Holler If Ya Read Me: African-American Writers-€”and Readers-Fret Over the Future of Thug Lit

bookstacks:

But Ms. Clark actually went one step better. Or worse. She switched places with her husband. She was released from prison in 2007 after serving nine and a half years for mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. She’d been the ringleader of an illegal scheme that solicited thousands of dollars from consumers to put into a pot and then paid out to different “winners” at different times. She wrote her fiction longhand on yellow legal pads, the pages of which circulated through the jail compound at Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, W.Va., with prisoners reading one page at a time then passing it on. It was there that Ms. Clark served time with a wealthy mogul named Martha Stewart, who served as an inspiration and an occasional business adviser. “She did her little five months like a trouper and was always willing to help you out if she could,” Ms. Clark told the Urban Book Source in 2007.

YES YES YES. Don’t know a lot about Street Lit? Love Street Lit? @Brentwood, we try to keep abreast of all the hottest books. Anything you want ordered? In time for the start of Summer, Just Let us know!

When I was browsing for myself lately on C/W MARS’s OverDrive, I discovered we have A LOT of urban fiction. I wonder, though, if this is a good format match. Seems like it would be better to have cheapy paperbacks, although at least with digital you don’t have to worry about theft. What’s your feel on the genre?

Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce (2012)

Scenario: After disappearing as a teenager twenty years ago, Tara Martin reappears on her parents’ doorstep on Christmas Day with an incredible explanation for her absence.

Pros:

  • Tara’s explanation kept me reading, hoping, suspecting, fearing.
  • A compelling, modern update on the fairy story that draws on the English folklore tradition but doesn’t feel derivative or too fantastical.
  • Tara’s extended family and its response to her arrival broadens the novel from being simply about the one question — Where was she? — to address, more broadly, how a family can move on (or not), love (or not) and trust (or not) in the face of tragedy and mystery.
  • The working-class setting is refreshing, and the descriptions of the English countryside lovely.

Cons:

  • Some pretty strong language and sexual content, if that’s a concern for your reader.

Bottom Line: I need to try more Graham Joyce. This book could be a good fit both for literary and fantasy readers, though the content definitely puts it squarely in the adult camp.

librarymayhem: thecardiganlibrarian: themugglelibrarian: carrieryan: I have a new eOriginal short story set in the Forest of Hands and Teeth World coming out on May 14, 2013!  Similar to Hare Moon, this short story, What Once We Feared, will only be available in digital formats and you can get it anywhere ebooks are sold: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books a Million | Google [I’ll add more links as they become available - some sites don’t have a way to pre-order digital works] What Once We Feared is a 7,000 word story set right at the moment the Return (aka zombie apocalypse) hits and follows a group of teens trying to survive. SO excited for this!! Can we talk about the phenomenon of electronic-only low-priced, short-form promotional tie-ins to YA novels? Is there an analog equivalent? How do we feel about this as a trend? How do we handle these in our collection development? It’s happening with adult authors, too; Lee Child is the first to come to mind. I have patrons who request them and when I tell them it’s in digital format only, they usually respond exasperatedly, because they don’t own a Kindle or a Nook or a whatever. I might be able to license it for my library’s downloadable collection, but even they still wouldn’t have access to it unless I also load it onto a checkoutable eReader for them. We do circulate preloaded Nooks, so I guess I could pay for five copies of each title and have them on those… But there’s something about this that just makes me bristle. And I don’t mean to single out any authors in particular - it’s just not a publishing trend I have positive feelings for. And who is driving this trend? The authors? Or the publishing companies? I didn’t know about the adult authors! Our consortium has access to some of these mini teen titles through Overdrive, which is where I first encountered them. (We don’t have checkoutable ereaders, however.) Right now I’m reading Requiem, and just read Hana, the short tie-in story that (I guess?) precedes it, through Overdrive. And the little story, while an entertaining way to pass the time in waiting for your copy of the anticipated sequel, is definitely not necessary to following the plot of the “real book.” I could see Hana being a fun, almost fan-fiction-y treat for the true Delirium devotee, though. As a complicating factor, even if budgets allow for the acquisition of these materials, I’m not sure how many teens are into e-reading, even if a fair number of them could theoretically download Kindle apps to their smartphones.
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librarymayhem:

thecardiganlibrarian:

themugglelibrarian:

carrieryan:

I have a new eOriginal short story set in the Forest of Hands and Teeth World coming out on May 14, 2013!  Similar to Hare Moon, this short story, What Once We Feared, will only be available in digital formats and you can get it anywhere ebooks are sold: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books a Million | Google [I’ll add more links as they become available - some sites don’t have a way to pre-order digital works]

What Once We Feared is a 7,000 word story set right at the moment the Return (aka zombie apocalypse) hits and follows a group of teens trying to survive.

SO excited for this!!

Can we talk about the phenomenon of electronic-only low-priced, short-form promotional tie-ins to YA novels? Is there an analog equivalent? How do we feel about this as a trend? How do we handle these in our collection development?

It’s happening with adult authors, too; Lee Child is the first to come to mind. I have patrons who request them and when I tell them it’s in digital format only, they usually respond exasperatedly, because they don’t own a Kindle or a Nook or a whatever. I might be able to license it for my library’s downloadable collection, but even they still wouldn’t have access to it unless I also load it onto a checkoutable eReader for them.

We do circulate preloaded Nooks, so I guess I could pay for five copies of each title and have them on those… But there’s something about this that just makes me bristle. And I don’t mean to single out any authors in particular - it’s just not a publishing trend I have positive feelings for. And who is driving this trend? The authors? Or the publishing companies?

I didn’t know about the adult authors! Our consortium has access to some of these mini teen titles through Overdrive, which is where I first encountered them. (We don’t have checkoutable ereaders, however.)

Right now I’m reading Requiem, and just read Hana, the short tie-in story that (I guess?) precedes it, through Overdrive. And the little story, while an entertaining way to pass the time in waiting for your copy of the anticipated sequel, is definitely not necessary to following the plot of the “real book.” I could see Hana being a fun, almost fan-fiction-y treat for the true Delirium devotee, though.

As a complicating factor, even if budgets allow for the acquisition of these materials, I’m not sure how many teens are into e-reading, even if a fair number of them could theoretically download Kindle apps to their smartphones.

Source: carrieryan

I think the young adult books that spoke to you when you were 11 and pre-pubescent (awful word; we now call it tween, which is possibly more awful) form your adult tastes. For me it was Madeline L’ Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time with a side of Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion. It was a direct path from here into fantasy, sci-fi, adventure stories and animals.

Give me some Call It Courage about a cannibal island or Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf. Also The Yearling. A Separate Peace. Charlotte’s Web. The Phantom Tollbooth. And now I’m re-reading these things.

Why do this, when there are so much great new books to discover? 1) I have kids and they are just getting into the American Y.A. canon, and 2) I believe T.S. Eliot when he said in Little Gidding (which I learned is a place, and not as I had thought, a little girl), “We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.
Reading Young Adult Literature in Middle Age (via bookriot)

(via bookriot)

The Crown of Embers, Rae Carson (2012)

You didn’t know I read The Girl of Fire and Thorns, but I did. It was just while I was dying. I read it lying on my side curled in the fetal position about two weeks into morning sickness, and since I couldn’t write a review in that position, it goes unchronicled.

Scenario: Continuing a few months from where The Girl of Fire and Thorns left off, here Elisa’s position as queen in Joya d’Arena is far from secure. Fleeing the pressure to remarry and hoping to finally fulfill the destiny promised by her Godstone, Elisa sets off on a quest across the desert once more.

Pros:

  • Semi-Catholic religious elements! Though it gets weirder here in Book #2, the inclusion of religion here is refreshing. It may just be because I personally am a person of faith, but I’m always on the lookout for protagonists whose choices are informed by belief — I don’t remember finding many (non-hokey) ones when I was a teen.
  • There’s something a little Narnian about the places Elisa passes through on her quest, and in my book, that’s always a good thing.
  • Elisa is such a different protagonist, low in confidence, but strategically brilliant. There have been a lot of Katniss/Katsa types recently, and while I’m grateful for the trend in strong female leads, I feel like Elisa better reflects the insecurity of many teens, while giving them hope that they, too, can be heroes.

Cons:

  • Apparently I am not the only one to get the Treasure Troll vibes.
  • Parts of this (vs. #1) read as sort of a poor man’s Kristin Cashore. Which, when it comes to reader’s advisory, could be a good thing, but I’m not sure it really plays to Carson’s strengths in Fire and Thorns.

Bottom Line: This was pretty distinctly a Middle Book, but I’ll eagerly read #3 to see what happens to the queen, her love and her imperiled kingdom. As noted above, it’s a good fit for Cashore fans, and I’ve also heard there’s some good overlap for Tamora Pierce fans — though I haven’t read any of her myself.

Francis and Bernard, Carlene Bauer (2013)

Scenario: As young writers, Frances and Bernard meet at an artists’ colony and strike up a correspondence that will take them through love, faith and beyond.

Pros:

  • Got the rec for this from Annie Butterworth’s review on Turning Point, which I recommend for discovering good new books. Annie’s an indie bookseller and a thoughtful reader, besides being someone I knew IRL as a teenager.
  • Epistolary novel based on the correspondence of Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell – and I LOVE Flannery O’Connor.
  • The prose is beautiful, the truths surprising, the romance sad.

Cons:

  • Frances/Flannery is not Southern! While I am impressed that she still retains some of her dry humor even without what I would have thought was a crucial aspect of her personality, I missed the opportunity to read about a Georgia girl.
  • A coworker friend of mine — another excellent source of book suggestions — complained she couldn’t get through this because she just kept wishing she had the ACTUAL correspondence between the two real-life authors. I can sympathize.

Bottom Line: A fairly quick, pretty, thought-provoking read, if not always completely satisfactory. I see this working well for a book club pick, as well as a hit with your resolutely highbrow patrons.

Bonus: other reviews, one by Annie and two less enthusiastic reviews at the NY Times, here and here

pandamans:

thegirlandherbooks:

classicpenguin:

Dear Internet,

We’ve been hard at work on an app that we’ve called Poems by Heart. It’s a fun memorization game that will challenge you with classic poems from the greats: Shakespeare, Poe, Dickinson, Whitman, Keats, Carroll…. You’ll rank, you’ll improve, and you can share your newly perfected recitations online with friends. Oh, and it’s free to download.

Happy Poetry Month!

Love, 
Penguin Classics

P.S. Jen Wang, the wonderful illustrator for the app, talks about the process of creating all the art on a blog post here!

Dear Pengiun Classics,

I appreciate your efforts, and am looking forward to this so very much.

Love,
Laura

ooo shiny and nice.

This almost makes me regret that I still own a dumb phone.

Source: classicpenguin