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.

Bookmark to:

by Sarah Statz Cords

It’s that time of year again—and then some; if you’re looking to buy someone a book gift for the 2010 holiday season you’re already running short on time! Need some ideas? Consider any of these very handy “Book Gift Guide” links!

Books on the Nightstand Holiday Gift Guide

Citizen Reader’s Holiday Gift Guide (primarily nonfiction)

The Daily Beast Ultimate Book Gift Guide

GeekMom Kids’ Books Holiday Gift Guide

Geeks of Doom Comic Book Gift Guide

Huffington Post 15 Books You’re Giving for the Holidays

Inc.com Business Book Holiday Wishlist

Nancy Pearl Presents: Books That Make Great Gifts webinar

The New York Times Holiday Gift Guides (including best books, top 100 books of the year, best cookbooks, etc.)

Powells.com Holiday Catalog

And for those of you with a bit more to spend and a jones to spend it on technology:

ZDNet’s E-book Reader Holiday Gift Guide

Bookmark to:

FICTION WINNER: Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co.)

NONFICTION WINNER: Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)

POETRY WINNER: Terrance Hayes, Lighthead (Penguin Books)

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE WINNER: Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird (Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group)

More details at the NBA site.

Bookmark to:

By Cindy Orr

We lost a number of authors this past year, including JG Ballard, Hortense Calisher, Dominick Dunne, Philip José Farmer, Celia Fremlin, Marilyn French, E. Lynn Harris, Jane Aiken Hodge, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Elmer Kelton, Malcolm MacPherson, Norma Fox Mazer, Frank McCourt, William Safire and John Updike, among too many others. Here’s a list based mostly on our 2009 weekly author news postings with some help from a couple of FictionL posters. Thanks guys. If you click through you’ll get an obituary for each one.

Bookmark to:

When we asked Neil Hollands, author of Fellowship in a Ring, to provide a “best books” list, we gave him the option of listing books of all types and genres, and he took us up on it! Here, then, a “grab bag” of 2009’s bests, as chosen by Neil.

Genre: Memoir/Overcoming Adversity
David Small–Stitches: A Memoir
My very favorite of the year 2009. I’m not very visual, so graphic novels usually don’t grab me, nor do narratives of abusive childhoods, but this remarkable memoir with its creepy Grant Wood meets Edvard Munch drawings perfectly told the story
of a young voice almost stolen and how it came back.

Genres: Mainstream Fiction/Character-driven; Historical Fiction/Literary Historical Fiction
E. L. Doctorow–Homer and Langley
Creating an epic historical novel and sympathetic psychological portrayal from the hermetically-sealed, yet still deteriorating lives of two of history’s great misers is a remarkable achievement, even if Doctorow did have to play with the truth a little.

Genre: Science Fiction/Technology
Cory Doctorow–Makers
This won’t play to fans of big explosions, but for readers interested in science fiction about the future of work, particularly creative work, this will hit the spot. And it works as a character-driven drama just as well.

Genres: Mainstream Fiction/Story-driven; Historical Fiction/Historical Fantasy
Christopher Moore–Fool
Humor so bawdy and silly that it can’t help but send your inner naughty boy or girl into spasms. Moore’s best since Lamb is part history and part fantasy; part Shakespearean comedy and part tragedy; and all funny.

Genre: Fantasy/Sword and Sorcery
Joe Abercrombie–Best Served Cold
Yet another great new author of dark, epic fantasy. Abercrombie serves up a standalone treatise on every aspect of revenge with a slew of fascinating characters that beg to be read about, quoted, and filmed.

Neil Hollands is a readers’ advisor and collection development librarian for fantasy and science fiction, Williamsburg Regional Library, Virginia, and a lifelong SF and fantasy fan. He is the author of Fellowship in a Ring: A Guide for Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Groups and the critically-acclaimed Read On Fantasy Fiction: Reading Lists for Every Taste.

Bookmark to:

Well, as we’ve noted before, it’s the time of year for all things book list, so we figured, if you can’t beat them, join them! Over the course of the next two weeks we’ll be posting lists of “Best Books” as chosen by genre experts and librarians. Do let us know in the comments if you agree with our choices, or if you’d like to suggest any titles we’ve missed!

Best Historical Fiction 2009: Contributed by Sarah L. Johnson

Subgenre: Literary Historical Fiction
Dara Horn–All Other Nights
An engrossing and emotionally resonant tale, rich in cultural symbolism, about Jewish spies during the American Civil War as seen from the viewpoint of a Union soldier with a unique moral dilemma. It’s a departure from Horn’s previous novels, but a very successful one.

Robert Hicks–A Separate Country
A powerful, multilayered epic about the marriage and personal transformation of Confederate general John Bell Hood, who relocated to New Orleans after the Civil War. If you loved The Widow of the South, you’ll want to read this one, too.

Hilary Mantel–Wolf Hall
With great style and wit, Mantel reinvents the Tudor novel in her brilliant revisionist portrait of Thomas Cromwell, the advisor who orchestrated Henry VIII’s break with Rome and marriage to Anne Boleyn. It’s well deserving of the 2009 Booker Prize.

Jude Morgan–The Taste of Sorrow
Morgan proves the world really does need a new novel about the Bronte sisters, presenting Emily, Charlotte, and Anne with deep insight and sensitivity. This is the British title; look for the US release next April, under the title “Charlotte and Emily.”

Subgenre: Sagas with a Sense of Place/American Regional Sagas
Jennifer Niven–Velva Jean Learns to Drive
Niven’s debut novel, set in the 1930s, is a coming-of-age tale drenched in North Carolina mountain lore. Velva Jean Hart is a talented young singer caught between a woman’s traditional role and the pull of the great wide world of Nashville, and her narrative draws readers in and doesn’t let go.

Sarah L. Johnson is Reference Librarian and Associate Professor at Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois. A longtime reader and collector of historical novels, Johnson is the book review editor for the Historical Novels Review (a historical fiction review journal for the United States and Great Britain). She is also the author of the Genreflecting guides Historical Fiction and Historical Fiction II.

Bookmark to:

*Fiction Winner:
Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)

FICTION JUDGES: Alan Cheuse, Junot Díaz, Jennifer Egan, Charles Johnson, Lydia Millet

Other fiction finalists:
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W. W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

*Nonfiction Winner:
T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Alfred A. Knopf)

NONFICTION JUDGES: David Blight, Amanda Foreman, Steve Olson, Camille Paglia, John Phillip Santos

Other nonfiction finalists:
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)

*Poetry Winner:
Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (University of California Press)

POETRY JUDGES: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, A. Van Jordan, Cole Swensen, Kevin Young

Other poetry finalists:
Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Penguin Books)
Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (University of Pittsburgh Press)

*Young People’s Literature Winner:
Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE JUDGES: Kathi Appelt, Coe Booth, Carolyn Coman, Nancy Werlin, Gene Luen Yang

Other young people’s literature finalists:
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)
David Small, Stitches (W. W. Norton & Co.)
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)

*Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters:
Gore Vidal

*Literarian Award: Dave Eggers

Best of the National Book Awards Book:
Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Stories 0 nominated by 10,000 votes from the public

Bookmark to:

Columbia University announced the Pulitzer Prize winners today:

Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Biography: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham

Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin

Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

Drama: Ruined by Lynn Nottage

History: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed

Bookmark to:

Random House has finally announced that Dan Brown’s newest title, The Lost Symbol, will be released on September 15 with a 5-million copy printing. the story will cover 12 hours in the life of Robert Langdon, the hero of The Da Vinci Code.

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Pub. Date: September 15, 2009
ISBN-13: 9780385504225
$28.95

Bookmark to: