Citizen Reader

A weekly selection of reading and book news, sometimes with completely inappropriate commentary.

Oh ho ho, the old "blank book" joke. Evidently there's nothing new under the sun.

A reference librarian makes a patron happy. I do so love reference librarians.

Collection development: a centralized approach.

How a book club for middle school girls is "giving them the chance to grow."

I agree with this: did the Obamas really need a $65 million dollar book deal? Here's my absolute favorite quote from that article: "When John Edwards was first running for president, I remember thinking, Well, maybe? Then I read that he lived in a 20,000-square-foot house and, I thought, Forget it. Only an asshole wants to live in a house that big (and look how right I was about that)." That's all kinds of awesome. I don't know who this Rebecca Johnson is, who wrote this article, but evidently she's written a novel titled And Sometimes Why. Go buy it.

Robert James Waller, author of The Bridges of Madison Country, has died at age 77. Children's book author Nancy Willard: Obituary.

"Under the spell of James Baldwin." I should really read some James Baldwin.

Orson Scott Card: now entering contests to become a screenwriter.

Malcolm Gladwell: Do more choices make us happier?

Expect a new John le Carre novel this year.

A new novel by Marian Keyes is expected this autumn; Jojo Moyes plans a new release for early 2018.

"Wonder Woman: Official Origin"--Trailer.

Stephen King is reportedly happy with the new big-screen adaptation of "It."

"Game of Thrones": Season 7 teaser.

Elena Ferrante's Naples novels will be adapted for television.

I miss Buffy.

Book display idea: "Whose (first) line is it anyway?"

Happy 200th birthday, HarperCollins!

Introducing the New Yorker poetry bot.

The Story Prize winner: Rick Bass.

Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction: Longlist.

2017 PEN/Faulkner Award: Finalists.

Becky at RA for All has a new section for book suggestions called THE WAY BACK MACHINE.

Ah, my home state, making the news again, this time for trying to kill a magazine about conservation.

NONFICTION BOOK NEWS

A new nonfiction genre of "anti-self-help"? I'm on board! (Although I read a ton of self-help; what can I say, I need a lot of help.) But this new genre promises a lot of profanity.

Remember the book Hillbilly Elegy, that we talked about? Here's a great article about how it's becoming the darling of everyone who thinks all poor people deserve to be poor because they don't work hard enough.

Nelson Mandela's presidential memoir will be published in autumn 2017.

A review of Joan Didion's new collection, South and West.

Advice columnist and frequent NPR "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me..." contributor Amy Dickinson has a new memoir out. I'm not really a big Amy Dickinson fan, but I feel bad for you: it's got to be hard to try and keep up with Paula Poundstone on "Wait,Wait, Don't Tell Me..."

The hot nonfiction graphic novel this month is "Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies that will Improve And/Or Ruin Everything."

Author "unravels her spy dad's life" in new memoir.

Ho-hum, another political memoir: this one by John Kerry.

Oh, George W. Bush's book of portraits he's painted of soldiers is a best seller. That's nice. Remember George? The man who sent a lot of people to their deaths based on lies? The braindead legacy president and his two evil henchmen Cheney and Rumsfeld? (Related: Jenna and Barbara are co-writing a memoir. Brother. That's got to be a scintillating read. "I was born rich and am now richer. And my dad got to be president! Yay, us!")

Somebody remind me about this in October, all right? Parker Posey to publish a memoir then.

David Shields, one of my least favorite authors of all time, has a new book coming out. Here's the tagline: "The essays in David Shields’s “Other People” reveal him to be an elusive, humorous ironist particularly interested in sex, sports, selfhood, actors and fiction." BORING.

The New York Times: on a feminism convention that energized the anti-feminism faction; why do people sign up for for-profit higher education?; a new book on anxiety and compulsions that I'm going to have to read, once I get a free moment from the million anxieties in my own head tonight; the brain and the nature of guilt and innocence; ; a new book about Oliver Sacks by the man he fell in love with only a few years before he passed away; a science journalist on the convergence of all things scientific.

BOOK LISTS

IndieBound: bestselling books the week of March 9.

LibraryReads: April 2017.

Ten authors who will give your brain a workout.

Audiobooks that celebrate women's achievements.

8 books for March 8: International Women's Day.

Well, this list should keep you busy for a while: 150 Memoirs and Biographies of Women, by Women.

Christian Science Monitor: Favorite personal finance books. I don't know. Not really a huge fan of any of these titles and I reviewed a Dave Ramsey title once that had gotten some pretty basic IRA information wrong, so I haven't been able to take Dave Ramsey seriously since.

Men breaking the rules...by writing believable women's fiction.

MY READING NOTES

Okay, here's an article about the college "hook-up culture" and how it works for high-status student athletes. I can see why I didn't have the heart to read the whole book. It's nothing you didn't already know, really, but it's so depressing to read it so starkly recorded. Except I've already read a whole book on the subject: the excellent Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity. That's a good book to read around college football bowl game time, or March Madness.

Not really book related, but this is the scariest fucking idea I've ever seen: Zuckerberg for President.

I take it back: I finished David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, and THAT is a scary read.

I haven't gone to a book sale for ages, but when I was in my public library on Saturday and saw they were having a $3 per bag sale, I couldn't help myself. I got some AWESOME stuff. John Steinbeck's The Red Pony, oh so heartbreaking, I don't even know if I want the CRjrs to read it (but I really kinda do); a book of photographs of New York City; shark books for the elder CRjr; a puzzle book for Mr. CR. It felt so good to buy a pile of old books again.

AND HERE IT IS, YOUR OBLIGATORY NEIL GAIMAN POST

Neil Gaiman journeys to Iceland to unveil American Gods' roots in documentary.