The Oddest Book Title of the Year

What is the oddest book title you've ever seen? Did you know there is an award given each year for just that distinction? And you can help pick this year's winner!

The Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year is administered by The Bookseller, one of the United Kingdom's longest standing magazines having been the business magazine of the British book trade since 1858. The magazine has awarded this humorous honor 38 times since it was first conceived in 1978 as a way to avoid boredom at the Annual Frankfurt Book Fair. :-)

Consider these this year's list of unique titles and vote for your choice before the poll closes on March 15th. Neither the content of the text nor the cover of the book matter, the award is given simply for the title the the book -- the oddest title of the year.

The 2015 nominations for the Diagram Prize are:

• Behind the Binoculars: Interviews with Acclaimed Birdwatchers by Mark Avery and Keith Betton
• Paper Folding with Children by Alice Hornecke and translated by Anna Cardwell
• Reading from Behind: A Cultural History of the Anus by Jonathan Allan
• Reading the Liver: Papyrological Texts on Ancient Greek Extispicy by William Furley and Victor Gysembergh
• Soviet Bus Stops by Christopher Herwig
• Too Naked for the Nazis by Alan Stafford
• Transvestite Vampire Biker Nuns from Outer Space: A Consideration of Cult Film by Mark Kirwan-Hayhoe

Vote on your choice of oddest title now! The winner will be revealed in The Bookseller on March 18. 

Calling All Mystery Fans ...

The 2015 World Mystery Convention: Murder Under the Oaks was held this weekend in Raleigh, NC. 

"The World Mystery Convention is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization which holds an annual convention in honor of Anthony Boucher, the distinguished mystery fiction critic, editor and author. It is the world's premier event bringing together all parts of the mystery and crime fiction community, and is commonly referred to as Bouchercon. [bough'·chur·con]" [Bouchercon World Mystery Convention]

On Saturday, 10/10/2015, this year's Anthony Awards were announced. The Anthony Awards are a literary award for the best in mystery fiction presented since 1986 at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. The award is named in honor of Anthony Boucher, mystery critic, editor, author, and one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America. 

And the 2015 winners are ...

BEST NOVEL:

After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman 

BEST FIRST NOVEL:

The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL:

 The Day She Died by Catriona McPherson 

  

BEST CRITICAL OR NON-FICTION WORK:

Writes of Passage: Adventures on the Writer's Journey edited by Hank Phillippi Ryan 

BEST SHORT STORY:

"The Odds Are Against Us" Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Nov 2014 - Art Taylor 

BEST ANTHOLOGY OR COLLECTION:

In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger 

The full list of 2015 nominees can be found at Anthony Award Nominees and Winners

Next year's Bouchercon: Blood on the Bayou will be held September 15-18, 2016 in New Orleans, LA.

KLA/MLA 2015 Libraries Without Borders Conference!

Yours truly, the RAT Queen, will be presenting at the upcoming state library conference, KLA/MLA 2015 Libraries Without Borders, being held in Kansas City, MO Wednesday, September 20 - Friday, October 2. It is a joint meeting for members of the Missouri Library Association (MLA) and the Kansas Library Association (KLA) which means double the fun and plenty of programs!

Not sure I was thinking clearly when I submitted them but had two proposals of my own* accepted, a general session program and a poster session and then volunteered (Yes, volunteered!) to be a presenter in two others, the Readers' Advisory pre-conference and a 4-speaker panel presentation about YA Lit. It's going to be a busy conference!

If you are coming to Kansas City, look for me at the following:

50 Shades of Quit Judging: Readers' Advisory, Intellectual Freedom, & Personal Taste (Pre-conference)

Developing RA Skills & Moral: Genre Studies & Team Building (general session) *

Six Degrees of Reading (poster session) *

So Your Youth Has Become Historical Fiction: Talk Up Your Era with Today's Readers (general session)


The full conference schedule is available at Libraries Without Borders. Follow the conference on Facebook and also on Twitter with @KLAMLA2015. You can even track all the readers' advisory programs by using hashtag #raBlitz15

Follow-up posts with additional information about each of the sessions listed above are forthcoming, so keep checking back for more! :-)

2015 Hugo Awards Announced

On Saturday evening, August 22nd, the 2015 Hugo Award Winners were announced during the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention, Sasquan, in Spokane, Washington. The Best Novel award went to The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu. 

The 2015 Hugo Award Winners Announced post includes a statement related to the giving of 'No Award' in a number of categories. "The members of the World Science Fiction Society rejected the slate of finalists in five categories, giving No Award in Best Novella, Short Story, Related Work, Editor Short Form, and Editor Long Form. This equals the total number of times that WSFS members have presented No Award in the entire history of the Hugo Awards, most recently in 1977." 

Voting statistics, along with a list of all the finalists, showing the winners highlighted in Red, can be found at 2015 Hugo Awards

And if your from the Midwest and were not aware, MidAmericaCon II, the 74th World Science Fiction Convention, will be held in Kansas City, Missouri in 2016 from August 17-21!

Titles to Watch for NEXT WEEK: August 23-29, 2015

Forthcoming titles which may be of interest ...

ADULT FICTION

The Fall of Princes by Robert Goolrick - "In a compelling, wholly seductive narrative voice, Rooney tells of his high-flying days as a Wall Street trader during the 1980's; however, his fall is as precipitous as his rise, and he recounts his days of great wealth and even greater excess with both wistfulness and regret, never failing to mention the people he hurt along the way." (Booklist review, June 2015)

A Good Family by Erik Fassnacht - "Fassnacht's debut works as a read-alike for both Jennifer Weiner and Jonathan Franzen for the way it so convincingly melds domestic drama, suburban angst, and beautifully descriptive writing." (Booklist review, July 2015)

• Fantasy 

Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore - "In San Francisco, the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing and you know that can't be good in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore's delightfully funny sequel to A Dirty Job" (HarperCollins, publisher)

• Historical Fiction

Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig - "Raised in the mid-1950's by his beloved grandmother in Montana's Two Medicine Country, orphaned Donal Kyle fells as if he's been tossed into cold water when Gram, recovering from surgery, sends him to live with her bossy and mean-spirited sister in Wisconsin. Aunt Kate is so put out with Kyle that she sends him back, to be placed in the custody of the authorities. Gratifyingly, though, Kate's harassed husband slips away to join him." (Library Journal review, March 2015)

• Mystery

Last Ragged Breath by Julia Keller (A Bell Elkin mystery)  - "A beautifully craftey mystery in which Keller (Summer of the Dead, 2014, etc.) explores love, hate, and poverty in a place of stunning natural beauty with pockets of overwhelming ugliness. The ending may leave you in tears." (Kirkus Reviews, June 2015)




Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny (A Chief Inspector Gamache novel) - "A strong sense of place, a multilayered plot, and well-crafted (and for Penny's fans, familiar) characters combine for a thoughtful, intriguing tale. More than a simple mystery, Penny's novel peels away the emotional and psychological layers of the inhabitants of Three Pines." (LJ Reviews, July 2015)


X by Sue Grafton - " ... features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton waste little time identifying this sociopath. The test is whether Kinsey can prove her case against him before she becomes his next victim." (Penguin Putnam, publisher)

• Suspense Thriller

 Iron Wolf by Dale Brown - "The first woman president of the United States is tested by a Russian invasion of Ukraine and Moldova that compel a previous U.S. president to organize a radical counterattack involving manned robot soldiers." (NoveList annotation)

• Women's Fiction

If You Only Knew by Kristan Higgins - "A divorced wedding-dress designer tries to extricate herself from her ex-husband's new life by moving from Manhattan to her suburban hometown, just in time to see her sister's marriage rocked by a sexually graphic text." (Kirkus Reviews, July 2015)

A Window Opens: A Novel by Elisabeth Egan - "... Elisabeth Egan brings us Alice Pearse, a compulsively honest, longing-to-have-it-all, sandwich generation heroine for our social-media-obsessed, lean in (or opt out) age. Like her fictional forebears Kate Reddy and Bridget Jones, Alice plays many roles (which she never refers to as "wearing many hats" and wishes you wouldn't, either)." (Simon and Schuster, publisher)

ADULT NONFICTION 

Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots by John Markoff - "...New York Times reporter John Markoff, the first reporter to cover the World Wide Web, offers a sweeping history of the complicated and evolving relationship between humans and computers." (HarperCollins, publisher)


Rising Strong by Brené Brown, Ph.D. - " Brené Brown isn’t a spiritual guru, or someone who’s risen from the ashes to tell us how to live our lives. She’s a researcher. And Rising Strong isn’t some feel-good-get-over-it regimen; it’s more investigative reporting on the common denominators of people who whole-heartedly get back up and go another round after getting their asses handed to them in big and small ways." (Amazon Best Books of August 2015 review)

• Biography / Memoir

The Face That Changed It All: A Memoir by Beverly Johnson - "Featuring stunning never-before-seen photos, the first black supermodel to grace the cover of Vogue and one of the most successful glamour girls ever shares her childhood growing up in the racially charges 1960's, her meteoric rise to fame, her struggles with racism, drug addiction and divorce and her triumph over adversity." (Baker & Taylor annotation)

Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman by Greg Grandin - "A new account of American's most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of American's current imperial stance." (McMillan Palgrave, publisher)




The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion by Tracy Daugherty - "Explores the life of the distinguished American author and journalist, following Didion's life as a young woman in Sacramento to her adult life as a writer interviewing those who know and knew her personally. (Baker & Taylor annotation)

September 2015 LibraryReads Top Ten Announced

And the September favorite is ...

The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo 

 “At once tragic and hilarious, this book is a roller coaster of a read. You'll find yourself rooting for the snarky and impulsive but ultimately lovable Mattie. At the heart of this tale is a beautifully unraveled mystery that has led Mattie to her current circumstances, ultimately bringing her to her first real home.” Patricia Kline-Millard, Bedford Public Library, Bedford, NH



The rest of the LibraryReads September Top Ten are: 

Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child 

House of Thieves by Charles Belfoure

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young

Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison

Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart

The Scribe: A Novel by Matthew Guinn

The full list with annotations is available at LibraryReads

For those who enjoy listening to an audio version, here is a link to a recent Booklist Reader post about the September 2015 LibraryReads on Audio! 

RA Tip: Display Ideas for August

I subscribe to Famous Daily and receive an email each morning showing fun informational facts related that day. The posts include 'on this day in history' events, celebrity birthdays, and even subject specific spotlights for 'On this day in' business, entertainment, geography, and sports. 

Any one of these would make an interesting topic for creating a display. 

Consider instead mixing the events together and develop a month long display featuring titles related to selected fun facts. Choose a specific day of the week, such as Monday, to use as a turn over point for swapping out the events and refreshing the materials in the display. 

A simple full or half-size sheet (depending on the size of the display area) could be typed up listing 'On this day ...' topics along with a question or statement to tease the interest of customers. An alternative would be to make individual fold-over tents for each topic, matching them up with groupings of subject specific material throughout the display. Either could be switched out each week as the display turns over to highlight new events.

This creates a rotating display that can run all month long, keeping it fresh with the inclusion of a new set of materials each week. Staff can plan everything in advance by picking the day to use as the turn over point, choosing which events to highlight (or not), and then gathering material ahead of time to include in the display. Don't forget to mix Adult, Teen, and Children's titles along with varying formats, including e-Media!

For example, using the heading: Fun Facts for August 3rd

On this day ...

In 1996 - "The Macarena" reached #1 on the charts 

• How many times/places did you see this dance performed at events throughout the year?

In 1980 - Closing ceremonies of Summer Olympics take place, without the U.S., who had boycotted the games

• Did you know anyone who was on the U.S. Olympic team that year?

In 1934 - Adolph Hitler became Fuhrer of Germany

• Ultimately leading to WWII and a sad time in world history ...

In 1492 - Christopher Columbus began the journey in which he 'discovered' America

• And look where we are today ...

Celebrity birthdays for days-of-the-month can make for a fun display as well. 

Create a calendar, add a few names for each day, then find books, music CDs, DVD's etc, in the branch collection which are representative of all the birthday girls & boys. This is a great way to mix media into a display. 

August 3rd birthdays: 

• Evangeline Lilly (of 'Lost' and the current, popular movie 'Ant Man' fame) turns 36 
• Tom Brady (Quarterback & Superbowl MVP/Champion) turns 38
• Martha Stewart (entrepreneur, domestic diva & TV personality) turns 74
• Martin Sheen (movie actor, father of Emilio Estevez & Charlie Sheen) turns 75
• Tony Bennett (pop singer, known for rendition of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco") turns 89

Check out famousdaily.com for more August 3rd (or any other day) fun facts to consider using for displays in the branch.

July LibraryReads Titles!

The Top Ten LibraryReads list for July was announced today and the winners are:

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal (also the current Penguin First Flights Debut Author selection) 

"This novel is quirky and colorful. The story revolves around chef Eva Thorvald and the people who influence her life and cooking. With well-drawn characters and mouthwatering descriptions of meals, Kitchens of the Great Midwest will appeal to readers who like vivid storytelling. Foodies will also enjoy this delicious tale."
Anbolyn Potter, Chandler Public Library, Chandler, AZ 

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain (author of The Paris Wife)

Kiss Me by Susan Mallery (A new 'Fool's Gold' romance!)

Second Chance Summer by Jill Shalvis ("... the sparks fly in this solid, light romance from the always-reliable Shalvis." - PW Reviews)

Speaking in Bones by Kathy Reichs (Temperance Brennan is back; also have CD spoken On Order)

Those Girls by Chevy Stevens (also have Large Print edition On Order)

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid ("Entertaining and unpredictable" - Kirkus Reviews; a "love story that asks tough questions..." - LJ Reviews)

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans ("A charming, slanted counterpoint to Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See." - LJ Reviews) 

Love Lies Beneath by Ellen Hopkins (Author is known for her YA fiction, this is a new psychological thriller for adults)

Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day by Leanne Brown (Bet you thought LibraryReads didn't cover Nonfiction - NO, way!; reserves are up, so more copies On Order RUSH)

 

The July list with all annotations can be found at: LibraryReads

Hey, SCCCLD staff, want to nominate an August ARC you just got from the recent 'ARCs Around the Library' email? Voting for August LibraryReads titles is open until June 20. 

For information on how to nominate a title​, go to their 'For Library Staff' page.​