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There's an important difference between setting trends and chasing them, and a look at 2011's crop of fantasy and sf finds publishers on the healthy side of the line. Proud [...]

I've always been curious as to whether women feel represented by their portrayal as characters. Since 'Hey, Lucy, I've got some mansplaining to do' would not be a popular start [...]

My wife and I are movie nerds, the kind who sit through credits because we want to know the names of actors, locations, or music used in the film. To [...]

I read dozens of great new releases last year, but my reading took a surprising twist in 2017's closing months. At Williamsburg Regional Library, we had success with 'Jane-uary,' a [...]

As the season for gifts comes around, I have a simple rule of thumb: when in doubt, give a book. Perhaps that's passe for some tastes. Even in the world [...]

I was asked to 'participate' in the ALA Tribunal on Populism and Popular Materials again. Young librarians may not have been exposed to the particular enthusiasms of the tribunals. Yet. [...]

* Grossman, Austin. Crooked. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Jul. 2015. 368p. ISBN 9780316198516. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780316198509. F In Grossman's ingenious latest (after Soon I Will Be Invincible and You), sad-sack [...]

As a lifelong fantasy-fiction fan, I learned ax work from Gimli and the Tin Woodsman. When I tell you I have an ax to grind, you'll know to watch those [...]

Nearing its fifth year since publication, Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking still generates steady demand and remains a popular book-group choice. [...]

In readers' advisory, we talk about appeal factors: elements of plot, character, style, setting, pacing, mood, and tone that combine to form a particular reader's preferences. If we can identify [...]

The materials selection philosophy called 'Give 'em what they want' was first advanced by the Baltimore County Public Library in the 1970s and has now been embraced by most public [...]

With everything the modern library offers in digital searching, holds, and electronic formats, the pleasurable practice of browsing shelves to find the next book is becoming something of a lost [...]

I've been away on a long journey. I spent two years on RUSA's Reading List Council, a nomad on the roads of adrenaline, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, science […]

A major benefit of reading is its capacity to build empathy, to allow us to vicariously try on the thoughts and experiences of others, in the process finding common ground […]

There's a gap in almost every field between the articles in professional or scholarly writing and actual daily practice. On one level, that's great: we need ideals that show what [...]

The period from the late 1980s forward is often called a renaissance for readers' advisory. During those years, we finally put the library fiction question to rest, embracing popular materials [...]

The Dewey decimal system makes an elephant's graveyard, a place where noble beasts go to die, leaving reading treasures that only the most gifted library scavengers and poachers find. This [...]

O'Connor, Scott. Half World. S. & S. Feb. 2014. 320p. ISBN 9781476716596. $26; ebk. ISBN 9781476716619. F O'Connor (Untouchable) creates a fictional account of the infamous CIA program that subjected [...]

Call me Ishmael. Readers' advisory is a great white whale hunt, with every reader's eyes trained on the horizon, searching for the next great book. We think about it obsessively, [...]

* Haig, Matt. The Humans. S. & S. Jul. 2013. 256p. ISBN 9781476727912. $25; ebk. ISBN 8781476727929. F Britain's Haig (The Radleys) makes his living at the intersection of speculative [...]

* Weller, Lance. Wilderness. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Sept. 2012. c.304p. ISBN 9781608199372. $25. F Debut author Weller (winner of Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers) alternates between [...]

Levithan, David. The Lover's Dictionary. Farrar. Feb. 2011. c.224p. ISBN 9780374193683. $23. F YA author Levithan (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) enters the adult market with a novel posing as [...]

Palahniuk, Chuck. Tell-All. Doubleday. May 2010. c.192p. ISBN 978-0-385-52635-7. $24.95. F The latest by Palahniuk (Pygmy) reaches back to Hollywood's Golden Age with Hazie Coogan, a do-it-all assistant who narrates [...]

Flaming, Matthew. The Kingdom of Ohio. Einhorn: Putnam. Dec. 2009. c.336p. ISBN 978-0-399-15560-4. $24.95. F Flaming's debut channels the magical realism of Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, the historical New York [...]

Bradbury, Ray. We'll Always Have Paris: Stories. Morrow. Feb. 2009. c.224p. ISBN 978-0-08-171977-8. $24.99. F At 88, Bradbury is a national treasure who does not seem inclined to be set [...]

An Unofficial Companion to the Novels of Terry Pratchett. Ed. by Andrew M. Butler. 2008.472p. illus. Greenwood, $49.95 (9781846450013). 823. With nearly 40 Discworld books, another dozen novels, and a [...]

* Carroll, Jonathan. The Ghost in Love. Sarah Crichton: Farrar. Oct. 2008. c.320p. ISBN 978-0-374-16186-6. $25. F Carroll (Glass Soup) has a gift for finding a fantastic core hidden inside [...]

Scott, Joanna. De Potter's Grand Tour. Farrar. Sept. 2014.272p. ISBN 9780374162337. $30; ebk. ISBN 9780374710460. F Starting with the morning on which he disappears from a boat off the coast [...]

The article reports that the literary genre science fiction/fantasy epic has made a comeback, citing the success of Patrick Rothfuss's "The Wise Man's Fear", and George R. R. Martin's "Game of Thrones". The latter helped spur first-day sales of both print and electronic book copies for Random House Publishers. Included in the article is a list of 20 classic and contemporary works of the fantasy epic genre. INSETS: SF/Fantasy on the Web;Map to the SF/Fantasy Galaxy;Epic Fantasy: 20 Core Titles.

Wilk, Lucie. The Strength of Bone. Biblioasis. Oct. 2013. 352p. ISBN 9781927428399. pap. $16.95. F Dr. Henry Bryce travels from Toronto to a hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. Sister Iris Mwachilale [...]

Guinn, Matthew. The Resurrectionist. Norton. Jul. 2013. 288p. ISBN 9780393239317. $25.95. F The renovation of a South Carolina medical school unearths skeletons from the past ... literally. The search for [...]

Egerton, Owen. Everyone Says That at the End of the World. Soft Skull. Apr. 2013. 336p. ISBN 9781593765187. pap. $15.95. F After witnessing the crazed death of his physicist father, [...]

Heller, Ted. Pocket Kings. Algonquin. Mar. 2012. c.368p. ISBN 9781565126206. pap. $13.95. F When a writer unfortunately named Franklin W. Dixon (think Hardy Boys) begins to play online poker, his [...]

Palahniuk, Chuck. Damned. Doubleday. Oct. 2011. c.256p. ISBN 9780385533027. $24.95. F Smart but awkward, chubby Madison gets fried on marijuana and dies the night her Brangelina-like parents are accepting Oscars. [...]

Young, Kerry. Pao. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Jul. 2011. c.288p. ISBN 9781608195077. pap. $15. F This debut novel revolves around a young Chinese boy who migrates with his mother and [...]

The Rise of the Iron Moon. By Stephen Hunt. 2011. 464p. Tor, $26.99 (9780765327666). Hunt returns to the steampunk world he created in The Court of the Air (2008). This [...]

HD Catacombs: A Tale of the Barque Cats. By Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. Jan. 2011. 224p. Del Rey, $26 (9780345513786). Cats in space! In their sixteenth collaborative novel, [...]

Sawyer, Elliott. The Severance. Bridge Works, dist. by National Bk. Network. Nov. 2010. c.248p. ISBN 9780981617534. $23.95. F Sawyer, a veteran of the 101st Airborne in Iraq and Afghanistan, tells [...]

Out of the Dark. By David Weber. Oct. 2010. 512p.Tor, $25.99 (9780765324122). SF/Fantasy. Having first viewed humans during the brutality of the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, the Hegemony classified them [...]

The Waters Rising. By Sheri S. Tepper. Sept. 2010. 512p. Eos, $26.99 (9780061958878). SF/Fantasy. Years after apocalyptic events killed most of the earth's people, humankind has regained some level of [...]

Now Read This III: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction. By Nancy Pearl and Sarah Statz Cords. 2010. 285p. Libraries Unlimited, $60 (9781591585701). 016.80883. Pearl returns with the third edition of [...]