Time to Vote for Your Favorite Thrillers

As I have mentioned before here, this summer NPR is asking listeners to vote for their favorite Thrillers.  Well, the finalists are up now and you can vote for up to10 using this link, or by voting directly from this post in the poll widget below. A printable list of all 182 finalists is also available here. Vote to have your voice heard!

NPR's Killer Thrillers Poll - Vote For 10

Monday Discussion: Books That Make You Laugh

Last week I received a link from RA for All reader, Alan, pointing me to his website's list of "50 Novels to Reader When You Need a Good Laugh."

What I liked about this list is how they broke up the books by appeal and/or genre; there is a funny book for just about any genre fan. The list also takes a wide range of humor into consideration. Which leads me to today's Monday Discussion. What do you read when you are looking for a "funny" book?

I realize this is not as easy a question as it sounds. It depends on what kind of laugh you want. I will start with a few of my humor choices and end with another resource to help you get started.

In Nonfiction I love A.J. Jacobs. In his books he basically makes himself the butt of the jokes, as he tries to, for example, live the bible literally, read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, or outsource his life. I love that I both learn something AND have a good laugh while reading his books.

In fiction, I tend to look toward some of my favorite humorous, cozy mystery series: the Vish Puri series by Tarquin Hall, the Spellmans series by Lisa Lutz, and the Nursery Crime series by Jasper Fforde are three of my favorites in this category.

I also enjoy tongue-in-cheek humor, especially when it comes to horror novels. Breathers: a Zombie's Lament by S.G. Browne (which I wrote about here) and anything by Christopher Moore hits the spot here.

In terms of reliably funny authors, don't forget a great old standby, P. G. Wodehouse, whose Jeeves novels are available at just about every public library and are still funny. In fact, each year since 2000 the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize has been given out for the best comic writing. Click here for a list of past winners. On an interesting side note, the winner has a pig named after him or her. Now that is funny.

So let me know what gives you the giggles.  Andi f you want to follow past Monday Discussions and the comments, click here.

Flashback Fridays: Things That Go Bump in the Stacks

A year ago this week, I attended a great program, sponsored by RUSA, at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.  Entitled "Things That Go Bump in the Stacks," and moderated by Neil Hollands, the program was broken into 2 distinct parts which I honored in my posts.

Part 1 was a short lecture by Neil on what makes something "paranormal" as opposed to more pure horror. While Part 2 was a panel discussion by three popular paranormal authors: Charlie Huston, Marjorie Liu, and Charlaine Harris.

Click here to read my report also present in 2 parts. And I checked, all the links to the resources still do work, but if you find a broken link please let me know.

And finally, you can see all of the Flashback Fridays by clicking here.

What I'm Reading: The Passage

Last week I finished devouring one of this summer's hottest and longest books, The Passage by Justin Cronin.

I loved this book. I was afraid I wouldn't like it. Why? I was afraid it had too much hype and could not possibly live up to it. I was also afraid that although people said it was "literary" genre fiction that it would still be dumbed down. But thankfully I was wrong on all counts.

There are however two key reasons that this book will become one of my favorites. The first is that as a librarian who writes about horror literature, I loved how The Passage straddled the line between pure horror and science fiction so effortlessly. Great timing too because I will be using this novel as an example of the current trend in horror toward pseudo-scientific explanations for the monsters that are out to get us in my book. Look for more there about this issue in the book due sometime in 2011.

The other reason I loved this book is that as a reader and fan of horror I am overjoyed that its publication and popularity marks the rebirth of the evil vampire. I thought they had all gone soft and fallen in love with humans. These vampires are all bad; there is no romance or ambiguity at all here. I for one welcome this shift.

Enough gushing from me; here are the key plot issues that you need to know to help you decide if you want to read The Passage or not. Because I know many of you are still waiting for your name to come up to the top of the holds list, I promise, no spoilers here. However, I do want to warn anyone who is considering reading this novel that it does end with a cliff hanger and the promise of 2 more books. Will they all be 700 pages? I don't know, but be forewarned, once you read The Passage, you are basically committing to at least 1200 more pages to complete the story.

The story begins in the few years BV (before the virus), somewhere around 2016 or so. We see the cryptic discovery of some kind of vicious vampire creature deep in the South American jungle. During this time we also meet 2 FBI agents who are recruited to get death row inmates and bring them to a secure facility in Colorado. It is understood that the 12 inmates that have been procured are being used for a biological experiment that will eventually be made into a bioweapon.  Throughout this part of the story, the point of view skips around so that we see the situation from many different angles.

When the agents are asked to get a child for the experiments, things start to go wrong.  The young girl, Amy, has gotten the perfected version of the virus. While the 12 before her have turned into a vampire like creature, Amy has remained the same, or so it seems. Then all hell breaks loose, the vampires escape, and slowly destroy America as we know it. We leave Amy as she leaves her dying guardian (one of the FBI agents) behind and heads off across the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

We jump to 92 AV (after virus) and see how a band of survivors live in a settlement somewhere in California. I don't want to give away details here because the society Cronin has meticulously constructed is amazing. The bulk of the book follows these survivors as things start to go wrong. Surprise, Amy shows up again, and she is still a kid! A group of these settlers realizes that Amy holds the key to their predicament and they set off on an exciting and dangerous journey to find where she came from.

The rest of the book is a description of how these survivors slowly put the pieces together and figure out what is going on. It seems they have also figured out how to save the world and have destroyed one of the original 12 vampires. However, just as we take a breather at the end of the book, Cronin leaves us with a cliff hanger, literally in the last line of the book

It is both infuriating and  wonderful. You are mad that there is not another book ready yet, but elated that you just read something so engrossing, something that captured your attention like nothing you have read in awhile.  I haven't felt this way about a book since Harry Potter.

For other opinions on The Passage you can read this review from The Daily Beast or see another librarian's perspective over at Blogging For A Good Book.

Appeal: This is an absorbing read that is terrifyingly realistic, and painfully suspenseful (both good, at least to me). Again, this is a completely open-ended book but it is part of a promised trilogy. The Passage is a page-turner despite being 700+ pages. It also has a very detailed frame as Cronin has to explain how the "after virus" North American landscape has changed  and we need learn how their society now functions and looks.

In terms of characters, there are 2 main protagonists, supported by a huge cast of well fleshed out characters. You do need to pay attention as Cronin expects you to remember when a character returns out of nowhere just who they are and why they would be here now, even if it has been 500 pages since you saw that person. Keeping the characters straight is made easier by the fact that Cronin uses third person omniscient and has the point of view shuffle to just about every character at some point.

Cronin also uses fake primary documents in this novel. In the time of 1003 AV there is a conference on the North American Quarantine Period and diary entries from the characters we are following are used in these shorter sections. This helps the reader to believe that there is an ending here somewhere, it's just 900 years away.

Three Words That Describe This Book: terrifying, bio-engineered-vampires, apocalyptic

Readalikes: Cronin owes quite a bit to Stephen King, whose greatest work, The Stand, sets the example for him here. In King's epic novel, we also see a super-virus being accidentally unleashed on the world, killing 99 and 44/100% of the population. While there are no vampires here, it is a remarkably similar story with the band of survivors fighting a classic battle of Good vs. Evil.

Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's Strain Trilogy, beginning with The Strain and continuing later this year with The Fall, is a more scientific and procedural readalike to The Passage. Here a vampire virus with links to WWII is wrecking havoc. While The Passage straddles the line between horror and thriller, The Strain is just over the line into pure thriller territory.

If you liked the The Passage's story of a band of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world but could do without the vampire aspects, read The Road by Cormac McCarthy (which I have also talked about here).

For more action with a similar storyline try the Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry beginning with Patient Zero (which I have also reviewed here and here)

As I mentioned in this post, Nate Kenyon's Sparrow Rock is a good option as a readalike too. This would be a more traditional horror novel with an apocalyptic frame. Again, click here for more details.

For a more humorous account of how supernatural creatures caused the end of the world as we know it, there is always World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks.

Finally, I am going to go out on a bit of a limb here, but hey, I am a professional and do know what I am talking about.  Enjoyment of The Passage is dependent upon the reader being caught up in the landscape Cronin creates. It is mostly the vast openness of the American West, but not one like we know it at all. I saw many similarities to epic Westerns like Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove here. Both are big genre books, that managed to transcend their genre and become huge best-sellers, reaching a very wide audience who normally does not read that genre. This is a great example of a completely different book with a similar feel.

For nonfiction options, arm yourself  by reading The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks or study up on any number of supernatural monsters in THEY BITE!: Endless Cravings of Supernatural Predators by Jonathan Maberry.

Graphic Novels for Book Clubs

I am in full preparations mode for this month's BPL book discussion of Brooklyn by Colm Toibin in a few days.  This title also marks the start of our new lists of titles for the second half of 2010. (click here for the full schedule).

Despite my effort over the last few years, however, I have still not be able to convince our groups to read a graphic novel for book discussion. Frankly, I had all but given up trying. Until today that is.

Thanks to the people over at the always helpful Reading Group Guides, I found this article by Austin Public Librarian Bonnie Brzozowski, who runs a graphic novel book discussion group. Here she advocates for spicing up your group with a graphic novel.

Bonnie, I am bringing copies of your article to my group on Monday. And, this article inspired me enough to consider simply adding a graphic novel in the 2011 mix and just make them read it. I'll keep you posted.

What I'm Reading: Sparrow Rock

In the late spring Leisure sent me (and many librarians all over the country) a copy of Nate Kenyon's newest paperback horror title, Sparrow Rock.  I finished it awhile ago, and just remembered that I didn't write about it here.


First, I want to say that I really like Nate Kenyon's work in general. I would say among the paperback horror writers, Kenyon and Brian Keene both put out consistently good stories. I am rarely disappointed by either and Sparrow Rock was right up there with some of the best of Stoker Award Winning Keene's work.

Here is the basic plot of this postapocalyptic horror novel. A group of 6 high school kids go to one of the kid's grandfather's bomb shelters one night to hang out and a nuclear war breaks out. The kids are safe for the time being, but things slowly start to go from bad to worse. The problems are two-fold. The first is that it was not just pure luck that these kids ended up in the bomb shelter the exact night that the world as we know it was to be destroyed. And second, it seems that the world is now being taken over by a super-insect, which, once one gets into you, an army of them take your body over and turn you into a insect controlled zombie.

Our protagonist is Pete, the most emotionally troubled of the group. We watch the events unfold through his eyes as the kids go from just trying to stay put, to making an escape attempt, running for a bunker out West.  Like all good horror stories, Sparrow Rock combines pure terror with a coming of age theme. Also, it is open ended; we only know the survivors fate up to a point and the zombie inducing insects have only been appeased for a short time, they are still out there wrecking havoc.

 Appeal: fast-paced, coming-of-age, zombies, nuclear annihilation, killer insects, Nazis (yes Nazis, read it to see why this is important), survival story, familiar characters, fear inducing, one point of view, lots of flashbacks as we see into Pete's life before the book begins, a surprise twist at the end in regards to one of the characters, discussions of mental illness, familial dysfunction, storyline switches off and on between expository/character development and action sequences, realistic feeling horror despite the obviously unreal zombie inducing insects.

Three Words That Describe This Book: apocalyptic, killer insects, terrifying

For another review of Sparrow Rock, use this link over at Dark Scribe Magazine.

Sparrow Rock is a great example of the currently popular subgenre I am beginning to call Apocalyptic Horror where it isn't bad enough that the world as we know it is being destroyed, but there are supernatural evils stalking us too. This horror subgenre really plays off of two distinct fears: world annihilation and (pick your) monsters chasing us down. Even the most jaded horror fan cannot help but notice a palpable fear as these two terror inducing situations collide.

Other books that are in this subgenre and are popular right now are The Passage by Justin Cronin and Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry. Of course, don't forget the father of this subgenre, Stephen King's The Stand.

This is a less literary version of The Passage (which I will post about in the coming days), but surprisingly similar. Both have a reluctant hero who needs to get over his personal family issues before he can take the lead and try to save the group and mankind from an apocalyptic monster. But, while the Passage is a 700 page, hard cover, first installment of a trilogy, Sparrow Rock is a stand alone, mass market title at around 300 pages. I would give Sparrow Rock to more traditional horror readers who are unsure of settling into Cronin's wildly popular, and much longer, novel.

Sparrow Rock also has aspects of the zombie novel too. The aforementioned Brian Keene's The Rising would be a good zombie option for fans of Sparrow Rock. Also the brand new title Feed by Mira Grant is a great choice here too.

Finally, Sparrow Rock reminded me of one of my all-time favorite horror novels, The Ruins by Scott Smith. Both titles move at a similar pace and involve a group of young adults finding themselves accidentally in a situation where they are stranded and forced into a struggle for basic survival while also being stalked by the most unusual of monsters. Anyone who likes Sparrow Rock will love The Ruins and vice versa.

Summer Reading and Awards: Off the Beaten Path Options

I have been finding some great, nontraditional summer reading lists that I wanted to share with you.

• From NPR, try this list, entitled "Zombies and Monster Squid: Summer's Monster Hits!," of five freaky books about aliens, pulsating brains, mutants and more. 
•  From io9 try this list of "The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books for Summer Escapism."  One of the titles on the list, Feed, is already on its way to me through ILL.
• Here is a Nonfiction Summer Reading list from the Daily Beast.
• Entertainment Weekly's "18 Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer." A nice mix of books in many genres.
• For those who want to beat the heat, try these suggestions from RA Online, "Cool Reads for Hot Days." Nothing but snow and ice here.
• Get a jump on August with that month's picks from Indie Next; some are already out.
• Read a one-hit wonder.

Also this past weekend a couple big genre awards were handed out. Lists of award nominees and winners make for great reading lists, both because a larger group deemed them worthy of your time and because they are newish, but not brand new, so they may be on the shelf right now.

• The International Thriller Writers Association announced their annual awards in NYC. Click here for the full list of winners and nominees.
• The Shirley Jackson Award for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic were announced. Click here for the full list of nominees and winners.

Finally it is shameless promotion time. My friend, Jennifer Weiner's brand new book Fly Away Home comes out today. GO BUY IT!!! I always get at least 6 copies. Her best selling, smart women's fiction novels make a great gift.

The Future of Book Reviewing now available for download

Keir Graff over at Booklist Online posted an MP3 of the program he moderated at the ALA Annual Conference entitled, "Everyone's a Critic: The Future of Book Reviewing." Click here to access it and see the slide show from the presentation.

I was very upset to have had to miss this presentation but am glad I can now partake in it via tape-delay. Thanks to Graff for sharing.

Monday Discussion: How Much Can You Take?

One of the trickiest parts of being a Readers' Advisor is gauging your patron's acceptable level of sex and violence in a book. After years of experience, I can tell you there is no way to know for sure without straight out asking the patron. I have little old ladies who tell me they like their romances, "the hotter the better," and young people who get squeamish if there is any blood in a book. You cannot judge a patron by their cover. You need to find a way to get to the heart of the issue in a bold and direct matter.

The problem, however, is two-fold. First, you need to be able to find a way to ask your patrons about their preferences for sex and violence in a book. But, second, and even more importantly, you also need a resource to find out how hot and bloody a book is.


Let's start with the second problem first.  I have a great resource for finding blunt descriptions of a book's level of sex and violence. All Readers.Com provides book reviews by real people. At the end of each review there is a chart which evaluates the major appeal factors of said title. All you need to do is read the chart and it lists, very clearly, the level of sex and violence in the title.


Here is the chart for a fairly racy Susan Elizabeth Phillips book versus this one for a tame Debbie Macomber title. See how different their "What kind of sex" sections are.


Also, for violence, here is a review for the graphic Darkly Dreaming Dexter book (note under Main Character when it asks how much violence he uses. Answer: "a tremendous amount.") and another for a cozy, culinary mystery by Diane Mott Davidson. Comparing the two tells you quite a bit.


For all of these examples, compare the difference in their sex and violence levels. All Readers does a great job of really telling you what to expect. Since we cannot read every book, this is a great way for the librarian to know what the reader can expect.  Anytime there is a issue, I simply print the review from this resource and give it to the patron to decide for him or herself.

Now let' get back to the first problem: how to ask a patron about their preferences when it comes to sex and violence in a book. When a patron tells me that they want to read a romance, suspense, thriller, or mystery, I don't beat around the bush. I immediately ask who they already like to read. Their answer helps me to know what their acceptable levels already are. Remember, if they talk about an author with which you are unfamiliar, take a minute to run their name through All Readers so you can see for yourself.

However, as you know, there are always the patrons who, when asked what authors they enjoy, answer to the effect of, "Oh, I like everything." For these people you have to be direct. It helps if you have a prepared line. This makes you less nervous to ask such a personal question and hopefully makes them more willing to answer.

Here are some of the lines I use. For violence question: "Do you mind a lot of blood and violence in your story?" "Do you want a mystery that is more about the characters and the story and less about the murder?" (this is a nice way to find out if they want a cozy or not) For sex questions: "Do you want a sweet and innocent romance or is it okay if it is more adult?" I also go right out and ask many patrons, "And how much sex can the book have?" You'd be surprised, most patrons are happy that you have asked, and are even happier to answer.

That being said, no matter how careful we are to ask these questions, we can never guarantee that a book is "safe." If you have a patron who is adamant about reading a "clean" book, you need to make sure you give them as much information as you have and then be honest that you can't know for sure. Even if you have read the book yourself, do not make a guarantee because what is acceptable to you may not be okay with your patron.


So for today's discussion let me know how you handle asking patrons about their acceptable levels of sex and violence? Do you have any resources you use to help with this issue? If you are a patron, how do you want to be asked about this by the librarian? Does it even matter to you?

Remember, you can follow any of our past Monday Discussions by using this link.

Introducing Flashback Fridays

This is a busy time of year for me in terms of anniversaries. My wedding anniversary is in June. I also had a birthday recently, one of my kids has her birthday 2 days later, and then I remembered that this month marks 10 years at the Berwyn Public Library for me.

It is my anniversary, but it is also the anniversary of the creation of RA service at the BPL. We have come a long way in 10 years. One of the biggest marks of the RA department's success is the fact that the person I worked so hard to create the department with, is now the Director of the BPL. Not to mention all I have accomplished.

Next month, also marks the 3rd anniversary of RA for All. Three years and 570 posts later, even I don't remember everything I have talked about here. I go back and search for things from time to time and am surprised at how good and useful some of it is.

So in order to remind myself and all of you readers about the treasure trove of information hiding in this blog's archives, I have begun "Flashback Fridays." From now on, every Friday I will re-post something from the current week in a previous year.

Today, to mark the first Flashback Friday I want to point you to a post from two years ago today and it is one I have gone back to for my own use over the last 2 years.

Suggestions for a Guys Book Group

I had a patron come to the desk at BPL on Monday to tell us about his new book group. It consists of a dozen or so 30-something, fathers, who meet in a local bar to hold their discussions. They had their first meeting last month and they read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. They are reading Confederacy of Dunces next and Motherless Brooklyn in August. All three are excellent choices to get a guys group going.

I told him I would compile I list of suggestions for future months. His requirements were that the books be less than 350, they wanted fictions and nonfiction, a few classics, short stories, a "scary book for Halloween, and anything I just thought might be good.

So here are the suggestions, for both his group, and anyone else out there, to peruse.

Let's start with the "scary" book suggestion. I have three. The first two might have less to discuss in the traditional book discussion sense, but are VERY scary, and the third is not as scary, but a good book discussion title. Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box and Scott Smith's The Ruins, are the two best horror books of the last few years (IMO). The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue is about changelings and has provoked a lot of conversation and accolades. It also deal with fatherhood.

Now onto other suggested titles. I will list fiction and nonfiction separately. Each is linked to Amazon, where interested readers can find not only summaries, but comments from actual readers. When choosing titles for a book discussion, I always look at a few 5 star reviews and a few 1 star reviews to get the full spectrum of opinions on a book. It has served me well for 7 1/2 years of picking book discussion titles.

I have placed a * in front of my top 10 picks for discussion. But this is only my opinion.

FICTION*Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
*Blindness by Jose Saramago
*Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (which is technically 18 pages over the limit, but many of the pages are just pictures)
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (Short Stories)Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro (Short Stories)
*Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Short Stories)
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
*On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Van by Roddy Doyle

NONFICTION (The page limit really held my choices back here, but these are all great options. Many are under the limit in text, but over when you count the notes sections)
Cod by Mark Kurlansky
*Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
*Maus or In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman (both graphic novels)
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
*Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
*Longitude by Dava Sobel
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
*1776 by David McCulough
Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Good luck to the Berwyn guys and anyone else who chooses to use this list. Please feel free to use the comments to add to the list. I know there are a lot more books to add because I had to force myself to stop.