Archive for February, 2010

Dogs Have Their Day

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Next week is filled with new books about dogs.

One Good Dog
Susan Wilson
Retail Price: $22.99
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2010-03-02)
ISBN / EAN: 0312571259 / 9780312571252

Macmillan Audio; UNABR; 9781427209238; $22.99
BBC Audio; 9780792770312; $74.95
Audio available from OverDrive

Wilson, known for her romantic fiction, here turns to the love story of an unlikely couple; a man who has fallen off the corporate ladder and a dog from a homeless shelter. The story is told in alternating chapters from each of their points of view. All four prepub reviews were strong, with only Kirkus adding a sour note; “irresistible, if one dimensional.” It’s an Indie Next Pick for March.

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Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles
Nicholas Trout
Retail Price: $23.99
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Broadway – (2010-03-02)
ISBN / EAN: 0767931971 / 9780767931977

Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307707420; $30
Audio available from OverDrive

Veterinarian Trout follows up his successful Tell Me Where it Hurts with a story about what he learned from two of his patients.

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Saving Gracie: How One Dog Escaped the Shadowy World of American Puppy Mills
Carol Bradley
Retail Price: $21.99
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Howell Book House – (2010-03-01)
ISBN / EAN: 0470447583 / 9780470447581

eBook available from OverDrive

People magazine usually sticks to books from major trade publishers, so something special must have brought their attention to this book by niche pet book publisher Howell (now owned by Wiley). Not only do they review it in the new issue, they give four of four stars to this “scorching investigations of puppy mills,” which follows the rescue of Gracie, a sickly dog that would otherwise have been forced to breed until she died.

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But cats may have the last laugh; Oscar lands on the 3/7 NYT best seller list at #14 after some media attention, including strong reviews in USA Today and People and even a mention on Saturday Night Live, a sure sign of making it into the pop culture lexicon.

Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat
David Dosa
Retail Price: $23.99
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Hyperion – (2010-02-02)
ISBN / EAN: 1401323235 / 9781401323233

Blackstone Audio

5 Tape; 9781441721174;$54.95
1 MP3CD;9781441721211; $29.95
6 CD; 9781441721181;$76.00

Sleeper Debut of the Week

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Of the books being published next week, the likely sleeper is the debut novel Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. It’s the #1 Indie Next Pick for March. The NYT‘s Janet Maslin was charmed; she already jumped the gun with a review on Monday, and compared it to Alexander McCall Smith.  Following in the tradition of British novels about village life, this book has a modern twist. The gentlemanly Major Pettigrew falls for a lovely Pakistani widow who runs the local tea shop. All four prepub reviews were equally smitten.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
Helen Simonson
Retail Price: $25.00
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Random House – (2010-03-02)
ISBN / EAN: 1400068932 / 9781400068937

Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712844; $40
Audio downloadable from OverDrive

Other Fiction with Buzz Coming Next Week

Hardly a sleeper Jodi Picoult’s House Rules is showing it has the highest number of holds of titles coming next week. Libraries have anticipated the demand, so average ratios are less than 2:1. The new issue of People magazine gives it their highest rating, 4 out of a possible 4 stars. Entertainment Weekly is more luke warm, giving it a B. They describe the plot this way,

Emma, a single mother, copes just fine with her teenage sons — until the day Jacob is arrested for the murder of his tutor. Jacob has Asperger’s, and the cops confuse his symptoms — such as avoiding eye contact — with guilt.

They say the book “loses points for ruining what could have been a riveting mystery by establishing Jacob’s innocence at the outset.” However, People says, “Picoult weaves a provocative story in which she explores the painn of trying to comprehend the people we love.”

Entertainment Weekly reserves their highest rating this week, an A-, for Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask, a black comedy about a middle aged man who is fired from his job as a college fund raiser. What resonates is a “dazzling prose style that doesn’t so much run across the page as pick it up and throttle it.” Prepub reviews were mixed; LJ thinks its brilliant writing never comes together as a coherent novel, while Kirkus calls it the author’s most brillant work to date and Booklist starred it.

LITTLE BEE; One City Pick and a Bestseller

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

We love seeing good things happen to good books. Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, just out in trade paper, has landed at #3 on the 3/7 NYT Paperback Best Sellers Trade Fiction list. USA Today includes it in today’s “Book Buzz” column; it enters their new list at #22.

Exactly a year ago today, we posted a heavy holds alert on the book, shortly after its release in hardcover.

USA Today notes that the author, who is from London, is currently on a 20-city tour of the US. One of those stops was Santa Monica, which chose the book as their CityWide Reads program.

It’s a nice full-circle for EarlyWord; Robert Graves, Public Services Librarian at Santa Monica Public Library generously credits EarlyWord as being the first place he heard about the book. Graves says the library was thrilled when they discovered that the trade paperback edition of Little Bee notes that it is the “Santa Monica Citywide Reads 2010 selection.”

The program with Cleave, was held this past Saturday. Graves says it was a “smash hit,” with a capacity crowd of over 150. All week, people have been “coming by in droves to say how much they enjoyed it.” As part of the program, the library produced a staged reading, with two actresses portraying the “Voices of Little Bee.” The library also hosted several book discussions, including a live call-in show on the local CityTV, which aired in both Santa Monica and L.A. (for more details, see Graves’ post on the Citywide Reads site; also check out the library’s beautiful resource guide).

Cleave is clearly an enthusiastic speaker:

And, by the way, libraries are still showing holds on the book, although they’ve added copies since we first wrote about it.

Little Bee
Chris Cleave
Retail Price: $14.00
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-02-16)
ISBN / EAN: 1416589643 / 9781416589648

The audio, from Tantor, was on the “Best Audiobook of 2009” lists from both Library Journal and AudioFile.

Trade; 9781400111718; 9 Audio CD; $34.99
Library; 9781400141715; 9 Audio CD; $69.99
MP3; 9781400161713; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

OVERDUE Media Attention

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

It’s a book that couldn’t have come at a better time. Marilyn Johnson’s This Book is Overdue is giving the media an opportunity to take a new look at libraries.

Thursday’s USA Today publishes a photo of a Carroll County (MD) librarian setting up for a Rock Band 2 video game session as part of a story about the book. Johnson explains that libraries are crucial to everyone in the current climate, “The middle class is squeezed and needs libraries more, information is multiplying at an alarming rate so we need librarians more, and the jobless are streaming to libraries in droves.”

Carroll County library director Lynn Wheeler adds, “The demand for technology access and the teaching role for librarians will only continue to grow.”

The public is showing strong interest in the book; it rose to #130 on Amazon this week, putting it ahead of some titles on the NYT best seller lists, such as The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova and Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich. Holds are heavy in many libraries; as high as 89 on 7 copies in one large library system.

Publisher HarperCollins has created a “Browse Inside” widget that librarians can add to their sites:

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This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
Marilyn Johnson
Retail Price: $24.99
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01)
ISBN / EAN: 0061431605 / 9780061431609

Audio: Tantor; 2/22/10
Trade: 9781400116348; 7 CD’s; $34.99
Library: 9781400146345; 7 CD’s; $69.99
MP3: 9781400166343; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

SON OF HAMAS Making News

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

A book by the son of one of the founders of Hamas is making headlines around the world. Published by the Christian press Tyndale House, the book is coming out next week in the U.S. Libraries have not ordered it.

Mosab Hassan Yousef claims in his memoir, Son of Hamas, that he was a top informant for Isreal, and helped prevent dozens of suicide bombings by providing classified information. The author was interviewed in Isreal’s newspaper, Haaretz, on Wednesday, but made no comment to other reporters.

The story is being covered in newspapers internationally, including the  Washington Post, The New York Daily News, The Toronto Star as well as on TV (CNN and ABC News).

The book rose to #14 on Amazon’s U.S. sales rankings.

Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Retail Price: $26.99
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House – (2010-03-02)
ISBN / EAN: 1414333072 / 9781414333076

Tyndale Audio; 3/2; 9781414333090; $29.99

HBO Series — THE PACIFIC

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Coming in March is a ten-part HBO series, The Pacific, the follow-up to Band of Brothers. It debuts on March 14th, continuing on Sundays through May 16. Like Band of Brothers, it is produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

The series interweaves the stories of real-life Marines who were involved in various parts of the war and is based on two first-person accounts; Robert Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow and Eugene B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. A companion book, The Pacific: Hell Was an Ocean Away, is coming out on 3/2.

Official Web site: HBO.com/The-Pacific

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Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific
Robert Leckie
Retail Price: $16.00
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Bantam – (2010-02-02)
ISBN / EAN: 0553593315 / 9780553593310
Tantor Audio:
Trade; 9781400110506; 9 Audio CD; $34.99
Library; 9781400140503; 9 Audio CD; $69.99
MP3; 9781400160501; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

eBook available from OverDrive

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With the Old Breed
E.B. Sledge
Retail Price: $16.00
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Presidio Press – (2007-05-01)
ISBN / EAN: 0891419063 / 9780891419068

ebook available from OverDrive

An earlier paperback edition notes in a burst on the cover that it was “used by Ken Burns for The War on PBS.”

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The Pacific
Hugh Ambrose
Retail Price: $26.95
Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: NAL Hardcover – (2010-03-02)
ISBN / EAN: 045123023X / 9780451230232

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In addition, two new titles have been published about the third major figure in the series, John Basilone.

Hero of the Pacific is the final book by James Brady, known for his books about the military, who died shortly after the book was published. Basilone, “Manila John,” is from Raritan, New Jersey where the library has a small museum honoring Sergeant Basilone. Library Director Mary Paese told Wiley Public Library rep Trudy Lindsey (who writes the newsletter Trudy’s News and Views) that the author did some of his research there. HBO will hold a special screening of the series at the libray.

Hero of the Pacific: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone
James Brady
Retail Price: $25.95
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Wiley – (2010-01-07)
ISBN / EAN: 0470379413 / 9780470379417

Oasis Audio; UNABR; 9781598595970; $29.99
Audio and ebook available from OverDrive

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In addition, St. Martins is publishing an authorized biography of Basilone. The  Web site outlines his short and amazing life,

Sgt. John Basilone held off 3,000 Japanese troops at Guadalcanal after his 15-member unit was reduced to three men. At Iwo Jima he single-handedly destroyed an enemy blockhouse, allowing his unit to capture an airfield. Minutes later he was killed by an enemy artillery round.

I’m Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC
Jim Proser, Jerry Cutter
Retail Price: $14.99
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin – (2010-02-02)
ISBN / EAN: 0312611447 / 9780312611446

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The series is likely to bring interest in other books about the war in the Pacific. Newmarket is re-releasing one about the sinking of the Japanese battleship, the Yamamato, told from both the American and the Japanese points of view.

A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato
Russell Spurr
Retail Price: $16.95
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Newmarket Press – (2010-03-09)
ISBN / EAN: 1557049130 / 9781557049131

Before CSI

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

The current edition of my new favorite column, Newsweek‘s “We Read It [So You Don’t Have To]” doesn’t live up to its name. It features The Poisoner’s Handbook and, rather than serving as a substitute for the book, it makes me want to get my hands on it as soon as possible.

In most libraries, that will be a while, since holds are heavy.

By Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, Deborah Blum, The Poisoner’s Handbook is about the dawn of forensic chemistry in New York City in the 1920’s (when, as the author says, “a wealth of modern poisons [created] new opportunities for the clever poisoner.”) Kirkus called it “caviar for true-crime fans.”

The Sunday Washington Post calls it “immensely entertaining.” and recommends it for fans Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, Jefferson Bass, and forensic TV shows.

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
Deborah Blum
Retail Price: $25.95
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2010-02-18)
ISBN / EAN: 1594202435 / 9781594202438

Large Print, Thorndike; 9781410425126; $30.95

Audio; Tantor; UNABR; Available now

Trade; 9781400115501; 8 Audio CD; $34.99
Library; 9781400145508; 8 Audio CD; $69.99
MP3; 9781400165506; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

Trade 9781400115501 8 Audio CD $34.99Library 9781400145508 8 Audio CD $69.99MP3 9781400165506 1 MP3-CD $24.99

L.A. Times Book Prize Adds Graphic Novel Category

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

This year’s Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists include a list of five graphic novels, a first in the award’s thirty year history.  The inclusion of graphic novels is highlighted enthusiastically in their announcement, and rightfully so.  The five finalists represent a strong selection of titles, from journalistic nonfiction Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza to the fan-favorite Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe.

It is particularly pleasing to see Taiyo Matsumoto’s GoGo Monster on the list, as often manga is left off of U.S. awards lists unless recognized in a separate category.  The mix of publishers, from the more independent comics publishers like Fantagraphics (Luba) and Oni Press (Scott Pilgrim) to the mainstream book publishers like Random House’s Pantheon (Asterios Polyp), also represents the diversity of current graphic novel publishing.  Noticeably absent are any mainstream comics titles from any of the major publishers including Marvel or DC Comics.

A graphic novel also appears in the Young Adult category; Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia.

Luba (Love and Rockets)
Gilbert Hernandez
Retail Price: $39.99
Hardcover: 608 pages
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books – (2009-06-23)
ISBN / EAN: 1560979607 / 9781560979609

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GoGo Monster
Taiyo Matsumoto
Retail Price: $27.99
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC – (2009-12-08)
ISBN / EAN: 1421532093 / 9781421532097

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Asterios Polyp
David Mazzucchelli
Retail Price: $29.95
Hardcover: 344 pages
Publisher: Pantheon – (2009-07-07)
ISBN / EAN: 0307377326 / 9780307377326

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Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe
Bryan Lee O’Malley
Retail Price: $11.95
Paperback: 184 pages
Publisher: Oni Press – (2009-02-18)
ISBN / EAN: 1934964107 / 9781934964101

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Footnotes in Gaza: A Graphic Novel
Joe Sacco
Retail Price: $29.95
Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Metropolitan Books – (2009-12-22)
ISBN / EAN: 0805073477 / 9780805073478

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Tales From Outer Suburbia
Shaun Tan
Retail Price: $19.99
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books – (2009-02-01)
ISBN / EAN: 0545055873 / 9780545055871

Jon Stewart Knows Libraries

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

When was the last time you heard the Boston Public Library’s “Statement of Purpose” quoted on TV?

For us, it was Monday night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (see below; if you want to skip ahead to the specific section, it’s 2:30 minutes into the piece).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Rage Within the Machine – Progressivism
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Sadly, the Boston Public Library is currently facing budget cuts and may be forced to close ten branches.

On The Money

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

“Ripped from the headlines” is a book publicist’s cliche, but Adam Haslett’s debut novel Union Atlantic goes one step further; it actually predicted the headlines.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Lynn Neary says the book,

…sometimes reads as if Haslett was listening into the private conversations that led to the economic collapse and the bank bailouts that followed.

Yet the remarkable fact is that Haslett finished the novel well before the real-life events took place. In the late ’90s, Haslett was reading about the Federal Reserve and some of the economic problems that were just beginning to stir.

Listen to her interview with Haslett here.

Also, on NPR’s All Things Considered Monday night, reviewer Alan Cheuse paired Union Atlantic with Jonathan Dee’s The Privileges, as “Two Novels That Are On The Money,” calling them both “terrific reads.”

Union Atlantic
Adam Haslett
Retail Price: $26.00
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-02-09)
ISBN / EAN: 0385524471 / 9780385524476

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The Privileges
Jonathan Dee
Retail Price: $25.00
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Random House – (2010-01-05)
ISBN / EAN: 1400068673 / 9781400068678

e-book available on OverDrive.

More Obama Bios in Pipeline

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Several new books about Barack Obama are in the works, in addition to the just-announced Bridge by New Yorker editor David Remnick (Knopf, 4/6/10) — see earlier post.

Coming a few days before Remnick’s bio, is a book by Robert Kuttner, co-founder of the liberal magazine The American Prospect and author of Obama’s Challenge. Libraries we checked are not showing it on order.

A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Street’s Power, and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future
Robert Kuttner
Retail Price: $25.00
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing – (2010-04-02)
ISBN / EAN: 1603582703 / 9781603582704

Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter’s The Promise: President Obama, Year One will be published in May (most large libraries have it on order in small quantities). Alter also wrote The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, 2006, which got a boost in sales when Obama himself said he was reading it prior to taking office.

The Promise: President Obama, Year One
Jonathan Alter
Retail Price: $28.00
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-05-18)
ISBN / EAN: 1439101191 / 9781439101193

S&S Audio; UNABR; 9781442334458; $39.99

According to USA Today, other books by presidential biographers are in the works. David Maraniss, whose account of the early Clinton years, First in his Class, is considered, “a standard text for the early life and political rise of the 42nd president” is at work on a “long-range project” about Obama.

And, Robert Draper, (Dead Certain: The Biography of  George W. Bush) is working on a book that considers Obama “in the context of the civil rights movement.”

Double Life of a Medical Pioneer

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Says Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air, “Chances are, you’ve never heard of William Stewart Halsted, but if you’ve ever had a surgical procedure of any kind, you could say he’s affected your life…no one did more to modernize medical surgery.”

He was also a cocaine and morphine addict.

Gerald Imber, who has written a book about Halsted, was interviewed on last night’s show (listen here. Warning: surgical procedures are described; don’t listen before lunch)

The book rose to #74 on Amazon. Library ordering is light.

Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted
Gerald Imber
Retail Price: $25.95
Hardcover: 412 pages
Publisher: Kaplan Publishing – (2010-02-02)
ISBN / EAN: 1607146274 / 9781607146278

New Obama Bio

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Knopf announced late yesterday that a new book about Barack Obama, written by New Yorker editor David Remnick and titled The Bridge, will be published on Apri 6th.

Remnick has already written about the president for the New Yorker including a long essay in Nov., 2008. According to Publishers Weekly the first printing will be 200,000 copies.

Remnick won a Pulitzer in 1994 for his book, Lenin’s Tomb.

The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
David Remnick
Retail Price: $29.95
Hardcover: 672 pages
Publisher: Knopf – (2010-04-06)
ISBN / EAN: 1400043603 / 9781400043606

Marilyn Johnson ON THE MEDIA

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Marilyn Johnson, author of This Books is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, appeared on the NPR program On the Media this weekend (listen here — warning; as you may guess from the title of the piece, Librarians Gone Wild, show producers couldn’t resist a few librarian stereotypes).

Johnson gave a pitch for the importance of libraries right now,

More & more people are not only using the library, they need the services of the librarian to help them weave their way around the bureaucracy …it’s a tragedy that the economic stimulus  package doesn’t put more money into libraries…librarians are really economical, they’re not expensive resources and they’re helping put this country back to work.

In addition, Salon interviewed Johnson yesterday (mentioning the “debaucherous goings-on at the American Library Association’s conference;” luckily, they’re referring to the book-cart drills).

More publicity is in the works:

NYT BR, 3/7 (plus, a possible review in the daily NYT)
USA Today interview

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
Marilyn Johnson
Retail Price: $24.99
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01)
ISBN / EAN: 0061431605 / 9780061431609

Audio: Tantor; 2/22/10
Trade: 9781400116348; 7 CD’s; $34.99
Library: 9781400146345; 7 CD’s; $69.99
MP3: 9781400166343; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

So Many Books…

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

It’s impossible stay on top of all the books that are published, even just the popular ones; that’s why we’re always on the lookout for shortcuts. Newsweek and the Daily Beast both have columns that work as handy RA cheat sheets.

Newsweek gets right to the point with the title of their regular feature, “We Read it [So You Don’t Have To].” The editors recently decided to create a book club around it, complete with Twitter and Facebook pages as well as its own archive on the Newsweek site. Currently, it includes 7 nonfiction titles, ranging from the current crop of political scandal books (The Politician by Andrew Young, Staying True by Jenny Sanford and The Death of American Virtue by Ken Gormley) to the sleeper success, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Click on each title and you’ll get a brief annotation, “Buzz Rating” and a critique to make your own.

The Daily Beast has been running a weekly column with a similar thrust, “Do I Have to Read…?” The columnist, “William Boot,” promises,

This isn’t your typical book-review column. I’m reading the bestsellers: the Grishams, the Cornwells, the Higgins Clarks. Moreover, I’ll render the kind of blunt verdict you get when reading about toasters in Consumer Reports… If you want a different approach, try The New York Review of Books.

Who is William Boot? Hard to know, since Boot is a pseudonymn (presumably to avoid hate mail from outraged publishers, agents and authors — when Boot hates a book, he sounds like Virginia Kirkus having a bad day), taken from the protagonist in Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Scoop (the Daily Beast itself takes its name from the fictional newspaper in that book).

Scoop
Evelyn Waugh
Retail Price: $14.99
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Back Bay Books – (1999-09)
ISBN / EAN: 0316926108 / 9780316926102

Boot considers only about 38 of James Patterson’s I, Alex Cross readable. On the other hand, of the 279 pages of Anne Tyler’s Noah’s Compass, he recommends 285 of them (he went back and reread a section which he enjoyed the second time around).

He may be more of a populist than the crowd at the New York Review of Books, but not by much.

This week, Boot steps outside his brief and covers a book that’s not a current bestseller, Dick Francis’ Comeback.

The full list of titles Boot has considered is available here.