Monday Discussion: National Library Week Edition

Happy National Library Week, or as we here in the near West Chicago suburbs are calling it...conversion week! Yes, our consortia of "of 77 public, special, and academic libraries with a combined collection of 1.4 million unique titles and 7.9 million volumes that grows larger every day." is being converted as we speak. Right. This. Minute.

We are all very anxious and excited to get going tomorrow, but today, for the start of National Library Week, we are in more of a holding pattern.

So I thought it was a good day to make the Monday Discussion about the back list!

Since I knew today would be a day I could not place holds, I mentally prepared a list of backlist titles that I was pretty sure were going to be on the shelf; titles I could give out today to people so that they could go home with a good read in their hands.

Even though this is a one day thing, I thought I would use the opportunity to pick the collective RA brain for some of your favorite backlist titles.  I have done this as a Monday Discussion in the past and have gotten great suggestions, so...let's do it again!

For today's purposes, I am defining backlist as having no earlier than a 2013 publication date.

I'll go first.

In the forthcoming April 15, 2015 issue of Library Journal, I am the guest writer for Neal Wyatt's The Reader's Shelf column in honor of "Halfway to Halloween."  In that column I focused on all backlist horror titles.  Here is the list of titles I included. You will have to wait for the magazine for the annotations:

• The Keep by Jennifer Egan
• Castaways by Brian Keene
• Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough
• Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
• Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez
• The Ruins by Scott Smith

Here are a few more backlist titles I have been hand selling to people recently. The links go to my initial reviews:

• Peony in Love by Lisa See
• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
• Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall
• The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
• City of Thieves by David Benioff
• The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell
• The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

I could keep going, but that's not the point. It is not a lecture but a discussion. I want to add your voices to the list.

Please add your backlist favs in the comments.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.