Science Fiction is the Literature of Change

In preparation for an RA staff meeting tomorrow during which each member of our staff will be book talking a SF title, I came across this post about the current state of the genre.

Click through, but then go and listen to the longer and more detailed Guardian Books podcast, Science Fiction Now and Tomorrow to which the post refers.

For our meeting, the staff was specifically asked to choose a first book in an established SF series that we had never read before.  I am embarrassed to admit it but I had never read my choice, Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

Now, there is a whole different discussion to be had about whether Foundation is actually still considered the first one in this series or not, and I will get into that later  when I post my review/notes for our meeting, but reading Foundation and listening to the above podcast in tandem has been quite enlightening.

One of the arguments the podcast makes is that the pace of technological change has been so fast for the last 60 years or so, that SF is one of the best ways for the average person to cope with this real life blur of change. Reading Foundation with a 21st century lens, this point was very clear to me.

I am also currently listening a wonderful new voice in Science Fiction, Ernest Cline, and his critically acclaimed debut novel, Ready Player One which is set in a science fiction future, but also looks back fondly on the technology, science fiction, and fantasy of the 1980s, the years of my youth.  I cannot stress how wonderful listening to this book has been, and I am only about halfway through.

You would think the two novels would be very distinct being written decades apart.  In fact, while their tone and subjects are very different, it is surprising how much the two books share.  I have enjoyed the paring and it has really made me think about SF past, present and future.  In fact, it made me think that another good RA training exercise would be to read a 20th century SF classic alongside a 21st century offering to compare and contrast.

I have SF on the brain these days.  Look for more detail on all of this in the coming weeks.  I will have reviews of both Foundation and Ready Player One, as well as some notes from what my co-workers share in our staff meeting tomorrow.  And count on the fact that I will be throwing in some general observations about the past, present, and future of SF.

But whether or not you have SF on the brain, at the very least go check out the podcast and get a sense of the current state of the genre. Also, take a look at this post from last week when I talked about the Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List for 2011 (Ready Player One is listed there).

One final note: the department meeting tomorrow is also a part of our larger attempt to explore some of the genres with which we as a staff are less confident.  I will let you know how it goes and what area we decided to take on next.

Ready Player One Movie News and Display Ideas

Readers of this blog know that I am a HUGE fan of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Click here for all of the times it has been mentioned on RA for All. Not only did I love the book personally, but I dedicated months of my life to working on the 2013 Berwyn Reads which featured the book.

Normally, I go out of my way to avoid the movie versions of books I have loved, but yesterday the movie got a director...Steven Spielberg! Not only can Spielberg make a great SF movie, but he also owned the 1980s and the novel is a love letter to the decade [among many other things; read my review for more]. There is no better choice!

I am so excited and elated that I am scared.  Am I willing to hope that for once, a favorite book will not disappoint me as a movie?  Could this be a To Kill A Mocking Bird moment? We will have to see.

This is all good timing for the fact that I just proofread Betty’s great books to movie annotated list for the new display on the topic that John is preparing for the BPL. In general “book to movie” displays are a great idea to have at your library.  I have readers who come in to read the books before they see the movie and others who come in for the book after.

I am sure you already know this and do it though. Don’t worry, I am not simply writing a post that states the obvious. Keep reading...

Now we happen to have a large books to movie display planned to go up in a few days, but when there is big movie news like this, you can still capitalize on the buzz by putting up a quick display to show your patrons that you are paying attention to the wider book world and anticipating their needs.

So you could use the extensive list of readalike options we prepared for Berwyn Reads and make a Ready Player One movie news quick display, or simply grab a few books off the shelf that are among the better book to movie options, make a quick sign, and display those books on any open space in the library.

The point I am trying to make here is that you don’t need a lot of time or preparation to take advantage of a book related news story that is capturing a large audience. Don’t miss your chance to insert yourselves, the community book experts, into the larger conversation.  Your patrons will notice that you are relevant, on top of the latest news, and that you want to help them find their next good read.  Everybody wins.

Summer Reading Begins...

Today is the first day of my kids’ summer vacation, so I have summer reading on the brain.

My daughter is lucky to have a fantastic list of titles to choose from for her high school’s summer reading.  Here is the full list. She only has to read 1, but she chose at least two-- Ready Player One and Between the World and Me. Thankfully, I have read both [you can click on the titles for my reviews], and for Ready Player One, I even got to interview the author [although the link is no longer public per Cline’s request]. We are both excited to talk about them together.

Either would make a great summer read for anyone out there. Between the World and Me because it is timely, lyrical, and poignant [and short] and Ready Player One because it is exciting, thought provoking, and will be a huge blockbuster movie very soon.

My son is 11 and a voracious reader of anything and everything-- fiction, nonfiction, kids, teen, adult. The problem with him, is keeping enough books in his hands. Right now he is reading every Mike Lupica football book he can get his hands on, and after a visit from the public library to his school, he was excited about The Big Dark. His copy came through ILL this week.

Me, I have a stack of horror titles to review for the August Spotlight on Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror issue for Booklist. But I also have a stack of books I am very excited to read for fun. I have a 2 week vacation in July that I am saving them for.  That list is:

• Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
• The Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics
• Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
• The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

This post is only the start of my summer reading conversation with all of you. Over the summer, most Fridays I will continue to have “summer reading” posts here on the blog. Rather than simply link you to the millionth list of good summer reads (you can get those over on Early Word), I will have posts about what what we are reading in my house and what books I am suggested to others as good summer reads. I will especially focus on great backlist titles for different reading situations.

You can use the tag “summer reading” to pull up all of these posts, and posts from previous years-- because older good summer reads are still good summer reads.

But also, feel free to leave your current summer reading suggestions in the comments for others to see and use with patrons.

Interview with Ernest Cline for Berwyn Reads!

EDITORS NOTE: At Ernest Cline’s Request, the video has been removed (12/2014)

Hot off the presses, it’s my 56 minute interview with Ernie Cline.  Click here or watch the embedded version below.

Published on Oct 30, 2013

Ernest Cline, author of the novel "Ready Player One," is interviewed by Becky Spratford of the Berwyn Public Library. The City of Berwyn read Ready Player One as their "2013 Berwyn Reads!," a One Book, One Community initiative. Questions were provided by students from J. Sterling Morton West High School.

What I'm Reading: Ready Player One

[The reviews keep coming; I am only behind by 6 books now]

Every once in awhile you read a book that you never want to end.  This is what happened to me when I listened to Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (herein RPO) read to me by Wil Wheaton.

I have to give a big thanks to my friend Leah for recommending that I listen to the audio for this one.  I will have a bit to say about the audio specifically below.

RPO has had universal praise.  It won the Alex Award this year (best adult books for teens), and made the Locus "Recommended Reading List" in the "First Novel" category.

If you want my 10 second book talk version of RPO, here it is:

"This is a Science Fiction adventure, obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, featuring a teen protagonist, set in a near future dystopia, but taking place mostly in a virtual reality world." 

Honestly, this is all a reader needs to know before reading the book.  Most could tell whether this would appeal to them or not from this sentence immediately.  For me, as a child of the 1980s, who loves earth set, near future dystopian novels, reading RPO was a no brainer.

Here is a very quick plot summary.  Wade lives in a near future America in which extreme fuel shortages and extremely poverty have changed the landscape.  The one bright spot in his (and most American's) life is the Oasis.  It is a virtual reality world where "real life" is now lived.  Wade goes to school in the Oasis, he buys his real food and clothes through it, and has his only friends there.

When the creator of the Oasis died, he left a quest with clues scattered throughout the Oasis as his will. The person who can complete the quest first, inherits his fortune.

Wade is part of a community of people working for years on the quest called "gunters."  They are the good guys.  Gunters want to complete the quest because of their love and respect for the Oasis.  And the bad guys are led by a huge corporation IOI that wants to own the rights (and dollars) to the Oasis.

That is the setup.  I will give no more plot detail because the joy of reading this book is to watch Wade grow and the story unfold.

The most striking thing about RPO is its references to 1980s pop culture and video games.  In fact, here is Wikipedia's entry for the book which has an ever growing list of all of the references in the novel.

For me this was a huge appeal.  All of my favorite movies were talked about.  Even better, the end involves Monty Python and the Holy Grail, not only one of my all-time favorite movies (which I probably quote at least once a month), but literally, as I listened to RPO in February, my kids had seen the movie for the first time.  They saw it right before it came up in the novel, which was so cool; I had no idea that was going to happen.  I could list more of the fun pop culture references to me specifically, but that would take a week.

I do want to mention though that while this is Cline's first novel, he did write the screenplay to the movie Fanboys about Star Wars geeks.  This movie is also a favorite at our house since we live with a 7 year-old fanboy. [He wants to be "George Lucas" when he grows up.]  I will make sure my fanboy reads RPO when he is older!

Besides the pop culture references driving the appeal, this is a very compelling adventure story.  It starts slower with all of the necessary details we need to have the world built for us.  And then, once we are settled into the speculative world, that is it, we are hooked.  You inhabit the Oasis with Wade, you rush to discover clues with him.  You frantically turn the pages to see what is going to happen next!

Wade and his fellow gunter friends are also well drawn characters whom you grow to love.  Wade in particular is a very sympathetic character.  The coming of age theme is huge here.  Any teen who is intrigued by the 30 second book talk quite above, should read RPO.  Wade also narrates the entire book to the reader.  He is telling us the story of how he saved the day.  It is an intimate experience, so liking Wade is a huge necessity.

If you read this blog, you know that I am not always a fan of the neat, happy ending.  [One of my favorite books ends with everyone dying.] But here the happy, closed ending was picture perfect.  This novel was about the ride.  The complex puzzles, the adventure, beating the evil corporate giants, victory for the good guys.  I was cheering and rooting for Wade throughout the book.  The tone is one of the coming of age quest and it needed a happy ending.

I loved this novel so much. I was literally sad when it ended.  I don't think I have felt that way since I finished The Passage.  But at least with The Passage I know I can revisit the world and the characters in 2 more books to come.  RPO is a complete story. I do not want a sequel, but I honestly wish I could still hang out with Wade and the gang some more.  I am not a huge "gamer" but man, I wish I could actually plug into the Oasis and "meet" these characters.

Audio appeal:  Wil Wheaton is a fabulous narrator of audiobooks in general, but with his SF geek status solidified as member of the Star Trek pantheon and his place as a 1980s icon himself, he was the perfect narrator for this book.  Also, there is one line in the book where Wheaton himself is referred to.  Hearing him read that line alone was worth it.  Since this novel was a first person narration with Wade recounting his adventure, Wheaton's narration became Wade's voice.  I was compelled to listen to "Wade," and even found myself missing his voice when I was away from the story.  It added a layer of intimacy to the entire reading experience, and this intimacy enhanced all of the appeal factors I mentioned in detail above.

Also, since this is such a visual novel, listening to it, for me, allowed the story to wash over me.  I was able to day-dream the pictures while I was listening.

Three Words That Describe This Book: compelling, adventure, fun (If forced to pick one word only, it would be fun.)

Readalikes: First, I need to say that there is nothing exactly like RPO, but there are many novels which have a similar feel, tone, and pace.

Another book that came out around the same time is Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson.  Both are fast-paced, SF, adventure stories, but in Wilson's novel technology (robots) and man are at war while in RPO technology is Wade's biggest ally.  Click here to read Wilson's glowing review of RPO.

For a fantasy series that holds similar appeal, try Lev Grossman's The Magician

A backlist title that RPO reminded me of is Jonathan Lethem's Girl In Landscape.  Both have SF elements, a strong coming of age theme, and a strong band of characters working together.  Your library should own this older Lethem title.  I highly recommend it.  You can read what Liz had to say about it in class this semester when I suggested she give it a try.

Authors I would suggest as readalike options for Cline (from experience and in this order of similarity) are Cory Doctorow, Neal Stephenson and China Mieville.

Of course, many readers may want to read more nonfiction about the 1980s.  Use this link for some suggestions.

#LibFaves2021 Begins Today and Goes for the Next 10 Days!

Today, #LibFaves2021 begins, the annual, 10 day, library worker Twitter countdown of the best books published in calendar year 2021 and every single one of you can join in.

You do not have to rank the titles in order as all titles mentioned are compiled and ranked by number of times mentioned. You can access past year's spreadsheets on EarlyWord here. All you need to do is Tweet 1 title a day for 10 days. So yes, I am not giving you much warning to prep, but technically you just need one title right this minute. I know you have a definite top title in mind right now to get started today.

We need to all work together to create this massive, library worker generated best list. It is a tool for book discovery for our patrons, it is a way for us to find out about tiles we may have missed that our colleagues have enjoyed. In fact, that is whyI participate and only do my top 10 #HorrorForLibraries titles because often those books would not garner a mention if I didn't get them entered into the mix.

If you o not have Twitter, you can still lurk and use the recs to help patrons by just clicking on #LibFaves2021 here.

To get you excited the event, I invited the one this year's captains,, to give you all a little background and invite you to join.

To get you excited for the event, I invited the one this year's captains, Nanette Donohoe, the Collections and Technical Services manager at the Champaign (IL) Public Library, to give you all a little background and invite you to join.

Take it away Nanette:

With plenty of year-end book lists coming out, it’s fun for librarians to join in on the fun, after all, library workers KNOW books! The only difference is that instead of polling and voting for the best of the best (which is what LibraryReads does too), each library worker shares their own top 10 books. These are the books we loved and can’t wait to recommend! 

This Twitter book-extravaganza first started in 2011 under the hashtag #libfavs2011. It was started by two #ewgc galley chatters*, Robin Beerbower from Salem, OR Library and Stephanie Chase from Multnomah County [OR] Library. The most popular book that library workers shared in 2011 was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

The list has grown through the years. In 2012, 689 books were mentioned, 399 of those were unique titles. By 2020, there were 1327 books mentioned, 631 of those were unique titles. That is a lot of books to discover!

  

A lot of library workers who want to join frequently ask, “Do we only share books that were published in the current year?” The answer is yes, because the goal is to highlight and promote discovery of new and fantastic books that librarians read for the year that the list comes out.

To participate on Twitter, library workers will mention one title per day for ten consecutive days from Dec. 8th to Dec. 17th and tag their tweets with #libfaves2021. Titles must be in CAPS (for easy readability on the part of the monitor). Volunteers will monitor the titles up until 9 P.M. Pacific Time on Dec. 18th. The list of all the books will be shared on Dec.19th.  

#Libfaves2021 is open to any and all library workers, so it might be helpful if participants indicate that they are library workers in their Twitter profile for the duration of the event to ensure their vote is counted. 

 

It is also preferred that books shared during this period be adult fiction or nonfiction, but library workers read and love everything, so as long as it was published in 2021, share any book you want.

_________

*#ewgc is a monthly Twitter chat headed by Nora Rawlinson, founder of Earlyword.com where library workers talk about forthcoming books that they are excited about. For more information, check out the schedule on the website.

#LibFaves22 Begins Today and Goes for the Next 10 Days

Today, #LibFaves2022 begins, the annual, 10 day, library worker Twitter countdown of the best books published in calendar year 2022 and every single one of you can join in.

You do not have to rank the titles in order as all titles mentioned are compiled and ranked by number of times mentioned. All you need to do is Tweet 1 title a day for 10 days. So yes, I am not giving you much warning to prep, but technically you just need one title right this minute. I know you have a definite top title in mind right now to get started today. 

We need to all work together to create this massive, library worker generated best list. It is a tool for book discovery for our patrons, it is a way for us to find out about tiles we may have missed that our colleagues have enjoyed. 

In fact, that is why I participate and only do my top 10 #HorrorForLibraries titles because often those books would not garner a mention if I didn't get them entered into the mix. I take it upon my self as the library world's horror expert to make sure that these titles make a larger library worker favorites list.

After the ten days are over, I will do a more comprehensive post on the horror blog about my favorite Horror reads, and I will also do my annual best books I read in 2022 list at the end of December as well, but for #LibFaves22, I will represent for Horror so that when the final list of titles is compiled, it will be represented a least a little.

If you do not have Twitter, you can still lurk and use the recs to help patrons by just clicking on #LibFaves2022 here. Or wait for the compilation when it goes live on EarlyWord in a few weeks.

I really hope you consider joining us. It's one Tweet a day, and together, we can help so many readers. The more of us that participate, the more wide ranging the list is.

Last year, I invited one of the #LibFaves captains, Nanette Donohue, the Collections and Technical Services manager at the Champaign (IL) Public Library, to give you all a little background and invite you to join. So if you aren't excited to participate from my pep talk, here is Nanette from last year's post, officially inviting you to join [but with updated dates an links for this year]:

With plenty of year-end book lists coming out, it’s fun for librarians to join in on the fun, after all, library workers KNOW books! The only difference is that instead of polling and voting for the best of the best (which is what LibraryReads does too), each library worker shares their own top 10 books. These are the books we loved and can’t wait to recommend! 

This Twitter book-extravaganza first started in 2011 under the hashtag #libfavs2011. It was started by two #ewgc galley chatters*, Robin Beerbower from Salem, OR Library and Stephanie Chase from Multnomah County [OR] Library. The most popular book that library workers shared in 2011 was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

The list has grown through the years. In 2012, 689 books were mentioned, 399 of those were unique titles. By 2020, there were 1327 books mentioned, 631 of those were unique titles. That is a lot of books to discover!

  

A lot of library workers who want to join frequently ask, “Do we only share books that were published in the current year?” The answer is yes, because the goal is to highlight and promote discovery of new and fantastic books that librarians read for the year that the list comes out.

To participate on Twitter, library workers will mention one title per day for ten consecutive days from Dec. 5th to Dec. 14th and tag their tweets with #libfaves2022. Titles must be in CAPS (for easy readability on the part of the monitor). Volunteers will monitor the titles up until 9 P.M. Pacific Time on Dec. 14th. The list of all the books will be shared soon after.  

#Libfaves2022 is open to any and all library workers, so it might be helpful if participants indicate that they are library workers in their Twitter profile for the duration of the event to ensure their vote is counted. 

 

It is also preferred that books shared during this period be adult fiction or nonfiction, but library workers read and love everything, so as long as it was published in 2022, share any book you want.

_________

*#ewgc is a monthly Twitter chat headed by Nora Rawlinson, founder of Earlyword.com where library workers talk about forthcoming books that they are excited about. For more information, check out the schedule on the website.

What I'm Reading: Man In The Empty Suit

Last month I had so much fun reading Man in the Empty Suit that I could hardly talk to anyone, about anything, without mentioning the book in every conversation.

This novel is the best episode of Doctor Who you haven't seen.

Intrigued yet?

The plot and the story's frame are very simple.  Instead of a TARDIS (like Dr. Who) our nameless hero in this novel has a craft in which he spends his life floating through time.  Each year on the 100th Anniversary of his birthday (2071), all of his selves gather at a dilapidated hotel in what has become a dystopian NYC to drink scotch and have a party.

All of his life, our hero has been waiting to be the version of himself that comes in wearing this awesome white suit.  Finally, the year of his 39th birthday, the traveler finds himself in the suit and entering the party, but what he thought would be the best birthday of his life, goes down hill quickly as one of his selves is murdered.

What follows is part murder mystery, part love story, and part contemplation of "the self."

The novel is book ended by his 39th and 40th years at the party, with the year in between lived with a girl named Lilly in 2071 NYC.

Seeing everything unfold from two different perspectives of our hero at the same party is very cool. As the traveler begins to change history, the present of the party is altered and he begins to supposed that some of his selves are becoming  "unteathered" from each other.  It makes for great plot twists, as our hero doesn't know which of his selves he can trust or which even share his future.  This will drive purists (like Dr. Who himself) crazy, but Ferrell isn't professing to have a true time travel novel.  What SF fans might see as inconsistency simply added to the intrigue of the mystery part of the story for me.

This "unteathering" story arc also underscored what I think Ferrell was really trying to do with this book.  I think this is a novel that contemplates what the self really is.  By placing so many versions of the traveller's self in one place at one time, we are forced to look at this contradiction and think about our own selves over time.  He is asking us to think about who we are, who we were, and who we will become.  Are we all one and the same?

I have to mention here how the traveller gives his selves other than his current self great nicknames like "the nose," "screwdriver," and "seventy," among others. This is humorous but also feeds in nicely to the whole "what is the self" questions in the novel.

Man in the Empty Suit is also a coming of age tale, as the traveller learns what really matters in life and chooses to let his love go so she can have a happier life, which will ultimately make him happier-- both the unteathered self and his current self.

The dystopian NYC setting was not thoroughly explained, but things in 2071 are pretty bad.  Our hero gets involved with some good people and makes some friends, but we don't get too much detail.  The setting is there more as a backdrop to help set the mood and tone.  It underscores the urgency of our hero's quest and the dark, philosophical and thought provoking nature of the story line.

Overall the book was off beat, engaging, introspective and just plain fun.  Although the time travel is at the heart of the story, it is just as much a psychological suspense tale as a science fiction one. This is underscored by the fact that if you are reading it for an accurate resolution to the unteathering of selves issues, you will be disappointed with how the novel ends.  But, if you are in a philosophical mood, you will love it-- like I did.

Three Words That Describe This Book: time travel, thought provoking, off beat

Readalikes: I have so many suggestions bursting from me that I had to take notes on paper before writing this post.

Again, as I said above, this novel made me think it would be a crazy awesome episode of Dr. Who.

First, I mentioned how much fun I had reading this book.  I have not felt that way since I read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  Both are light SF, set in a broadly drawn near future dystopia.  The dystopias are there to propel the story.  Both have a coming of age theme with a compelling protagonist, and although both novels are thought provoking, neither takes themselves too seriously.

This story also reminded me of the Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon (read pre-blog).  Here you again have a light SF tale, but the SF comes from alternative history.  Click through to see more details, but the titles share a though provoking story line, a flawed but lovable hero, and a mystery at their center.

Last year, I read (and loved) the time travel novel 11/22/63 by Stephen King.  King's novel is more true to the time travel science, but I did think of 11/22/63 while reading Man in the Empty Suit.

Two other accessible and fun SF titles that I would also suggest here are How To Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe by Charles Yu and Red Shirts by John Scalzi.

If you are looking for more time travel stories check out Connie Willis, or the list of suggestions I gave here.

#LibFaves20 Begins Today!

Today, #LibFaves20 begins, the annual, 10 day, library worker Twitter countdown of the best books published in calendar year 2020 and every single one of you can join in.

You do not have to rank the titles in order as all titles mentioned are compiled and ranked by number of times mentioned. You can access past year's spreadsheets on EarlyWord here. All you need to do is Tweet 1 title a day for 10 days. So yes, I am not giving you much warning to prep, but technically you just need one title right this minute. I know you have a definite top title in mind right now to get started today.

We need to all work together to create this massive, library worker generated best list. It is a tool for book discovery for our patrons, it is a way for us to find out about tiles we may have missed that our colleagues have enjoyed. In fact, that is whyI participate and only do my top 10 #HorrorForLibraries titles because often those books would not garner a mention if I didn't get them entered into the mix.

To get you excited the event, I invited the one this year's captains, Robin Beerbower, formerly of Salem Public Library (OR), to give you all a little background and invite you to join.

 

Take it away Robin:

With plenty of year-end book lists coming out, it’s fun for librarians to join in on the fun, after all, library workers KNOW books! The only difference is that instead of polling and voting for the best of the best (which is what LibraryReads does too), each library worker shares their own top 10 books. So the more library workers that participate, the more books that are promoted!  

This Twitter book-extravaganza first started in 2011 under the hashtag #libfavs2011. It was started by two #ewgc galley chatters*, Robin Beerbower from Salem, OR Library and Stephanie Chase from Multnomah County [OR] Library. The most popular book that library workers shared in 2011 was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

The list has grown through the years. In 2012, 689 books were mentioned, 399 of those were unique titles. By 2019, there were 1616 books mentioned, 776 of those were unique titles. That is a lot of books to discover!

  

A lot of library workers who want to join frequently ask, “Do we only share books that were published in the current year?” The answer is yes, because the goal is to highlight and promote discovery of new and fantastic books that librarians read for the year that the list comes out.

To participate on Twitter, library workers will mention one title per day for ten consecutive days from Dec. 7th to Dec. 16th and tag their tweets with #libfaves20. Titles must be in CAPS (for easy readability on the part of the monitor). Volunteers will monitor the titles up until 9 P.M. Pacific Time on Dec. 17th. The list of all the books will be shared on Dec.18th.  

#Libfaves20 is open to any and all library workers, so it might be helpful if participants indicate that they are library workers in their Twitter profile for the duration of the event to ensure their vote is counted. 

 

It is also preferred that books shared during this period be adult fiction or nonfiction, but library workers read and love everything, so as long as it was published in 2020, share any book you want.

_________

*#ewgc is a monthly Twitter chat headed by Nora Rawlinson, founder of Earlyword.com where library workers talk about forthcoming books that they are excited about. For more information, check out the schedule on the website.

What I’m Reading: BASH BASH Revolution

Today I have my latest review from Booklist, a title, when I received it in the mail did not excited me too much, but when I sat down to actually review it, boy were my initial instincts wrong. Below is my draft review with the citation to the published one followed by more appeal comments and readalikes.

Bash Bash Revolution.

Lain, Douglas (author).

Mar. 2018. 300p. Night Shade, paperback, $14.99  (9781597809160). 
First published February 15, 2018 (Booklist).

Philip K Dick Award nominee, Lain presents an ominous, cautionary, AI dystopia that has much in common with Dick’s own Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It is 2017. Trump is President, Russia and North Korea are very real threats, and Matthew’s Dad has suddenly returned. He has been gone for a decade, working for the NSA on perfecting an AI known as Bucky; however, both the AI and the real world are unravelling, quickly. Matthew is recruited by his father to teach him the video game BASH BASH Revolution, as a way to work on perfecting Bucky. Told mostly in flashbacks, Matthew DMs his girlfriend [with a few unsettling interruptions from Bucky’s point of view], calmly explaining how the world has become what Matthew describes as a zombie movie but with gamers in VR goggles who are the undead. It is an intensely urgent, and terrifying story with a complex plot, but Matthew sucks readers in and pulls them along briskly, easily relating the hyper technical details while entertainingly unraveling the plot. It is a fun read, that is, until you close the book and start thinking about the implications of what you just experienced. Not only will you think twice before opening a game app on your phone after completing Lain’s novel, but you may also start wondering if we are already living as pawns to a superintelligent machine. This is not a cartoonish sketch, it is a realistic and bleak look at the post-singularity world. An easy suggestion for fans of current, accessible science fiction that thoughtfully contemplates AI such as Ready Player One or Sea of Rust, but it is also a great choice for those who enjoy John Scalzi’s narrative style.

YA Statement: Teens will be lured in to the novel by the video game frame, the artificial intelligence and government conspiracy details as well as the hyper current events, but they will stay for Matthew’s moral and philosophical journey as he tries to resist the AI takeover of humanity.

Further Appeal: The unsettling, thought provoking aspects of this book drove its appeal for me. Here are some notes I made while reading the book:

Is Matthew a reliable narrator; is the entire story the creation of Bucky; or are we already living in a world where superintelligent machines are in charge and we are simply pawns in a giant computer simulation?  Can we even trust Matthew or has he been corrupted by Bucky?

In my review I think I got the essence of these thoughts worked in, but I cannot stress enough how the hyper current events made everything feel real and scary and just so uncomfortably close.

Also, I make a mention of this book not being “cartoonish.” I say that because the cover does this book no benefit. It was way too playful for what is actually inside. I know I am a huge advocate of judging a book by its cover, but in this case, stay away from that instinct.

The science fiction aspects rule here, but there is a horror tone. Horror readers who like scientific frames and science fiction fans who enjoy a good scare should seek this one out.

Three Words That Describe This Book: unsettling, thought provoking, AI

Readalikes: I managed to work in 3 titles and an author readalike above. You can click on the three at the end of the review for many more readalikes by me from here on the blog.

You may find that fans of more technical science fiction with a focus on AI or VR like titles by Neal Stephenson or William Gibson might enjoy this one too. It would be a bit more fast paced and lighter option for those readers, but I think they would enjoy it if they knew that it was less dense going in. The ideas, tone, and themes are similar.

Also, another author who this reminded me of was Max Barry, especially Lexicon.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to Night Shade Books, a division of SkyHorse. They are a smaller publisher, but have great distribution through your normal ordering channels. Their lineup of speculative fiction never ceases to amaze me. They don’t have a huge promotional arm, but I can tell you from experience, these are genre titles that appeal to many library patrons. They publish new novels, important collections, and reissues of classics. One of my favorite books I read last year, In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson, was a Night Shade publication. I only know about these titles because they send them to Booklist and my editor passes them on. Here is the link to their upcoming titles. Give it a look.

Micro-Genre Alert: LitRPG via Book Riot and Why We Need Their Help to Do Our Jobs Better

One of my favorite things about Book Riot is that their entire reason for existing is to encourage readers to click on their stories. This means that they are constantly producing content that readers actually want and need. They are able to address trends and produce annotated lists of titles that people would love if only they knew about them, very quickly.

For those of us who work at the library and are struggling to keep up with the day to day tasks, these lists are RA gold. We know we can use them to make displays and provide online content for our readers in real time. We can also use them to check our collections and add titles that, while not hugely popular yet, will address an emerging trend. Titles we can position on displays and lists ASAP. Titles people would love, if only they knew they existed.

Book Riot also has intentional diversity editorial standards, so that you can trust that they will never put out a list that is all white and hetero.

One example of these helpful lists is when they identify micro-genre trends. Yesterday they had one of these articles entitles "What is LitRPG?" From the article:

LitRPG has been pretty huge for a while now. If you’re not a regular of science fiction and fantasy, however, you may not be familiar with the term nor some of its biggest successes. Fortunately for you, I’m here with a primer on all things about literary roleplaying games, also known as LitRPGs.

Click here to read the primer and see a list of example books-- and not the ones you know about like Ready Player One or Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. These are the types of books I advocate featuring-- the ones people wouldn't know about without your help.

Book Riot does these kinds of posts all the time. Let them stay on top of all the trends for you,  from emerging micro-genres to readalikes for popular media to newsletters on a whole bunch of topics. Let them do the work for us. They want to do it. They get paid to do it. We need to be providing this information to our readers and we really don't have the time to be as up to date as our readers need us to.

Remember, our main job is to provide information to our patrons. We don't have to create said information. We don't get a prize for doing everything on our own. Quite the opposite. We succeed when we use resources to help our readers find the best books for them. RESOURCES. Our brains are not the only, and definitely not the best, resource. If we only rely on ourselves we are not only failing our readers, we are also not being good information professionals.

So check out this post on LitRPG and pay attention to Book Riot for your displays, online lists, and collection development needs.

ALA 2013: Take-Aways

I have been gathering my notes from the conference and really thinking about them in the context of how they will help me at my job as a readers' advisor for adults and teens.

One thing I learned is that we do a pretty good job providing services to readers at the BPL.  For our size and budget, our patrons get excellent RA service. But everyone has room for improvement. And while many of you look to me for advice and ideas, I look to you, my colleagues, for the same.  In fact, I went out of my way NOT to present at ALA this year so that I could spend my time learning from others.  And I am happy to say, I got a lot out of my time.

I thought it would be best for me, and hopefully others, if I compiled my top takeaways. To that end, the following is a list of things I am confident our BPL RA Dream Team can tackle in the near future:

• We can try at least 2 (if not more) ideas from the 20 programs for $20 list with our teens. Not only are the ideas great, but the handouts have videos and step by step instructions.  There is very little planning to do here. I am particularly interested in having a gross out program in October and making marshmallow shooters. The later I think we can somehow incorporate into our Ready Player One Community Reads programming. And I am totally asking if we can have a casino candy program.  If the library administration won't let me do it, I am going to try to get the Friends to run it. 
• I am going to use volunteer match to try to find specific volunteers for the library as suggested by the Sacramento Public Library.
• And from the same program, we are having a fundraising spelling bee.  I have already talked to our fearless leader, Kathy, about it and she is excited too. This will probably best be done as part of our regular Trivia Night on the first Tuesday of the month, but we need to wait until 2014 to do it right.
• From the Leading Readers to Water Program:
• Treat book news like current events and make a Book News Board
• Put stickers at the end of books that say, "If you just enjoyed this book and are looking for your next read, may we suggest..." and include our logo.  Each of us already have many lists we have created with readalikes that are posted on the Browsers Corner, but putting them directly in the book for readers to see as they turn the final page saves them a step. This is my favorite takeaway from the conference.  As soon as we can set up a template, I am using my reviews from this blog to make these stickers.
• Clearly mark books in a series with their number order! Why should they have to come over and ask for a list?
• Use a prize wheel at the RA desk! We are so buying one.  
• I will use everything James Klise taught me about what boys likes to read every time I work with a male reader.  I am also going to try to see if he can repeat his talk, especially the survey he did with his boy patrons, for ARRT in 2014.
• After the RUSA genre program, I am more committed than ever to remove the shelving by genre of books at the BPL.  I was happy to walk into this program and see our head of Collection Management there. We are beginning the back-end cataloging work that will make this transition easier, and she is spear heading that.  It will happen, so I am willing to be more patient about it now.  I was happy to hear from the authors during this program about how they use (or wish they did not use) genre as writers and readers.
• Finally, this is not a takeaway that I can use at work, but I have to comment on it.  Thanks to Ann Patchett's admission that reading was her only hobby, I will never again feel badly that it is also mine.

I should end by saying these are not the only things I will takeaway from ALA 2013, but they are the things that I am confident we can handle.  One of the biggest mistakes you can make after attending an energizing class or conference is to run back to your library and then bite off more than you can chew.  You will end up converting all of that happy energy into angry frustration.

So whether you went to the conference yourself, or you followed it virtually through me and other sites, please sit back and take some time to synthesize what you learned and think about how and if you can apply it to your work.

BPL Book Club Collection Update

Yesterday, Kathy finished going through the BPL Book Discussion collection circulation statistics and we made the final decisions about which books would stay, which newer titles from the second half of 2013 would be added, and which titles would go.

You can use this link which also lives [always and forever] in the right gutter of the blog titled “BPL Book Discussion Collection.”  The document notes when it was last updated too.

I wasn’t going to do a whole post on this update but then 2 things happened.

First, yesterday, Kathy and I had an interesting experience sorting through the circulation statistics.  We were SHOCKED by how popular the books are.

Here’s a quick run down of what this collection is.  We have spindles with multiple copies of all of these titles right near the RA desk.  Since the two of us have read and led a discussion on every single title AND the staff has heard us talk about them at length AND I have posts to full book discussion reports on each title (see document for individual links), this collection is the best place for us to send readers who can tell us nothing more than that they want a good read.

It is easy to browse and there are always multiple copies available. These are also tested titles since we only add those books for which we both had a good discussion. They are also all in paperback which many people prefer, especially in the summer.

Plus, we got on that whole "putting out multiple copies of the same title like a bookstore does” bandwagon years ago with this collection.  [Click here and go to slides 46 and 47 to see what I am talking about.] The hot trend is to merchandise your collection by showcasing multiple copies at one “point of purchase” area.  We have been seeing the benefits of this for a long time now.

All of these facts add up to our surprise to find that every single title circulated in 2014! We are only in month 6 of that year by the way.  Now, we do have between 5 and 10 copies of each title.  Some circulated 1 copy once in the last 6 months, but others circulated every copy once!

The RA staff is not only using this “sure bet” area to book talk titles to patrons, but it seems that patrons are also finding it on their own.  And while I was sad to lose these titles in the book discussion collection, 

• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 
• Digging to America by Anne Tyler
• Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

I am happy to add these:

• Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
• Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
• Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
• A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

On a side note, we did take a few of the deleted copies from the book club collection and added them to the general fiction collection so we still own multiple copies of these titles (Like Olive Kitteridge which will be an HBO miniseries soon). 

The second reason I was inspired to write an entire post on our book club collection update came this morning when I had a text from a friend. It came in two parts.  Part 1 was about what time my son was going to her house to play with her son before soccer practice.  Part 2 was a plea for help with her book club and their lousy choices.  Ha! welcome to my world.  Playdates and book advice all in one text.  Hey, it is just like I always say in my talks, when you are a RA librarian, you become the book expert in your community.  You can never escape it. But you will never see me complaining about being asked about books when I am “off the clock."

I told her to check out the various links here, here, here, and here on my blog, but then as the boys were playing, we stood in her driveway later on and talked about the group, what they have already read, and what titles I thought might be a good fit for them.  They are in an interesting position because although they do a great job of actually discussing the book, they are a fairly new group.  As a result, they are still finding their way together.

All of this reminds me...I haven’t done one of these in a while, but if you are looking to reach out to your neighborhood book groups in your community, I have a program where I come to your library  and will give a training to local book groups about how to improve their discussions.  I can do a straight up lecture or more of a Q & A.  I also can tie it in to any services you provide to these groups.  I am currently booking for Fall 2014 and Winter 2015 appearances, so let me know if you are interested: bspratford[at]hotmail[dot]com or on Twitter @RAforAll.

So the uniting theme of this post...libraries can turn their work with book clubs into wonderful RA opportunities on many fronts.