Imagine Philippa Gregory on a dais with Magic Johnson, Alec Baldwin and Andre Dubus III. That’s the unlikely, but intriguing combination for the Saturday (May 31) BEA Book & Author Breakfast.

BEA has just announced the full lineup of speakers for the major events. Tickets will be available beginning March 5, on the BEA site.

Continuing its successful effort to increase librarian attendance, BEA is again “librarian friendly” (gone are the days of skulking around wearing an “other” badge).

Even if you don’t plan to attend the show, the speaker lineup offers a glimpse of some of the major books on tap for Summer and Fall ‘08:

Lewis Black
Me of Little Faith

• Hardcover:$23.95
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (June 3, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1594489947
• ISBN-13: 978-1594489945

Black will be the main attraction at the Saturday night benefit for American Booksellers Foundation For FreeExpression (ABFFE)

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Thomas L. Friedman
Green Is the New Red, White, and Blue:

American’s Mission in a World That Is Hot, Flat, and Crowded

• Hardcover: $24.00
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, (August 19, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0374166854
• ISBN-13: 978-0374166854

Friedman is Conference Keynote Speaker on Friday

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Below are forthcoming titles by breakfast and lunch speakers, arranged by publication date:

Andre Dubus III

The Garden of Last Days

• Hardcover:$24.95
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (June 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0393041654
• ISBN-13: 978-0393041651

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Richard Engel

War Journal

• Hardcover:$28.00
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 10, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1416563040
• ISBN-13: 978-1416563044

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Robert Crais

Untitled Elvis Cole Novel

• Hardcover:$25.95
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0743281640
• ISBN-13: 978-0743281645

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Markos Moulitsas Zuniga,
Taking on the System:

Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era

• Hardcover:$23.95
• Publisher: Penguin/Celebra (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0451225198
• ISBN-13: 978-0451225191

Zuniga is the owner and major blogger for The Daily Kos

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John Hodgman

More Information Than You Require

• Hardcover: $24.00
• Publisher: Penguin/Riverhead (October, 2008)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-525-95034-9

Publisher description: The bestselling author of The Areas of My Expertise – also known as The Daily Show’s “resident Expert” and the PC in the iconic Mac ads–picks up exactly where his first book left off. Exactly.

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Dennis Lehane
The Given Day

• Hardcover:$26.95
• Publisher: William Morrow (September 23, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0688163181
• ISBN-13: 978-0688163181

Jon Krakauer

The Hero

• Hardcover:$26.00
• Publisher: Doubleday (October 14, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0385522266
• ISBN-13: 978-0385522267

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Azar Nafisi

Things I’ve Been Silent About:

A Memoir of Family

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Random House (November 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400063612
• ISBN-13: 978-1400063611

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Magic Johnson

Magic Moves:

32 Lessons on How to Be an All-Star in Business

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: Crown Business, (projected date 12/30/08)
• ISBN-13: 978-0-609-60828-0

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Alec Baldwin

A Promise to Ourselves:

A Journey Through Divorce and Fatherhood

• Publisher: St. Martin’s (January, 2009)

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The following authors have also been announced, but we do not have bibliographic information on their titles yet:

Michael Moore, author of an as yet untitled work (Grand Central)
Christopher Buckley, Supreme Courtship: A Novel (Twelve)
Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict (Little, Brown)
Ted Turner, Call Me Ted (Grand Central) (more…)

USA Today confirms what we’ve know for quite some time — memoirs are big and we’ll be seeing even more of them (which the story documents in an interesting way).

The story also says that Jeannette Walls, author of the still-bestselling The Glass Castle, is at work on another book about her family. James Frey, however, has abandoned the memoir form and is writing a novel.

Two other big-selling memoirists have books coming out very soon:

A Wolf at the Table:

A Memoir of My Father

Augusten Burroughs

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0312342020
• ISBN-13: 978-0312342029

This has not been reviewed in the pre-pub sources (although LJ listed it in “Pre-pub Alert”), which may be the reason it’s not yet on some library catalogs.
[No Cover Image Available]

Madness:

A Bipolar Life

Marya Hornbacher

• Hardcover: $25.00
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (April 9, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0618754458
• ISBN-13: 978-0618754458

On order by all the libraries I checked.

“The Other Boleyn Girl’s a ripping yarn: not real history,” writes historian Antonia Fraser in The Guardian, commenting on the movie that opens on Friday. In addition to pointing out the movie’s historical inaccuracies, she notes some howlers from earlier films (apparently, Genevieve Bujold playing Anne in Anne of a Thousand Days exclaims, “Oh Henry, you great big royal booby!”) and talks about what makes a film rise “to the heights of the Great Historical Movie.”

As to source material for the film, she says “Obviously you can’t expect a film taken from an historical novel [Philippa Gregory's book of the same title] to be accurate since historical novelists, by definition, are using their imagination. ” And, indeed, the book itself has been challenged for inaccuracies (Wikipedia’s entry outlines the variations from historical fact).

She also mentions George MacDonald Fraser’s (author of the Flashman series) 1988 book (now out of print), The Hollywood History of the World, in which he contrasts history as shown in films with what actually happened.

The Hollywood History of the World:

From One Million Years B.C. to Apocalypse Now

• Paperback Reprint
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (September 2, 1989)
• ISBN-10: 0449904385
• ISBN-13: 978-0449904381

All of this is good fodder for book clubs and RA discussions.

Sony Pictures and Simon and Schuster are running a book club contest. The ultimate prize is a trip to London and an event with The Other Boleyn Girl author, Philippa Gregory.

According to Time magazine, Anne Rice has another vampire novel coming. Rice, whose recent return to religion made her swear off the blood suckers, says she just couldn’t quit Lestat. The book, her last in the series, will be a vampire story with a twist. She tells Time that it will have Christian framework.

The second novel in her series on the life of Jesus, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, starred by PW, will be pubbed this coming Tuesday. She will publish one more in that series, before returning to the Vampire Chronicles. Based on her history of publishing a book every 15 months, Time estimates it will be at least 3 years before the final Vampire Chronicle title.

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (March 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400043522
• ISBN-13: 978-1400043521

The Boleyn family is in danger of overexposure. The Other Boleyn Girl (reviewed in the 2/22 issue of New York magazine) featuring the sisters Anne and Mary, opens in movie theaters on Friday.

Then, Anne takes center stage in the second season of The Tudors which begins on Showtime on March 30th.

But, wait, there yet another Boleyn girl — Jane, wife of Anne and Mary’s brother George. She is featured in a new biography, Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford. On Sunday, Liane Hansen interviewed the author, Julia Fox on NPR’s “Weekend Edition.” LJ’s 12/15 review said the book “would make an exceptional reading group selection.”

• Hardcover:$26.95
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (December 26, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0345485416
• ISBN-13: 978-0345485410

So, it’s a good time to pull out and display your Tudor era titles. And, be sure you have the DVD of the first season of The Tudors, which was released last month:

The Tudors - The Complete First Season (2007)

ASIN: B000P12LWY

S&S has “novelized” both seasons:

The Tudors: It’s Good to Be King

• Paperback:$14.95
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment (April 24, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1416948848
• ISBN-13: 978-1416948841

The Tudors: The King, the Queen, and the Mistress

Michael Hurst and Annie Gracie

• Paperback:$12.95
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment (November 6, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1416947787
• ISBN-13: 978-1416947783

Because of their “mutating role,” libraries will not become extinct by 2019, as predicted by the Extinction Timetable, says Witold Rybczynski in Slate today. His essay/slideshow looks at several central libraries (including Seattle, Chicago and Salt Lake City) and wonders “What sort of public library does the ‘digital world’ of Google, Wikipedia and Kindle require?” There are no revelations, but Rybczynski offers some interesting analyses of each building (Chicago is a “slightly forbidding Fortress of Knowledge.” I’ve always found it quite a bit more than slightly forbidding).

Rybczynski, Slate’s architecture critic, has written several books, including Home: A History of an Idea and A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century.

Can libraries look forward to offering downloadable audiobooks for iPods now that Random House will no longer encrypt their audios with digital rights management software? In a word, no.

In the Wall Street Journal on Monday [full article available only to WSJ subscribers], RH Audio publisher Madeline McIntosh explained why they’ve decided to abandon DRM, “If we insist on using DRM, our audiobooks can’t be sold to consumers who have iPods, unless they buy them from Audible or iTunes.”

The Journal article did not address the situation for libraries, but in a letter (posted on Corey Doctorow’s site, craphound.com) sent to agents on Thursday, RH Audio publisher McIntosh emphatically states (bold-faced items are in the original) that nothing will change in that area:

We are not making any changes at all to our library digital download program. That marketplace operates under very different conditions than retail. In the library environment, DRM is used not just to prevent copying, but also to control the limited borrowing privileges attached to the digital library edition. To be clear: all titles distributed in download form from our Books on Tape and Listening Library lists through our two existing library distribution partners, OverDrive and NetLibrary, will continue to have DRM.

Talk about crossover. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is on the short list for best novel for the Nebula Award. It’s also among the nominees for best novel for the Edgars.

Below is the full list of  nominees in the best novel category. For the nominees in all categories, go to the SOFA site. The awards will be announced on April 26th at the Nebula Awards Ceremony in Austin, Texas. The Edgars will be announced at a banquet on May 1, in New York City.

Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell (Tor, June 2007)

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, May 2007)

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman (Ace, August 2007)

The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson (Warner Books, February 2007)

Odyssey by Jack McDevitt (Ace, November 06)

“What books are you afraid to re-read?” is the question on today’s “Short Stack,” a blog from the staff of the Washington Post Book World. Evelyn Small kicks off the discussion with her list of five titles, including Wuthering Heights. One commenter encourages her to stay away from it — “Heathcliff was basically an abusive husband, father, and father-in-law, and not a single character was appealing.” I suspect this is exactly why Evelyn was afraid of it.

It’s a fun question that obviously got people thinking — worth stealing if you’re looking for survey questions for your library Web site.

Now that Fidel Castro has stepped down, many are wondering about Cuba’s future under his brother Raul. The Wall Street Journal today reviews a book on just that subject first published in 2005 and updated last year.

The older edition is owned by the majority of the libraries I checked. It’s a good time to pull it out for display.

• Paperback:$14.95
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (February 6, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1403975078
• ISBN-13: 978-1403975072