Yesterday, in his twice-weekly NYT Op Ed column, Nicholas Kristoff wrote about a “superb new book,” Intelligence and How to Get It, which disproves the notion that IQ is fixed in our genes and “also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.”
As a result of this ringing endorsement, the book rose from #496 to #39 on Amazon and is showing heavy reserves on light ordering in many libraries.
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Among the 33 finalists for the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Awards, ten titles also appeared on the IACP list. We’ve listed them below and included the number of libraries that own each title, according to OCLC, to help you focus on what you may be missing.
The winners of the James Beard Awards will be announced May 4th.
One of the Beard finalists appears to be self-published by the author/chef, who also has an extensive web site. OCLC shows only 5 libraries owning it. Where it is owned, it is circulating quickly.
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NYT reviewer Michiko Kakutani may not have the last word on The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. It’s been a bestseller in Europe, selling over a million copies, and won the two most prestigious French literary awards. but Kakutani isn’t buying it;
The novel’s gushing fans…seem to have mistaken perversity for daring, pretension for ambition, an odious stunt for contrarian cleverness. [It is] Willfully sensationalistic and deliberately repellent…
In the Daily Beast, Michael Korda, who has read the book in both the original French and in the English translation, sounds like he read a different book altogether,
…a dreadful, compelling, brilliantly researched, and imagined masterpiece, a terrifying literary achievement, and perhaps the first work of fiction to come out of the Holocaust that places us in its very heart, and keeps us there.
And says,
I guarantee you, if you read this book to the end, and if you have any kind of taste at all, you won’t be able to put it down for a moment—lay in snacks and drinks!—you will be upset, disturbed, revolted, and deeply challenged.
Introducing an interview with the author in the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Trachtenberg reports that both Borders and Barnes & Noble are supporting the book. Independent booksellers are supporting it as well; it’s on the March Indie Next List.
Reviewers in the U.K., where the book has also just been released, are in the Kakutani camp. The Times of London calls it “so bloatedly inept that its reverential reception across the Channel seems barely comprehensible.”
It’s currently at #447 on Amazon sales rankings and library reserves are growing.
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One of the debut novels we are tracking is Beat the Reaper, the first novel by Josh Bazell, a comic thriller. Last month, the WSJ declared it “THE hot debut novel” of the month. Reviews have been great and since we last checked, reserve ratios have become heavy in some libraries (largely a result of low ordering). Where reserves aren’t heavy, the book has fast turnaround.
Now, a new reason to consider buying more copies; Nancy Pearl tells Seattle NPR that she’s a fan.
by Josh Bazell
Currently, the most emailed health article from the New York Times is Babies Know – A Little Dirt Is Good for You … by Jane Bordy. It features the book Why Dirt Is Good, by Mary Ruebush, which is owned by less than 1/3 of the large libraries I checked. It appears to not have been reviewed prepub.
The libraries that own it show brisk circulation and some holds.
Why Dirt Is Good
Ruebush, Mary
George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century rose to #19 in Amazon Sales Rankings today. Library ordering is light and many libraries are showing heavy reserve to copy ratios, 10 to one in some cases. It’s also available in audio, which fewer libraries own.
Publishers Weekly said in its review, “Whether all of the visions in Friedman’s crystal ball actually materialize, they certainly make for engrossing entertainment.”
The book has been getting attention in consumer media:
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
Friedman, George
When Jon Stewart really likes a book, there’s a special sparkle to the author interview. This week, he gave the love to astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Stewart describes him as “the man who killed Pluto.”
As a result, the book rose on Amazon sales rankings from #174 to #89. Some libraries are showing holds. It’s also available in audio, which few libraries own.
The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet
Tyson, Neil deGrasse
Today’s New York Times coverage of Bright Young People by D.J. Taylor, adds to a growing number of enthusiastic reviews. Library ordering is light and so are reserves. This is a title to consider buying extra copies for your readers advisors.
NPR, in its “Books We Like” column, describes the book as being about the “Young, Idle And Terribly Jaded In The Jazz Age.” Add “British” to that string of adjectives and you have to wonder why this would appeal to Americans facing what is nicely termed “the current economic downturn.” The NYT Book Review tries to answer the question by saying it “…may be the ideal escapist fantasy for these sober economic times.” And the Wall Street Journal, after dithering that we should care because many of the Bright Young People,
…came from the aristocracy and families prominent in government …[and] they were part of what decades later would come to be termed the “establishment.”
finally admits, “It is simply interesting to know what they were getting up to.”
Carolyn See, who is generally able to zero in on a book’s appeal, in her review in the Washington Post, comes up with as good a readers advisory line as any by saying it’s,
Jampacked and delicious, crammed with a cast of selfish, feckless, darling, talented, almost terminally eccentric, good-looking men and women.
Not all the reviews are completely positive, however. The NYT BR reviewer, while cleary captivated by the book, carps,
Taylor, a novelist and the respected biographer of Thackeray and Orwell, is so intent on his “morality play” that he nearly loses sight of why his characters were a source of fascinated delight and sniping in the first place….[but] His moralizing tone is lightened by the book’s beautiful design, laced with mordant period quotations and delicious satiric cartoons from newspapers and magazines.
The book offers an opportunity to recommend some older classics. Every review mentions Evelyn Waugh’s “hysterical” 1930 novel, Vile Bodies, which is based closely on actual Bright Young People (Waugh was one of them). The WSJ also mentions that,
V.S. Naipaul lived for some time at Wilsford, the estate of the effete Stephen Tennant, one of the last surviving bright young people, who is portrayed in Mr. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival.
Anthony Powell’s twelve volume, Dance to the Music of Time also portrays the period.
Reviews:
Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age
Vile Bodies Waugh, Evelyn
The Enigma of Arrival, Naipaul, V.S.
The twelve volumes of Dance to the Music of Time have been collected into four. Below is the bibliograpic information on the first volume.
A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement, Powell, Anthony
In the new Time magazine (2/2), critic Lev Grossman gives his view of the future of publishing. No particular revelations here, even though he claims that book publishing is “evolving, and so radically that we may hardly recognize it when it’s done.”
He kicks the piece off by writing about how Still Alice, by Lisa Genova, went from self-published, to debuting on the 1/25 bestseller list.
#5 NYT Paperback Trade Fiction, 1/25
#79 USA Today, 1/22, after two weeks — up from #95 last week
Still Alice, Lisa Genova
NYT annotation: “The story of a 50-year-old woman’s sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer’s.”
In today’s New York Times, Dwight Garner reviews Animals Make Us Human which follows up the authors’ earlier book, Animals in Translation, a book that
…occupies a special place among the animal books of the last few decades. Ms. Grandin’s autism gives her a special understanding of what animals, whether house cats or cattle, think, feel and — perhaps most important — desire. There is a revelation on almost every page…
Although Garner feels that the new book rehashes material from the earlier one, “If you liked the first one, you’re going to like the second.”
Garner goes on to describe some of the author’s provocative ideas and sums it up with, “We’re lucky to have Temple Grandin.”
Library ordering is light, perhaps because of Library Journal’s much less enthusiastic response to the book,
…unfortunately, there is a definite sense of uncompromising bias in favor of the authors’ ideas, mitigating any sort of objective study or research that differs from their own conclusions. Those who work with animals will balk at some of the discussions as it’s possible to find examples in which what the authors write isn’t necessarily the case.
On the other hand, Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review.
The book debuted on the 1/25 NYT Nonfiction list at #13.
Animals Make us Human
Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
Getting attention in the sports pages is a dispute over claims in a coming out next week about steroid use in the major leagues, Bases Loaded.
Of seven large libraries I checked, five have it on order. Reserves are light.
Among today’s stories are the following;
New York Times, For Second Time in 2 Days, Mitchell Disputes Part of Radomski’s Book
USA Today, Radomski backs former Clemens’ trainer McNamee in new book
Sporting News, Radomski sides with McNamee over Clemens
Bases Loaded: The Inside Story of the Steroid Era in Baseball by the Central Figure in the Mitchell Report
Radomski, Kirk
The Sunday book reviews feature the Inauguration. The LA Times Book section’s “Special Inaugural Issue” asks six writers, including Jane Smiley, “What might the presidency of Barack Obama mean for literature and culture?”
The Washington Post Book World offers an odd take, featuring three books of Americana, including Barack Obama: 44th President, by Avery Krut (Whitman, $49.95), calling it,
Not so much a book as a cupboard between hard covers, it is full of tickets, bumper stickers, reprints of speeches, penciled letters from admiring kids and all sorts of other electioneering byproducts, each tucked into its own envelope-like slot.”
The NY Times Book Review examines books on important topics for the next administration, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, Presidents who took command during difficult times, and even, The Case for Big Government.
The NYT BR also sorts through recent titles on Obama, “written and published (with great speed) before or just after the election…” as well as an earlier book by incoming chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. Reviewer Alan Brinkley, Columbia University history professor recommends the following:
The most impressive, “for sheer speed and competence”
A LONG TIME COMING: The Inspiring, Combative 2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama
By Evan Thomas
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The “most interesting of the recent policy books” (it appeared right after the 2006 Congressional elections)
THE PLAN: Big Ideas for Change in America
by Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed
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A “particularly valuable guide to what the progressive left hopes to see in the Obama presidency”
OBAMA’S CHALLENGE: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency
By Robert Kuttner
Barry Unsworth’s new novel, Land of Marvels, was featured on Saturday’s All Things Considered and in the NYT Book Review. It rose in Amazon’s sales rankings to 319 from 1,075.
The book is owned in small quantities in large libraries (one each for the largest branches). Reserves are heavy where NPR is influential.
Land of Marvels
Unsworth, Barry
Today marks the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth. The New York Times presents a slide shows about the author, based on images from the New York Public Library:
New York Times, Edgar Allan Poe at 200
and the Wall Street Journal offers an assessment of his influence:
Wall Street Journal, Poe at 200 — Eerie After All These Years
Sarah Weinman writes in the L.A. Times about the five cities who claim him:
Los Angeles Times, Who owns Edgar Allan Poe?
and about the books that have just been published to honor Poe:
Poe: A Life Cut Short
Ackroyd, Peter
In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe and Essays by Jeffery Deaver, Nelson DeMille, Tess Gerritsen, Sue Grafton, Stephen King, Laura Lippman, Lisa Scottoline, and Thirteen Others
Edited by Michael Connelly
On a Raven’s Wing
Stuart M. Kaminsky (Editor) , James W. Hall, Thomas H. Cook, Mary Higgins Clark, Don Winslow
- Hardcover: $21.95; 224 pages
- Publisher: Nan A. Talese (January 20, 2009)
- ISBN-10: 038550800X
- ISBN-13: 978-0385508001
Reviews have been piling up for How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People by New Yorker contributor, Henry Alford. Publishers Weekly even jumped the gun and named it a “Best Book” of 2008, although it’s technically an ‘09 book (pubbed Jan 2).
Probably all you need is the title and that clever cover to know this could be a hit. But if the title leads you to expect the usual clichés, Time magazine counters,
With its self-helpish title, How To Live might easily be mistaken for a book full of aphorisms and life lessons — a Chicken Soup for the Non-Elderly Soul. Thankfully, Alford is smarter than that, and his book is impressively understated in its desire to actually impart wisdom.
Consistent throughout the reviews (conveniently rounded up on the author’s Web site) is a comment you might not expect — the book’s profiles of older people are often “hilarious.”
Check your holds. One large midwest library currently shows 133 holds on 4 copies.
Alford’s upcoming appearances include LAPL ’s “Aloud” series and “Live from NYPL” with Paul Holdengraber.
How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People
Alford, Henry
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