Do you Read it Forward?

If not, you should. Read it Forward is the monthly book group focused e-newsletter produced by our friends up in the Crown Publishing Group. In this month’s newsletter is a wonderfully original feature on the “editor-model hybrid.” Yes, you read right. And I thought meeting authors and going to ALA were a cool job perks. Click here to find out how an editor landed on a book cover! 

Visit the Read It Forward website for more fun stuff and to subscribe to the e-newsletter.

Oh, and sign up for our Library and Book Group e-newsletters while you’re at it.

Happy Friday, everyone!

-Marie

Perhaps I’m a bit late to the party but I just finished reading Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls last week. I admit I wasn’t too sure about it because the cover, while gorgeous, was so pretty I figured it was going to be a “too pretty”. I should have known better. See wonderfully illuminates the plight of the Chinese American immigrant in 1930’s through the story of May and Pearl, two sisters. And their story reads so realistically at points you can almost see the Angel Island Immigration offices, the streets of Shanghai and the palm trees of Los Angeles.  

If you have yet to pick this one up, take a look at the video below and then don’t stress about your tardiness. Paperbacks are sometimes better anyway, right?

-Marie

Curious about what we’ve all been reading these days? Here’s a department-wide update:

Jen – Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
A charming, heart-warming story of two widowers with very different backgrounds, but a shared love of Kipling. One of those books that just makes you smile as you read it. Perfect for Book Groups.

Erica - The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald
I picked this up in preparation for meeting Lisa Grunwald at the PLA conference in March. It is the unconventional coming of age story of Henry, who was raised by six mothers as part a college home economics course in the 1950s. It follows him through the conformist ‘50s and the psychedelic ‘60s, with cameos by Benjamin Spock, Walt Disney, Julie Andrews, and The Beatles.

 Marcia - The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell
A twisty thriller the author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries that crosses two centuries and two continents and thoroughly explores the notion of revenge.

David – Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky
I am of the opinion that David Foster Wallace was a genius and sort of my soul twin (minus the whole clinical depression thing). So I will read anything written by or about him. He somehow articulates the thoughts that I never even thought about thinking.

 Marie: Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
So much to talk about in just under 200 pages. Wow! A taxidermist and a novelist working together on a play about a howler monkey and a donkey? I will definitely be talking about this one for a while so stay tuned!

Be sure to check our Staff Picks page for more of our recent favorites.

I’ve begun to notice a pattern in my reading. This happens a lot. I’ll jump from historical fiction to literary coming-of-age stories to popular best sellers and back, gobbling them all up along the way.

It seems there is an abundance of Appalachian fiction these days and it would appear that I am slightly addicted to it. We all know how I felt after reading Sweeping Up Glass. I also ventured outside the Random House family last fall and read Velva Jean Learns to Drive and The Well and the Mine, both fine reads. My latest favorite, Bloodroot, is set in East Tennesse’s Smoky Mountains and follows three generations of a family haunted by secrets and madness, blood red love and intense hatred, from the Great Depression to present day. And I must say I agree with a fellow Goodreads.com member who said not to be fooled by the peaceful looking cover, this book is vicious. A debut novel, it is wonderfully written. Somber and heartbreaking, even the most difficult moments are gorgeous. Also woven into the narrative and the lives of the characters are smidges of magical realism that enable the reader to vividly imagine each wild woman and her “haint blue” eyes as well as the ghosts that haunt the residents of Bloodroot Mountain. 

This one is available now. Pick it up. You won’t be sorry!

-Marie

Happy New Year!  I’d like to share our latest and greatest resource for the book clubs @ your library - the Random House Library Book Club brochure! 

You’ll find top picks from our Spring 2010 releases, along with sample discussion questions, links for more resources, and readers advisory hints.

It’s available online as well as in print.  They will be hot off the press at Midwinter!  We are also happy to send them to you in the mail, just send your address to library@randomhouse.com if you’d like to receive some copies.

This past weekend Erica, our RHAcademic co-worker Lani, and I flew to Atlanta for the National Council for Social Studies conference. Aside from the great perks of traveling (my personal fave is not having to make my own bed!) one wonderful thing about conferences is that it gives me a chance to discover or rediscover books that somehow missed my radar. This was the case with I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.

I picked up a galley copy of this slim book as I was drawn to the  image of a beautiful little girl on the cover. Then I noticed the title. 10 years old and divorced?! I was immediately intrigued. Nujood, a Yemeni girl, had no record of the exact date or year of her birth but it was around age ten that she was married, without her consent, to a man three times her senior. She endured life as a wife, forbidden to play or do other childlike things, until one day she decided to get out. She slipped away to a courthouse where she asked to see a judge and demanded a divorce. Her request was granted and Nujood became the first child bride in Yemen to divorce her husband, setting precendence for so many others. 

She writes, “I am a simple village girl whose family had to move to the capital, and I have always obeyed the orders of the men in my family. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today, I have decided to say no.” Nujood’s story is written in her voice and its childlike simplicity is exactly what makes it so powerful. Actions are alluded to, feelings are described, and the reader experiences it all with Nujood, from her family struggles to tasting “bizza” and “bebsi” for the first time.

While reading, I often found myself imagining what it would have been like to read this book as a young adult. It is a perfect addition to your Young Adult collection, great for parent/teen reading groups and school assignments. I have no doubt readers of all ages will be inspired and humbled by Nujood’s experience.  

I am Nujood will be published in March 2010. Be sure to add it to your lists!  

 -Marie

My absolute favorite thing about working in publishing is meeting the authors.  And yesterday, we got to meet Kris Radish! She was just as fabulous as I had imagined and sent us away with goodies to raffle off to libraries!

Share with us your favorite novel from Radish and we’ll pick one lucky librarian to receive a signed copy of The Shortest Distance Between Two Women, a Radish women’s visor, and more!

And keep an eye on your holds lists and get those preorders ready! Kris’s lastest novel, Hearts on a String, will be out in May!

-Erica

Raise your hand if you’re in a book club.

We’ve posted a bit about them here in the past and each month I send out a nice little e-newsletter out specifically focusing on book groups. (Click here if you don’t already receive it but want to.) If you’re in a book club you know that title choice is a big deal. As are the logistics of who, when, and where. Just ask the New York Times.

My fellow club cohort Kayleigh (say that five times fast) and I began our own little group a few months ago and for us title choice is all about democracy. Members think of titles and then we all vote. Whichever title gets the most votes wins. Easy, right? Well, because life is busy and planning a date to meet often seems harder than brokering  peace negotiations, I now have one week to read said book. Eeek!

Back when I still lived at “home” I considered joining my library book club. (Shout out to the Carlsbad Public Library!) I was intrigued by the types of books that were chosen and always wondered who got the fun job of choosing them. Mondays were for Classics, Tuesdays were more hodge-podge, and so on. Now that I work in library marketing and know a bit about what goes into the book group efforts on our side, I’m curious to know how it works on your end. So humor me if you will…

Does your library have a book group? If so, how do you select the books that your patrons read?

Gesine Bullock-Prado’s memoir is out today and she has provided Reading Group Choices with a recipe for whoopie pies! It’s official.  My baked good of choice, straight from my grandmother’s Maine kitchen is now officially nationally known.  Famous even.  Gone are the explanations and descriptions that have plagued me for years.  Roommates and coworkers have all needed to be initiated, which my grandmother has always been happy to assist with.

For your next book group meeting, whip up some whoopie!

-Erica (and the fact that she is related to Sandra Bullock makes me love her even more. Sandra Bullock knows about whoopie pies?! Yes, I am that easy to impress.)

Did anyone know that Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 completely on a pay typewriter in the basement of a library? It’s true. And even today, endorsed by the National Endowment of the Arts as one of their “Big Read” selections, it remains one of the most popular One Book, One Community choices in the U.S. I mean, check out this list from the Library of Congress website:

Anchorage (Alaska) 2007
Safford City (Graham County) (Arizona) 2007
Fayetteville (Arkansas) 2007
Bakersfield (California) 2005
Carlsbad (California) 2006
Concord (California) 2007
Long Beach (California) 2005
Los Angeles (California) 2002 April
Nevada County (California) 2005
Redwood City (California) 2007
Santa Clarita Valley (California) 2007
Silicon Valley (California) 2004
Sonoma County (California) 2007
Eastern Connecticut (Connecticut) 2003
Glastonbury (Connecticut) 2005
Norwalk (Connecticut) 2008
Jacksonville (Florida) 2003
Palm Beach (Florida) 2002 March – April
Boise (Idaho) 2006
Bloomington-Normal (Illinois) 2005
Kankakee County (Illinois) 2003
Libertyville (Illinois) 2006
Peoria (Illinois) 2008 (TBR)
Allen County (Fort Wayne) (Indiana) 2003
Bloomington (Indiana) 2007 (TBR)
Carmel (Indiana) 2003 (adult) -
Lafayette (Indiana) 2002
Topeka (Kansas) 2007 (TBR)
Baton Rouge (Louisiana) 2008
Bridgewater (Massachusetts) 2008-09 #1 -
Martha’s Vineyard (Massachusetts) 2003 (adults) -
South Hadley (Massachusetts) 2006
Springfield (Massachusetts) 2006
East Lansing (Michigan) 2002
Kalamazoo (Michigan) 2003 Feb. 17- March 30
South Haven (Michigan) 2007
Omaha (Nebraska) 2004
Northern Nevada (and the Tahoe region of northern California) (Nevada) 2007
* State-wide program (New Hampshire) 2007 (TBR)
* State-wide program (New Jersey) 2003
Utica (New York) 2004
Wake County (North Carolina) 2003
Delaware County (Ohio) 2003 July
Greater Cleveland Area (Ohio) 2003 Feb-Apr
Claremore (Oklahoma) 2006
Multnomah County/Portland (Oregon) 2004
Erie (Pennsylvania) 2004
Houston (Texas) 2003
Tacoma (Washington) 2003 Feb.
Sweetwater County (Wyoming) 2007

We’ve produced a Teacher’s Guide, and now, for the reluctant readers in your community, our friends at Macmillan have just published a graphic novel adaptation of the book! But is it right for your community? Well, I guess only you would know. We do have more suggestions–a whole brand new catalog, in fact. Click below to see the PDF, or just write to us at library@randomhouse.com to request a hard copy!