With several hundred galleys flooding our bookroom daily, my job as a book review editor is bit like an emergency room physician performing triage. I have to sort through the pile and divide the candidates into three categories: the must be-reviewed (big-name authors, highly touted debuts from big publishers, original takes on old or new subjects); interesting small-press possibilities; and finally the definite no’s: new books by long-dead authors, self-published manuscripts, books submitted too late, very dry dissertations, the umpteenth series title. Stilll, there are times when I (and my colleagues)  miss small literary jewels. Such is the case with Troy Cook’s 47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers, a first mystery out this month from Capitol Crime Press. Here’s what my fiction reviewer—and tipster—Stacy Alesi had to say: “This debut novel about a father training his 9-year-old daughter in bank robbery is zany black comedy at its best. Wyatt Evans is a brilliant psychopath who has made a career out of robbing banks. Along the way, he killed his wife and taught his daughter the 47 rules of the family business. But by the time Tara is 23, she is chafing under her father’s rigid, psychotic thumb and wondering if it is time to move out on her own. Then she meets Max, who empathizes with Tara as he has a nut of a father himself, although on the other side of the law— his father is the Sheriff. Meanwhile Wyatt is heading the FBI’s ten most wanted list, Tara & Max take off and Wyatt, the Sheriff and the FBI are all on the chase. 47 Rules is well written, original, clever and laugh out loud funny. Don’t miss it.”

If I ate a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich for every Elvis galley I’ve received, I’d have a serious weight problem. Luckily, I’m not so fond of bananas, nor, come to think of it, of most contending books on the late, great King. As with the Beatles and Dylan, most everything has already been said well (see Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love). With the 29th anniversary of Elvis’s death looming, however, I’m happy to report that two upcoming books offer fresh takes. Jerry Schilling’s Me and Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley (Gotham) won raves from our David Szatmary for “captur[ing] the aura and the grim realities of life with the most important American icon of the 20th century,” while Ken Burke and Dan Griffin’s Blue Moon Boys: The Story of Elvis Presley’s Band (Chicago Review Press) captures how important bassist Bill Black, guitarist Scotty Moore, and drummer D.J. Fontana were in “establishing and popularizing the rockabilly style,” says James Perone. Catch the full-length reviews in the August 15th issue (later, you’ll be able to cue them up in our online database). And don’t miss our Q&A with Schilling.

With each depressing daily news flash, Israel seems to be getting closer of achieving its goal of bombing its Lebanese neighbor back to the strife-torn years of the 1970s and  early 1980s when  the country was torn apart by a bloody civil war. To better understand the tragic destruction of Lebanon’s new-found stability, readers may be interested in a first novel that Tatra Press will publish this October. Written by Margaret Lowerie Robertson, a former CNN International and CBS News correspondant , Season of Betrayal is set in Beirut 1983 just as the U.S. Marines have been sent into the city to serve as part of a peacekeeping force. Against this tense backdrop, Lara struggles to save her marriage to an American journalist while befriending another reporter with disastrous results. The author’s impressive journalistic connections are evident with strong blurbs from such luminaries as Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

It arrived in a clear plastic wrapper, as if the contents would contaminate my fingers. “WTF?” I wondered as I sorted through my mountain of health and medicine galleys. I’ve seen a lot of gimmicks in my day—whoopee cushions, cookies, and disgustingly racist figurines—but this biohazard gag was working for me. The cover, depicting the author behind an ostensibly locked door in a hospital setting, drew me in further. Then I did what every first-time writer wants a book review editor to do, though I rarely have the time or inclination, and started to read the book. That’s right: I stopped dead in the middle of a mad-dash, slightly overdue assigning frenzy and read. At my desk. At three in the afternoon on a Tuesday. And here’s the kicker—I didn’t fall asleep. In My Pet Virus: The True Story of a Rebel Without a Cure (October, Tarcher), Shawn Decker doesn’t display the heady language of a Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City), but he’s got an addictive voice nonetheless. His memoir of growing up a hemophiliac with HIV lacks all the self-pity and self-loathing many readers would expect. Humor is the glue that holds this too-brief twist on the coming-of-age story together. For more on Decker, don’t miss LJ’s annual Editors’ Picks cover story in the September 1 issue, where you can also get the scoop on Roger Woolhouse’s Locke: A Biography (Cambridge), Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed: A Memoir (Knopf), J.M. Ledgard’s Giraffe (Penguin Press), HélèneGrimaud’s Wild Harmonies: A Life of Music and Wolves (Riverhead), and Marcus Samuelsson’s The Soul of a New Cuisine (Wiley).

There is an interesting story in today’s New York Times about the rapidly growing  best-selling success of the paperback edition of Kim Edward’s debut novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Despite Library Journal’s rave reviews of both the print and audio editions, the hardcover sold only 30,000 copies  (wonder how many of those copies were purchased by libraries?). Since it was published at the end of May, the paperback has sold over 114,000 copies, and on July 1 reached the  number 1 spot on Barnes & Noble trade paperback best-seller list. What is driving this sudden interest in this book? The Times article cites cheaper paperback prices, word of mouth, and book clubs, but I like to think there are passionate reader’s advisory librarians out there who played a major  role in promoting this book. Come on, don’t be shy. tell me your stories. How many copies of the hardcover did you buy? How well did it circulate? Are you getting patron demand for the paperback?

You can call it pandering, or you can call it marketing genius, but I’ve heard rumors of libraries holding viewings of classic summer blockbusters. And why not? Many a mega flick has sprung from a book—take Peter Benchley’s Jaws, Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, and Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump. Of course, more probably have nothing to do with a novel, but plenty of literature bears the Star Wars imprimatur, for instance. These days, books and movies just need each other—Hollywood execs heat-seek “built-in” audiences, and publishers want that big-screen exposure to beef up a backlist. I’m convinced that libraries should publicize that connection to draw in patrons. Movies and books are luxuries for a large chunk of the population, and by making them free (essentially), you’ll be doing your community a double service: You may turn a connoisseur of one medium on to the other and enrich their worldview. In the meantime, I’m going to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: A Dead Man’s Chest. And who knows? Maybe I’ll whip out Treasure Island.

At the ripe old age of 13, I developed my first full-blown girl crush on the one and only Marilyn Monroe (who would’ve celebrated her 80th birthday last month). That feeling came rushing back courtesy of the new edition of Burt Stern’s Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting (August, Schirmer). Pictured here is not the heavily maquillaged and expertly lit glamazon of Some Like It Hot fame, but a 36-year-old woman dropping her guard—and most of her clothes in the process. Viewers, not knowing this before opening the book, expect flawless planes and curves, certainly not the crow’s feet and belly scar that Marilyn puts on full display. “She looks so old” is the most common reaction, meaning, I think, that she aged prematurely. And while I agree, I still find her beautiful. Stern, who contributes a revealing foreword, captured Marilyn the Survivor of the Hollywood machine and her American reinvention, take her or leave her, and I do, frame after frame. My favorite? None of the famous bedroom nudes, but a sole grainy snap I’d never seen before of Norma Jean sipping red wine with a pillow on her lap, her in a disheveled up-do. This book will go in my personal library, right next to Dennis Stock’s James Dean: 50 Years Ago.