Peoples, peoples,

There are some 3,000 library students currently in the U.S. (right?). Word is on da street that only 404 of you library science majors and faculty have signed up for the free one-year subscription to Library Journal….Frankly, I’m aghast.

So here are the details: Subscription Form (PDF)

1. Must have a valid student ID and this offer is limited to the USA only.
    a. When the form asks for a student ID, that means just a photocopy of the ID is needed.
    b. If you are an online/long distance student and do not have a student ID, a letter on school letterhead that confirms you are a student is acceptable.

2. You can also fax the form and supporting material to 646-746-6814.

3. We will not give out your information to third-parties, although we *might* email you promoting our own products, but then again, we might not.

Please circulate this wherever you see fit.

*I extend a special apology to recent graduates and Canadian library students: I’m really really sorry.

Cheers,
AK

Publishing has hit a new low with the November 30 release of O.J. Simpson’s new book, If I Did It (Regan Books), in which the former football star speculates how he would have committed the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ron Goldman—but of course the Juice didn’t do these crimes because he was acquitted. While publisher Judith Regan in the New York Post justified her decision to acquire the book in part because, like Nicole, she had been a battered wife, the email newsletter Shelf Awareness reports that the controversy has raised questions among booksellers over whether they should sell this book. 

The newsletter quotes Nancy Olson, owner of Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, N.C.: “Do we take a ’stand’ on such a book, thereby sending our customers who want to buy it to our competitors? Is this a form of censorship? Or do we make it available without displaying it other than having it on the shelf?” She added, “I’m disturbed to be put in such a position. Freedom of the press notwithstanding, the way they’re marketing the book raises huge ethical questions. We all know the publishers are desperate to make money on commercial books, but this takes the cake.”  If bookstores feel this way, what about libraries? Do you, my dear librarians, plan to order this distasteful opus or are you waiting for patron demand? This inquiring mind wants to know! (As for a Library Journal review, thankfully the November 30 release date makes the book too late to be reviewed in print, although we could still run an online review. That unhappy decision falls to our social sciences editor.)

Ooo-la-la,

It’s that time of the week again, letting you know the latest titles in our web-only, freely-accessible Xpress Reviews section! I’m stoked.

Xpress Reviews for Week of Nov. 14, 2006

NONFICTION
Ayers, Jeff. Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek® Fiction Companion. Pocket: S. & S.

Callahan, Gerald N. Infection: The Uninvited Universe. St. Martin’s.
Gualde, Norbert. Resistance: The Human Struggle Against Infection. Dana, dist. by Univ. of Chicago. [composite review]

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy. Metropolitan: Holt.

Plisson, Philip (photogs.) & Christian Buchet (text). The Eternal Sea. Abrams.

Riverbend. Baghdad Burning II: More Girl Blog from Iraq. Feminist Pr., dist. by Consortium.

Tanner, Lee. The Jazz Image: Masters of Jazz Photography. Abrams.

GRAPHIC NOVELS
Balce, Nicc. Random Encounter. Vol. 1. Viper Comics. (GN)

Bendis, Brian Michael (text) & others (illus.). Ultimate Marvel Team-Up: Ultimate Collection. Marvel. (GN)

Claremont, Chris & Tony Bedard (text) & Chris Bachalo & Roger Cruz (illus.). Uncanny X-Men—The New Age. Vol. 5: First Forsaken. Marvel. (GN)

David, Peter (text) & Mike Wieringo & Roger Cruz (illus.). Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Vol. 1: Derailed. Marvel. (GN)

Dysart, Joshua (text) & Sal Velluto & others (illus.). Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril. Penny Farthing. (GN)

Frampton, Otis. Oddly Normal. Vol. 1. Viper Comics. (GN)

Gray, Justin & Jimmy Palmiotti (text) & Khari Evans (illus.). Daughters of the Dragon: Samurai Bullets. Marvel. (GN)

Gray, Justin & Jimmy Palmiotti (text) & Tony Dezuñiga (illus.). Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence. DC Comics. (GN)

Han, Seungwon. Your Lover. Vol. 1. Netcomics. (manhwa)

Hopkins, David (text) & Brock Rizy (illus.). Emily Edison. Vol. 1. Viper Comics. (GN)

After reading about “Blacks & Books,” a new monthly insert to appear in the Baltimore Times, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Philadelphia Tribune, which will feature reviews of books by Black authors and of interest to Black readers, I felt compelled to highlight our recent features.  As Sarah Nelson of Publishers Weekly says of their coverage, it is mostly features and special sections.  One of our fiction editors, Wilda Williams, often expresses frustration at the scarcity of street-lit reviewers she has.  (So, if you’re interested, see how to apply at http://www.libraryjournal.com/document/22042.html!)

Take a look at the Collection Development article, “Streetwise Urban Fiction,” that ran in the July issue–an article that was in the issue I took home after my interview, and one that made me really excited to join the LJ staff.  Also see editor Ann Burns’s Black History Month preview, “African American Visions,” in the Nov. 1 issue.

I remember being surprised to see Tavis Smiley’s The Covenant with Black America on best sellers lists, because I knew of the editor from his show on NPR and elsewhere but hadn’t heard he had a book coming out until it hit the list.  (Wikipedia says, “it’s the first non-fiction book by a Black-owned publisher to be listed as the number-one non-fiction paperback in America by the New York Times Best-Seller List.”)  The New York Times also recently exclaimed about Obama’s “surprise best seller.”  Perhaps more reviews will keep us from being so surprised when books by Black authors or of interest to Black audiences sell well.

Pages are flying around the office because we’re in the thick of our Best Books reading (for an intro to the process, see “Thank Your Mother and Shut Up”). When I think about it, our deadline (right after Thanksgiving) is perfect—Who doesn’t need two tons of turkey moving through their intestines while digesting Steven Walsh’s Stravinsky (720 pages) and Jonathan Israel’s Enlightenment Contested (1,024 pages)?

But seriously, I’m happy to report that this year, the contenders in my sections (Performing Arts, Psychology, Computers, and Health & Medicine) are hella strong and, appealingly, unlikley to pop up on the other major crème-de-la-crème lists (PublishersWeekly published its one last Monday). I’ve gushed about the strengths of LJ’s picks before, but I’m even more confident of them now that I’m about a quarter through my reads and have compared notes with my colleagues.

It won’t be easy to lodge the usual complaints about end-of-the-year book lists at us. Too literary? Hardly, given that we identify the best in self-help and genre fiction. Too low-brow? Come off it: our editors love a superb prose stylist—and you only need look at some of last year’s winners (e.g., Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go). The point is, we look at a wide swath of titles in the hopes of feeding hungry minds of all appetites.

I can’t yet reveal any winners—though note that we are likely going to announce them on this blog a full month before they come out in the print January 15th issue. Suffice to say you’re going to learn what’s it’s like to live with autism and become possibly too intimate with one W.A. Mozart.

Hey hey,

I’m looking forward to kicking back at home and watching the election results roll in. But until then…we’ve got more meaty, web-only, freely accessible reviews for YOU. Yes, you. You know who you are. You’re insatiable, you beast you.

But I digress…often.

I present: Xpress Reviews for Week of Nov. 7, 2006

FICTION
Chughtai, Ismat. The Crooked Line. Feminist Pr., dist. by Consortium.

Kellerman, Jonathan & Faye Kellerman. Capital Crimes. Ballantine.

Koontz, Dean. Brother Odd. Bantam.

NONFICTION
Crimlis, Roger & Alwyn W. Turner. Cult Rock Posters: Ten Years of Classic Posters from the Glam, Punk, and New Wave Era. Billboard: Watson-Guptill.

Crosby, Molly Caldwell. The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History. Berkley: Penguin Group (USA).

Emery, Noemie. Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families. Wiley.

Parsell, T.J. Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man’s Prison. Carroll & Graf.

Last Friday, I got the long-awaited word from one of our hard-working web people: the RSS feed for Computer Media and Computer Book Prepub Alert was ready. Not an hour after blasting out the good news on two listservs—this was something that my writer, Rachel Singer Gordon, and I have wanted done for years and that was requested by the vast majority of librarians who were informed about both columns’ online-only presence—I got a few good kicks in my editorial teeth.

As it turns out, dear readers, all RSS feeds are not created equal. Much as I insist on New York Super Fudge Chunk when eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, people crave a certain kind of feed. The one that LJ uses for my computer columns are designed to draw traffic to the website, so RSS subscribers will not see the full text of the reviews or annotations; they merely get the link for the time being.

On the whole, this doesn’t sit well with librarians who, while they respect LJ’s position as a golden oldie of a print magazine with a mandate to develop online content, point out that time is of the essence; they need some additional clues about the content. As one respondent genially put it, “[m]any people expect RSS feeds to function as more than just an annoucement of new content… It would be great if you could add a headline…or a snippet of text so that folks can decide if they’d like to click the link.”

I would like to thank everyone for their feedback on Computer Media’s migration and the launch of Computer Book Prepub Alert. To be frank, I don’t know what I’m doing—I’m a Gen Xer who couldn’t care less about owning an iPod—but I do it well by picking the brains of my audience and the very learned Rachel Singer Gordon and Laura Ciporen (our Online Project Manager). Web reviews are a strange beast, but I am convinced of their usefulness and relevance. For more on this contentious topic, don’t miss Francine Fialkoff’s upcoming editorial in the Nov. 15th issue, “Online-Only Reviews.”

Hell-looo out there,

I’m a little late, but here are the titles in this week’s freely accessible, web-only Xpress reviews. Check out the tender side of Courney Love and stare back at the iconic Patti Smith (who lives in my neighborhood, by the way, but that’s neither here nor there).

 Xpress Reviews: Week of Oct. 31, 2006

FICTION
Gylanders, S.C. The Better Angels of Our Nature. Random.

NONFICTION
Alfieri, Gus. Lapchick: The Life of a Legendary Player and Coach in the Glory Days of Basketball. Lyons: Globe Pequot.

Love, Courtney. Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love. Faber & Faber.

Stefanko, Frank. Patti Smith: American Artist. Insight Editions: Palace Press International.

Tedlow, Richard S. Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American. Portfolio.

The Jolie-Pitts do it; Madonna does it, but that’s not the bloody point of National Adoption Month 2006 (November). This year’s theme—”Answering the Call: You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. There are thousands of teens in foster care who would love to put up with you”—seems to send a pro-”common people” message. So what if you’re not loaded and traffic-stopping gorgeous? You’ve still got the goods to turn a child’s life around. And in editing “Adoption Options 2006,” a web roundup of recent titles on the increasingly popular process by Lynne C. Maxwell, you’re certainly not facing a dearth of materials on adopting and raising a child—three titles are, in fact, starred.

This year, I was struck by the intellectual depth and edginess of the selections. There is a standard, and stellar, how-to guide featured (Dawn Davenport’s The Complete Book of International Adoption, Broadway), but there are also some gritty, not-all-sunshine-and-roses takes, especially David Kirschner’s Adoption: Unchartered Waters: A Psychologist’s Case Studies (Juneau Press), about the connection between adoption and a sociopathy-like condition, and Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (South End Press), which questions the “win-win” popular slant on celebrity adoption (hurrah!).

Looking for more still? Check out LJ’s reviews of these older, starred adoption titles: Randall Kennedy’s Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption, Emily Prager’s Wuhu Diary: On Taking My Adopted Daughter Back to Her Hometown in China, and Neely Tucker’s Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir, whose focus on a couple’s struggle to adopt a baby from Zimbabwe echoes the Madonna debacle.

Let everyone else nitpick about awards. (Do they really sell books? What, he won for that tripe?) For me, awards matter because they can highlight terrific reads that otherwise might get lost in the media backwash. Like most folks, I could name a dozen books I think should have been among the recently announced nominees for the National Book Awards. (Not Thomas Pynchon’s protean Against the Day? Not Olga Grushin’s exquisite and insightful The Dream Life of Sukhanov?) Yet I am happy enough with this year’s nominees in fiction and poetry, my own assigning areas, because generally they are neither boringly predictable nor aggressively obscure, as can happen with awards. The fiction list reminds me that I’ve been meaning to pick up Richard Powers’s The Echo Maker and sent me back to LJ’s reviews of Ken Kalfus’s A Disorder Peculiar to the Country and Dana Spiotta’s Eat the Document; I’d forgotten how strong they were. And because I tend to get exasperated when the collected works of grand old poets get nominated–how can a fresh new voice compete against a lifetime of achievement?–I am very happy to see not a single collections on this year’s poetry list.
    
Will the books chosen as National Book Award winners on November 15 really be the year’s best? Of course not; how could they be? With the number and quality of books published each year, prickling a range of tastes and interests, it’s not possible to declare anything the best—just intriguing and important enough to be the favorites of some serious readers. And that should be enough. An award winner cries out, “Get me, and let’s start talking,” which makes winning not the end of the conversation but only the beginning. Just tune in on November 16 to see whether I still agree.