The Notable Book Award makes available to the nation’s readers a list of 25 very good, very readable, and at times very important fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books for the adult reader.

The winners were selected by the Notable Books Council, whose members include Patricia L. Gregory, chair, Saint Louis University; Alicia Ahlvers, Kansas City Public Library; Susie Brown, Shaker Heights Public Library; A. Issac Pulver, Saratoga Springs Public Library; Andrea Slonosky; Sandra Ballasch, University of Iowa Libraries; Malynda Dalton, Texas A&M International University; Julie Elliott, Indiana University South Bend; Nancy Pearl; Nonny Schlotzhauer, Pennsylvania State University; Lise Snyder, UCLA College Library; Valerie Morgan Taylor, Lewisville Community Library and Booklist consultant Brad Hooper.

The 2009 winners are:

FICTION
Alameddine, Rabih. The Hakawati Knopf
Aslam, Nadeem. The Wasted Vigil Knopf
Bausch, Richard. Peace Knopf
Benioff, David. City of Thieves Viking
Erdrich, Louise. The Plague of Doves Harper
Galchen, Rivka. Atmospheric Disturbances Farrar Straus & Giroux
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth Knopf
Millhauser, Steven. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories Knopf
Sheers, Owen. Resistance Doubleday
Strout, Elizabeth. Olive Kitteridge Random House
Talarigo, Jeff. The Ginseng Hunter Doubleday

NONFICTION
Coll, Steve. The Bin-Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century Penguin
Faust, Drew Gilpin. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Knopf
Filkins, Dexter. The Forever War Knopf
Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth. Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 Norton
Gordon-Reed, Annette. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family Norton
Harris, Mark. Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood Penguin
Horwitz, Tony. A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World Holt
Mayer, Jane The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals Doubleday
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto Penguin
Taylor, Nick. American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work Bantam
Vanderbilt, Tom. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says about Us) Knopf
Wickersham, Joan . The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order Harcourt

POETRY
Hirsch, Edward Special Orders: Poems Knopf
Tate, James Ghost Soldiers: Poems Ecco

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By Sarah Statz Cords

Well, we’ve started a new year–I for one, say, welcome, 2009, and what took you so long?–and the time has come for us to once again refer to the expertise of those readers’ advisors and library staff members working the front lines: What are the “must-have” titles at your libraries this remaining winter season and spring?

I know what the trends say–even in scary economic times, more business books are being published than ever before; Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series remains hot, particularly with the movie opening last November; and William P. Young’s allegorical novel The Shack has also been hot. But what are YOU seeing go out across the desk, and what are readers asking for? Please let us know. We don’t often get the chance to congregate in our break or meeting rooms and compare notes, so why not do it here?

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Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, and many other bestsellers has died of cancer at the age of 66. For more information:

ET Online
CNN
MichaelCrichton.net

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Friday on her show, Oprah Winfrey will announce her Book Club Selection #62. I’m betting on The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. How about you?

Now on to our weekly Plane, Trains, and Lanes:

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by Sarah Statz Cords

RickLibrarian posted a link the other day to the LibrarianInBlack’s report on an event she attended called “Is the Web a Threat to Our Culture?”

Regardless of how you feel about the “2.0″ terminology (AnnoyedLibrarian, for one, is not a fan), it’s probably a good idea to know about the 2.0 world’s jargon, terminology, and competing ideas, and this report is a great place to start. The two speakers at the program were Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur) and Paul Duguid (an adjunct professor at the UC-Berkeley School of Information).

Do consider reading LibrarianInBlack’s review, which is comprehensive, as well as the original report about the event (linked above). If you’re really into it, I might also suggest reading two books in tandem: Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur (worried about 2.0 and our digital futures) and David Weinberger’s Everything Is Miscellaneous (2.0? Full speed ahead!). It’ll play with your mind to read them together, but it should also provide a better picture of where we are, where we’re going in the information environment, and what it all may mean.

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By Sarah Statz Cords

I have a bad habit of leaving the TV on even when I’m not watching it; sometimes I just like to hear some noise while I’m doing other work. With the recent writer’s strike, however, I have found myself reduced to watching programs like American Gladiators. I know. I’m not proud of it, and if today’s post sounds a little too confrontational, I’m going to blame it on increased adrenaline brought on by reality television shows.

Which is all a rather backhanded way to broach the topic of Neil Hollands’s article in the most recent edition of RUSQ: Back to the Future: A Response to Dilevko and Magowan. If you’re not familiar with those authors, they are the writers of the book Readers’ Advisory Service in North American Public Libraries, 1870-2005, published by McFarland in 2007.

This all sounds harmless enough, doesn’t it? Someone has written a book on the history of RA, and a notable in the field has reviewed it and responded to it. But if you’ve not read either of these publications, I think we can nut-shell it for you. The book by Dilevko and Magowan has been met with some critical disfavor; the authors make claims to support their point (quoted directly from their back cover copy) that “today’s public libraries tend to neglect the rich heritage of readers’ advisory services in favor of promoting genre titles and bestsellers.” In their book, they offer such case studies in which the authors asked students in RA courses they had previously taught, to use and critique such resources as NoveList and Nancy Pearl’s titles Book Lust and More Book Lust.

Hollands doesn’t mince words in his response, even in his opening paragraph: “Their book is ostensibly a history of RA service in public libraries, but from the first sentences it is apparent that ‘history’ will be molded to serve the authors’ arguments about what RA service should be. Dilevko and Magowan seek to revise the way in which we look at RA’s history, and, in doing so, lead a reactionary movement toward a future in which advisory is practiced as it was in the past, not as it is in the present. The authors have strong opinions, but ultimately their conclusions are wrongheaded.”

Now, this may be the part of me that’s been watching Gladiators talking, but this situation is starting to feel like a serious smackdown.

Which is why the whole thing, in my opinion, is such, such fun. How often do readers’ advisors get to hear the ring of drawn critical swords and hear the smash of opposing sides meeting on the battlefield in their professional literature? Not enough. (Frankly, I’ve got the Dilevko/Magowan book at home this week, and I was so bored by the cover I wasn’t going to look at it at all, until I read the Hollands piece.) This sort of thing, if nothing else, seems like a perfect opportunity to get our blood up about what it is that we truly do. Are we truly only purveyors of publishers’ overcommercialized products, or are we, as Hollands says in his conclusion, starting “from our shared values of service, inclusiveness, respect for the interests and needs of all library users”?

Sadly, I am not really personally qualified to answer that question. But my opinion is, why can’t it be a bit of both? Let’s take both of these works, consider them, and then have a good spirited bout of getting into it. Frankly, would it hurt any of us to consider just a bit more, as Dilevko and Magowan assert, how we can dedicate ourselves to the “promotion of serious and purposeful readings”? Likewise, would it hurt Dilevko and Magowan and those who agree with them to admit that yes, sometimes people really want to read bestsellers, well-written or not, and they have a right to that too?

Gladiators ready? Contenders ready? Go!

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The American Library Association’s best known award for adult books is the Notable Books List, which is announced at the Midwinter Conference each year. (For this year’s winners, click here.) Genre fiction has never been eligible for inclusion on this list, and RUSA, the division of ALA which decides the Notable Books, has established a new award called The Reading List, specifically to plug this gap. Here is the text of their press release announcing the first ever winners. Kudos to RUSA for recognizing genre books.

The Reading List 2008
Established in 2007 by the CODES section of RUSA, The Reading List Council seeks to highlight outstanding genre fiction that merits special attention by general adult readers and the librarians who work with them.

The Council, which consists of ten librarians who are experts in readers’ advisory and collection development, select books in eight different categories: adrenaline titles which include suspense, thrillers, and action adventure; Fantasy; Historical Fiction; Horror; Mystery; Romance; Science Fiction; and Women’s Fiction. This inaugural juried list features established voices and debut novelists and suggests titles that will thrill avid fans and entice new readers.

Adrenaline
The Second Objective by Mark Frost Hyperion, 2007. 978-1401302221

Fantasy
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss Daw Books, 2007. 978-0756404079

Historical Fiction
The Religion by Tim Willocks Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2007. 978-0374248659

Horror
The Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill William Morrow, 2007. 978-0061147937

Mystery
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2007. 978-0399154140

Romance
Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips William Morrow, 2007. 978-0060734572

Science Fiction
In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan Tor, 2007. 978-0765313553

Women’s Fiction
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen Bantam, 2007. 978-0553805482

The Reading List Council 2007-2008 members are:

Katie Dunneback, Southeastern Library Services Arlene Griffin, LSSI Library North Jackson Madison County Library, TN Mirja Johanson, Perrot Memorial Library, CT Lucy Lockley, St. Charles City-County Library District, MO Robert Renwick, Brooklyn Public Library Joyce Saricks Jacqueline Sasaki, Ann Arbor District Library Tapley Trudell, San Antonio Public Library Neal Wyatt, Chair Alan Ziebarth, Chicago Public Library

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American Library Association Announces 2008 Literary Award Winners
I’m off to catch a plane, but check here for the children’s awards (Notable Books are listed in this week’s RA Run Down below.)

And the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for their awards on Saturday night:

Fiction
Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games, Harper Collins
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Riverhead
Hisham Matar, In The Country of Men, Dial Press
Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravediggers Daughter, Harper Collins
Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher, S&S

Nonfiction
Philip Gura, American Transcendentalism, Farrar, Straus
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848, Oxford University Press
Harriet Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, Doubleday
Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA, Doubleday
Alan Weisman, The World Without Us, Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s

Autobiography
Joshua Clark, Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone, Free Press
Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying, Knopf
Joyce Carol Oates, The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982, Ecco
Sara Paretsky, Writing in an Age of Silence, Verso
Anna Politkovskaya: Russian Diary: A Journalist’s Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin’s Russia, Random House

Biography
Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life Of Africa’s Greatest Explorer, Yale University Press
Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton, Knopf
Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison, Knopf
John Richardson, The Life Of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932, Knopf
Claire Tomalin, Thomas Hardy, Penguin Press

Criticism
Acocella, Joan, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, Pantheon
Alvarez, Julia, Once Upon a Quniceanera, Viking
Faludi, Susan, The Terror Dream, Metropolitan/Holt
Ratliff, Ben, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, Farrar, Straus
Ross, Alex, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, Farrar, Straus

Poetry
Mary Jo Bang, Elegy, Graywolf
Matthea Harvey, Modern Life, Graywolf
Michael O’Brien, Sleeping and Waking, Flood
Tom Pickard, The Ballad of Jamie Allan, Flood
Tadeusz Rozewicz, New Poems, Archipelago

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The National Endowment of the Arts report “To Read or Not to Read,” mentioned in RA Run Down was released this morning. The 100 page report is here, and an interesting New York Times article here. According to the Times, some experts are beginning to question the gloom and doom reports from Dan Gioia and the NEA. Any reading experts out there who would like to take a shot at this topic?

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The National Book Award winners have been announced:

Fiction – Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Nonfiction – Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
Poetry – Time and Materials by Robert Hass
Young People’s Literature – The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, who will be speaking at Cleveland Public Library at 2:00 on Sunday if anyone lives in the area!

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