Newsletter 4683 Issue 4683200952114051

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May 26, 2009

This week when I walk into the Jacob Javits Center, I will have attended my ninth BookExpoAmerica. All those flashy booths and mountains of free booty won't be there as usual, yet never before have I been so excited. Librarians fortunate enough to fly, train, and bus in will work the show the way Sinatra worked Vegas, collecting hot titles and trading recession-beating tactics. Now more than ever, publishers need these book warriors and vice versa (as Barbara Fister pointed out in her recent LJ article). In the absence of a bonafide meet-up, I suggest a casual exchange of ideas over coffee in LJ's always comfortable Librarians' Lounge (booth 745). Said parties, along with book marketers, interacted last Thursday on Twitter during a library-centric discussion led by bloggers Kat Meyer and Charlotte Abbott under the hash tag #followreader (go to Follow the Reader this week for the archive). Librarian or not, if you're going to BEA, you must check out Barbara Hoffert's galley highlights and a dining guide by some big-time local yokels. If you haven't registered for BookSmack!, do it today, or you'll miss our zombie lit and staycation specials in June.—Heather McCormack, Editor (Follow me on Twitter at @hmccormack and @LJBookReview)

• Featured Giveaway: Sherman Alexie's War Dances
  This is a story collection, and Alexie has a special gift with the genre, delivering a you-are-there-and-you'd-better-think-hard-about-it sensibility that few contemporary writers can manage. more » Â» Â» 
• Featured Giveaway: Masha Hamilton's 31 Hours
  Hamilton has worked as a foreign correspondent herself, and the knowledge she brings to her fiction is always evident, as is the journalist's level, ever-pondering approach to the material at hand. more » Â» Â» 
• Featured Giveaway: David Small's Stitches
  I'm riveted by the idea of someone brave enough not only to overcome such trauma but then to turn around and relive it for our benefit. This is not a work that will leave you in stitches—it's forthright, wrenching, and not a pretty picture. more » Â» Â» 

• Featured Giveaway: Sam Savage's The Cry of the Sloth
  Sam Savage's second novel, The Cry of the Sloth, promises to repeat Firmin's success—in its own way. The protagonist is a rumpled and nutty literary journal editor, aspiring novelist, and slipshod landlord who records his tumble of thoughts over a four-month period. more » Â» Â» 
• Featured Giveaway: Jeannette Walls's Half Broke Horses
  Jeannette Walls's new work, Half Broke Horses (Scribner), is subtitled A True-Life Novel, and that seems about right. After the coruscating truths of her memoir, The Glass Castle, she's chosen to retell her grandmother's life "with the storyteller's liberties." more » Â» Â» 
• Featured Giveaway: G.A. Bradshaw's Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity
  As G.A. Bradshaw explains in Elephants on the Edge, we have a lot to learn from our four-footed friends. Currently, through culling, warfare, and habitat loss, the elephant population is down to a few hundred thousand (from millions), and elephants are truly traumatized. more » Â» Â» 

• Pizza, Boigahs, and Bangers in the Mouth: A Guide to Eating Your Heart Out in New York
  We admit it: living in New York City makes you a food snob, but not in the sense you think. We don't want to sup three times a week at three-star Michelin enterprises that cost us a kidney or worse. We want value for money; red-carpet treatments for editor and librarian budgets. Most of the restaurants listed below serve quality dinner entrees for under $20. more » Â» Â» 

• Top Ten Holds from the Cuyahoga County Public Library (OH)
  Behind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. See what patrons are lining up to read at the Cuyahoga County Public Library (OH). It's a fresh crop of titles, with more nonfiction and no big-name thriller authors. The 5000 Year Leap, described by collection development coordinator Wendy Bartlett as a political version of The Secret, jumped to the top of the list from nowhere after an endorsement from Glenn Beck.  more » Â» Â» 

• I’ll Be Back To the Future: Four Terminator Salvation Tie-ins
  "I'll be back," the time-traveling cyborg assassin deadpans in 1984's The Terminator—and he wasn't kidding! That low-budget B-movie launched the careers of James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger, spawned two sequels, a TV series (The Sarah Connor Chronicles), graphic novels, and now a new feature film, Terminator Salvation (TS), fleshing out the backstory with Christian Bale. more » Â» Â» 

• 35 Going on 13
  I have had to make an adjustment in my reading lately—it's difficult to care for an infant and hold a book for any length of time. As many commuters have discovered, this is the very thing for which audiobooks were created. Many audiobooks are a standard recitation of the text, but a few transform a book, whether through a reader's virtuoso performance or production extras. Adult listeners will find delightful offerings on their teen audio shelves. Here are a few of my favorites. more » Â» Â» 

• Prepub Exploded: October 2009, Pt. 1
  October is a big publishing month, and you'll see some big names here: Atwood, Barron, Byatt, Gabaldon, Irving, Lethem, Mayle, Sandford, Saul —even Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew. And that's just fiction. Nonfiction ranges from the Cold War and Iraq to memoirs on eating, writing greeting cards, and returning to your Mennonite parents. Don't stop now! more » Â» Â» 
• Starred Reviews: May 2009
  May is going by in a blur for us, what with all the preparations for BookExpoAmerica and the revamping of our book review format (see the June 1 issue or preview the new look in Xpress Reviews). Still, we made time for starring 76 titles. Self-help made an especially strong showing with four standouts. The mystery Short Takes showcased excellent debuts and series closers by the likes of Tarquin Hall and Donald Westlake. more » Â» Â» 

• The Word on Street Lit No. 14
  For most street lit characters, the main source of income is the drug game. They might be soldiers working a corner hoping to climb the ladder or kingpins drenched in lavish wealth. But what about the other folks? Secondary characters caught up in this dangerous world also need cash in their pockets. more » Â» Â» 

BookSmack! Webcast: Mind, Body, Spirit

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