Horror Presentation for Maine

Good Morning Maine!

We are going to be talking about the current state of horror fiction this morning, just in time for my favorite made up holiday...Halfway to Halloween!

Click here to access to slides with live links here, or click on the opening slide below.

"See" you at 9:30 eastern.

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.

Library Reads: May 2015

Here is the May list.  Click here for past lists.

May 2015 LibraryReads List

Uprooted

by Naomi Novik

Published: 5/19/2015 by Del Rey
ISBN: 9780804179034

“A young girl is unexpectedly uprooted from her family and becomes involved in a centuries-old battle with The Wood, a malevolent entity which destroys anyone it touches. Fast-paced, with magic, mystery and romance, Novik’s stand-alone novel is a fairy tale for adults.”

Lucy Lockley, St. Charles City-County Library, St. Peters, MO

A Court of Thorns and Roses

by Sarah J. Maas

Published: 5/5/2015 by Bloomsbury USA Children’s
ISBN: 9781619634442

“The human world is in peril. Feyre, a semi-literate girl, hunts for her family’s survival. After she kills an enormous wolf, a fierce fey shows up at her doorstep seeking retribution. Feyre is led to beautiful eternal springs, but the journey is not without danger. Maas masterfully pulls the reader into this new dark fantasy series which feels like a mix of fairy tales, from Beauty and the Beast to Tam Lin.”

Jessica C. Williams, Westlake Porter Public Library, Westlake, OH

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A God in Ruins: A Novel

by Kate Atkinson

Published: 5/5/2015 by Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 9780316176538

“In A God in Ruins, we become reacquainted with Teddy Todd, the beloved little brother of Ursula from Atkinson’s last book. As with Life After Life, this novel skims back and forth in time, and we see the last half of the 20th century through Ted’s eyes and the eyes of his loved ones. At times funny and at others heartbreaking, Atkinson revels in the beauty and horror of life in all its messiness.”

Jennifer Dayton, Darien Library, Darien, CT

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The Water Knife: A Novel

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Published: 5/26/2015 by Knopf
ISBN: 9780385352871

“Bacigalupi’s novel looks at the possible struggle for water rights in the southwestern United States. Reading Bacigalupi’s novel made me thankful for the current easy access to clean drinking water, yet fearful for our future. A great read for any fan of dystopian fiction.”

Lindsay Atwood, Chandler Public Library, Chandler, AZ

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The Knockoff: A Novel

by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza

Published: 5/19/2015 by Doubleday
ISBN: 9780385539586

“The Knockoff is a digital-age mash-up of old-school movies The Women and All About Eve, set in the Devil Wears Prada world of a high fashion magazine. I absolutely loved this fresh, charming, addictive and ultimately heroic story of 40-something cancer survivor Imogen’s quest to rescue and rebuild her career, despite the machinations of a younger tech-wiz rival.”

Janet Schneider, Bryant Library, Roslyn, NY

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Early Warning: A Novel

by Jane Smiley

Published: 4/28/2015 by Knopf
ISBN: 9780307700322

“In the second book of the Langdon trilogy, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist follows the next generation of the unforgettable Iowa family introduced in Some Luck. Beginning with the death of the patriarch Walter in 1953, Smiley chronicles the social consciousness in America of the 1960s. The book goes up to events in the 1970s and early 1980s that touch each family member in unforeseen ways.”

Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library, Flemington, NJ

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Seveneves: A Novel

by Neal Stephenson

Published: 5/19/2015 by William Morrow
ISBN: 9780062190376

“Stephenson’s back in fine form with this hard science fiction masterpiece, combining the detail of Cryptonomiconwith the fast-paced action of Reamde. Fans of Anathem will appreciate Stephenson’s speculation about the possibilities of human evolution. This book is a great follow-up for readers who enjoyed the science of Weir’sThe Martian. I heartily recommend Seveneves to SF readers.”

Keith Hayes, Wake County Public Libraries, Cary, NC

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The Ghost Fields

by Elly Griffiths

Published: 5/19/2015 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780544330146

“Griffiths has written another strong entry in her excellent Ruth Galloway series. Here, Ruth is called in when a World War II plane is excavated, complete with pilot–but the pilot is in the wrong plane. Strong characters combine with an absorbing puzzle to create a hard-to-put-down mystery.”

Beth Mills, New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY

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Our Souls at Night: A Novel

by Kent Haruf

Published: 5/26/2015 by Knopf
ISBN: 9781101875896

“Beautiful, elegant and poignant, this novel is a distilled experience of Haruf’s writing. The story of how two elders attempt to poke at the loneliness and isolation that surrounds them will stick with me for a long time to come. I’m amazed at how Haruf says so much with such spare prose. He will be missed.”

Alison Kastner, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR

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Little Black Lies

by Sharon Bolton

Published: 5/19/2015 by Minotaur Books
ISBN: 9781250028594

“Set in the Falkland Islands, this novel grabs you from the opening paragraph. A child is missing, and he’s not the first. The incident sets off a chain of events leading to multiple characters confessing to murder. Accustomed to living in an idyllic community, fear and anger escalate among the locals. Bolton has created a page-turner of a story with a surprise ending.”

Historical Fiction Genre Overview for MA Library System

Good morning Massachusetts. From 11-12 Eastern I will be presenting as part of your on-going "Genre Overview" monthly programming. This month's topic is Historical Fiction.

Here is the link to the slides for you and anyone else who is interested.

You can also click under the slide below or to access these slides, or any others that I have done in the last 9-12 months, click through to the "Recent Presentations" page.

"See" you soon.

Click here to access the entire slide show

I'm Back With Interesting Links

Well, the RA for All Blogging vacation is done and after 10 days in Hawaii with my family, I am as refreshed as I have ever been. Looking at the "behind the scenes blog stats, " I can also see that many of you took me up on my challenge to take advantage of the blog archives while I was gone.  I appreciate it and I hope it helped you.  Please keep doing it too.  There is a lot of great info hiding out here.

Coming up in the next few weeks there will be many reviews (I am not only behind but read 3.5 books on vacation), 2 webinars in a five day span starting tomorrow,  a new Reader's Shelf column in Library Journal, and some BIG announcements are just a few of the things coming here soon.

But now back to the blog. I want to talk about two big book things that happened while I was away that are both very useful to our day-to-day work with leisure readers.

The Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were announced here.  But even more useful is Booklist's list of readalikes for the fiction finalists here and the nonfiction ones here.  Start promoting and suggesting all of these titles right now-- both award contenders and readalike options. Thanks to The Booklist Reader for all of the easy to navigate links.

The Tournament of Books finished up with my favorite book of 2014 taking the Rooster-- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

• Click here for the full tournament with all the fantastic commentary
• Click here for my recent post on the ToB and why it is a great RA tool
• Check out the So Many Damn Books podcast which is the official, unofficial podcast of the ToB and includes interviews with the people involved in running the event as well as many of the authors whose books were a part of the tourney, including an interview with the winner.
• And read or suggest to patrons some of the great titles included in this year's tourney or some you may have forgotten about from year's past. There is enough appeal info included in the judging essays to let you our a patron know if the book is a good choice or not.

Again, thanks for hanging in there while I took a WAY overdue vacation.  Back tomorrow with slides for a brand new Historical Fiction webinar.

RA for All Vacation

I am taking a much needed blogging break starting today.

RA for All will return on Wednesday, April 8th.

But although there will be no new posts, there are still over 1900 posts here on the blog, not to mention the close to 400 posts on the horror blog.

Sometimes I peruse old posts myself and find some great tips buried in the archives.

So, while I am gone, I am giving you, my loyal readers, who are looking for ways to better their RA skills, an assignment. [Yes, I am giving you homework for my blogging vacation.] Use the tags listed in the right gutter (toward the bottom) or the use the blog archive to poke around on the blog.

I know most of you simply read what I have posted that day, but in truth, this blog is more than just what I am posting in the moment. I truly view this blog as a depository of RA knowledge, tips, tools, and issues.

That's why I put in the time and effort to run this blog because of the compound interest I am building with each and every post. It is the entirety of everything I have posted over the last 7.5 years, put together, that makes this blog such a valuable resource to those of us who serve leisure readers-- myself included.

This blogging vacation will give me a chance to refuel and come back better than ever, but it will also give all of you the chance to use the archives to learn something that is new to you.

Enjoy and "see" you soon.

Browser's Corner Massive Updates

I have spent all morning updating the Browser's Corner, our BPL blog where you can discover great backlist reading suggestions.

I have been a little bit behind in updating it since having to take it over due to staffing shortages...BUT, your patience is paying off.

I have set the Browser's Corner to run new staff reading recommendations starting back on Wednesday pretty much every week day until April 28th! That's over 20 new posts!

Woo Hoo!

Please remember that there are hundreds of posts, each one a great reading recommendation from one of our staff members. We have contributors from many different departments, with a wide variety of reading tastes, so there truly is something for every reader there.

The site also lists some of our "If you like..." reading lists and the notes from past Book Lover's Club meetings [which means the site has patron recommendations too!].

So thanks for standing-by, but now it is time to go back and visit us at The Browser's Corner.

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.

April NoveList RA News is Up

The topic this month is History Writing-- both fiction and nonfiction.

You can click here to read the entire newsletter, but here is the editor's note and a few of the highlights that you will find inside.

Editor's Desk

I love history writing. I scour the library's new book shelves -- ready to snatch up titles on favorite topics.  I'm delighted when an unfamiliar topic comes to my attention. I want to learn about the real people and events touched upon in the historical fiction I read. World War II theatres of operation, ancient Egypt, natural and man-made disasters, queens of England, true crime and travel stories are some of the topics I've enjoyed in the last few years.

What's next? (Here is where one of the dangers of being a librarian comes into play.) I recently selected a variety of fiction and nonfiction titles on India; today there are two histories of India on my to-be-read pile. What are some of your favorite subjects?

Keep reading,

Top Trends in History Writing by Barry Trott Reading trends rise and fall and rise again in both fiction and nonfiction. This continuous cycle requires that readers' advisors be on the alert for not only what is popular now, but also what will be coming to our readers' attention next. In nonfiction such as history writing, these trends are often driven by...Continue Reading Crime Through Time: A Brief Exploration of Historical True Crime by Jennifer Brannen The Mystery and Thriller genres thrive because of our fascination with crime but some of our most enthralling mysteries are factual rather than fictional. True crime is not a modern phenomenon, and there are crimes every bit as gruesome and baffling...Continue Reading Sesquicentennial: The American Civil War in Fiction by Bethany Latham Two thousand fifteen marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the U.S. Civil War, when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865. The recent anniversaries of other events, such as the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic in 2012 and of the beginning of the First World War in 2014, have resulted in a visible surge of novels about these events. This has not been the case with the sesquicentennial of the Civil War...Continue Reading This is a great issue. Click through to read it all.  And look for articles by me in both the May 2015 and June 2015 issues, coming to an inbox near you soon.

Crime Fiction Authors Tomorrow: Why You Need to Be There [I am Holding Seats for You!]

The ARRT and Sister's in Crime joint author event is tomorrow at 2 pm in Deerfield. Click through for details.

I have heard from many of you that you want to come but did not pre-register.  GREAT NEWS-- You can let me know with a quick email bspratford [at] hotmail [dot] com and I will make sure there is room for you.  Then please just bring your $15 to the event to pay at the door.

But here is why you should drop everything and join us.  This is a librarian centric event.  Cari Dubiel, Sisters in Crime's Library Liaison will be joining to moderate the event spotlighting: Lori Rader-Day (The Black Hour), Susanna Calkins (A Murder at Rosamund's Gate and From the Charred Remains), and Clare O'Donohue (Missing Persons, Life Without Parole, and The Double Wedding Ring).

Cari will be there to ask the authors questions about how they write.  These are 3 popular authors who our patrons already enjoy.  If we can understand how these authors craft their stories, we will have a better understanding as to why our patrons like reading them.  This leads us to better RA interactions, as we will be more prepared to ask the correct questions as we help leisure readers. 

I for one am excited to hear how they work with the concept of genre within their works.  How much do they think about the genre conventions of mystery, suspense, thriller, and psychological suspense as they write? Between the 3 of them, they hit at all of the crime genres at some point. I am the most interested in hearing Lori Rader-Day whose first novel exploded onto the scene. I think she really captures this trend to move from traditional mystery into more amorphous "crime fiction" style. Readers are eating it up, but do writer realize they are blending more?

See what I mean. There are great questions and issues to be addressed here; things that don't come up at a more traditional author event. This is why I am saving seats for you last minute procrastinators. And if you can't make it, send a staff member.

Plus, there will be plenty of time for you to ask anything you want AND there will be books for sale. The authors have not only agreed to appear for a low fee because they love libraries, but also, they will stay and sign books for as long as it takes.

So, let me know if you did not pre-register ASAP so I can save you a seat. We would like to allow some Deerfield patrons the opportunity to come as a thank you for the free use of their meeting room, but only if there are seats available, so please let me know if you can make it.

Hey, I'm driving all the way from my desk shift at Berwyn (which doesn't end until 1) to be there. You can make it too. 

Seriously though, this will really help to increase your personal knowledge of crime fiction AND it will lead to tangible improvement in your work with leisure readers. Plus, it is going to be fun!

If you do come and we have never met, I'll be the one introducing Cari to kick it all off. Stop over and say hi after the presentation.