Several librarian favorites (e.g., Rainbow Rowell, Ransom Riggs, Wiley Cash) will appear at events sponsored by the Association of American Publishers (cosponsored this year by LibraryReads) at the upcoming Midwinter meeting. That may seem a long way off, but these limited-seating events fill up fast, so don’t put this off.

ALA Midwinter BookTalk Breakfast 2014 (AAP and LibraryReads)

Monday, January 27th from 8:30 – 10:00am
Philadelphia Convention Center, Room PCC-122 B

Official invitation here: ALA Midwinter Booktalk Breakfast 2014 Invitation

Space is limited. RSVP HERE with your interest in attending by Monday, January 13th. The AAP will send you a confirmation if they can accommodate your request. Author signings to follow the program.

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Living With A Wild God, (Hachette/Twelve)

Alice LaPlante, author of Circle of Wives, (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Ransom Riggs, Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Children (Quirk)

Rainbow Rowell, author of Landline (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin)

Wiley Cash, author of This Dark Road to Mercy (HarperCollins/Morrow)

ALA Midwinter 2014’s Best in Debut Authors (AAP and LibraryReads)

Saturday, January 25th from 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Philadelphia Convention Center
Room PCC-108B

Official invitation here: ALA Midwinter Debut Panel 2014 Invitation

Space is limited. RSVP HERE with your interest in attending by Monday, January 13th. AAP will send you a confirmation if they can accommodate your request. Author signings to follow the program.

Featuring:
Laurie Loewenstein, author of Unmentionables (Akashic)

Leah Eskin, author of Slices of Life: A Food Writer Cooks through Many a Conundrum (Perseus/Running Press)

M.D. Waters, author of Archetype (Dutton)

Rachel Cantor, author of A Highly Unlikely Scenario (Melville House)

And, while you’re at it, add this to your calendar (no requirement to sign up for this one, however):

AAP’S LIBRARY FAMILY FEUD

Sunday, January 26th from 3:00-4:00 pm
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown
Room Franklin 07

Watch the librarians face off against our fearless authors in a ferocious battle, Family Feud  style. For more, including names of competing authors and librarians, click here — ALA Midwinter 2014 Library Family Feud flyer

Our latest roundup of the nonfiction best books picks (downloadable spreadsheet, 2013 — Best Books, Adult Nonfiction, Version 3) adds in  titles from 6 new lists, resulting in a total of 15 sources (listed on the spreadsheet; links are at the right, under Best Books), with 396 picks for 267 titles.

Tied at #1 with 8 picks each is:

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital,  Sheri Fink, (RH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT)  — includes a LibraryReads pick and top ten picks from LJ and NYT Book Review.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief , Wright, Lawrence.  (RH/Knopf)  — includes  PW and Washington Post top ten picks and National Book Award finalist.

Close behind, with 7 each:

Thank You for Your Service, David Finkel, (Macmillan/FSG/Sarah Crichton; Macmillan Audio

The Unwinding, George Packer, (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio) — (the National book award winner)

We expect the daily New York Times reviewers to weigh in next week, followed by  Booklist and the various ALA awards in January.

The latest spreadsheets to date are:

2013 — Best Books, Adult Fiction, Version 4

2013 — Best Books, Adult Nonfiction, Version 3

2013 — Best Books, Childrens and YA, Version 2

The book that was hailed as the next big thing in fantasy after The Lord of the Rings back in the ’70’s,  The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks, (RH/Del Rey; 1977) is now being seen as the next Game of Thrones, by MTV which has announced plans to adapt the entire 25-book saga (via The Hollywood Reporter).

The producers have secured a straight-to-series commitment (translated, if the network honchos like the script, they will get right to work on the series, bypassing the pilot stage).

The most recent title in the series, Witch Wraith (RH/Del Rey; RH Audio) was published in July. The first book in the Defenders of Shannara trilogy, supposedly the final books of the saga, The High Druid’s Blade is scheduled for publication in  March 2014. It will be followed in August by The Darkling Child (RH/Del Rey; RH Audio).

Horn Book‘s “Fanfare 2013,” the editors’ choices of the 30 best books published this year, was released today, so we’ve updated our roundup of all the children’s and teen best books list in a downloadable spreadsheet, for your use in end-of-the year ordering, displays, and to add to your ever-growing TBR lists —  2013 — Best Books, Childrens and YA, Version 2.

The resulting list represents 435 picks for 280 titles from nine sources. The top three, with 7 picks each are:

Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin) — author Rowell has emerged as a huge favorite among both adult and YA librarians this year, for both this title and Fangirl, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin), which is on 3 best books lists, as well as being a LibraryReads #1 pick. Anticipation is strong for Rowell’s next adult title, Landline (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press), coming in July.

Mr. Wuffles!, David Wiesner, (HMH/Clarion Books) — a nearly wordless book filled with sly humor. See the model for Mr. Wuffles here:

Boxers & Saints, Gene Luen Yang, (Macmillan/ First Second) — Says Hornbook, “Trust Gene Luen Yang to find the humor — as well as the adventure and historical significance — in China’s Boxer Rebellion.”

Oprah has announced the next title in her Book Club 2.0 series, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings, (Penguin/Viking; Penguin Audio; Recorded Books; Thorndike), frustrating some readers because it won’t be available for a few more weeks (pub date is Jan. 7).

Librarians, however, can request eGalleys via Netgalley.

Previous titles in Oprah’s Book Club 2.0, were Wild by Cheryl Strayed (RH/Knopf) and Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis (RH/Knopf).

Below is our Storified version of the final day of #libfaves13.

The list of top picks is on BiblioCommons.

Others have created their own lists of favorites.

Did the organizers of #libfaves13 realize that today, the final day of librarians tweeting their favorite ten titles of the year is ALSO the title of a book on many best lists —  George Saunders’ Tenth of December, (Random House)?

Don’t let your favorites go unrecognized. Even if you haven’t joined in so far, it’s not too late. Use hashtag #libfaves13 to tweet your one favorite book of the year (meaning you read it this year, not necessarily the pub date), or write ten tweets for each of your ten favorites. Please include authors (last name is fine to save space), so the compilers can identify the correct titles. It also helps if you write the titles in all caps.

We’ve enjoyed seeing the range of titles and the creative ways librarians describe them (many would be great models for RA training). As one librarian noted, this “Reminds me I went into the right field.” Another, Claire S., @readerpants, showed how effective these 140 character readers advisories can be, by snapping her TBR pile and asking, “Think I’ve been following #libfaves13?” —

We’ve put together each day’s tweets on Storify.com (search #libfaves13). This year, the library marketers joined in with their own version, so also check out #LibMKTGfaves13.

Thanks to Robin Beerbower, Stephanie Chase and Linda Johns for organizing #libfaves, now in its third year.

We’re looking forward to this year’s roundup (check out last year’s here).

Vancouver, Canada is standing in for Seattle, as Fifty Shades of Grey began filming last week.  A photo of the first, rather chaste, kiss between costars Dakota Johnson (Anastasia Steele) and Jamie Dornan (Christian Grey) flashed around the world today.

Several new cast members have signed on, including Marcia Gay Harden as Christian Grey’s mother and British singer-songwriter Rita Ora as his adopted sister, Mia.

One of the producers, Dan Brunetti, in an interview for the movie site Collider.com, said he thought it “would be cool” if they released more explicit, NC-17 version a few weeks after the R-rated version arrives in theaters on Feb. 13, 2015. He notes, “What we’re kind of hearing from the fans is they want it dirty, they want it as close as possible [to the book]. We want to keep it elevated but also give the fans what they want.”

Two versions might solve that problem, with the side benefit of getting fans to pay twice.

The  Coen brother’s latest movie, Inside Llewyn Davis, “marks the best limited start ever for Joel and Ethan Coen,” according to The Hollywood Reporter (translated, it opened in just 4 theaters, but pulled in more than $100,00 in each). It expands into more theaters on Dec. 20 and nationwide in January

Inspired by real-life musician Dave Van Ronk’s memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, (Perseus/Da Capo Press; trade pbk tie-in; cover above, left), it stars Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman and Garrett Hedlund.

In the NYT, book critic Janet Maslin predicts that the film is “poised to generate a tidal wave of nostalgia — and stir interest among moviegoers who were unfamiliar with this milieu” and suggests fhe documentary (Greenwich Village: Music that Defined a Generation, now on DVD, Kino Lorber, $29.95), the movie soundtrack and a book as ways to learn more about “the folkie world that the Coens recreate so wittily and well.” The book is, of course, Van Ronk’s “sharp, cantankerous memoir.”

Trailer for Greenwich Village: Music that Defined a Generation.

As much fun as best books list are, so many more have rolled in since our last roundup that we are feeling a bit of “list fatigue,” as NPR labels it. Theirs is so bad that they claim to not be doing a best books list this year (see “The Top 5 Reasons We’re Taking A Break From Lists“).

Don’t believe them. Despite what they say,  they’ve published a “non-list” of 200 titles from 2013, calling it a “book concierge.”

The NPR “staff picks” of 59 titles looks like a best books list to us, so we’ve added their picks to our latest roundup (downloadable spreadsheet here 2013 — Best Books, Adult Fiction, Version 3).

Here’s the top 5 reason why we’re ignoring NPR’s claim that this isn’t a list:

5) Their interactive format is fun.

4) They’re the only ones so far to include a book that is surely on every librarian’s to give or to get list, John Bradshaw’s Cat Sense (Basic Books).

3) If dogs are more to your taste, they’re also the only ones to include David Rosenfelt’s Dogtripping (Macmillan/St. Martin’s).

2) Theirs is the 9th pick for George Saunders’ Tenth of December (Random House), sending it to the top of our tally of total picks, allowing us to again quote one of our favorite #libfaves13 tweets, from Andrea Cough, “try one a day for lunch” (even though she used it for a different book of short stories). UPDATE: Just a few hours after we wrote this, USA Today released their top ten, scrambling everything up again. We’re updating the list.

1) NPR’s coverage generates more holds than any other source.

In addition to the NPR Staff Picks, our updated fiction spreadsheet (Version 3) adds the following:

New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of 2013 (43 fiction)

New York Times Book Review Top Ten (5 fiction)

Slate Book Review Top Ten (6 Fiction)

Time magazine Top 10 Fiction

Time magazine Top 10 Comics & Graphic Novels (7 fiction)

That’s a total of 487 picks for 290 titles, from 14 sources. We’re expecting this to the the final fiction roundup until Booklist and ALA produce their lists. By the end of the week, we will complete the nonfiction update (including the Kirkus NF list just posted today). The updated children’s list will be posted shortly.

Meanwhile, be sure to add your picks to the list of librarian favorites — #libfaves13. And. don’t let “list fatigue” prevent you from  nominating 2014 titles for LibraryReads.

The upcoming issue of The New Yorker features a cover image of Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson, whose picture book biography of the leader,  Nelson Mandela, (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegan) was recently selected as one of the Best Illustrated Books of 2013 by the New York Times Book Review.

Nelson tells the The New Yorker that, for this cover, he chose to portray Mandela as a younger man, “during the time that he was on trial with over a hundred of his comrades … I wanted to make a simple and bold statement about Mandela and his life as a freedom fighter. The raised fist and the simple, stark palette reminded me of posters and anti-apartheid imagery of the nineteen-eighties.”

Last night’s Royal performance in London of the film adaptation of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, (Hachette/Little, Brown; 1994), starring Idris Elba, was overshadowed by the news that Mandela had died. Moments before receiving the dreaded phone call, Mandela’s daughter Zindzi, interviewed on the red carpet, said that her father, although frail, was doing well. She and her sister Zenani asked that the showing continue.

The movie debuted in limited release in the U.S. on Nov. 29.

Tie ins:

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela
Hachette/Back Bay
9780316323543, 0316323543
Trade Paperback; $18.00 US / $20.00 Can.
Hachette Audio$30.00 US / $33.00 Can.

Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom: The Book of the Film

Nelson Mandela, Keith Bernstein
Chronicle Books
9781452128412, 1452128413
Hardback; $35.00 US

Ron Howard’s upcoming movie In the Heart of the Sea, based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s book, made news this week when the crew, in the midst of filming in the Canary Islands, was evacuated as flash floods hit the area, causing mudslides and killing five people. Production is currently on hold.

Philbrick won the National Book Award in Nonfiction in 2000 for In the Heart of the Sea, about the Essex, a Nantucket ship hunting whale in the South Pacific in 1819, was stalked and eventually sunk by a sperm whale setting the crew adrift for 90 days.

The movie, starring  Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy and Ben Whishaw, is set to release on March 13, 2015.

Librarians are answering the call to tweet their favorite books of 2013. Day three wrapped up yesterday with 98 librarians joining the effort (thanks, Linda Johns, for keeping the stats).

You can join, too. The rules:  Tweet your top ten favorites of the books you read this year (not necessarily those that were published this year), countdown style, one per day, Dec. 1 through Dec. 10 (don’t worry if you haven’t started yet, just jump in). Please include authors (last name is fine to save space), so the compilers can identify the correct titles. Writing titles in all caps also helps the compilers. And, don’t forget the hashtag — #libfaves13

An additional EarlyWord request: We love to know why you picked a book, so please include your passionate recommendations.

Below are some that caught our eye.

Brilliant way to sell a book of short stories:

GODFORSAKEN IDAHO, Shawn Vestal, (HMH/New Harvest; Brilliance Audio)

“Excellent short stories — try one a day for lunch”

Andrea Cough @AndBookish

Love the thought of this in audio:

THE TAO OF MARTHA, Jen Lancaster, (NAL Hardcover)

“Great on audio” (Dreamscape Audio)

@Bobcatgrad

 

You had us at sidesplitting, (but totally won us over with the rest):

HOW TO BE A WOMAN by Cailin Moran, (Harper Perennial)

“absolutely sidesplittingly, laugh-out-loud, danger-of-wetting-myself hilarious”

Meriel @aislesofwonder

Best Aliteration:

“Befriend, befuddle, betray. Playing the game with my #8 #libfaves13 pick – spymaster Charles McCarry’s THE SHANGHAI FACTOR.”

(Mysterious Press; HighBridge Audio)

David Wright @guybrarian

Best Unexpected Crossover Analogy:

“My #8 pick for #libfaves13 is ME BEFORE YOU [Penguin/Pamela Dorman; Thorndike] which I recently described to someone as a grown-up version of ELEANOR AND PARK

Danielle Dreger @DanielleDregerB

In addition, the library marketers began their own countdown this year, #libMKTGfaves13 (thanks Talia Sherer, from Macmillan!). It’s amazing to see that they manage to find time to read books from other publishers in addition to their own, as proved by PenguinLibrary’s pick, INDISCRETION, Charles Dubow (HarperCollins/Morrow) and ChrisTheBookie from Sterling’s A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME, Wiley Cash, (HarperCollins/Morrow).

Click through to see our Storified version of all the picks.

(more…)

Called one of the best war movies ever by two people you wouldn’t expect to see eye-to-eye, Tina Brown and Glenn Beck, Lone Survivor is based on the long-running 2007 bestseller by Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell (Hachette/Little, Brown). The promo for the movie is bringing new attention to the book, sending it back on to the 12/8/13 NYT Paperback Nonfiction list at #5.

Mark Wahlberg, who plays Luttrell, along with costars Emile Hirsch and Taylor Kitsch, appeared on the Today Show this morning. Directed by Peter Berg (Battleship and Friday Night Lights), the movie opens on Christmas Day in NY and LA only, followed by a nationwide release on Jan. 10.

Official Movie Siie: LoneSurvivorFilm.com

Tie-ins were released on November 19:

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

Marcus Luttrell, Patrick Robinson

(Hachette/Back Bay; Trade pbk.; Mass Mkt.; Audio).

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