Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

I just handed in my review of Walter Mosley’s The Long Fall, the first book in a new mystery series set in New York City and starring Leonid McGill, private eye. I liked it better than the Fearless Jones books, but McGill is no Easy Rawlins, either. I couldn’t help but notice the following paragraph (read it with [...]

Between a monumental morning meeting and a looming deadline for REaD ALERT, I’ve hardly had a moment to read or write about book news. But I did find time to watch a clip forwarded by Valerie Hawkins, the American Library Association’s own library reference specialist. Seinfeld’s OK, but Philip Baker Hall is terrific.

For some reason, [...]

Three things you need to know about American Libraries. First, they now have their own blog! Called Inside Scoop, here’s how it’s described by editor-in-chief Leonard Kniffel (A Polish Son in the Motherland, 2005):
While I don’t expect to blow the ALA website out of the water with Inside Scoop, I do expect to offer up-to-date commentary [...]

Warm congratulations to the good people at the Kansas City Public Library (”Kansas City Public Library wins 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Services,” by Joe Robertson, Kansas City Star):
The creative partners behind the Kansas City Public Library know they have been on a roll.
And now they have the nation’s highest honor for libraries [...]

For authors and would-be authors, a valuable reminder that, when basing your characters on real-life people, you should change more than just the names. Like their gender, for instance. Or your mean-spirited worldview. (”Director: Library Diaries Author Invaded Patrons’ Privacy,” American Libraries)
Sherry Jones’ The Jewel of Medina will be published after all, in Britain (”Controversial [...]

In Time (”Mayor Palin: A Rough Record“), Nathan Thornburgh’s examination of Sarah Palin’s political past turns up a noteworthy allegation:
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in [...]

I had kind of been congratulating myself for my bravery in singing a few bars at the Booklist Forum, but after watching the recap of the Many Voices, Many Nations program, I’m in awe. Surely that was the year’s most musical discussion of books, writing, literacy, librarianship, and the fundamental unity of the global human [...]

Remember when people thought that putting newspapers on microform meant that they would be preserved forever? This kind of makes me think of that (”At Libraries, Taking the (Really) Long View,” by Andy Guess).
But as libraries shift more of their resources to holdings that either originate as digital or become digital through scanning, it’s become [...]

Over at Under the Covers, Lisa Chellman takes a look at a rarely discussed aspect of book design: the spine. She makes an excellent point that publishers would do well to heed:
In libraries and bookstores, where face-out shelving is at a premium, readers’ first impression of a book isn’t the cover. It’s the spine.

With post-apocalyptic tales capturing our imaginations of late, it seems high time to revisit an earlier take on the subject. (Would that make it a pre-post-apocalyptic work? Or am I getting ahead of myself?) It’s Tomes and Talismans, a LibraryVenture!

(Thanks, Carlos, for reminding me about this!)