On Thursday, May 31, BookExpo America returns to the Big Apple, and librarians on the hunt for hot galleys won’t be disappointed if my findings are any indication. Using Barbara Hoffert’s Prepub Alert contact list, I compiled a sizable list of must-gets. Without further ado, here they are by publisher:

• HarperCollins: Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers and Run by Ann Patchett (Truth and Beauty)
• Simon & Schuster: The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest To Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs and The 47th Samurai: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel by Stephen Hunter (Havana)
• Free Press: Redemption Falls by Joseph O’Conner (Star of the Sea)
• Crown: The 12-Second Sequence by Jorge Cruise, Look Me in the Eye by John Robinson, Switching Time by Richard Baer, and Witch’s Trinity by Erika Mailman
• Three Rivers Press: 13 Bullets by David Wellington (Monster Island)
• Harmony: Last Night I Dreamed of Peace by Dang Thuy Tram
• Shaye Areheart Books: Mad Dash by Patricia Gaffney (The Saving Graces)
• Random House: Away by Amy Bloom (A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You), Identical Strangers by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein, Tipperary by Frank Delaney (Ireland), and The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens (The Law of Dreams)
• Ballantine: The View from Mount Joy by Lorna Landvik, Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, The Faraday Girls by Monica McInerny, and Midnight Rambler by James Swain (Loaded Dice)
• Broadway Books: Outside In by Courtney Thorne-Smith and Scream-Free Parenting by Hal Edward Runkel
• Farrar, Straus & Giroux: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson (Jesus’ Son), The Quiet Girl by Peter Hoag, Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System by Roberto Saviano
• Houghton Mifflin: Exit Ghost by Philip Roth (Everyman), Maynard and Jennica by Rudolph Delson, The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss (Wild Life), and Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
• Clarion: Beanball by Gene Fehler
• Kingfisher: Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela by Bill Keller and Zodiac Girls: Discount Diva by Cathy Hopkins
• Penguin: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Lottery by Patricia Wood, How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill, Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell, and The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnivall
• Grove/Atlantic: The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? by Francisco Goldman and The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong (The Great Transformation)
• Harcourt: A Slave No More: The Emancipation of John Washington and Wallace Turnage by David W. Blight and The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lox

It’s May already - how time flies, alas.

Here are the titles reviewed in our web-only, freely accessible Xpress Reviews section.

Xpress Reviews for Week of May 1, 2007
** - means that it is a starred title

FICTION
Conroy, Robert. 1945. Ballantine.

**Ignatius, David. Body of Lies. Norton.

**Koontz, Dean. The Good Guy. Bantam.

**Los Angeles Noir. Akashic.

Miner, Valerie. After Eden. Univ. of Oklahoma.

Skloot, Floyd. Patient 002. Rager Media.

NONFICTION
After Sputnik: 50 Years of the Space Age. Smithsonian: HarperCollins. 2007. 256p. ed. by Martin Collins.

Bego, Mark. Billy Joel: The Biography. Thunder’s Mouth: Avalon, dist. by Publishers Group West.

Carr, Matthew. The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism, from the Assassination of Tsar Alexander II to Al-Qaeda. New Pr, dist. by Norton.

Cliff, Nigel. The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama and Death in Nineteenth-Century America. Random.

Cruise, Jorge. The 3-Hour Diet™ Cookbook: Lose up to 10 Pounds in the First 14 Days. Collins: HarperCollins.

**Gura, Trisha. Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women. HarperCollins.

Kolata, Gina. Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. Farrar.

**Morwood, Mike & Penny van Oosterzee. A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the “Hobbits” of Flores, Indonesia. Smithsonian: HarperCollins.

AUDIO
Binchy, Maeve. Whitethorn Woods. Books on Tape.

Roby, Kimberla Lawson. Love & Lies. Sound Library: BBC Audiobooks America.

Hullo!

Here are the titles reviewed in this week’s web-only, freely-accessible Library Journal Xpress Reviews section. (Remember, there’s that handy-dandy RSS feed!). Also, we always welcome suggestions, comments, praise, criticisms, kittens, rainbows, and flowers.

Xpress Reviews for Week of Apr. 24, 2007
** - means that it is a starred title

FICTION
Abani, Chris. The Virgin of Flames. Penguin.

Hall, Oakley. Love and War in California. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s.

Leonard, Elmore. Up in Honey’s Room. Morrow.

Pradhan, Monica. The Hindi-Bindi Club. Bantam.

NONFICTION
Axelrod, Alan. Blooding at Great Meadows: Young George Washington and the Battle That Shaped the Man. Running Pr.

Ford, Anne with John-Richard Thompson. On Their Own: Creating an Independent Future for Your Adult Child with Learning Disabilities and ADHD. Newmarket.

Sarig, Roni. Third Coast: Outkast, Timbaland, and How Hip-Hop Became a Southern Thing. Da Capo.

GRAPHIC NOVELS
Bagge, Peter. Buddy Does Jersey: The Complete Buddy Bradley Stories from “Hate” Comics. Vol. 3 (1994–98). Fantagraphics.

Bendis, Brian Michael (text) & Steve McNiven & Mike Deodato. The New Avengers. Vol. 4: The Collective. Marvel.

The Duchess of Northumberland (text) & Colin Simpson (illus.). The Poison Diaries. Abrams.

Kisaragi, Hirotaka. Innocent Bird. Vol. 1. BLU: Tokyopop.

Kuwabara, Yuko. Alcohol, Shirt & Kiss. Juné: Digital Manga.

Lapham, David. Silverfish. Vertigo: DC Comics.

Lien-Cooper, Barb & Park Cooper (text) & Jimmy Bott (illus.). Half Dead. Dabel Brothers: Marvel.

Sakuishi, Harold. Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. Vol. 7. Tokyopop.

**Slott, Dan (text) & Will Conrad & others (illus.). She-Hulk. Vol. 4: Laws of Attraction. Marvel.

**TenNapel, Doug. Gear. Image Comics.

Williams III, J.H. & Dan Curtis Johnson (text) & Seth Fisher (illus.). Batman: Snow. DC Comics.

Yamada, Futaro (text) & Masaki Segawa (text & illus.). Basilisk. Vol. 4. Del Rey: Ballantine.

AUDIO
**Clinch, Jon. Finn. Recorded Bks.

Parker, Robert B. High Profile. Books on Tape.

Steel, Danielle. Sisters. Books on Tape.

Thanks to pressure from corporate owners and shareholders eager to turn a quick profit, newspapers in recent years have been cutting back or eliminating their book review coverage. Their main excuse: not enough advertising from publishers to support the reviews. But manufacturers of sporting equipment don’t advertise either, and I see little cutback in the sports pages.

Just last week the Los Angeles Times folded its book review section into an opinion section , although editor David Ulin argued in his editor’s note that these were  changes “to forge a synthesis between print and online content that will allow us not only to maintain our commitment to engaged reviews and criticism but also to expand the very nature of our books coverage.”

Also last week the Atlanta Journal-Constitution eliminated its book reviewer position but did “generously” permit its reviewer, Teresa Weaver, to apply for another position at the newspaper. Fed up with the increasing erosion of book coverage, the National Book Critics Circle has launched a campaign to save book reviews, including a petition to save AJC’s well-regarded book review section, and a new series on the NBCC’s blog Critical Mass that will feature posts by concerned writers, interviews with book editors, and more.

So put down that book you are reading, get off your couch, and turn on that computer. Join the over 1000 authors (including Ian Rankin, Richard Powers, and Michael Connolly), editors, librarians, and booklovers in signing this petition. Save the Book Review!

Britain’s top best-selling female author is surprisingly a New Hampshire-based writer. In a Observer magazine profile, “The Great Unknown”, writer Louise France examines the reasons for the astonishing success of Jodi Picoult’s commercial novels like My Sister’s Keeper and The Pact, and ponders why the literary establishment ignores her.

France acknowledges that Picoult’s narratives may not be literary or elegant and that her prose sometimes can be clumsy and sentimental, yet her books are impossible to put down. Her formula for success, France determines, Is: “choose a subject which is soon to become controversial and tell the story through a rotating cast of characters. Stem cell research, date rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, teenage suicide - here are some of the knottiest moral issues of our times sandwiched between the soft-focus covers of what is commonly dismissed as an airport novel.”  

And Picoult’s latest, Nineteen Minutes, is bound to be even more controversial in light of the Virginia Tech tragedy in which 33 people were shot to death by a lone gunman.

In the profile, Picoult describes in now chilling detail how she drew on the Columbine tragedy of 1999 to research  her story of a high school shooting. Noting that one high school principal thought the book should be banned, Picoult begs to differ, “‘This is a topic we need to start talking about. We can go on not talking about it, but a lot of kids are going to die. People want to believe that school shootings happen in big cities like New York, but they also happen in small towns like this, where there is a high socio-economic bracket.’

Whee! I always look forward to Tuesdays, so I can let everyone know what titles are reviewed in our web-only, freely-accessible, RSS-friendly Xpress Reviews section! We’ve got Fiction, Nonfiction,  Graphic Novels, and Audio reviews this week. Without further ado:

Xpress Reviews for Week of Apr. 17th, 2007

FICTION
Causey, Toni McGee. Bobbie Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day. Griffin: St. Martin’s.

Kohler, Sheila. Bluebird, or the Invention of Happiness. Other.

Slavin, Helen. The Extra Large Medium. Black Cat: Grove.

NONFICTION
Bauer, Joy with Carol Svec. Joy Bauer’s Food Cures: Easy 4-Step Nutrition Programs for Improving Your Body. Rodale.

Cohan, William D. The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co. Doubleday.

Condon, Bill. Dreamgirls. Newmarket.

Duberman, Martin. The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein. Knopf.

Grossberg, George T., M.D., & Barry Fox. The Essential Herb-Drug-Vitamin Interaction Guide: The Safe Way To Use Medications and Supplements Together. Broadway.

A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise: 20 Young Writers on Finding a Place in the Natural World. Sierra Club Bks., dist. by Univ. of California.

Llewellyn-Thomas, Julie (text) & Ruth Jenkinson (photogs.). Breathe Your Way Through Birth with Yoga. Mitchell Beazley, dist. by Sterling.

McDougall, Wendy (photogs.) & Matt Willis & Paul Burrows (text). Classical Destinations: An Armchair Guide to Classical Music. Amadeus: Hal Leonard.

Phillips, Adam. Side Effects. HarperPerennial: HarperCollins.

Waitzkin, Josh. The Art of Learning: A Vibrant New Perspective on the Pursuit of Excellence. Free Pr: S. & S.

GRAPHIC NOVELS
Aoki, Yuya (text) & Rando Ayamine (illus.). GetBackers. Vol. 17. Tokyopop.

Carey, Mike (text) & John Bolton (illus.). God Save the Queen. Vertigo: DC Comics.

Higuri, You. Gorgeous Carat. Vol. 4. BLU: Tokyopop.

Malkasian, Cathy. Percy Gloom. Fantagraphics.

Matt, Joe. Spent. Drawn & Quarterly.

Modan, Rutu. Exit Wounds. Drawn & Quarterly.

Monchi, Kaori. Wagamama Kitchen. Juné: Digital Manga.

Mutou, Hiromu. Never Give Up. Vol. 4. Tokyopop.

Nilsen, Anders. Dogs & Water. Drawn & Quarterly.

Ogawa, Yayoi. Tramps Like Us. Vol. 11. Tokyopop.

Peach-Pit. Shugo Chara! Vol. 1. Del Rey: Ballantine.

Powell, Nate. Sounds of Your Name. reprint. Microcosm: dist. by AK Pr. & Dist. (revised review)

Soryo, Fuyumi. ES: Eternal Sabbath. Vol. 4. Del Rey: Ballantine.

Toriyama, Akira. Dr. Slump. Vol. 12. Viz Media.

Wagner, Matt. Grendel: Devil by the Deed. Dark Horse.

AUDIO
Crais, Robert. The Watchman. Brilliance Audio.

Crombie, Deborah. Water Like a Stone. Sound Library: BBC Audiobooks America.

O’Rourke, P.J. On the Wealth of Nations. Tantor Audio.

Reviews of books by David Hasselhoff and Alice Cooper will make it into the May 15 issue of LJ, but Criss Angel seems doomed to blog territory (see “Performing arts celebs spring out this season“). It happens sometimes, to our frustration, that a book doesn’t get reviewed because we don’t have the person for it. As far as Angel’s Mindfreak goes, I just don’t have enough tween boy reviewers.

Based on his popular TV show of the same name, his book is half biography and half how-to for magic tricks. I didn’t get through the introduction: a description of hanging from helicopters by hooks through his flesh isn’t my idea of good Monday morning reading. He writes, “While music [two of my favorite Korn songs, “Right Now” and “Alone I Break,”] pumped from my iPod, I felt so insignificant…The body suspension was as close to an out-of-body experience as I have ever had.” 

This made me think of a galley I recently saw—Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived To Tell My Story by Brian Welch, out from HarperSanFrancisco in July—a book whose audience I don’t predict is similar to that of Mindfreak and may be less easy to pin down. I must confess I was happy to pass this one on to Graham Christian for consideration in our new Spiritual Living column. In an effort for consistency (see the inaugural “Books of a Feather?“) let’s call the link between these two plausible, to use the ratings system of our friends the MythBusters. After all, Angel likes Korn, young boys like both, and both celebs have forthcoming soul-searching memoirs.

I said it last year, but I’m going to say it again, kittles—April is Autism Awareness Month, and I’ve been steadily increasing our coverage of conditions on the autistic spectrum since 2002. I couldn’t have done it, of course, without one Corey Seeman, an LJ star reviewer if there ever was one. The father of an autistic child, he signed on to tackle autism for LJ five years ago when there wasn’t a lot being published. That all changed when autism made the cover of Time magazine in May 2002—soon, the New York houses were treading the traditional turf of Woodbine House, Guilford Press, and Jessica Kingsley.

To keep up with the resulting boost, I sent poor Corey a book a month, and he kept his head above water, dutifully reviewing the likes of groundbreakers like Judy Karasik and Paul Karasik’s The Ride Together (Washington Square), Carolyn Thorwarth Bruey’s Demystifying Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Guide to Diagnosis for Parents and Professionals (Woodbine), and Charlotte Moore’s George & Sam: Two Boys, One Family, and Autism (St. Martin’s).

Thank you, Corey, for your valuable contributions, including what I’m pretty sure is the first analysis of relevant literature, “Sending Postcards from the Airport,” a 2003 entry in our collection development series, and its sequel, “More Postcards from the Airport: Playing Catch-Up with Autistic Spectrum Disorders.” Thank you, too, Lisa Jordan and Elizabeth Safford for bringing up the back and helping expand LJ’s scope. 

Did you know that Kathleen Norris, author of The Cloister Walk and other spiritual memoirs, once reviewed for Library Journal? Or that our primary reviewer of Westerns was a nun, the rootin’ tootin’ Sister Avila Lamb (”no sex or cussin’; violence okay”). Our reviewers are a talented bunch of active and retired librarians, college professors, and freelance writers. And many of them write books as well. The latest to be published is Seattle Public Library’s own  Jeff Ayers, whose Voyages of the Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion was released last November by Pocket Books .

There is a nice interview with Jeff in the Seattle Times. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. In the meantime, I’m keeping Jeff busy reviewing the latest thrillers, another passion of Jeff’s.

Hello everyone!

Here are the titles reviewed in this week’s web-only, freely-accessible Xpress Reviews section. You’re excited, I’m excited, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Xpress Reviews for Week of Apr. 10th, 2007

FICTION
Dickey, Eric Jerome. Sleeping with Strangers. Dutton.

Smith, Alexander McCall. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. Pantheon.

NONFICTION
American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes. Library of America, dist. by Penguin Group (USA).

Glassman, Keri with Sarah Mahoney. The Snack Factor Diet: The Secret to Losing Weight by Eating More. Crown.

Myers, Mitch. The Boy Who Cried Freebird: Rock & Roll Fables and Sonic Storytelling. HarperEntertainment: HarperCollins.

Waldburger, Jennifer & Jill Spivack. The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent’s Guide to Getting Your Child To Sleep—from Birth to Age Five. Health Communications.

GRAPHIC NOVELS
Katsura, Masakazu. I”s. Vol. 12: Room 305. Viz Media.

Kikuta, Michiyo. Mamotte! Lollipop. Vol. 1. Del Rey: Ballantine.

Kirkman, Robert (text) & Tony Moore & others (illus.). Brit. Vol. 1: Old Soldier. Image Comics.

Minekura, Kazuya. Wild Adapter. Vol. 1. Tokyopop.

Porcellino, John. King-Cat Classix: The Best of King-Cat Comics and Stories. Drawn & Quarterly.

Sakuragi, Yukiya. Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs. Vol. 2. Viz Media.

Takahashi, Yashichiro (text) & Sasakura, Ayato (illus.). Shakugan No Shana. Vol. 1. Viz Media.

AUDIO
Child, Lincoln. Deep Storm. Books on Tape.

Orman, Suze. Women & Money: Owning the Power To Control Your Destiny. Books on Tape