Author: admin

New Books for Spring and Summer

Spring brings so many new titles to read!  Many new entries by my favorite authors and some discoveries make me eager for this season each year.  

Do you keep up with the releases of your favorite authors?  There are several ways to  do this – here are a few:

  • Publisher websites — if you know your author’s publisher, here is where you go to find out the upcoming titles.  If you are like me – a true bibliophile – you have too many publishers to check in with to make this work out.
  • Bookstore websites — another option that casts a broader net to catch all your favorite authors.
  • Sign up for author alerts at Goodreads.com or Amazon.com.  These will work well for new releases.  Goodreads really helps you connect with authors if they are active on the site.
  • If you are a book ominvore, sign up for new book alert services such as Any New Books.  I really like this service and have signed up for several categories, from Nonfiction to genre fiction.
  • Are you a library user — I sure hope so!  If not, go directly to your library without stopping and get your free library card!  It’s the best deal going for books and a lot more.  I’ve signed up for new book alerts in several categories.  Now that I’ve moved to Las Vegas, I have found the same excellent functionality, both for print and for ebooks at the Las Vegas-Clark County Public Library.
  • Professional journals — both library and publishing: these are invaluable resources for the newest titles.  The quantity of reviews is daunting, but categorization helps.  I recommend the following for free access:
  • Library Journal (no question, this is a fantastic resource – find it at your library if you want the print copy)
  • Publisher’s Weekly (ful reviews require a subscription)
  • Kirkus Reviews (also much requires a subscription)
  • BookPage (a favorite of mine and no subscription required! Based in Nashville, TN, too!)
  • NPR – I find out about many good and unusual books by listening to NPR and also viewing their website.  Nicely done!

Next time, I’ll take you through some great video review sites.

Free e-books

There are many sources of free e-books, the grandmother of which is Project Gutenburg.  And don’t forget your own public library!  You won’t ‘own’ these ebooks, but you can borrow them.  Who knows if we really ‘own’ any of our bought ebooks, in any case? If you want to be informed of the latest free books, there are several services available that will send you daily or frequent emails about the latest free or inexpensive ebooks available.  I’ve found a few gems in the emails sent to me from these services.  And please note that they usually include other books which are not free, but are a modest price –  typically under $3.  Here are a few that I use (let me know if you have additional sourceds):

    1. Bookperk  (a Harper Collins initiative)
    2. Bookbub
    3. Sweet Free Books
    4. OneHundredFreeBooks

The book sellers online also have free ebooks, although sometimes you need to have search savvy to uncover them.

Kobo makes it easy to find their free ebooks, with a page dedicated to these.  It helpfully divides the books into categories, too.

Barnes and Noble booksellers also have a listing of their Nook free ebooks, also divided into categories.

The biggie Amazon has a free or low-cost ebook page, but there are other ways to search out free ebooks (though not easy).  To start, just browse their collection page. You can also sign up for the Kindle Daily Deal, which often introduces the reader to excellent writers. I have to give Amazon some praise here for turning me onto a favorite and high quality series by a free ebook, the first of  James Benn’s Billy Boyle series.  What a great writer and a beautifully rendered series on a Boston cop turned soldier during WWII.

Not a bookseller (although owned by Amazon), GoodReads has a listing of downloadable ebooks right from their site. I expect these change rapidly, though.

Even university presses have gotten into the promotion business.  The venerable University of Chicago Press will send you a free epub book each month.  While some of these are undisputably academic, the selectors do tend to pick those with quirky titles and topics – not bad!  Get on their email list.  These are quality books.Warning:  many of these free ebook deals are only available for one day, so act immediately if something looks worthwhile!

ACRL 2015

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) meets every two years – this year the conference was held in lovely, weird Portland, Oregon.  The weather was wonderfully warm for the end of March.  As this was my first trip to Portland, I really enjoyed the weather, the food, downtown, and the light rail system.

The exhibits hall scene was focused on academic libraries and their needs and issues.  The poster sessions were extremely well attended, and the topics were primarily centered around information literacy, not surprisingly.  This subject is the most pressing for most academic libraries — students simply don’t know how to find information, or, at least, the right kind of authoritative information.  Internet searching won’t do for rigorous research.

Following up on that endless quest to get students to understand and use authoritative resources and information sources, I attended a fascinating, deeply troubling session on bias in Google Search. UCLA’s Dr. Safiyah Noble reported on her research into the bias in search engine results for women and girls.  The message – we cannot trust Google or other commercial search engines to give unbiased results for academic or even casual searches.  There is an agenda and it is money-making.  Dr. Noble’s examples were thorough and highly disturbing.  I recommended taking a deep look at Dr. Noble’s research before you search Google again.

American Libraries Association 2014

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The ALA annual conference was held in hot Las Vegas this year.  I enjoyed it because I was able to visit with my dear daughter.  We had a great time!  We were able to snag quite a few advanced reading copies – I limited myself greatly, but still came away with these great ones.  Looking forward to reading through these in the coming months.

The ProQuest luncheon featured the fascinating Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive.  He spoke on the changing landscape of classified information, post-Snowden.  ProQuest will be adding a new collection to the Digital National Security Archive, based on the most recent declassifications coming through.  Watch for it!  The NSA provides a curated collection of the most important documents released since 1945. Find out more at: http://www.proquest.com/products-services/dnsa.html

What was a highlight of your visit to ALA this year?

July — reading in the summertime

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July already, and I’m finding so many new books to read!  But the garden and beautiful outdoors are very tempting, as well.

Here in the Nashville area, things are heating up to the point where deck reading is no longer an option.

I’m still getting through the Great Group Reads selections — wait until you see the 2014 list of recommendations for book discussion groups!  This list will be full of great choices!

Also sprinkled around my house are some winners and some just plain good reads in various genres.

First up – another entry from the only animal-perspective series I like:  Spencer Quinn’s Bernie and Chet series.  The newest is Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn.  Could anything be more charming that the rough but likable Bernie and his furry companion and hotshot Chet?  Quinn has defined his Arizona landscape very well and branched out with his last book to the bayous of Louisiana.  This time, Bernie and Chet head to DC – and this new environment adds considerable depth and excitement to their adventures.  One of the best!  Highly recommended.