A collaborative blog presented by the staff of Library Journal
March 22, 2007
Hullo! Here are the titles reviewed in this week’s web-only, freely-accessible Xpress Reviews section. And we have cover images for some of them to stimulate your visual pleasure.
Xpress Reviews for Week of Mar. 20th, 2007
FICTION
Hornby, Simonetta Agnello. The Marchesa. Farrar.
NONFICTION
Barish, Eileen. Bestspasusa: The Guidebook to Luxury Resort, Hotel, and Destination Spas. Bestspasusa.
Glancy, Diane. Asylum in the Grasslands. Univ. of Arizona.
Hauer, Rutger with Patrick Quinlan. All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners. HarperEntertainment: HarperCollins.
Healy, Bernadine, M.D. Living Time: Faith and Facts To Transform Your Cancer Journey. Bantam.
Nathan, David G., M.D. The Cancer Treatment Revolution: How Smart Drugs and Other New Therapies Are Renewing Our Hope and Changing the Face of Medicine. Wiley. [composite review]
Leonard, Kendra Preston. The Conservatoire Américain: A History. Scarecrow.
McClanahan, Rue. My First Five Husbands…and the Ones Who Got Away. Broadway.
Marchand, Philip. Ghost Empire: How the French Almost Conquered North America. Praeger.
Ramin, Cathryn Jakobson. Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife. HarperCollins.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Chabot, Jacob. The Mighty Skullboy Army. Dark Horse.
 David, Peter (text) & Ryan Sook & Dennis Calero & others (illus.). X-Factor. Vol. 1: The Longest Night. Marvel.
Ellis, Warren (text) & Stuart Immonen (illus.). Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. Vol. 1: This Is What They Want. Marvel.
Fujima, Takuya. Free Collars Kingdom. Vol. 1. Del Rey: Ballantine.
Fukushima, Haruka. Kedamono Damono. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Kim, Seyoung. Boy Princess. Vol. 5. Netcomics.
Kirkman, Robert (text) & Charlie Adlard & Cliff Rathburn (illus.). The Walking Dead. Vol. 5: The Best Defense. Image Comics.
Nightow, Yasuhiro. Trigun Maximum. Vol. 11. Dark Horse.
Omote, Sora. Metamo Kiss. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Togashi, Yoshihiro. YuYu Hakusho. Vol. 11. Viz Media.
Togashi, Toshihiro. Hunter x Hunter. Vol. 13. Viz Media.
Ueda, Miwa. Peach Girl: Sae’s Story. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
March 21, 2007
The imageless, emerald green cover and 1970s-looking typeface would not give away the genre, nor would the title, Spadek, a Polish word, I gathered, judging from the blonde woman reader and the fact that I was riding the L train. Making matters more frustrating were her manicured fingers obscuring the author’s name. What was this book, and why was it resisting my sighting?!
Finally, I caught a break: a seat opened up next to the woman, and I managed to swipe it before an iPodded-out hipster. Playing it cool was not an option at this point (not that I’m capable). I dropped down and leaned in for an obvious glance at the oddly yellowed interior pages. Patricia Cabot, Patricia Cabot…an American writer, a Midwestern girl if there ever was one.
Patricia Cabot, better known as Meg Cabot (LJ has only reviewed Boy Meets Girl and Size 12 Is Not Fat), was born in Indiana in 1967, and before I could translate the book title, I went out on a limb and guessed I was dealing with a romance or chick lit. How couldn’t I with an author photo like this (Cabot pens the best-selling Princess Diary series for YAs)?
Spadek, as it turns out, boils down to “downfall” or “descent,” nouns all too common, perhaps, in the lives of beautiful, single foreign women of more chivalrous centuries. Of course, Cabot has never penned a book with a title involving either word, so it’s still hard to determine what I sighted. My best guess? A Little Scandal (St. Martin’s, 2000). Outside detective work welcome.
As our own Michael Rogers reports in today’s book news, “Scholastic Orders Record-Breaking Printing“, the publisher is printing a jaw-dropping 12 million copies of J.K. Rowling’s seventh and final series title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. That’s a lot of paper, 22 million pounds of paper, to be exact. But environmentally concerned Potter fans worried about devastated forests can relax. Reuters reports that Scholastic Corp, in collaboration with the Rainforest Alliance, will ensure that 65 percent of the 16,700 tons of paper used to print the book will be Forest Stewardship Council paper, which comes from socially and environmentally managed forests. To date, this is the largest purchase of FSC-certified paper for a single printing.
March 20, 2007
I may be well informed about illness as the health & medicine editor, but that doesn’t make me immune to heinous stomach flus. Last Thursday, I was gripped by one while sitting at my desk. My trusty plastic garbage bin deserves an award for catching the torrent I unleashed into it with my mouth. Not to mention my colleague Anna Katterjohn, who had to hear it.
But I digress…this is a blog about what you do when you’re recovering from violent illness. You sure as hell don’t read books because it’s hard to keep your head up and your eyes open. I certainly didn’t have the physical or mental strength to take in even a trashy US Weekly. The way I see it, one brutal stomach spasm deserves a good belly laugh, so after I weathered the worst of the upchucking, I popped in season one of the cult comedy sketch show The Kids in the Hall, newly minted on DVD.
I came for the excellent parodies of teen angst crossed with rock’n'roll fantasy, not to mention the top-shelf drag and satire of corporate America (which predates The Office by over 15 years!). Little did I know I’d be treated to an impressive dose of book-inspired material.
My favorite example from my weekend viewing marathon: gay martini-sipping raconteur Buddy Cole (as played by Scott Thompson, pictured below) considers the whole desert island scenario. His choice of book? Why, Peggy Hertz’s All About Rhoda (Scholastic, 1975), a now out-of-print guide to the Valerie Harper vehicle that can be had for between $1 and $8 on AbeBooks.com. His choice of companion? The one and only Oscar Wilde, who in his attempts to be a witty island mate shamelessly steals quips from other famous people, including Buddy (e.g., “Now I may have been born yesterday, but I still went shopping!”).
And how can I forget Dave Foley doing The Dr. Seuss Bible? It’s too long and potentially offensive to paste in here, but it’s damn witty and made the cut of a Dr. Seuss webliography compiled by a professor at Kansas State University. Read it and weep—and always, always wash your hands!
March 19, 2007
Last week sister magazine Publishers Weekly launched its newly redesigned website, including a new blog from its book review editors. (Don’t worry: our new website is coming shortly.) Although we all work on the same floor, our busy editing and production schedules keep us from interacting on a personal level as often as we would like. So I am enjoying reading Kevin Howell’s personal trauma of reading 16 gay romances (who knew there was such a category!) for the Lambda Book Awards and Jonathan Seguera’s wry interpretation of bold new voices in fiction.(not!).
My only minor quibble: the blog’s name: Notes from the Bookroom. Hello, we were here first! On the other hand, it’s not easy coming up with a unique blog name. (One LJ editor still thinks our name sucks.) Although titles can’t be copyrighted, fellow LJ book review editor Heather McCormack and I had a brief fantasy of duking it out with the PW editors for the ”bookroom” rights in the grand tradition of Will Ferrell’s Anchor Man news team rumble (Public Television: no commercials, no mercy!). Heather, you bring the trident, I’ll bring the net!
Check out the clip on YouTube.
Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed and I say welcome fellow bloggers. The more we can join forces to promote the written word, the better the world will be.
March 15, 2007
It was a balmy springlike evening last night as my friend Amanda and I stood outside the Booth Theater on West 45th Street. We were having a quick chat before going inside to see Vanessa Redgrave perform in The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion’s new play adapated from her best-selling memoir.
Who should we spot standing next to the theater’s entrance but author Philip Roth in a black suit and a lot taller than I had imagined him to be. And then here came British playwright David Hare (Plenty, Via Dolorosa). He was carrying two notebooks and quickly entered through the stage door. He was the show’s director and, since the show had just started its previews, was obviously going to give Vanessa her notes after the performance.
The play doesn’t open until March 29 but here’s my early preview for those unlucky enough not to have bought tickets to what may be a sold-out limited run. The tall and imposing Ms. Redgrave does not physically resemble the tiny and frail-appearing Ms. Didion, but for almost two hours (without an intermission), the audience sat enraptured and moved as the splendid Redgrave captured Didion’s shock, grief , and denial (”magical thinking”) in the wake of her husband’s sudden death and her only child’s devastating illness.
The play is not an exact transcription of the book as it covers events that occurred after the memoir was published, notably daughter Quintana’s death in August 2005. In a Playbill interview, Didion said she approached the play not as a simple adaptation but as a fresh work, noting that the character Redgrave plays “is speaking from a year and half or two years later. It’s a different perspective.”
March 13, 2007
Hi folks,
I was felled by the flu last week, thus the double-packed post this week. Here are the titles reviewed our web-only, freely accessible Xpress Reviews section for the last two weeks.
Xpress Reviews for Week of March 13th, 2007
NONFICTION
Fulbright, Yvonne K. Touch Me There!: A Hands-On Guide to Your Orgasmic Hot Spots. Hunter House.
Miller, Arnold with Kristina Chrétien. The Miller Method®: Developing the Capacities of Children on the Autism Spectrum. Jessica Kingsley.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Beasts!: A Pictorial Schedule of Traditional Hidden Creatures from the Interest of 90 Modern Artists. Fantagraphics.
CLAMP. Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE. Vol. 12. Del Rey: Ballantine.
Cuneo, John. nEuROTIC: Drawings from the Sketchbook of John Cuneo. Fantagraphics.
Duggan, Gerry & Brian Posehn (text) & Rick Remender, Hilary Barta, & Michelle Madsen (illus.). The Last Christmas. Image Comics.
Emura. W Juliet. Vol. 14. Viz Media.
Hipp, Dan. Gyakushu! Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Kang, E-Jin. Good Luck. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Remender, Rick (text) & Eric Nguyen & others (illus.). Strange Girl. Vol. 2: Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now. Image Comics.
Takahashi, Kazuki. Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duelist. Vol. 19: Duel with the Future. Viz Media.
Takahashi, Kazuki. Yu-Gi-Oh!: Millennium World. Vol. 5: Tomb of Shadows. Viz Media.
Toyama, Ema. Pixie Pop: Gokkun Pucho. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Watanabe, Taeko. Kaze Hikaru. Vol. 4. Viz Media.
Watsuki, Nobuhiro. Buso Renkin. Vol. 4. Viz Media.
Wight, Eric. My Dead Girlfriend. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Won, Sooyeon. Let Dai. Vol. 5. Netcomics.
Yoshinaga, Fumi. Flower of Life. Vol. 1. Digital Manga.
Yoshinaga, Fumi. The Moon and the Sandals. Vol. 1. Juné: Digital Manga.
Xpress Reviews for Week of March 6th, 2007 (same page as the March 13th; you will have to scroll down past March 13th reviews)
NONFICTION
Allenby-Jaffé, Margaret. National Dance. Crowood, dist. by Trafalgar Square.
Gerstenzang, Sarah. Another Mother: Co-Parenting with the Foster Care System. Vanderbilt Univ.
Johnson, Chalmers. Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. Metropolitan: Holt.
Prashad, Vijay. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. New Pr., dist. by Norton.
Shabsigh, Ridwan, M.D. Sensational Sex in 7 Easy Steps: The Proven Plan for Lasting Health and Intimacy. Rodale.
Shook, Robert L. Miracle Medicines: Seven Lifesaving Drugs and the People Who Created Them. Portfolio: Penguin Group (USA).
Tobias, Michael & Jane Gray Morrison. Donkey: The Mystique of Equus Asinus. Council Oak.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Aoyama, Gosho. Case Closed. Vol. 15. Viz Media.
Brubaker, Ed (text) & Trevor Hairsine & Scott Hanna (illus.). X-Men: Deadly Genesis. Marvel.
Dixon, Chuck (text) & Sergio Cariello & Flint Henry (illus.). The Iron Ghost. Image Comics.
Hamme, J. Van & Ben Avery (text) & W. Vance (illus.). XIII. Vol. 1: The Day of the Black Sun. Dabel Brothers: Marvel.
Kaishaku. Key Princess Story: Eternal Alice Rondo. Vol. 1. DrMaster Publns.
Kawai, Toko. Loveholic. Vol. 1. Juné: Digital Manga.
Lasko-Gross, Miss. Escape from “Special.” Fantagraphics.
Lee, Jae. Hellshock. Image Comics.
Moore, B. Clay (text) & Steven Griffin & Nick Derington (illus.). Hawaiian Dick. Vol. 2: The Last Resort. Image Comics.
Murakami, Maki. Gravitation EX. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Oh! Great. Air Gear. Vol. 3. Del Rey: Ballantine.
Park, Jin-Hwan. Archlord. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.
Sala, Richard. The Grave Robber’s Daughter. Fantagraphics.
Tenzen, Momoko. Seven. Juné: Digital Manga.
Trondheim, Lewis. Mister i. Nantier Beall Minoustchine.
Vinton, Will & Andrew Wiese (text) & Fabio Laguna (illus.). Jack Hightower. Dark Horse.
Yoshinaga, Fumi. Solfege. Juné: Digital Manga.
I don’t know about you librarians out there, but (and publishers are going to hate me) I suffer from “why buy the cow if the milk is free” syndrome. Surrounded by books and receiving hundreds of galleys every week, I am rarely motivated to actually buy a book. (And forget about giving books as presents. My friends have finally caught on, so a lavishly illustrated art book from me—usually pilfered from our discarded books cart—doesn’t count as a real gift.)
So when I want to read a book and I don’t have the galley, I turn to trusty LEO, the New York Public Library’s online catalog, to see if the library has a copy of a particular title and to place a hold on it. I was so inspired by the speeches made at last week’s NBCC awards ceremony I decide to check out some of the winners. Getting a copy of Julie Philip’s James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon was a piece of cake. There were 23 copies available in the NYPL’s branch system and three copies had been put on hold. I noticed one copy was available at the Donnell Library Branch, across the street from the Modern Museum of Art, and since I was going to a screening at MOMA, I could easily pick up that copy.
The NYPL owned only six copies of Lawrence Weschler’s Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, of which two copies appeared to be lost or stolen. There were also two holds, and I added my name to the list, making for a grand total of three holds.
The NYPL must have had high circulating hopes for Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution because it had ordered 86 copies for its branches. Unfortunately, no one had rushed to place a hold (sorry, Simon) and I was not in the mood to read his history. On the other hand, the library obviously had not ordered enough copies of Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost : A Search for Six of Six Million (56 copies, 125 holds) and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (101 copies, 381 (wow!) holds, thanks to the Booker Award, perhaps?)
I figured that Mendelsohn’s and Desai’s books would be out in paperback by the time my name got to the top of the holds list, so I decided to try my luck with the poetry winner, Tom Jollimore’s Tom Thomson in Purgatory. Not a single copy to be found in any branch. Oh, I thought, surely those Williamsburg hipsters and bohemians would have demanded a copy for their branch in the Brooklyn Public Library system. Nada. Or perhaps the multicultural Queens Borough Library had been bold enough to order a copy. No results found, said my query search.
I suspect in this case the libraries didn’t order Jollimore’s book, not out of a disdain for poetry, but because it had not been widely reviewed. As far as I can tell, Library Journal never even received an advance galley for review. One hopes that the NBCC award will encourage NYPL and other area libraries to buy at least one copy for their poetry-loving patrons. Remember April is National Poetry Month!
In my case, I am going to buy the book. Unfortunately my local independent bookseller doesn’t carry it, so thank goodness for Amazon, which makes the long tail possible.
If a subway commute can set the tone of a day, it’s going to be an atypically good Tuesday. This morning, I didn’t have to lubricate my shoulders to fit into a car, AND there were sightings galore. Standing directly in front of me were two nursing students highlighting away in textbooks whose titles escape me; to my left and right, I took in at least four examples of popular fiction, most in subway-friendly mass market paperback.
Michael Connelly’s The Concrete Blonde (Warner, 1994) captured my attention because of its title, a nod, I couldn’t help thinking, to Concrete Blonde, a favorite band of mine from Los Angeles. Not surprisingly, that’s where Connelly’s Edgar Award–winning Harry Bosch novels take place. The second in the series, Blonde homes in on a serial killer who disfigures women’s faces, not an original conceit as far as I can tell, but what do I know about mysteries?
I admit it: I’ve never read a Connelly. In fact, as I wrote in The Case of the Nonmystery Readers, I haven’t killed time with a single contemporary mystery. Not even a 20th-century old schooler like Raymond Chandler, Connelly’s hero. I’m not sure if this makes me squeamish, prudish, snobbish, or just plain poorly read. How can I be out of the biggest genre-fiction loop ever? My answer: other books (including last week’s Subway Sighting, The History of Love) just get in the way.
March 9, 2007
If some bored suit-and-ties decide the world needs another awards show, let’s hope they model it on the National Book Critics Circle ceremony. Much as it has the last few years, the show went down without a hiccough or yawn last night at the New School in New York City’s West Village. I was sitting in my usual seat right next to the exits, the perfect spot to sight authors (howdy, Richard Ford!; hey-ya, Dave Eggers!), steal away to the bathroom, and whisper naughty commentary to my colleagues.
After NBCC president John Freeman set the tone for this heartfelt-without-being-hokey celebration of ass-kicking books, we cut straight to the winners. It didn’t matter that I had never heard of Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award winner John Leonard or that I hadn’t read a single nominee—I invested myself in every winner because the speeches were so damn good (and mainly off-the-cuff). Clearly, these are people who live, eat, and breathe for books. They just might die writing, too, and it would be a better way to go than in sleep.
Aspiring writers would do well to attend this free ceremony—you don’t need a tux, an attitude, or a business card. Just bring your punk self and soak up the love. You’ll learn a lot about book reviewing, the writing life, and witness firsthand the joy of being recognized for years of blood, sweat, and tears.
Without further ado, here are the winners:
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