Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.
My library was recently awarded the We the People Created Equal Bookshelf under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association.  Amongst the 21 books that came to our library was both an English language and Spanish language version of the classic speculative fiction [...]

EarlyWord, the Web site that includes Nora Rawlinson’s Give ‘em what They Want blog, has just added a new feature called EarlyWord Kids. Contributor Lisa Von Drasek, librarian for the Bank Street Colllege of Education in New York, started posting last week about books for children and young adults.  Look for this tag on the site:

to identify new EarlyWord [...]

  In five years of hosting a reading group, I’ve never seen anything like it. Slowly I watched the faces around the table last night losing their confidence as we waded deeper and deeper into our discussion of Carmen Laforet’s Spanish classic, Nada. It was like discovering you had read the wrong book. One person [...]

  Yesterday two different designers showed me their layouts for the postcard announcing the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Book Club. Both postcards were handsome, and both hammered home to me the same message: these particular books and these particular dates were about to be written in stone. Once the postcard goes to press, I’m committed [...]

  I began reading The Train of Salt and Sugar convinced I would like it, and I was almost right. It has all the ingredients of a thrilling epic movie.
Based on a true incident that occurred in 1987, it opens in the midst of the savagely brutal Mozambique civil war, in which no passenger [...]

 
Teen novels can be bleak and deal with very complex, heavy issues. Often that’s what teens are looking for–a reflection of the real, adult issues that many of them face.
This week I read two popular teen novels for an upcoming training with our Teen Librarians. I read a fair amount of teen fiction, but [...]

  For once the Booker judges got it right! We’re all shouting for joy at University Book Store. I’ve read The White Tiger twice. It’s my favorite novel of 2008, and has just been announced as the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize.
  The author is 34-year-old Aravind Adiga, a former correspondent in [...]

  Dunshee House is hosting a discussion of six gay novels. The conversation will last for twenty-five nights. We’re inviting the city of Seattle.
That’s how we’re designing the promotional postcard to launch the new Dunshee House book club beginning in January. Those postcards are going to be everywhere – libraries and health care facilities and counseling [...]

It happens. A book you’re dying to read turns out to be less than you expected. That’s just part of reading – that’s just part of life – but it’s still a comedown. So my second guilty pleasure of the week turned out to be not so much of a pleasure, after all.
  Rutu Modan [...]

How can I rationalize that with 43 advances piled up on my Must Read Soon table, not to mention two big bags of unread advances (19 books in one, 26 in the other) from the fall tradeshow in Portland not even unpacked yet – how can I admit that two new books arrived in the [...]

When you read as many books as I do, you develop a special fondness for any novel that surprises you, that catches you off-guard with a new way of looking at things, that dares to be a little more honest, a little more daring. When I stumble on a new author with real insight or [...]

Yesterday I punched a dear friend in the arm.
I mean, I slugged him. Why? Because in our conversation with a fellow bookseller he gave away the surprise in Two Bobbies.
  He stared at me, aghast, clutching his arm, and said, “Nick, it’s just a children’s book!” So, you see, he deserved it. He [...]

I’ll admit, you can’t use it in your reading group. 
That said, it was my favorite book of the annual 2008 Portland fall tradeshow of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Association.
Sure, I’m Italian. And sure, I’m a lifelong cat admirer. I won’t pretend I’m not aware that Rome is the one major city in the world [...]

Young Marcus Yallow and three teen friends are in the wrong place at the wrong time, playing a game on the streets of San Francisco when a bomb destroys the Bay Bridge. Before they know what has happened, they’ve been detained by Homeland Security and accused of terrorism. Three of the four are eventually released [...]

What was England like during and after World War II for children?  What must it have been like to come-of-age during a time of rationing and bombing?  Anyone who has seen John Boorman’s film “Hope and Glory” realizes the power a child’s-eye view can provide in our understanding of a particular place and time.
I happen to love coming-of-age [...]

Recently I was pleased to learn that the Villa Park (IL) Public Library, where I served as the administrator for over 20 years before retiring in 1999, held a Staff Development Day that featured book discussions.  The library has been offering book discussions for the public for many years and currently has three groups meeting [...]

“I don’t like short stories.” How often have I heard that in our book club and in the bookstore? Reading addicts often want to be entrenched in a long narrative, caught up in the rushing current of a strong plot, immersed in the heady waters of suspense and surprise, returning again and again to the [...]

I’ve just finished reading two new books back to back, and I can only say that both reading experiences were completely satisfying, both were modern Asian novels, both were short, both were written by women, both were just published, and these two books couldn’t possibly be less alike.
Natsuo Kirino’s Real World   follows four teenage [...]

The order matters. Alluring books get readers to come to meetings. The sequence of books discussed becomes a chronicle of the growth of the reading group. Start off a book club with three bad choices, and chances are you no longer have a club. The beginning is where you get reader commitment.
  Which novels or [...]

WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU BEEN READING?  I tried something new at my book group meeting last week — scheduling 10 minutes at the end of the session to talk about other books the participants have read recently.  This isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept, as book group members often refer to other books during the discussions, [...]