EarlyWord is the home of GalleyChat, monthly online discussions where library staff share excitement about upcoming books. More information here.
Summaries of chats and announcements are posted to the right. Use them to add to your own TBR piles and for collection development.
Links on the far right of the site offer information useful to readers advisors.
Hope to see you during our next chat,
GalleyChatters
News for Collection Development and Readers Advisory Librarians
January 6th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
The hot topic of the new crop of self help books is saving money. Elizabeth Leamy, consumer correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America, says in her new book, Save Big, that you can forget saving small by cutting out lattes and packing your own lunch and save big in other areas. She’s been appearing on Good Morning America this week to promote the book.
Most libraries haven’t ordered it; it was not reviewed prepub.
 |
|
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
If you’re like me, when you checked you calendar yesterday, you suddenly realized that MidWinter is NEXT week. HOW did that happen?
I know none of you, dear readers, are procrastinators. But you may have a friend who procrastinates and then is angry that she missed all the great author events at ALA.
Here’s how she can put together her schedule quickly:
1) Check out ALA’s rundown of authors (some with highly anticipated new titles, like Elizabeth Gilbert and Tracy Chevalier) who will be appearing.
2) Don’t miss these events that are not on ALA’s list:
AAP Author Breakfast
Sunday, January 17, 2010
8:00 AM – 9:30 AM
Room 151 A/B Convention Center
What a deal; free breakfast with SIX major short story writers, including NBA winner Ha Jin (as you know, critics proclaimed 2009 the Year of the Short Story, but clearly 2010 will also be a strong year), sponsored by the Assoc. of American Publishers (the invitation lists all the authors). It’s free, but you have to send an RSVP to Marlene Scheuermann at the AAP.
Publisher Title Presentations
This is a great way to get a jump on the Spring/Summer seasons and to get at inside look at what the library marketing reps are particularly excited about, as well as a chance to load up on major galleys. Two of the largest trade houses will be doing title presentations:
HarperCollins
Saturday, January 16, 2010
10:00 AM – 11:15 AM — Adult Titles
11:30 to 12:30 — Children’s Titles
Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel
(Connected to the Boston Convention Center)
425 Summer Street
Burroughs Room
Boston, Massachusetts
Please RSVP by emailing Bobby Brinson so there will be an adequate number of galleys, tote bags and goodies.Random House, Inc.
Sunday, January 17th
Children’s Titles: 10:30am – 11:30am
Adult Titles: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
RSVP to library@randomhouse.com for location information.
ALCTS – CMDS and RUSA – CODES — Collection Management in Public Libraries Discussion Group
Monday, January 18
1:30 – 3:00 p.m
Room 156 Convention Center
A rare opportunity to find out what other coll. dev. librarians from around the country are thinking
Sunday, January 17th
4-6pm
RUSA Book and Media Awards
Intercontinental, Rose Kennedy III
Celebrate the genres with the Reading List Awards announcements, as well as the Notable Book Awards, the Dartmouth Medal, the Zora Neale Hurston Award, the Sophie Brody Award, the Louis Shores, and Outstanding Reference Sources, as well as many others.
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Kirkus will continue publishing. Managing editor Eric Liebetrau sent out an email to colleagues today, saying that there may be a buyer after all and they are restarting publication.
Certain editors and agents who expressed delight that Kirkus was being shut down may be facing a dinner of crow.
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
The rebroadcast yesterday of Oprah’s show with Tal Ronnen, her favorite vegan chef, shot the book up Amazon’s charts (to #3 from #407).
Most libraries are showing heavy holds; 5 to 1 is typical.
 |
|
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Michael Pollan appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night. The appearance sent his new book, Food Rules, to #5 on Amazon sales rankings.
Libraries that own the book show heavy holds. Several do not; it was not reviewed prepub.
An original paperback, the book is described by the publisher as a “pocket compendium of food wisdom.” Some of the pieces of wisdom? “Avoid foods you see advertised on television” and “Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.”
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Michael Pollan | ||||
|
||||
—————–
 |
|
eBook downloadable from OverDrive
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
The New York Times Science section calls Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle, “an exquisite picture guide to the universe,” adding, “Actually ‘exquisite’ does not really do justice to the aesthetic and literary merits of the book…”
Online, the NYT offers a slide show of some of the book’s amazing images.
The book is owned by most large libraries. Today, it rose from #29,203 on Amazon sales rankings to #18.
 |
|
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
One of the biggest gainers on Amazon sales rankings today is not owned by most libraries (it wasn’t reviewed prepub); Stop Getting Ripped Off by Bob Sullivan rose to #18 from a lowly #10,432 after an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air last night. Sullivan is a reporter for MSNBC.com covering computer crime and consumer affairs.
Confusing title alert: Fight for Your Money: How to Stop Getting Ripped Off and Save a Fortune, by David Bach came out in March and is owned by most libraries.
——————-
 |
|
eBook available from OverDrive
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Pilots always run through a checklist before a flight. On the other hand, surgeons don’t, relying instead on their considerable knowledge, training and instinct. Harvard Medical School surgeon Atul Gawande, wondered if checklists might be useful in medicine. He tested the idea and found it produced not only better results, but “massively better results.”
Something as simple as making sure everyone in the operating room knew each other’s names resulted in a 35% reduction in the number of complications and deaths. Why? Because once everyone introduced themselves, they were more likely to speak up if they saw a problem.
Gawande, who besides being a surgeon, also writes for the New Yorker, discusses his findings in The Checklist Manifesto. He was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition today. As a result, the book rose to #57 from #245 on Amazon sales rankings. Holds are heavy in many libraries.
NOTE: Gawande is Sunday’s Sunrise Speaker at the upcoming ALA MidWinter in Boston; Jan. 17, 8 to 9 a.m, Grand Ballroom, Boston Convention Center.
—————————–
 |
|
Macmillan Audio: UNAB CD; 9781427208989; $29.99
January 5th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Katherine Paterson takes the helm as the new Ambassador for Young People’s Literature today. She’s the second to hold that position and the first woman (Jon Scieszka filled the post admirably last year).
The position was created “to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature,” so it is fitting that the New York Times‘ publishing reporter, Motoko Rich, interviews Paterson today.
Paterson tells Rich,
I want people to be reading about children of other places and other races and religions. I think novels are a wonderful way to do that because you get in somebody else’s psyche and you see things quite differently than the way you see things simply through your own eyes.
January 4th, 2010 By: Lisa Von Drasek
Hurrah; Scholastic is reviving the Baby Sitters Club.
I don’t know about you but I have a whole new generation of readers who will love a refreshed look and updating (no more “perms;” the girls will now have their hair “styled”). I’m not the only one excited about it; the NYT devoted a fairly long story to the announcement.
The first two volumes are coming in April, along with a newly written prequel, The Summer Before, which will be followed by a reissue of three more next year (ther are 213 titles in the entire series).
As a sign of how things have changed since the series’ original publication (1986 to 2000), they are now being aimed at a slightly younger ages group — 7 to 10, rather than 8 to 12.
 |
|
—————–
| Claudia And The Phantom Phone Calls (The Babysitters Club) |
| Ann M. Martin |
| Retail Price: | $5.99 |
| Mass Market Paperback: | 176 pages |
| Publisher: | Scholastic Paperbacks – (2010-04-01) |
| ISBN / EAN: | 0545174767 / 9780545174763 |
—————-
|
—————-
| The Truth About Stacey (The Baby Sitters Club) |
| Ann M. Martin |
| Retail Price: | $5.99 |
| Paperback: | 176 pages |
| Publisher: | Scholastic Paperbacks – (2010-06-01) |
| ISBN / EAN: | 0545174775 / 9780545174770 |
January 3rd, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
What’s the best one-line description you’ve ever heard, or used, for a book?
A friend of mine just described Larry McMurtry’s Rhino Ranch this way, “When I was done, I thought I’d grown up with all of his characters.”
Makes me want to pick it up.
 |
|
January 3rd, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Tracy Chevalier talks about the true story behind her book Remarkable Creatures on NPR’s All Things Considered.
The book is being released this week.
NOTE: Chevalier will be speaking at MidWinter, as part of the ALA/ERT Author Forum, “From Book to Big Screen” (Fri., Jan. 15, 4–5:15 p.m.)
———–
 |
|
Audio from Penguin Audiobooks (01/01/2010)
Large Print from Thorndike Press (01/01/2010)
December 31st, 2009 By: Charlotte Abbott
The first big memoirs of the year arrive – with bestseller Elizabeth Gilbert at the forefront.
Gilbert‘s much anticipated Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage arrives after some delay. PW found her voice “clear and winning,” but declared that her hybrid of her own travelogue and the history of marriage “doesn’t work.” It’s a big year for Gilbert: in August, the film version of her international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love arrives, directed by Glee creator and producer Ryan Murphy, and starring Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, James Franco and Billy Crudup.
NOTE: Gilbert is the MidWinter Sunrise Speaker on Sat., Jan. 17, 8–9 a.m.
 |
|
Audio from Penguin Audiobooks
Audio also available from OverDrive
Large Print from Thorndike Press
——————————————
Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him by Alanna Nash was reviewed recently by Janet Maslin in the New York Times – who called it “long, repetitive and dirt-digging” and also “embarrassingly tempting.”
 |
|
——————————————
Two memoirs by media-genic authors are also starting to pick up some online buzz. Mika Brzezinski‘s All Things at Once is an account by the co-host on CNBC’s “Morning Joe” about the difficulty of balancing her career and being the mother of two young daughters.
 |
|
——————————————
Andrea Lyon‘s Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer is a lawyer’s story of how she helped 19 clients found guilty of capital murder avoid the death penalty, and also an Indie Next pick for January.
 |
|
——————————————
Also to be released next week:
December 31st, 2009 By: Charlotte Abbott
In the new year, new fiction awaits.
Tracy Chevalier returns with Remarkable Creatures, based on the lives of two Victorian women who become fossil hunters. Booklist called it a “perfect choice for book clubs and for Austen fans.” This new title by the author of The Girl with the Pearl Earring is also an Indie Next pick for January, and received a rousing review in the Guardian (UK), though the PW review was much less sanguine.
NOTE: Chevalier will be speaking at MidWinter, as part of the ALA/ERT Author Forum, “From Book to Big Screen” (Fri., Jan. 15, 4–5:15 p.m.)
|
|
Audio from Penguin Audiobooks (01/01/2010)
Large Print from Thorndike Press (01/01/2010)
——————————————
Jonathan Dee‘s The Privileges, about the gradual dissolution of a hedge fund manager’s family, wins admiration from Salon‘s Laura Miller, who observes that Dee succeeds in maintaining sympathy for the Morey family, whose invulnerability “in time, becomes a flaw.”
 |
|
——————————————
Leila Meacham‘s debut novel, Roses, is a multi-generational saga about two Texan families with fortunes tied to cotton and timber. PW calls it an “enthralling stunner, a good old-fashioned read” and compares it to the work of Barbara Taylor Bradford and Colleen McCullough. After a big push at Book Expo last year, it’s getting some buzz on the reader community at Goodreads.
 |
|
——————————————-
Other fiction coming next week:
December 30th, 2009 By: Nora Rawlinson
In the past week, Amazon has managed to capture headlines for the Kindle, with announcements such as,
Most media have taken these claims at face value and have gone on to opine about the future of book publishing, reading, and even writing.
There’s one problem — Amazon’s claims are long on comparisons, but very short on actual numbers.
This was pointed out by Bobbie Johnson, the Guardian‘s technology correspondent on Monday. Johnson doesn’t accuse Amazon of lying, exactly, but of using “carefully chosen language.”
The blog “The eBook Test,” is not so polite. In an article headlined, Is The Amazon Kindle An Outright Fraud?, blogger Mike Cane challenged publishers to put Amazon to the test by revealing actual numbers for their bestselling eBook titles.
Figures from the Association of American Publishers show a different picture from Amazon’s. According to their latest stats (unfortunately, only through Oct. of this year), trade market eBooks account for only 3% of sales.
It is difficult to get real figures in book publishing. Sarah Weinman demonstrates this as she gamely tries to make sense of Amazon’s claims at the Daily Finance. As she points out, to understand how important Kindle downloads are to the entire business, we first need to know how many physical books Amazon sells and we don’t even know that.
An anonymous commenter on the eBook Test site gives an insider’s view (assuming, of course, that this person is who he or she claims to be),
I work for a trade house, and while I am not going to reveal my identity or that of my employer, I can tell you that our top Kindle sales of any one title are in the range of about 1000 downloads life to date. I am someone who receives the sales numbers for our titles directly from Amazon and I look at them every week; and, I agree that the actual sales numbers are much LOWER than anyone is pretending to have achieved.
There’s the added question of what do “sales” really mean when applied to eBook downloads. On the Kindle books “bestseller” list, 9 of the top 10 are free. For the entire list at this point (it’s updated hourly), 66 of 100 are free.
The tipping point for eBooks may be further off than Amazon’s announcements would make you think.
On the other hand, all the publicity that Amazon is generating may bring it closer.