Newsletter 4683 Issue 4683200964155645

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June 4, 2009

Last Friday, I found myself repeating a line I've often used to comfort harried late reviewers: Life comes before books; chill out. I was depressed about missing BookExpoAmerica owing to my cat, Cleo, who'd contracted a severe liver infection that required home nursing. Thank you, Internet Gods, for Twitter, which allowed me to follow panels and take in show floor peculiarities from Brooklyn with the #BEA09 hash tag. All in all, I don't feel as if I missed that much. Unfortunately, an air of insularity still pervades publishing.

The book world can't help but be nichey, of course, but while syringe-feeding the cat, I kept thinking how much the industry needs the general public (Richard Nash made this point in a Publishers Weekly blog post about BEA's decision not to open Sunday to the "barbarians"). I often joke I hate books because of how off-putting they can be to nonreaders. It's not books' fault that other distractions came along, obviously. And tempting as it is to point at book-allergic "barbarians," this elitist attitude isn't going to keep book publishing alive. Publishers, librarians, and bloggers need to take a cue from P.T. Barnum and flog their beloved bound pulp for its amazingly true abilities to make us thinner, smarter, and happier.

The librarians at the Cuyahoga County Public Library are doing just that with their genius Reconnect with Reading program. We hope to convert recession-hit, nonbook people who are venturing into the library for the first time in years with the new Verdict subheads in our reviews (read Francine Fialkoff's editorial for details). OK, rant over for today. Don't miss the June 18 edition for our staycation and zombie lit specials—and register today for BookSmack!—Heather McCormack, Editor (follow me on Twitter at @hmccormack and @LJBookReview)

• BookExpo America 2009: Librarians' Book Shout and Share
  So, what were the must-have titles at BEA? After circling the show floor for two days, eight librarians with collection development or readers' advisory backgrounds came up with a list and presented them in ten minutes each at BEA's first-ever Librarians' Book Shout and Share. Some titles were picked by more than one panelist; other trends included recommended book-club reads, debut novels, YA crossover titles, food-related picks, and, of course, memoirs. more » » » 

• RA Crossroads: Ekphrastic Art
  A few weeks ago, I was in Chicago on the day the Art Institute unveiled the Modern Wing. As I wandered through the amazing space, I kept thinking of William Carlos Williams and Charles Demuth. Which is not as strange an association as you might think. Demuth’s The Figure Five in Gold was inspired by Williams’s poem "The Great Figure." The painting is an example of ekphrastic art—art created when one medium engages in a conversation with another. more » » » 

• The Library Don't Have a Closet: 19 Graphic Novels for Gay & Lesbian Pride Month
  With explicitly gay characters popping up in established superhero series, libraries could showcase comics for Gay and Lesbian Pride Month (June) by displaying only these titles. But that would be shortchanging patrons. Indeed, other, more individualistic titles with LGBT content have been so highly praised that your collection may have them already—and if not, they should have them. Take your pick from the variety below. more » » » 

• Books for Dudes: Unmolder Your Ears with Music Biographies
  Books offer a different kind of stimulation than music and manage to tap my pubescent wonder, still rustling around inside my crusty dude shell, over how great songs came to be and what crazy sh*t Mick and Keef got up to in their heyday. Call it morbid nostalgia. Call me old and irrelevant. But you are human, aging by the second, and you will feel yourself being pulled into the beautiful time warps these books contain in their spines.
  more » » » 

• Prepub Exploded: October 2009, Pt. 2
  We didn't need BookExpo to remind us what a big publishing month October is, though it surely was fun to see books picked for this issue's column (as well as last issue's, October, Pt. 1) bruited about on the floor. Fiction includes the 50th anniversary edition of Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum, while nonfiction—especially big this column—ranges from the Trojan war to the current economic crisis.   more » » » 

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