shake-up

earlier this week, it was announced that a couple of professional review sources, Publishers Weekly and Criticas, are taking a hit.  5 staff members including editor-in-chief Sara Nelson were laid off at PW and Criticas is ceasing publication.  School Library Journal’s Brian Kinney will take the helm as editorial director for PW, SLJ, and Library Journal.  perhaps the print versions of these resources will finally migrate to solely online….

(via Shelf Awareness)

posting by marin

this is not a joke, i think

already at the top of many of your reading lists, i am sure, but just in case you missed it, feast your eyes on “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”  from the Chronicle Books site:  “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action.”  what more can be said?

posting by marin

Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

YALSA’s Top Ten 2008 Graphic Novels

For Teenage Readers

Published: 01/28/2009 01:07pm in ICv2.com

 

YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, has announced its “Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens” covering books published in 2008.  Just a glance at this list demonstrates the wide range of excellent graphic novel offerings published last year ranging from the straight ahead adventure of Brian Clevenger’s Atomic Robo and the Fighting Scientists of Tesladyne from Red Five Comics; to the bleak slice-of-rugged-bohemian-life saga of an artist living in the subway tunnels under New York City chronicled by Youme Lansdowne and Anthony Horton in Pitch Black; to the locale-rich magical realism of G. Willow Wilson’s Cairo from DC’s Vertigo.

 

Once again manga is well represented on the list which includes Hinako Ashihara’s sensitive shojo drama Sand Chronicles; Takehiko Inoue’s hardhitting and very realistic saga of wheelchair basketball, Real; and Junji Ito’s masterful “horror as obsession” saga Uzumaki, all three published by Viz Media.  The other manga on the list is a delightful OEL title from Go Comi, Aimee Major Steinberger’s Japan Ai: A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan, the saga of a six-foot cosplayer’s dream trip to Japan.

 

 

Special notice should be taken of Jessica Abel and Gabriel Soria’s Life Sucks from First Second, the most original graphic novel take on the vampire mythos ever; Skim, a brilliant first effort from cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, a haunting coming of age tale as fascinating and sensitively observed as Craig Thompson’s Blankets; and Gerard Way’s innovative superhero saga, The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite from Dark Horse.

 

 

The Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens for 2008

Abel, Jessica. Life Sucks. First Second. 2008. 978-1-59643-107-2. $19.95.

Ashihara, Hinako. Sand Chronicles, v. 1. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1477-2. $8.99.
—. Sand Chronicles, v. 2. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1478-9. $8.99.
—. Sand Chronicles, v. 3. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1479-6. $8.99.

Clevinger, Brian. Atomic Robo: Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne. 2008. Red Five Comics. 978-0-9809302-0-7. $18.99.

Inoue, Takehiko. Real, v. 1. VIZ. 2008. 978-4215-1989-0. $12.99.
—. Real, v. 2. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1990-6. $12.99.

Ito, Junki. Uzumaki, v.1. VIZ. 2007. 978-1-4215-1389-8. $9.99.

Landowne, Youme. Pitch Black. Cinco Puntos Press. 2008. 978-1-9336-9306-4. $14.00.

Steinberger, Aimee Major. Japan Ai: A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan. Go Comi. 2007. 978-1-933617-83-1. $16.99.

Tamaki, Mariko. Skim. Groundwood Books. 2008. 978-0-8889-9753-1. $18.95.

Way, Gerard. Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite. Dark Horse. 2008. 978-1-59307-978-9. $17.95.

Wilson, G. Willow. Cairo. Vertigo. 2007. 978-1-4012-1140

Sno-Isle does not yet own all of these titles, but I am placing them on order.

Posted by Becky Buckingham

Need facts?

We have two full sets of the 2007 World Book Encyclopedia available for reallocation to a circulating collection.  Here’s your bonus for reading our blog:  be one of the first two libraries to claim a set by emailing me directly and they’re yours!  Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

Posted by Nancy Messenger

Just After Sunset and other Stephen King downloads

Just After Sunset Stories by Stephen King

We’ve got the latest Stephen King title, Just After Sunset available now as a download from the library’s digital collection.    I’m working through  this collection of short stories and loving them.  King’s last two books Blaze and Duma Key didn’t really work for me, but with this collection of short fiction King has reclaimed his hold on my attention.

Here are other Stephen King titles that I’m excited about entering the download collection today.

LT’s Theory of Pets

Before you go out and buy that cute kitten or puppy as a Valentines day present for your sweetie listen to this humorous and horrific tale.  Afterwards, you may just decide to go with the tried and true card and chocolates.

The Sun Dog

Remember that creep Ace Merrill played by Kiefer Sutherland in Stand by Me?  Well it turns out Ace had an uncle, Pop Merrill who runs an antique store in Castle Rock.  Pop by all appearances is nothing more than a simple businessman but beneath the cracker barrel wisdom and small town charm lies one of the blacker souls you’ll ever encounter.  Kevin Delevan just turned 15 and he turns to Pop for answers and help with birthday present, a polaroid camera that regardless of where Kevin points it, only takes pictures of an enormous, ugly snarling dog that seems to be getting closer with every picture.

The Library Policeman

Sam Peebles has huge problems because that book he borrowed from the library to help him with his speech at toastmasters is now overdue.  No problem you say, just return the book, pay the fine, and go on your way.  Ah if it were only that simple, you see Sam borrowed the book from the malevolent monster of a librarian that haunts the Junction City library, and now she’s set on collecting the fine, Sam’s life.

Here are the new titles available today.

Everything’s Eventual	Stephen King
From A Buick 8	Stephen King
Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The	Stephen King
Gerald’s Game	Stephen King
I Shudder at Your Touch	Stephen King
Insomnia	Stephen King
Just After Sunset	Stephen King
Langoliers, The	Stephen King
Library Policeman, The	Stephen King
LT’s Theory of Pets	Stephen King
Man in the Black Suit, The	Stephen King
Needful Things	Stephen King
Riding the Bullet	Stephen King
Secret Window, Secret Garden	Stephen King
Wizard and Glass	Stephen King

posting by jim

the 2009 Edgar nominees

take a peak at the finalists for this year’s Edgars.  even without knowing the award, many of the titles and/or covers  scream mystery.

posting by marin

Print-on-Demand trends

Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab

By MOTOKO RICH

 Published: January 27, 2009  in the New York Times

The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them.

At least, that is what the evidence suggests. Booksellers, hobbled by the economic crisis, are struggling to lure readers. Almost all of the New York publishing houses are laying off editors and pinching pennies. Small bookstores are closing. Big chains are laying people off or exploring bankruptcy.

A recently released study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that while more people are reading literary fiction, fewer of them are reading books.

Meanwhile, there is one segment of the industry that is actually flourishing: capitalizing on the dream of would-be authors to see their work between covers, companies that charge writers and photographers to publish are growing rapidly at a time when many mainstream publishers are losing ground.

Credit for the self-publishing boomlet goes to authors like Jim Bendat, whose book “Democracy’s Big Day,” a collection of historical vignettes about presidential inaugurations, enjoyed a modest burst in sales in the hoopla surrounding President Obama’s swearing-in.

After failing to secure a traditional publishing deal in 2000, Mr. Bendat, a public defender in Los Angeles, paid $99 to publish the first edition of his book with iUniverse, a print-on-demand company. He updated the book in 2004 and 2008, and has sold more than 2,500 copies. IUniverse takes a large cut of each sale of the book, currently on Amazon.com for $11.66.

As traditional publishers look to prune their booklists and rely increasingly on blockbuster best sellers, self-publishing companies are ramping up their title counts and making money on books that sell as few as five copies, in part because the author, rather than the publisher, pays for things like cover design and printing costs.

For the rest of the article go to http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1

Posted by Becky Buckingham

We’re not on Safari anymore

Sno-Isle has not renewed its subscription to Safari books.  Staff in Catalog Services are working to remove MARC records from the catalog for the titles we offered through this service.  The link to Safari will be removed from our website shortly.  The decision to drop this service was made after review of use data for Sno-Isle customers in light of a reduced materials budget, and discussions with the vendor about our ability (and lack thereof) to customize search features so our customers saw only those titles to which we had access.

In 2009, we will pilot a new e-book program through OverDrive.  We are looking at offering fiction and nonfiction ebooks through our download vendor to see if our customers are interested in using this format for recreational reading.  At this time, we do not have a collection in place but we are hoping to initiate the service in the very near future.

Posted by Nancy Messenger

John Updike, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, dies

Robert Spencer for The New York Times

John Updike in the Boston Public Library in 2006. 

John Updike, a Lyrical Writer of the Ordinary, Is Dead at 76

by CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT  January 27, 2009 in the New York  Times

John Updike, the kaleidoscopically gifted writer whose quartet of Rabbit Angstrom novels highlighted so vast and protean a body of fiction, verse, essays and criticism as to earn him comparisons with Henry James and Edmund Wilson among American men of letters, died today at a hospice outside Boston. He was 76 and lived in Beverly Farms, Mass.

The cause was cancer, according to a statement by Alfred A. Knopf, his publisher.

Where James and Wilson focused largely on elite Americans in a European context, Mr. Updike wrote of ordinary citizens in small-town and urban settings. His best-known protagonist, Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, first appears as a former high-school basketball star trapped in a loveless marriage and a sales job he hates. Through the four novels whose titles bear his nickname — “Rabbit, Run,” “Rabbit Redux,” “Rabbit Is Rich” and “Rabbit at Rest” — the author traces the sad life of this undistinguished middle-American against the background of the last half-century’s major events.

For more of this article including pictures and an interview with Updike go to http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28updike.html?_r=1&ref=books

Here is the obituary from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3520000/newsid_3526900/3526947.stm

Los Angeles Times obituary:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-john-updike28-2009jan28,0,3942596.story?page=1&track=rss

Literature Resource Center has many items on Updike:

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=sirls_main&srchtp=athr&ca=1&ste=5&ai=U13009808&tab=1&tbst=arp&n=10&ST=john+updike

Sno-Isle owns many of his titles including his recent novel The Widows of Eastwick. 

Posted by Becky Buckingham

Bestselling Graphic Novels

Top 20 Bookstore Graphic Novels of 2008

Watchmen #1, Naruto #2

Published: 01/25/2009 12:00am in ICv2.com

The Nielsen BookScan service has provided ICv2 with a ranking of the top 20 graphic novels of 2008, drawn from sell-through information in bookstore and other outlets tracked by the service.  The rankings are based on piece sales for the entire year.  Watchmen was the #1 graphic novel of 2008; although it was selling great all year, sales were turbocharged by the Watchmen trailer released in conjunction with The Dark Knight, the #1 movie of the year.  Batman: The Killing Joke Special Edition, another 20 year old volume written by Alan Moore, was the #5 title of the year.

Rank	Title	Author	Pub	PubDate
1	WATCHMEN	ALAN MOORE	DC	4/1/95
2	NARUTO VOL. 28	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	3/1/08
3	NARUTO VOL. 29	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	5/1/08
4	NARUTO VOL. 30	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	7/1/08
5	BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE SPEC. ED.	ALAN MOORE	DC	3/1/08
6	NARUTO VOL. 27	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	12/1/07
7	NARUTO VOL. 31	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	9/1/08
8	NARUTO VOL. 26	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	12/1/07
9	DEATH NOTE VOL. 1	TSUGUMI OHBA	VIZ	10/1/05
10	FRUITS BASKET VOL. 19	NATSUKI TAKAYA	TKP	3/1/08
11	FRUITS BASKET VOL. 20	NATSUKI TAKAYA	TKP	7/1/08
12	DEATH NOTE VOL. 2	TSUGUMI OHBA	VIZ	11/1/05
13	BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURN	FRANK MILLER	DC	5/1/97
14	VAMPIRE KNIGHT VOL. 4	MATSURI HINO	VIZ	4/1/08
15	NARUTO VOL. 1	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	7/1/03
16	NARUTO VOL. 32	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	12/1/08
17	BLEACH VOL. 22	TITE KUBO	VIZ	2/1/08
18	NARUTO VOL. 25	MASASHI KISHIMOTO	VIZ	12/1/07
19	DEATH NOTE VOL. 13	TSUGUMI OHBA	VIZ	2/1/08
20	VAMPIRE KNIGHT VOL. 1	MATSURI HINO	VIZ	1/1/07

 

Naruto was the top manga, with nine volumes in the top 20, led by volume 28, the first in the Shippuden series, at #2 over-all.  Six of the top ten graphic novels of the year were Naruto volumes.  Even volume 1 appeared in the list, a great sign that new readers are still joining the ranks of Naruto readers.    

 

Three other manga series joined Naruto in the top 20:  Death Note (three volumes), Fruits Basket (two volumes), Vampire Knight (two volumes), and Bleach (one volume). 

 

The only other American title was Batman:  The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, which came in at #13.

 

Posted by Becky Buckingham