Librarian Power
On NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday, Nancy Pearl recommended several titles, sending all of them up the Amazon sales rankings.
Nancy brought a stack of books, but was only able to talk about four — the full list, with Nancy’s written commentary on each title, is at the NPR Web site, where you can also listen to the segment. Below are the titles she discussed on air, by Amazon sales rankings.
#163 from #40,504 yesterday
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli — Nancy says two great Vietnam novels published this Spring; this one and Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes (Atlantic Monthly Press, 3/23).
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# 166 from 45,829 yesterday
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel — Nancy found a great way to avoid relying on plot when she described both this and the author’s new title, The Singer’s Gun; “Reading them is like looking through the viewfinder of a camera. At first, it’s a real tight closeup. As the pages turn, the viewfinder gets bigger and bigger until you see where all the characters belong and what their back stories are.”
By the way, if you are not familiar with the independent publisher of these titles, Unbridled Books, they are worth getting to know. They’ve just celebrated their fifth anniversary, focusing on quality fiction; quite an accomplishment in today’s climate.
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Also in trade pbk; ISBN-13: 9781936071609; 04/06/2010; $14.95
Audio; Recorded Books
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#196 from 21,608 yesterday
Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker — Nancy describes this as “Wodehousian fantasy with a little bit of Mary Poppins.”
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#271 from 7,739 yesterday
Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay — Nancy says it’s one of her life’s missions is to make Guy Gavriel Kay a best seller in the U.S. (he already is in Canada). This is “historical fiction mixed with a little bit of fantasy, so, sadly, it ends up being categorized in fantasy where all those people who love historical fiction will not find it.”
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