Cook Library's Own Susie Pasini

Libertyville Patch talked to Susie about Cook Library's Library's goal to become a library without walls!

How to Load up your EReader with Books for Free

Lifehacker, a website for geeks, had a good post steering folks toward the public library and away from Amazon's newest 'deal.'

Nothing new here, but another perspective from outside library land.

Breakdown of Titles in Kindle Lending Library

 Kindle's announcement about lending their titles to Kindle owners for one month sounds like a great deal, but here is a site which breaks down those free titles into categories.

Something our patrons might be interested in knowing.

BTW, these titles are only available on the Kindle devices, NOT to those running the Kindle app on another device.

Kindle Launches Lending Library!

 Kindle Launches Lending Library

For those who are Amazon Premium members (costs $79 a year), Amazon will now lend up to 5000 Kindle titles!

Whoa---now they're in direct competition with libraries.

Your thoughts??

Best Sellers in 1972---Remember what YOU were reading?

The Way Back Machine – Best Sellers 1972


by jhills


This month, we're traveling back to 1972 - a year of dubious distinction (Watergate happened in 1972, after all). Some of the other things you might remember from that year, if you were sentient:

• The movie, The Godfather, is released in March, inspiring kids everywhere to fill their cheeks with cotton and begin speaking in a Noo Yawk accent.

• The Sunshine Mine Fire occurred in Northern Idaho in May, killing 91 workers. It remains one of the worst mine disasters in U.S. history.

• Apollo 17 lands on the moon in December, the last manned Apollo mission, and the last mission to the moon. Maybe it's time to go back?

In case you don't remember 1972 firsthand, or want to experience it again, pick up one of these books from the New York Times Best Seller List for the week of October 29, 1972. It's an offer you can't refuse! (Okay - a little too punny - I can hear you groaning from miles away...)

~~~

FICTION:

1 - Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

2 - August 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

3 - The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

4 - Semi-Tough by Dan Jenkins

5 - On the Night of the Seventh Moon by Victoria Holt

6 - Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell

7 - To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield

8 - Dark Horse by Fletcher Knebel

9 - My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

10 - A Portion for Foxes by Jane Mcilvaine Mcclary

~~~

NONFICTION:

1 - I'm OK, You're OK by Thomas Harris

2 - The Peter Prescription by Laurence J. Peter

3 – Eleanor: The Years Alone by Joseph P. Lash

4 - Open Marriage by Nena And George O'Neill

5 - O Jerusalem! by Larry Collins And Dominique Lapierre

6 - Super Money by Adam Smith

7 - Luce and His Empire by W. A. Swanberg

8 - A Nation of Strangers by Vance Packard

9 - Fire in the Lake by Frances Fitzgerald

10 - Paris Was Yesterday by Janet Flanner

jhills
October 27, 2011 at 9:00 am
Categories: Uncategorized
URL: http://wp.me/p4L6i-kI

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Short List Announced for DSC Prize for South Asian Lit

Finalists for the $50,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, which was created to "acquaint readers to the rich diversity of South Asia's myriad language traditions," are:




Bharathipura by U.R. Ananthamurthy

A Street in Srinagar by Chandrakanta

Monkey-man by Usha K.R

Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka

The Thing About Thugs by Tabish Khair

The Story that Must Not Be Told by Kavery Nambisan



The winner will be announced January 21 at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival.

Best Books of 2011

Yipppeee! It's time for the lists of the best books of 2011 and I do love lists! Amazon apparently jumped the gun (according to my friends at EarlyWord) and here is theirs:

Amazon's list of best books of 2011

 More to come---this is just the beginning. (It's sort of like that huge Christmas display at Macy's weeks before Halloween, but for book lovers.)

Page to Screen--Fall 2011

Books on the silver screen for this fall!

Amazon Rewrites the Rules of Book Publishing

Amazon

According to the NYT, Amazon seems to be on the verge of making publisher and bookseller nightmares a reality. I will miss browsing bookstores, if their nightmares come to pass....

National Book Award Nominees Include YA for 1st Time!

">Link 2011 National Book Award nominees

The twenty Finalists for the 2011 National Book Awards were announced on Oregon Public Broadcasting's morning radio program, Think Out Loud, in front of a live audience at the new Literary Arts Center in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, October 12. The announcement was also streamed live on Oregon Public Broadcasting's website, www.opb.org/nationalbookawards. Past NBA Winners, Finalists, and Judges announced this year's Finalists by category:




Virginia Euwer Wolff, National Book Award Winner in 2001, will announce the Young People's Literature Finalists.

Vern Rutsala, National Book Award Finalist in 2005, will announce the Poetry Finalists.

Sallie Tisdale, National Book Award Judge in 2010, will announce the Nonfiction Finalists.

Charles Johnson, National Book Award Winner in 1990 and Judge in 1999 and 2009, will announce the Fiction Finalists

Ebook Check-outs up 200% vs. 2010

">Link

Yup, sounds about right.

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2011/10/12/overdrive-reports-ebook-checkouts-already-up-200-percent-versus-2010/

Shareable: Libraries Aren't Dying, They're Evolving

Shareable: Libraries Aren't Dying, They're Evolving

">Link

Hooray for Teen Novels

Hooray for YA Novels for Readers of All Ages

NPR ran a story this summer about YA fiction that adults would enjoy. So, if you're looking to dip into some YA literature, here are their recommendations.

Evolving Book Clubs article from LJ

Evolving Book Club from LJ
Anyone else noticed that it's mostly non-librarians who are wringing their hands and worrying about the future of books....????
Librarians are just quietly dealing with it. I'm glad this article points out some of the things libraries are doing to deal with the changes and the new technology.

Chris Crutcher's Response to YA Kerfuffle

Although the WSJ started this YA kerfuffle back in early June, Chris Crutcher's response is invaluable. The point that most resonates with me, from my own experiences, is that YA literature gives names to the bad things that can happen to kids which then allows then to talk about it. It's easy to forget that kids who have bad things happen to them, often feel as if it was their fault. YA literature, yes even the darkest of the dark, can empower teens and be the basis for conversations with the adults in their lives.

Hugo Awards for 2011 Announced

Connie Willis wins again!

Other Books for fans of "The Help"

W. 11th & Bluff: More suggestions for fans of "The Help"

">Link

Carnegie Strout Library in Dubuque, Iowa has compiled some lists of read-alikes for fans of The Help (since there are now over 70 holds on our copies....)

Conjuring the Next Harry Potter

Fascinating WSJ article about The Night Circus  and the publishing industry's search for The Next Big Thing.

(Have I mentioned how much I LOVED this book???)

Oh, the pages that glow!

Fasten your seatbelts and keep your hands inside the car----it's gonna be quite a ride!


Oh, the pages that glow!

">Link

Amazon Launches the Kindle Cloud Reading

The Revolution continues! Long live the Revolution!

Isn't it FUN being part of this!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!!!!

New Word for today: Transmedia

JK Rowling is about to do it again! Pottermore.com, a website scheduled to open to the public in October, is predicted by some to "transform storytelling."

I read this article and still don't quite understand it, but I will be there in October to play in this new sandbox!

The Case for Raunchy YA Lit

Raunchy is a strong word used by the author of this article to make a point about the value of, say, realistic fiction for teens. A must-read article, IMHO.

Ebooks Accelerate Paperback Release Dates

An unintended consequence of the huge changes taking place in the publishing industry started by ebooks, works to our advantage! Book clubs will benefit!

Google Has Entered the eReader Game!

Wow---$140 for an eReader from Google......

The YA Lit Kefuffle, continued

This interesting debate seems to bring out passionate responses from all sides of the political spectrum. (yeah, I know, another mixed metaphor.)

Book on Amazon's Top Lists---while it's still being written?!

Could John Green, best-selling, YA author, have his finger on the future (sorry for the mixed metaphor) of publishing?

Gatsby Without the Greatness?

So Fitzgerald's masterpiece has been re-written to make it more "accessible" to less able readers. Sort of like re-working Mark Twain to make it "less racist." So has political correctness gone TOO far? Roger Ebert certainly thinks so.

South Korea to throw away schoolbooks by 2015

South Korea to throw away schoolbooks by 2015

">Link

RITA Awards Announded

The Romance Writers of America gave out this year's award for the best romantic novels in a wide variety of subcategories.

 I will be reading the YA winner The Iron King by Kagawa.

Scholastic's Book Wizard helps find Read-alikes

Stumped for a Read-like for a young adult? This site might help! You can modify by reading level and find similar books for teens and younger readers. Is NOT limited to Scholastic titles and was designed for teachers, but it looks useful.

Pretty cool! Go ahead, play with it a bit. (I tried Hunger Games as my first search and only came up with its sequels. My next search was better.)

Hope this is helpful!

Your loyal blogger.

PW's Take on the Recent YA Lit Controversy

Publisher's Weekly summarizes the recent storms in the YA lit world. Did you miss them? This is all you'll need to read.

Another Kerfuffle about YA Lit

Last weekend, the WSJ published an article about how 'dark' YA literature is and questioned whether is was appropriate for the teens to be reading about suicide, drug abuse, sex, etc. etc. As you might imagine, a healthy debate has ensued. This links you to the WSJ article and to NPRs summary and history of this debate.

Just so you know what's happening in the wide world of YA this week. :-)

Lillian Jackson Braun dies at 97

The author of the always popular Cat Who... series has died.

Let the E-Reader Price War Begin!

Barnes & Noble has just dropped the price of their popular e-reader, increased the screen size and added a touch screen, apparently trying to squash Kobo's advantage.

Good time to buy an e-reader!

Value of YA Lit

The first sentence alone is the best thing I've read for a long time about YA literature. Definitely worth reading this thoughtful and short essay. 

Great Gatsby cast looks awesome!

Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carroway.....this could be GREAT!!

Cloud Atlas: Coming to a Screen Near You!

David Mitchell's novel is coming to the screen and will feature Tom Hanks and Susan Sarandon, among others. Looks like it's got a big budget and some great people signed on.

Guess I'd better read that book.....

Could this be the next Harry Potter movie series?

Exciting news for King Arthur and Merlin fans! (Of which I am one.)

Motherland, the next chapter

 If you remember, in Motherland, young Edith made a good friend, Gertie,  on the ship coming to America. After a couple of weeks of hanging out together, they were separated and never had contact again. That is until a group of Naperville 8th graders, after hearing Fern speak about her mother, decided to try to track down Gertie. The Facebook generation didn't understand the concept of losing track of someone, so they went to work and found Gertie.

This blog details the story of the kids, their search, their resources (the library, of course!) and the reunion after 73 years of these women who met when they were the age of the Naperville students.

This is a story that will bring tears to your eyes.

Coming soon: The Great Gatsby in 3D (seriously!)

Do you suppose that Fitzgerald would approve of this newest adaptation of his tome?

Locus Award 2011 Finalists

Science fiction's biggest awards have been announced.


(And I've actually read two of them!)

Is this the future of the book???

Is it a book or an app???

This is WAY cool!! Watch the video narrated by Al Gore about this new product.

Interview with Greg Mortenson

Outside magazine conducted a friendly interview with Greg Mortenson, allowing him to tell his side of the story. This was forwarded to me by Cathy Amin.

MinnPost - Book Club Club: E-book sales overtake paperbacks in February

MinnPost - Book Club Club: E-book sales overtake paperbacks in February

">Link

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about eReaders, ........

but were afraid to ask.

This IPL site is good and might be helpful. It even includes the best eReaders for kids and basic descriptions of the various formats in 7-11 English.

Amazon to Allow Library Lending on Kindles

Hang on to your hats, the winds of change are blowing hard today!

Orange Prize Short List Announced

 London, 9.30am, 12 April 2011: The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, today announces the 2011 shortlist. Celebrating its sixteenth anniversary this year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.




•Emma Donoghue (Irish) - Room; Picador; 7th Novel

•Aminatta Forna (British/Sierra Leonean) - The Memory of Love; Bloomsbury; 2nd Novel

•Emma Henderson (British) - Grace Williams Says it Loud; Sceptre; 1st Novel

•Nicole Krauss (American) - Great House; Viking; 3rd Novel

•Téa Obreht (Serbian/American) - The Tiger’s Wife; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 1st Novel

•Kathleen Winter (Canadian) - Annabel; Jonathan Cape; 1st Novel

Open Letter to Librarians from Harper Collins

Although I don't have as much fire in my belly over this as some of those who respond to this letter do, it's another fascinating POV in the skirmishes betwen librarians and HC.

Nominees for Indies Choice Award

Good list of new books. Enjoy!

Overdrive's response to HarperCollins

Last week HarperCollins made a huge decision to allow only 26 uses per license of their ebook titles. This is Overdrive's response. On one hand this is interesting (watching an industry try to maintain control during a time of huge change), but on the other hand it's making things so much more complicated for our patrons.

Loose Cannon Librarian on HarperCollins

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Powell's Book Store's Tournament of Books

Now these are some brackets I could get excited about! What a brilliant concept!

Harpercollins Caps Loans on EBooks

This is NOT progress.

Larsson, Gilbert Top OverDrive's Most Downloaded Library E-Books List

Larsson, Gilbert Top OverDrive's Most Downloaded Library E-Books List

">Link

Huckleberry Finn's newest edition is being....edited

Not sure how I feel about this 'change' in Huck Finn. Seems to indicate that readers are afraid of Twain's provocative use of language and unwilling to address the word's power and history. 


Your thoughts?

An early look at 'Water for Elephants'

An early look at 'Water for Elephants'

Water for Elephants coming to a screen near you in mid-April! Here's the trailer for it.

Top Audiobooks for 2010

Yup, even audio books get a best of 2010 list, but this seems to be just a tease. It does confirm my love for Simon Vance as a narrator. I'd happily listen to him read a phone book!

Kirkus Reviews Best of 2010

Sick of lists of Best Books yet?? Just in case you're not, here's Kirkus's version. Enjoy!

More Best Books of 2010!

Here is a blogger who is keeping track of EVERY list of Best Books for 2010. So, list lovers---enjoy!

The Year in Reading: Malcolm Gladwell

The Year in Reading: Malcolm Gladwell

">Link

Best Adult Books 4 Teens 2010

Good books not only for teens, but the couple of these I've read have been excellent!

Calibre eBook Manager

This might be a good tool for those really tech-y people to use to translate eBooks into a format they could use on their eReaders.

Caution: Only for those who are proficient with computers and patient about self-teaching.

Google Set to Launch E-Book Venture

This is probably the most mind-blowing change in book selling and marketing I've ever seen. This is a must-read article!

"Google Editions hopes to upend the existing e-book market by offering an open, "read anywhere" model that is different from many competitors. Users will be able to buy books directly from Google or from multiple online retailers—including independent bookstores—and add them to an online library tied to a Google account. They will be able to access their Google accounts on most devices with a Web browser, including personal computers, smartphones and tablets."






Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704369304575632602305759466.html#ixzz16sX4IURo

Technology Petting Zoo

Not sure if this is might ever happen at Cook, but I love the idea of a Technology Petting Zoo!

The Fairfield, Conn., Public Library offers a "Technology Petting Zoo" where patrons "can now try out new e-book readers and other emerging technologies... Currently the library has an Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook, and an Apple iPad for patrons to demo," the Sun reported.

National Book Award Nominees

Now Hear This: National Book Award nominees 2010 via NPR.

Kids Would Read More If They Had E-Readers

Great NYT article which articulates what seems to me to be an obvious observation......if we put e-readers in kids' hands, they would read more!
What an exciting time to be in the library/book business!

A Judge Writes about Ellen Hopkins YA series on Meth

One of the more frequently challenged YA series is written by Ellen Hopkins who personalizes the meth crisis. The books are brutally honest and frankly describe the many horrors of addiction to meth. This is an incredibly thoughtful and informative essay by a judge about his experiences in his courtroom with meth addicts and how Hopkins's books have helped him gain insight into the addicts' psyche.

Celebrate Banned Books Week by reading a banned book---the list is long and filled with some really good books.

Ten Best e-Readers

One techy site I frequent suggests that these are the ten best e-readers with a couple of honorable mentions. There are a couple here I'd never heard of, but leave it to the geeks to seek them out and evaluate them. 
Christmas is coming.......

October Is National Reading Group Month

October Is National Reading Group Month

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First Look at New Sony eBook Readers

These look to be the most promising for those looking to check out eBooks from the library!! Unfortunately, they aren't as affordable as the Kindles.

Hunger Games & Yom Kippur

Fascinating take on the moral aspects of Hunger Games as they relate to Yom Kippur (and Eat, Pray, Love).

Size of Books & E-Readers Determined by Medieval Sheep

After lists of books, I love learning bits of historical trivia reminding me that "the past isn't dead, it isn't even past." (apologies to Wm Faulkner) 

How cool is this?!?

Sony Releases Redesigned, Upgraded Suite of Digital Readers

Sony Releases Redesigned, Upgraded Suite of Digital Readers

">Link

Upgraded their readers AND raised their prices. The eReader price wars might be coming to an end. Just sayin'.

Hugo Awards 2010 Announced

The Hugo Awards for 2010 have been announced. These are the best new science fiction stories, books and authors for the year.

Man Booker Prize Shortlist Announced

Judges decide on six shortlisted titles
7 September 2010
Peter Carey, Emma Donoghue, Damon Galgut, Howard Jacobson, Andrea Levy and Tom McCarthy are today, Tuesday 7 September, announced as the six shortlisted authors for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. For over four decades the prize - the leading literary award in the English speaking world - has brought recognition, reward and readership to the outstanding new novels of the year. The shortlist was announced by Chair of judges, Sir Andrew Motion, at a press conference held at Man's London headquarters.

The six books, selected from the Man Booker Prize longlist of 13, are:

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue Room (Picador - Pan Macmillan)

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Atlantic Books - Grove Atlantic)

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy The Long Song (Headline Review -
Headline Publishing Group)

Tom McCarthy C (Jonathan Cape - Random House)

Chair of judges Andrew Motion, comments:

"It's been a great privilege and an exciting challenge for us to reduce our longlist of thirteen to this shortlist of six outstandingly good novels. In doing so, we feel sure we've chosen books which demonstrate a rich variety of styles and themes - while in every case providing deep individual pleasures."

Australian author Peter Carey is one of only two authors to have won the prize twice, in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang. Should he win this year, he would become the only author to have won three times. He was also shortlisted in 1985 for Illywhacker. South African author Damon Galgut has previously been shortlisted for his book The Good Doctor in 2003 and Howard Jacobson has been longlisted twice before for his novels Kalooki Nights in 2006 and Who's Sorry Now? in 2002. Irish author Emma Donoghue is, at 40, the youngest author on the shortlist.

The winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on Tuesday 12 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall. The announcement will be broadcast on BBC News across television, radio and online.

The winner will receive a cheque for £50,000 and worldwide recognition. Last year's winning novel, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, has now sold over half a million copies in the UK alone. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their shortlisted book.

Chaired by Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate, the 2010 judges are Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic.

On Sunday 10 October, two days before the winner is announced, the shortlisted authors will appear at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall. It is the only public opportunity to join the 2010 shortlisted authors for readings from their books, discussion and an audience Q&A.

In addition, the Man Booker Prize has teamed up with the Victoria and Albert Museum and the London based private members' club The Groucho Club, who will both host events with some of the shortlisted authors for their members.

Last month the prize announced exciting new digital plans for 2010. The Man Booker Prize App is now free to download from the App Store to an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch and is the UK's first app for a literary prize. The prize has also partnered with T-Mobile via the digital book retailer GoSpoken. T-Mobile users can access content on their mobile phones and GoSpoken has provided free audio extracts from all the 13 longlisted titles which can be downloaded to subscribers' mobiles.

Read the full press release here.

Q&A interviews with each of the shortlisted authors can be found in Perspective.

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Oprah's Book Club Is Back in Session

The book world is all abuzz about Oprah's surprise announcement that is going to re-activate her book club. Everyone's speculating about what the title might be----here's some feasible guesses from a reliable source.

E-Readers Compared

After bumbling through a question from a patron today about e-readers, I thought I should educate myself about the choices out there and their quality.

There's also C-Net which does great reviews of all things tech-y.

I suspect that this Christmas season e-readers will be a hot gift!

Why Kindles Can't Use eBooks from the Library---easy to understand

Here's a good article which explains quite simply why those patrons with Kindles cannot use books from anyone else except Amazon.

It seems digital music went through this sort of growing pains for several years early on before sorting out a common format.

The article suggests that this confusion and lack of cooperation between companies might last for a while.

Man Booker Dozen announced

The judges for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction today, Tuesday 27 July, announce the longlist for the prize, the leading literary award in the English speaking world.

A total of 138 books, 14 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the ‘Man Booker Dozen' longlist of 13 books.

The longlist includes:

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue Room (Pan MacMillan - Picador)

Helen Dunmore The Betrayal (Penguin - Fig Tree)

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic - Atlantic Books)

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy The Long Song
(Headline Publishing Group - Headline Review)

Tom McCarthy C (Random House - Jonathan Cape)

David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Hodder & Stoughton - Sceptre)

Lisa Moore February (Random House - Chatto & Windus)

Paul Murray Skippy Dies (Penguin - Hamish Hamilton)

Rose Tremain Trespass (Random House - Chatto & Windus)

Christos Tsiolkas The Slap (Grove Atlantic - Tuskar Rock)

Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky
(Random House - Jonathan Cape)

The chair of judges, Andrew Motion, comments:

"Here are thirteen exceptional novels - books we have chosen for their intrinsic quality, without reference to the past work of their authors. Wide-ranging in their geography and their concern, they tell powerful stories which make the familiar strange and cover an enormous range of history and feeling. We feel confident that they will provoke and entertain."

Peter Carey is one of only two authors to have won the prize twice, in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang. In 1985 his book Illywhacker was shortlisted for the prize and Theft: A Love Story was longlisted in 2006.

Three authors have been shortlisted before: David Mitchell (twice shortlisted in 2001 for number9dream and in 2004 for Cloud Atlas), Damon Galgut (in 2003 for The Good Doctor) and Rose Tremain (shortlisted in 1989 for Restoration). She was also a judge for the Booker Prize in 1988 and 2000.

Howard Jacobson has been longlisted twice for his book Kalooki Nights in 2006 and for Who's Sorry Now? in 2002.

The 2010 shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 7 September at a press conference at Man Group's London headquarters. The winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 will be revealed on Tuesday 12 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC Ten O'Clock News.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction will receive £50,000 and can look forward to greatly increased sales and worldwide recognition. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, will receive £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their shortlisted book.

Chaired by Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate, the 2010 judges are Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic.



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Alison Weir

This is part of a site called Five Books in which well-known authors reveal their five favorite books ever. Quite interesting!

Alison Weir

">Link

The Kids Books Are Alright

Adult fans of Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games series are speaking out about why they love these books, ostensibly written for young adults! (We're in good company!)

Duncan Smith podcast.

Short (five minutes about) podcast by Duncan Smith talking about changes at NoveList this summer!

NPR's Top 100 Thrillers

NPR listeners voted for their top 100 thrillers. Interesting list....

Countdown to Mockingjay Release

Allison Janney Joins Cast of The Help!

Signed to play Skeeter's mom in the film version of The Help, award winning Allison Janney joins the star-studded cast of The Help which will start filming this summer!!

Suzanne Collins’s “The Hunger Games,” review: newyorker.com

Suzanne Collins’s “The Hunger Games,” review: newyorker.com

The Trouble With Recommending Books

We've got an app for that----it's called a Readers' Advisor!!



The Trouble With Recommending Books

">Link

How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel

What They Didn't Teach Us in Library School
The Public Library as an Asylum for the Homeless

Reports say that Emelio Estevez is making a movie based on this article about the homeless characters in the Salt Lake City Public Library!!

If You Liked My Book, You’ll Love These

Best-selling authors recommend their favorite books.

Insiders' View of Format Wars in eBook Publishing Industry

“Our fondest wish is that all the devices become agnostic
so that there isn’t proprietary formats and you can read
wherever you want to read,” Shanks told Reuters. “First
we have to get a standard that everybody embraces.”

E-Reader Applications for Today, and Beyond [The New York Times]

Here's the NYT's explanation of the ever-changing field of e-reader (not to be confused with eAudio Book) apps.

The Lowdown on Audio Downloads

Pretty good and easy-to-understand overview of down-loadable audio books in the library---and all the confusion with DRM, AAC, mp3.

The Art of the Review by John Bloom

Hilarious and snarky complaints about book reviews and best-selling books he doesn't like. Well worth reading!

May 21, 2002, 8:45 a.m.
The “Art” of the Review
Brilliant Sri Lankan novelists, go home.

By John Bloom



id you ever notice that the books in the airport reading rack — the books that everyone actually reads — are never the books that are reviewed in the big Sunday book sections?

If they're even mentioned, like the occasional piece on Danielle Steele or Stephen King, it's always with a little bit of a sneer, with words like "potboiler," "formula fiction," "genre fiction" or, the ultimate insult, "best-seller."

They don't do this in any other section of the paper. The movie critic seems perfectly capable of praising Spiderman without thinking that it somehow demeans his critical reputation and makes him unfit for reviewing the next Merchant-Ivory saga about old ladies in India. In fact, when a Spiderman or a Bruce Willis thriller or a George Lucas popular epic arrives, the critics celebrate it, hype it, promote it, interview all the principals, treat it like a huge national event.

Compare that with the release of a John Grisham or a Tom Clancy book. "Here's the latest Grisham." "Here's the latest Clancy." That's about all you're going to get. And you can forget entirely the guys at the next level, the mid-list mystery and thriller authors who sometimes have one book out of ten reviewed by a major newspaper.

Instead, what have we got in the book-review sections? Sri Lankan coming-of-age novels. Slice-of-life multi-generational family sagas about the Idaho back country. Painfully personal memoirs about single motherhood. Last week I read a review of a book called Notes from the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood by Nega Mezlekia. It had everything a book-review editor wants — exotic to the point of obscurity, internationalist, multicultural (by virtue of the translation), with the promise of making us all Better People by condescending to understand the agonies of a Third World situation that we don't really know diddly squat about.

But is it a good story? You'll never find out by reading The New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, or any of the other Sunday supplements. Some of the reviews don't even bother to Describe the book, much less tell us why we would want to read it in the first place. Instead they go on about "new voices in East African fiction." My question is, "I don't really care that much about East African fiction. It's not high on my list of priorities. Will I like this book in spite of that?"

Over time I've learned the secret code words of book reviewers who don't really want you to know what they're talking about. "Coming of age," for example, means "self-involved young person agonizes over sophomoric minutiae." "Internal odyssey" means nothing happens. "Introspective" means psychobabble.

"Delicate" means you're going to have entire paragraphs describing the dew in the rose garden. The dread "Austenesque" means blabbermouth women are going to sit around the kitchen playing matchmaker. "Echoes of history" means you should run screaming out of Starbucks because somebody's going to tell you about his ancestors.

The strangest term the reviewers use is "unassuming prose." They say it in a goodway, as though the best prose is unassuming. So how come they never review a book with assuming prose? I don't like my books unassuming. I want them to assume something. I want the prose standing on its head like a Chinese acrobat and doing back flips.

But there's a very special place in the Ninth Circle of Hell for one kind of book in particular, the book I'll call "My 16th Century Farmhouse in Provence." This is a genre that flourished in the 90s — I think the first one was called Under the Tuscan Sun — and it's universally praised by book reviewers everywhere. It's usually a first-person narrative of going to Europe and finding (a) an old house on the Scottish moors, (b) a rundown apartment in the Marais neighborhood of Paris, (c) an Alpine villa in shambles, and then fixing it up. End of story.

That's it. The rest of the book is just sappy musings about "the clash of the modern and the traditional," "the rhythm of provincial life," the color of the native vegetables, and the local peasant legends that no one quite remembers anymore because there are no longer any peasants.

Here's my question about these books. Why is it always Americans going to Europe? Why couldn't you write the same book about going to, say, the Catskills and remodeling a summer camp for Jewish teenagers? Why does a Frenchman never move to West Texas and fix up a pig ranch? And all of those picturesquely colorful local guys who hang around the public market in Grasse?

We have those in Salina, Kansas, too. They're called Old Farts.

Of course, sometimes my code system fails me entirely, as in a recent New York Times review of a Portuguese novel called The Return of the Caravels by Antonio Lobo Antunes. Describing the author, the reviewer said, "He is profoundly Portuguese." I was online with Barnes & Noble within the hour, grateful to have finally found a writer who wasn't lying about his birthplace.

At other times, the reviewer seems to be daring you to endure as much psychic pain as possible, as in the review from Newsday that said, "This first novel treats family ties, erotic longing, small children and prolonged deaths from AIDS and cancer with a subtlety that grows from scrupulous unsentimentality."

Well, doesn't that sound like something to take to the beach this summer.

Did you know that there's a whole genre now called "pregnancy narratives"? (Just go ahead and ram bamboo sticks under my fingernails. I'll enjoy it more.) Did you know, in fact, that there are entire libraries of titles that should be subtitled "Males Go Away"?

Take this blurb from Crow Lake by Mary Lawson: "Set against the wild terrain of northern Ontario, Crow Lake is a triumphant story of a young woman coming to terms with her past, and the strength of family love." Can I just wait for the Lifetime movie? At least we'll have a scene with Treat Williams as the creepy boyfriend who beats her up.

But why punish yourself? Just keep the following definitions in mind, and you too will be able to avoid long hours of mind-numbing, brain-deadening torpor: A book of "literary snapshots" means nothing happens.

"A lyrical small-town reminiscence" means nothing happens.

"Full of wry insight" means nothing happens.

A "rumination," a "pastiche," a "twinkling little jewel of a novel," "a quiet catharsis," "a journey through memory" or a "poetic elegy" all mean nothing ever happens.

Beware of the "auspicious debut," the "promising first novel" and the "dazzling maiden performance." This means we're waiting for the second novel to see if this turkey can write. Has there ever been a book reviewer in history who has said: "Let's hope this person doesn't ever write again — once was enough"?

What's the deal with the "freebie" first-novel review? We don't cut any slack for filmmakers when they bomb right out of the box.

And what's with all the verbiage from India? The next time I see a work of fiction described as "an inquiry into the consequences of colonialism" invoking the "rich spiritual traditions of a mysterious sub-continent" with a "postmodern sensibility" I'm going to personally seek out the Berkeley apartment building where all these writers-in-residence sponge off the Rockefeller Foundation and assault it with a sound truck blaring Nine Inch Nails at 3 a.m. Please make a pilgrimage to New Delhi in search of a plot, people.

Anything called a "three-generation family saga" will have a scene in which the bastard child of a ruthless entrepreneur is delivered by a midwife in a slave cabin.

Anything that "deftly evokes" — take your pick: turn-of-the-century Scotland, medieval Bavaria, Paris in the 20s — means the author read a book on period costumes and invented some adorably quirky dialects.

Anything involving "a woman's search" — take your pick: for the love she never had, for the source of her emotional identity, for the ghosts that lurk in her past, for the meaning behind her grandmother's poems found in a dusty attic — is going to include a lot of spontaneous weeping.

Beware of the word "anomie." The book will undoubtedly "resonate" with it. Even more ominous, it will probably be "Chekhovian."

Anything a professor does — returning to his rural home, facing his mortality, suffering from "ennui," enduring a middle-age crisis — should be banned by constitutional amendment.

Images will always "leap off the page" (usually in an attempt to escape). Families will always be "unconventional."

Expatriates will always be "disillusioned with their homeland."

Tenderness will always be found amid the devastation of war.

"Emotional transactions" will always be "genuine." And the "strange internal logic" of a narrative will always "take on a life of its own."

Collections of short stories, which nobody reads, will always display "a remarkable range." (News alert! All the stories are about different things.) Poetry collections, which have press runs of a thousand copies, will always be "evocative" of something or other. (Yep, they don't call it poetry for nothing, do they?) And collections of correspondence will always reveal "a remarkable mind, grappling with everything from the ephemera of day-to-day life to the mysteries of the universe." (Come on, it's a bunch of letters.)

Where is the book-reviewing school where they learn all this stuff? Wherever it is, I'm sure it's a poignant and wise place, blending fact, memory, and imagination in highly literary ways, so that the intensity of emotion can be revealed in finely crafted prose that resounds with a welter of imagery, affirming that our only true subject — yes! — is the earth itself.

Then again, some books are just bad.

—John Bloom is a columnist for United Press International, for which he wrote this piece; it is reprinted with permission.

Ebsco Buys Netlibrary

What will this mean for libraries?? Inquiring minds want to know!

Ultimate Best of the Best List for 2009

Neil Hollands, RA God at the Williamsburg Public Library in VA, has tweaked and 'completed' his best of the best list for fiction and non-fiction published in 2009.

Pretty amazing, really!!

Enjoy!!

The ECLIPSE Movie Trailer

The ECLIPSE Movie Trailer…

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Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Movie!!

Although I don't know when, this movie is going to be shown at the Renaissance Theatre in Highland Park and the Century Theatre in Chicago.

I read one review (on a genealogy blog) and the reviewer gave it RAVE reviews!!

Field trip, anyone?

Katie Couric Interviews Kathryn Stockett

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So I cleaned my desk while I listened to this interview---and if you think my desk at work is bad.....

Anyway, excellent interview. Kathryn Stockett is so gracious and wonderful. Also there are some book clubs chiming in AND if you watch the second half, Katie interviews some women who grew up in Jackson MS about their thoughts regarding race and The Help.

Four stars!!

DreamWorks Hires Taylor For 'The Help'

DreamWorks Hires Taylor For 'The Help'


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ALA | Outstanding genre literature selected for 2010 Reading List awards

ALA | Outstanding genre literature selected for 2010 Reading List awards


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