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Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on March 12, 2010
The reviews coming in of the new HBO mini-series, The Pacific, which starts on Sunday, are strong. In expectation of increased reader interest on the subject, Osprey is rei ssuing its 2005 publication, The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, edited by Daniel Marston, in a handsome paperback edition (left). Osprey is also offering War in the Pacific (right), a new slipcased assemblage of facsimile docu  ments, maps, and memorabilia, by Richard Overy, with a fo...Read More
Posted by Anna Katterjohn on March 11, 2010
C&T Publishing is launching a new line of craft books, Stash, this spring to cater to a younger generation of  crafters. Courtesy of their marketing department, I  give you peacock Pete (left), from Little Birds: 26 Handmade Projects To Sew, Stitch, Quilt & Love, available in May 2010. The projects are collected from various fiber artists on Etsy and other popular sites.Other forthcoming Stash titles include ...Read More
Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on March 4, 2010
How's this for a bookie's dream come true? Heading to work on the subway this morning, I got a seat and pulled out my London Review of Books to read. In my usual LRB fashion I first took in the personals, because they're so eccentric ("Man seeking woman to read The Hobbit with...."), next I read the London Review Bookshop ad, always a two- page spread highlighting books for sale relating to a particular theme (this time fashion and dressing up), plus "some other recommended titles." Among the other titles was Elsie & Mairi Go to War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front, by Diane Atkinson. "Elsie Knocker and Mair...Read More
Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on February 11, 2010
For those of you who didn't see yesterday's Publib post by Cindy Orr on "How to Increase Your Library's Circulation," take a look at it, as posted here on her web site. There are nearly two dozen superb recommendations. Cindy retired from Cleveland Public Library, where she worked for years in collection development, only to be snapped up by nearby Cuyahoga County Public Library. Now she's officially "retired," but is busy writing and consulting, not to mention serving as LJ's new contributing editor for collection development.
Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on February 8, 2010
In 2007, Tamara Braunstein, one of LJ's contacts in academic publishing, who was always a pleasure to hear from about forthcoming titles, trends, and so forth, left her position and headed to Senegal for an English teaching post, which she had found through idealist.org.
Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on January 28, 2010
Here's a J.D. Salinger memory to share. It was my father's memory, but he gave it to me years ago, and now I'll share it. During my childhood, my father used to smoke a pipe. I loved the smell of his tobacco, and I loved the look of the tin that it came from.  It was Granger pipe tobacco, always in a beautiful cobalt container. When I was a little older, my father gave up his pipe, and I told him that I missed that Granger fragrance, which had none of the rough edge of cigarette smoke in it. He told me that he smoked Granger pipe tobacco because when he was on jury duty in New York City in 1950, he'd been on a panel with J.D. Salinger. When Salinger was called to the panel,...Read More
Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on January 14, 2010
Here at LJ, we're just closing the February 1st issue, the one that includes our annual spring roundup of forthcoming baseball titles.  This year, LJ reviewer Gilles Renaud and I oversaw the roundup, with additional titles to be added online when the issue is published. (Some of those additional reviews will be by LJ reviewer Rob Langenderfer.) We liked this spring's books. I can't tell you what a pleasure it is when a book titled Are We Winning?: Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball is balanced in the lineup by books by Martha Ackmann (Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, the First Woman To Play Profe...Read More
Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on December 15, 2009
The December issue of LJ went online today with our best books of 2009, which LJ's BookSmack subscribers g ot to see in advance last month (click here for the lastest BookSmack, with a new one coming on Thursday). In the online intro to the best books piece, LJ book review editor Barbara Hoffert offered some words on how we arrived at our choices, noting that we "look for a little risk that sets a book apart and makes us sit up and see things anew...." A best book is one that...Read More
Posted by Anna Katterjohn on December 4, 2009
Just after the release of his nonfiction Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir, best-selling novelist and MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block Beginning in this year's forthcoming Holiday Issue, Block will share a story about writers Stanley Ellin and Donald Westlake and book editor Lee Wright. Future &quo...Read More Industries: Magazine/Zine 
Posted by Jessica Roy on November 12, 2009
Library Journal’s sister company Publishers Weekly sparked a literary tempest two weeks ago with its now notorious “Top 10 Best Books of 2009” list, which did not feature any women writers. As the intern responsible for sending out book assignments to LJ reviewers, I was struck by the omission almost immediately—and so, it seems, were others. The list ignited a series of discussions concerning the state of women in the publishing industry. The Guardian lamented the overuse of the “chick-lit” label, and even the New York Times ...Read More 
Posted by Bette-Lee Fox on October 5, 2009
When you get to a certain age, something forces itself into your consciousness more often than you’
Posted by Margaret Heilbrun on September 25, 2009
Here are some bibliographic gleanings from my vacation earlier this month in England, my first trip there in 25 years. A.N. Wilson may think that Great Britain ain't so great any more (click here for LJ's current review of his Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II), but I beg to disagree.Available for sale in British bookstores is  60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, the The Catcher in the Rye "sequal" offered by J. D. California, the pseudonym of Swedish author Fredrik Colting. As you can see, the British paperbacks sport...Read More
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d like: the untrustworthiness of memory. Think about the words that just won’t settle on your tongue, the task you had in mind when you left your office that you can’t recall until you retrace your steps back to your desk. It is heartbreakingly portrayed in Lisa Genova’s