The Corner Shelf, in particula, is exactly perfect for the reader of this blog. From the newsletter landing/archive page:
Where Readers' Advisory meets Collection Development. This free newsletter addresses trends, ideas, and issues in the two areas, helping librarians find the common ground between them. Original writing by respected experts, as well as in-the-trenches looks at new products and what's coming up. If you don't already receive Corner Shelf, subscribe now!
This newsletter comes out 4x a year-- February, May, August, and October. Click here to read the current newsletter- October 2025.
And don't forget to check out the FREE archive of newsletters going back to 2014. There is a treasure trove of RA resources, suggestion ideas, and interviews with RA professionals lurking just a few clicks ff the Booklist Online homepage here.
But back to the present. Today I am including the Editor's Note from Susan Maguire that leads off this issue. Please click here or at the end of her intro to read the entire issue and check out the useful links.
Hello Shelfers,
Publisher’s Weekly shared some bad news from the leisure-reading world back in August: folks are currently reading for pleasure at the lowest rate in the past 20 years. This seems to be at odds with the BookTok-driven boom in reading, where users are consuming books at wild pace, snapping up special editions and self-published gems alongside picks from past publishing seasons. (Although there is a part of me that wonders if this is reading, or just consumption? Not because of the content—I’m a devoted romance reader, and you won’t catch me judging what anyone chooses to read for fun—but because there’s just so much. Are people just filling their bookshelves with pretty stuff? Does it even matter? Am I being too gatekeep-y?)
And then I look to my own library. I spent last weekend working at my Friends of the Library book sale (shout out to the Edgewater branch of the Chicago Public Library!), two days full of talking to folks about the treasures they found and how excited they were to dig in. I’m not saying this refutes PW’s report or my own cynicism about social media, but it was good for my readers’ advisor’s soul to see people jazzed about books.
What are you seeing at your libraries? Are your leisure-reading patrons still actively using the library? Are your holds queues still growing? Are folks browsing the shelves for things to take home? Are BookTok and Bookstagram suggestions making their way into your RA conversations and patron requests?
Hopefully your reading community is a robust one, but no matter the shape it’s in, Booklist and Corner Shelf are here to help. In this issue, I’m highlighting a Trade Secrets column that ran in the July issue from librarian Kaitlyn Griffith-Miller on the nuances of using BookTok for readers’ advisory. (Because no matter how cynical we are—*ahem* I am—about it, patrons are getting books suggestions from BookTok.) You’ll also find a list of Essentials on “Understanding Propaganda” for young readers; get that media literacy started early. We’ve also got a roundup of recent professional reading reviews, the Top 10 Art Books for 2025, a community-oriented Excerpt from the Experts, and more. Plus, it’s spooky season, so I couldn’t resist including Kelly Ferreira’s “YA Queer Horror Roundtable” and an unsettling backlist suggestion that harkens back to a classic horror master.
Happy reading!
—Susan Maguire
Senior Editor, Collection Development and Library Outreach, Booklist
smaguire@ala.org
@booklistsusan.bsky.social
Click here to access the full issue with links.
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