Taft 2012!

On Tuesday I was ordering new books for the BPL's adult fiction collection when I read a review of a new offering from Quirk Books, the fine people who brought us Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  The book is called Taft 2012!  and was written by Jason Heller.  Here is the description from the publisher:

HE'S BACK.

AND HE'S THE BIGGEST THING IN POLITICS.

He is the perfect presidential candidate. Conservatives love his hard-hitting Republican résumé. Liberals love his peaceful, progressive practicality. The media can’t get enough of his larger-than-life personality. And all the American people love that he’s an honest, hard-working man who tells it like it is.

There’s just one problem. He is William Howard Taft . . . and he was already president a hundred years ago. So what on earth is he doing alive and well and considering a running mate in 2012?

A most extraordinary satire, Jason Heller’s debut novel follows the strange new life of a presidential Rip Van Winkle: a man who never even wanted the White House in the first place, yet finds himself hurtling toward it once more—this time, through the media-fueled madness of 21st-century America.

How brilliant of Heller and Quirk to release this book now.  I am already getting sick of the Presidential race and we still have 9 months to go!  This book is going to have legs.  I can see it going out constantly for the next year.

Add to the mix, this awesome book trailer (embedded below) which is made to look like an ad campaign for Taft.  Political ad campaigns are so awful but also so ubiquitous that even my 7 and 9 year old kids got the joke of this book trailer.  Thanks to Likely Stories for the link.

Watch for yourself and I dare you not to laugh.



For more book related video fun from me today, click here.

And as we get closer to the actual election this fall, we here at the BPL RA desk have a fun display planned.  Without giving it away, I can tell you that if you like the humor in this book and trailer, you will love our take on the election too.

Moby Awards: Best Book Trailer

The Second Annual Moby Awards were announced for the best AND worst book trailers.

Click here for the full rundown from Likely Stories.

Book Trailers

Last night during the student midterm presentations I realized that not everyone is as familiar with the new book trailer phenomenon as I am, so I thought I would spend a few minutes on them today.

Basically, a book trailer is like a movie trailer only for a book. Publishers and authors make these to generate interest about everything from classics to new books by big name authors, to debut novels. Some are artistically interesting and others, funny. They range from dramatic reenactments to simply informational. However, they are always very useful as a tool for helping your patrons to find their next good read.

Why should you care about watching a video about a book you might read? Good question. These videos are a quick way for the publisher or author to convey the style and tone of the book as well as giving you enough plot details to pique your interest (or not) as a reader.

For the librarian, book trailers let you know which books are worth your attention. If the publishers have put in the energy (and dollars) to create a trailer, it is probably a book worth knowing about. Besides, it is much faster to watch a 3 minute trailer than to read an entire book. At least after watching the trailer you know a bit more about the book; possibly enough to now share that book with your patrons.

Okay, so the next question is, how do I find book trailers? There are a few ways to stay up on them. First, blogs like Likely Stories from Booklist highlights book trailers every Thursday. Good old Wikipedia, has some links too. You could also just run a search for "book trailer" on You Tube to see the newest trailers right away.

However, your best bet is to subscribe to the publishers' channels on You Tube. The publishers even subscribe to each other. You can find the links to their You Tube channel on their webpages or by clicking on their name as the poster of a trailer on You Tube. Here are some to get you started:

• Irreference (publisher of the popular Pride and Prejudice and Zombies)
• Random House
• Penguin 
• Harper Collins  
• Simon & Schuster 
• Macmillan