert Whitman & Co.)

The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee (Feiwel & Friends)

Griff Carver: Hallway Patrol by Jiim Krieg (Penguin Young Readers Group – Razorbill)

The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

The River by Mary Jane Beaufrand (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (Random House Children’s Books – Alfred A. Knopf)

7 Souls by Barnabas Miller and Jordan Orlando (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)

The Interrogation of Gabriel James by Charlie Price (Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers)

Dust City by Robert Paul Weston (Penguin Young Readers Group – Razorbill)

The Reading List annually recognizes the best books in eight genres: adrenaline (including suspense, thriller and adventure), fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction and women’s fiction. This year’s list includes novels that will please die-hard fans as well as introduce new readers to the pleasures of genre fiction.

The winning titles were selected by the Reading List Council, whose members include Jacqueline Sasaki, chair, Ann Arbor District Library; Alicia Ahlvers, Kansas City Public Library; Jennifer Baker, Seattle Public Library; Cheryl Bryan, Massachusetts Library System, Waltham, Mass.; Craig Clark, formerly with Cuyahoga County Public Library; Kathleen Collins, University of Washington Libraries, Seattle; Megan McArdle, Berkeley Public Library; Joyce Saricks, Downers Grove, Ill.; Sharron Smith, vice-chair, Kitchener Public Library; Kimberly Wells, Denton Public Library; Neal Wyatt, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va. And Alan Ziebarth, Chicago, Ill.

The Notable Books Council of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association, has announced its selections for the 2011 Notable Books List.

OverDrive reports an unprecedented spike in traffic on library sites since Christmas. The increase in usage was dramatic, resulting in some library digital sites doubling their usage.

While no analysis is available so far, it’s fair to say that this points to a boom gift season for ebook readers. Have we reached the tipping point? Do we need to move more quickly to prepare for the changes this will mean for public libraries? It seems very likely.

The Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious British award, has gone to Howard Jacobson for his humorous novel The Finkler Question ISBN 9781608196111, Bloomsbury USA, $15.00. Published in the US October 12, 2010…just in time!

Let’s hear it for Library Journal, as the editors there just made it a little easier for librarians and library staff to make the most of their time at PLA and its exhibits next week, by publishing a handy dandy list of coupons and publisher deals.

They’ve also posted an article about restaurant possibilities in Portland, and their bloggers are discussing various conference-related topics. Things are also starting to happen over at the PLA Blog, which recently posted a list of Portland-area libraries.

Safe travels to everyone going to the conference next week! And thanks in advance to our volunteer bloggers (it’s never too late to volunteer–just contact Sarah at realstory@tds.net if you’d like to learn more about blogging PLA, and receiving a free Libraries Unlimited book for your participation!), who will be letting us know what they’re learning and who they’re meeting at the conference!

Are you attending PLA next week? If so, aren’t you excited? How much would you like to share that excitement and what you learn with librarians and library staff who can’t attend this conference? And how would you like to get a free Libraries Unlimited title of your choice just for participating?

We’re looking for a few intrepid souls to report to us what they learn while attending PLA sessions. We’re most interested in sessions that have to do with books, reading, and RA (Cindy helpfully listed them all here, not long ago) but we’d love to hear about any talk table, preconference, workshop, seminar, session, or even social event that you attend!

What we would ask is that you simply email us a brief report of the session you attended, what was discussed, and your impression of the experience (leave the mark-up to us; we want to keep this easy for you!). We’ll then post your summary, along with your byline, here at the RAO Blog. Brevity is the soul of blogs, so we’d encourage you to keep your reports short and informal (and we’d LOVE it if you could submit your email to us right from the conference–currency is important on blogs too); what we’re really looking for is brief flavors of the conference, to share with those covering the service desks back home.

And, best of all, everyone who contributes a report will receive a Libraries Unlimited title of their choice! To participate or ask for more details, just email Sarah at realstory@tds.net.