The latest news in publishing; author Q&As; Behind the Books; and other literary illuminations.
November 2011 brings 57 starred reviews from our two issues and recent Xpress Reviews. Perhaps because I'm headed for the shores of Albion again, I couldn't help but notice a streak of Anglophilia. Many long More...
Though I've "committed to incorporating more frontlist" in my columns, to quote my editor, I have to say: I never could tell my frontlist from my backlist. Does currency matter to dudes? Other than sabre More...
Whether they're personal, political, educational, or entertaining (and often all of the above) zines are a democratic form of media that exists to give voice to diverse points of view. Despite their heterogeneity, zine creators More...
Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger stuff, but I cannot say much more than this: for the past month, I have been fulfilling my civic duty by serving as an alternate juror on a federal criminal trial. More...
As Lewis Carroll's Alice so aptly points out, "What is the use of a book...without pictures or conversations?" Welcome to RA Crossroads, where books, movies, music, and other media converge, and whole-collection reader's advisory service More...
Bowling for dollars Bouchercon, held September 15?19 in St. Louis, always provides fun opportunities for mystery authors and readers to give back locally. At the stunningly retro Flamingo Bowl, 13 teams of authors, publishers, and More...
In 1986 two key events served as catalysts for the founding of Sisters in Crime, a nonprofit organization that promotes women?s equality in the mystery genre. Phyllis Whitney, a prolific author of popular gothic suspense More...
Moon prism power, make up! Kodansha's Sailor Moon and Sailor V manga reissues beat out Naruto for top graphic novel sales on September's bookstore scoresheet from Nielsen BookScan. Will the Sailor Scouts?called Sailor Senshi in More...
Just in time for Halloween, here are eight recent titles to celebrate the season. Featuring ghosts, witches, monsters, and the occasional zombie, they carry enough thrills and chills to satisfy even the most jaded adult More...
Street lit established its roots when writers hand-sold books out of car trunks, in beauty salons, and on street corners. Now librarians can learn all about street lit in an authoritative professional work titled The More...
This month, we see several titles advising parents to back off?or risk getting in the way of healthy development. Yet with books like Kerry Cohen's Dirty Little Secrets making headlines, it's difficult to see how More...
A summer hiatus spent studying Victorian fiction has made it a little tougher to get back into the memoir swing of things, but a few of these titles reminded me why this is such a More...
October 2011 brings 63 starred reviews from our two magazine issues and recent Xpress Reviews. First things first: it's impossible not to note the wealth of literary and popular fiction. Fall is the season to More...
Summer is over, thankfully. We survived the usual heat and humidity in New York, plus an earthquake, a hurricane, and flooding. Nature really is a mother, but books can get you through anything, so here More...
I love a challenge like Ethel Merman loves a parade. I did an Ironman this summer, and while that was difficult enough, I threw in an extra Ironman. Why? For the challenge. I pick up More...
According to the August 22 edition of Publishers Weekly, higher education titles led all book categories in growth since 2008. In comics, we have seen an increasing number of adaptations of star titles (classic as More...
Next month, Viking will publish Pulitzer Prize?winning author William Kennedy's latest novel, Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes (see the starred review). It's an amalgam of politics, mysticism, gangsters, romance, jazz, and Hemingway. Set against the More...
You can accuse the publishing industry of many things, but just don't call it boring. Developments like Amazon's purported ebook loaning library leave many collection development professionals feeling winded and powerless. Our new Librarian-Publisher Dialog More...
Although you may not yet be thinking about Thanksgiving, a slew of Christmas and other holiday books are coming. This year's select titles run the gamut from down-home to sophisticated, narrow to broad, and sentimental More...
Based in Portland, OR, graphic novelist Craig Thompson made his name among librarians with Blankets, his deeply personal, widely celebrated look at growing up and falling in love for the first time. This month he More...
As Lewis Carroll's Alice so aptly points out, "What is the use of a book...without pictures or conversations?" Welcome to RA Crossroads, where books, movies, music, and other media converge, and whole-collection reader's advisory service More...
What's the point of memoir? It's an old question, but one this month's memoirists answer through their stories: to deal with one life's darkness can illuminate another's. September's memoirs shed light on some bleak situations More...
Atmosphere, or lack thereof, can be deadly. Just ask any Star Trek redshirt unfortunate enough to beam down to an uncharted planet sans helmet?or see the evidence in books. Looking for quality murder 'n' mayhem More...
This month brings reviews of two new magazines from Great Britain and one from Canada, along with a Western-themed literary magazine and a new offering from McSweeney's. Delayed Gratification. 2010. q. £55. ISSN 2046-1933. Aud: More...
Fed up with all the end-of-paper-publishing rhetoric, workers from Atomic Books and Quimby's Bookstore declared the Revenge of Print 2011 (RoP). The Facebook page (I know, I know) has 473 posts as of August 2, More...
September 2011 brings 29 starred reviews from our Sept. 1 issue and recent Xpress Reviews. (This number is smaller than usual owing to our production schedule; the Sept. 15 issue was still closing as this More...
The trends and titles shaping a vital genre -- featuring 20 core collection titles, SF/Fantasy blogs and sites, and forthcoming works.
There?s an important difference between setting trends and chasing them, and a look at 2011?s crop of fantasy and sf finds publishers on the healthy side of the line. Proud of cases where they?ve been More...
At this year's BookExpo America, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Wendy Bartlett, collection development coordinator of Cuyahoga County Public Library, hold forth on the art and science of buying for demand. That is, More...
The International Thriller Writers (ITW) membership includes many of the world?s best-selling authors: David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, Lee Child, Sandra Brown, Clive Cussler, Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, and James Patterson, among others. All of these More...
LJ reviewer Jeff Ayers interviewed 2011 ITW lifetime achievement honoree R.L. Stine along with ThrillerFest Spotlight Guests Robert Crais, Diana Gabaldon and John Lescroart for their insights into the thriller genre and their own writing
Last spring, best-selling novelist David Morrell (First Blood) joined forces with Hank Wagner to edit Thrillers: 100 Must Reads (which garnered a starred LJ review), which collects the observations of the genre's leading writers on More...
?Last week in New York City, BookExpo America returned to the Jacob K. Javits Center and once again nearly rendered me psychotic from all the walking, talking, bathroom waiting, and galley lugging. Although I wasn't More...
A full slate of author talks, signings, award galas, and more add balance to the days of other professional programs in New Orleans.
In novels like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and Shanghai Girls, See introduces U.S. readers to forgotten chapters in Chinese history. Her new book, Dreams of Joy (see review on p. More...
Manhattan?s Javits Center is still home to the year?s big book show. Get LJ's picks of the show here.
Crime fiction is a genre dedicated to exploring the underside of both human psychology and life itself. This year?s crop of summer and fall mysteries and thrillers?and in particular those by debut writers and established More...
Eat local. That?s the idea behind the growing locavore movement. The word itself has become more commonplace, especially since it was named the Oxford American Dictionary?s word of the year in 2007. Locavores typically eat More...
Reviewer Andrea Tarr catches up with Rebecca Rasmussen, whose debut novel, The Bird Sisters (LJ 3/1/11), is a lovely, luminous, character-driven story that captures the joy and heartbreak of youth. The poetic, vivid prose is More...
Exciting developments even as budgets stay at rock bottom.
Our Book Review editors highlight an eclectic array of spring offerings ranging from print books to an audiobook to ebook apps; plus, a Prepub Alert Time Line.
In 2009, Elly Griffiths?s acclaimed debut, The Crossing Places, introduced U.S. mystery readers to British forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway; her foil and lover, DCI Harry Nelson; and the windswept, stark beauty of England?s Norfolk coast. More...
Atlases Hayes, Derek. Historical Atlas of the North American Railroad. Univ. of California. 2010. c.224p. illus. maps. index. ISBN 9780520266162. $39.95. REF Consider this another spectacular atlas from accomplished geographer Hayes, author of a More...
Mariam Touba It was my pleasure to work at the New-York Historical Society's library, an independent research library with collections documenting New York and American history, for many years. Mariam Touba, reference librarian and curator More...
Photo by Nancy Crampton About 20 years ago, when I was in graduate school to get my MA in American civilization at NYU, it was English professor Kenneth Silverman, a Bancroft and Pulitzer Prize?winning biographer More...
Book talk burgeons online, but finding review sources to trust isn't easy.
PW will list self-pubbed titles for $149; reviews remain at discretion of editorial staff.
Libraries, Ebooks, and Competition Ebooks and the Retailization of Research Ebook Sanity E-Texts for All (Even Lucy) People keep writing articles about how valuable libraries are, even with ebooks and the Internet and all. Well, More...
Libraries, Ebooks, and Competition Ebooks and the Retailization of Research Ebook Sanity E-Texts for All (Even Lucy) Treating the digital like the physical is insanity of the highest order. I've said it before, and I'll More...
A new author shares what the library has meant to her. Were it not for a library-namely, the public library of Utica, NY, a five-story brick and limestone box of neoclassical grandeur-I would not More...
BEA 2010: CEOs Take on the Shifting Value of the Book BEA 2010: Random House Breakfast Packs in Librarians BEA 2010: You're Reading That!?!-Tackling Crossover YA/Adult ReadersBEA 2010: "And the Audie Goes to…"Librarians to Ebook More...
The stepchild of genre fiction generally garners disdain when mentioned as a reading preference. This knowledgeable panel gets under the covers to reveal the intricacies of romance writing and how librarians can help patrons find
Panelists insist there was always YA/adult crossoverManuscripts should not be editor for crossover appealYA titles including more serious issuesThanks to Harry Potter and the Twilight series, an increasing number of adults are heading to their More...
On a panel yesterday hosted by LJ Prepub guru Barbara Hoffert, four editors from major houses gave their 20 faves (see below) for the coming fall/winter season, and threw in a couple of spring/summer titles More...
Google's cut still vagueMany partners, just not the KindleSmartphone app for direct purchasesAs LJ reported earlier this month, Google Editions, the search giant's 'cloud bookstore'; of titles available on any device, is slated to go More...
ILS integrationPublishers remain skepticalWill Blio and Copia become partners? Reps from the new ebook platforms Copia and Blio joined two librarians-New York Public Library deputy director of collections and circulating operations Christopher Platt and Toronto More...
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Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesI've been a lover of New York City food since I was born on the Upper East Side, from its pricey strip steaks to its budget chicken parmesan heroes. When I More...
30 to 50 percent intend to purchase within a yearTablets preferred over dedicated ereaders12,700 users in 14 countries surveyedEreaders and multi-function tablets would become as ubiquitous as MP3 players if prices were cut in half More...
In Publishers Weekly, Lauren Gilbert, information services manager, Cold Spring Harbor Library, NY, writes an essay on BookExpo America headlined A Librarian Walks into...:If Rodney Dangerfield were a librarian at BEA, he might say: 'we More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIn this expanded version of Prepub Alert, you'll find hot fall fiction (e.g., Cunningham, le CarrƩ), a big nonfiction list from Aczel to Zailckas, plus news of the latest Tom Clancy.Fiction More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAs Fiction Editor Wilda Williams attests in her 2010 mystery preview-see "The New Noir," publishing in LJ 4/15/10-we're about to witness a Soviet mystery boom. William Ryan's The Holy Thief (Minotaur More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe inaugural Empire State Book Festival goes down April 9 and 10 in Albany, NY. You likely don't live within a stone's throw, but we're talking it up as a beautiful More...
At Library Journal, we're pleased, and relieved, at the turn of events that has aligned us with a library company, Media Source, headed by CEO Randy Asmo. Soon we will move to newdigs in New More...
With the sale of Library Journal and School Library Journal, what happens to longtime sibiling publication Publishers Weekly?PW reports:Jeff DeBalko, president of Business Media at Reed Business, followed[the] 9 a.m. corporate memo with a reorganization More...
From a press release issued today: Ohio-based Media Source Inc. announces today that it has acquired Library Journal and School Library Journal from Reed Business Information-US.The acquisition includes all print and web products, services, supplements, More...
Albert, Susan Wittig. The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree. Berkley Prime Crime. Jul. 2010. 320p. ISBN 978-0-425-23445-7. $24.95.In the first in a new series from the best-selling Texas-based author of the China Bayles mysteries, More...
Seventh annual grantApplication deadline in the fallOne winner is still replacing books lost in 1987Online new and used bookseller Alibris has named three winners of the 2010 Alibris Collection Award, sharing a $3000 book grant: More...
Reading print-on-paper books about the fragmentation of texts and the freeing of information seems fitting. Jaron Lanier admits as much in the opening to You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (see review, LJ 12/09, More...
There have been several reports of layoffs and consolidations among book retailers and wholesalers; it's hard to tell whether it represents restructuring or retrenching.Publishers Weekly reports on a realignment at BarnesandNoble.com, involving both layoffs and More...
Adriana Trigiani, author of Very Valentine (HarperCollins, 2009), won top honors in the RUSA Reading List for genre fiction in the women's fiction category. The announcement came Sunday night at the ALA Midwinter RUSA awards. More...
Blio to offer 'multi-modal presentation'; of contentCopia highlights text-based social networkingAs ebook stores proliferate, EFF urges caution over privacy and content rightsMany of the stories from the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas feature More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesRecommendation: Any new or backlist title from Small Beer Press because the award-winning publisher of literary fiction and fantasy is holding its 2009 Christmas Franciscan Fundraiser Sale. Through December 31, 2009, More...
Ten years ago, I had what seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea: for my MFA thesis (which I had two years to finish), I'd write a book about the first immortal human cells ever grown More...
Go back to the Academic Newswirefor more storiesPlan to offer best of both services under YBPB&T to source UKtitles through Blackwell and vice versaExpands focus on academic librariesIn a consolidation and reorganization of the market More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe four-volume 'Mercy Thompson'; series has been described as a 'top-notch paranormal mystery'; by Publishers Weekly and 'engaging'; by LJ. Mercy does have singular talents-she can fix your Volkswagen and then More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesPrepub expands online to give you more titles and more details. In this column, hotly anticipated new fiction from Isabel Allende,Brunonia Barry, and Scott Turow, and in nonfiction, memoirs from Bruce More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesMickey Leigh is not the only one who has slept with Joey Ramone. But Leigh, brother of the late Ramones frontman, has more to offer than some rock groupie eager to More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesYes, we have thrillers-from the likes of Mary Higgins Clark and Martha Grimes-but with Pearl Abraham's American Taliban and Ian McEwan's Solar, fiction gets topical. In nonfiction, check out the good More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAward-winning comics artist Eddie Campbell is probably best known for his work on Alan Moore's From Hell.Readers would do well to check out his recently published Alec: "The Years Have Pants," More...
Longtime mystery writer Nevada Barr (Anna Pigeon series) launches her first stand-alone thriller this month. Speaking in a phone interview from her home in New Orleans, she shared some background on the exciting, psychologically draining More...
Poignant. Imaginative. Passionate. Original. These are some of the words LJ's reviewers used to describe the first novels forthcoming this fall and winter. We haven't been able to review them all yet, but we are More...
Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesWhy did it take so long for someone to realize that parenthood starts well before the birth of a child? Comedy writer David Javerbaum-former executive producer of The Daily Show anda More...
Barbieri, Maggie. Final Exam. Minotaur: St. Martin's. Dec. 2009. 352p. ISBN 978-0-312-37677-2. $24.99.Alison Bergeron finds drugs in a missing student's dorm and gets her detective boyfriend on the case. The fourth in New York-based Barbieri's More...
Recently, ebraryĀ® announced that it has expanded its relationship with Baker & Taylor's (B&T) YBP Library Services to provide libraries with a 'completely new and effective way to acquire the widest...depth of authoritative content from More...
In 1998, Nancy Pearl and Chris Higashi, librarians working in the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library (SPL), had a brainstorm. Challenged with a grant to develop new audiences for literature, More...
Estleman, Loren D. Alone. Forge: Tor. Dec. 2009. 272p. ISBN 978-0-7653-1576-2. $24.99. After Frames, Estleman, who's written more than 60 novels and won four Shamus Awards, sets film archivist Valentino's second adventure in motion with More...
Twenty-five years since her first release, West Virginia-based Jo Goodman has added another notch to her belt with the wonderful Western romance Never Love a Lawman (see p. 61). Writing beautifully vivid historical romances that More...
Although the recession continues to permeate every pore of American business, it doesn't seem to have hit art book publishing-yet. Against all expectations, high-end scholarly publications, exhibition catalogs, and monographs on individual artists-a few with More...
RBI divesting most U.S. trade magazinesBanker appointed for salePublisher pledges continued excellenceReed Business Information (RBI) is putting Library Journal and its affiliated publications, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, up for sale. Thetransaction is part More...
LJ's Spiritual Living columnist, Graham Christian, gave a starred review to Willis Barnstone's The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas (Norton) in his July LJ More...
Barnes & Noble made its long awaited entrance into the e-book market with an announcement late Monday afternoon of the launch of the Barnes & Noble eBookstore (www.bn.com/ebooks). In direct contrast to the closed Kindle More...
Local librarians enjoyed a full day of programs on July 15 at the 29th annual Romance Writers of America (RWAĀ®) conference in Washington, DC. Nearly 100 professionals learned the ins and outs of bringing an More...
Covering the Kennedy assassinationReflections on presidents from Hoover to ReaganSetting standards for TV newsThe death of legendary newscaster Walter Cronkite on July 17 remindedus of an interview Glenn Lewis did for LJ in the December More...
Boston Noir. 270p. ed. by Dennis Lehane. ISBN 978-1-933354-91-0. Phoenix Noir. 304p. ed. by Patrick Millikin. ISBN 978-1-933354-85-9. ea. vol: Akashic. Nov. 2009. pap. $15.95.Crime fiction master Lehane and Poisoned Pen Bookstore bookseller and critic More...
In 1992 Teri Woods, then a Philadelphia legal secretary and mother, finished her first novel and spent the next six years submitting True to the Game to more than 20 publishers. Undeterred by their rejections, More...
Organizational structure announced"Market-focused" organizationServices to libraries, publishers groupedSome three weeks after the integration of Ingram Book Group, Ingram Digital, and print-on-demand Lightning Group into Ingram Content Group, CEO Skip Prichard announced the formation ofa "market-focused" More...
When journalist Stieg Larsson died in 2004, he left an impressive record of fighting right-wing extremism in his native Sweden and three crime novels. Although he lived to enjoy the Swedish publication of the first More...
For a so-called dying industry, publishing looked prettyalive at this year's BookExpo America (BEA) in New York City. Somebody must have forgotten to tell the attendees who often crowded the aisles and booths-and packed LJ/SLJ's More...
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 presented their picks in ten-minuteintervals at BEA's first-ever Librarians' Book More...
Top titlesDownloadable ARCsIn the future, physical books still matterThis year's BookExpo America drew fewer librarians-about 2100-than the blockbuster show in New York in 2007, but it was hard to tell from the crowds who thronged More...
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 More...
Armstrong, David. Written Out. Severn House. Oct. 2009. 224p. ISBN 978-0-7278-6779-7. $28.95.Is a novelist's disappearance an evil plot or an innocent affair? Detectives Frank Kavanagh and Jane Salt return after A Kind of Acquaintance to More...
Moving onlineLibrary use in tough timesHot PicksMonster lit
Echoing Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, several panelists at Library Journal's annual Day of Dialog at BEA agreed "Never waste a crisis.'; Oxford University
Press reference More...
Don't even think about attending BEA without first consulting LJ's inside line on top freebies and great places to eat when your day is done. First up is Book Review Editor Barbara Hoffert's six galleys More...
The well-being of animals matters, and not only because, as Jeremy Bentham said, 'The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer.'; What's more, we're in this world together, More...
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, TheGlass Castle, she's chosen to retell her grandmother's life "with More...
Who could not love Firmin, that rascally rat who learned how to read and gave us a street's-eye view of 1960s Boston decay and renewal in Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife? Firmin was 2006's More...
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