Three brief reviews : Coup de Grace by Sofia Ajram, Kill Your Darling by Clay McLeod Chapman, and Candy Cain Kills Again by Brian McAuley

 I recently finished three horror novellas and thought I would write up something about them here since I didn't review them for Library Journal.

Kill Your Darling by Clay McLeod Chapman (Bad Hand Books) is up first. 

The summary from the publisher is: 

The body of Glenn Partridge’s 15-year-old son was discovered in a vacant lot nearly forty years ago. The police are still no closer to finding the murderer decades later.

Glenn refuses to let the memory of his son fade—or let anyone else within this small working-class community forget. His long-suffering wife signs him up for an amateur fiction-writing workshop at the local library, just to get him out of the house and out of his own head.

Rule number Write what you know—so Glenn decides to share his son’s story. The class offers him a chance to make sense of a senseless crime and find the fictional closure life never provided. But as Glenn’s story takes on a life of its own, someone from the past is compelled to come out of hiding before he reaches…

It is a perfect example of grief horror - the tight, suffocating, deeply personal nature of grief when a loved one dies. There is a terror when it overcomes you and it can transform you as much as any supernatural transformation. Glenn Partridge is changed by the death of his son into someone he would not have recognized. The devastation of grief has made him a man obsessed with finding what happened to his son and he learns what happens when the story wasn't meant to be completed.  No one writes about grief better than Clay. This book will break your heart as it fills you with dread. 

Candy Cain Kills Again by Brian McAuley is a sequel to his previous work for Shortwave Publishing's Killer VHS series. From the publisher:

After surviving the horrors of Christmas Eve at the Thornton house, Austin, Mateo and Fiona head to the Church of Nodland to get some confessions from Pastor Wendell and his congregation. Little do they know that Candy Cain is coming to town to wish one and all a very merry axe-mas!

It's a horror romp that will delight those who miss the experience of going into a video store with friends and pulling slashers off the shelf. In this fun, violent ride, the kills come quickly and are wildly creative. This is the kind of book that can smash a reading slump. The characters' relationships are complicated as they deal with the repercussions of the first book. The emotional fallout is handled with care and a deft sense of character development.  

We will end with Coup de Grace by Sofia Ajram. From the publisher: 

Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station.

Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight.

The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realise that he almost certainly is not alone.

A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror.

The book has the best sense of depression of any book I have read recently. Readers have the sense of Vicken's dark hopelessness and the endless, gray trap of his existence. Within this novella, Ajram is able to explore the movement between hope and despair within the claustrophobic, confined space of the subway system. The reader is brought along as Vicken wanders in the surreal labyrinth in which he's been trapped. This book is well deserving of the praise which has been heaped upon it. Settle in for an evening and lose yourself within the text. Hopefully, you will make it out. 

Examples of Great Marketing of a Collection - LaGrange (IL) Public Library

 While I was in the Chicago area for the Adult Reading Round Table conference, I stopped by the LaGrange Public Library with Becky Spratford who serves as a trustee there. I took some pictures to share some of the great marketing decisions they have made to unshelve their collection and bring it out in front of their patrons' eyes. 

When you enter the area with the adult non-fiction and fiction stacks, you are greeted by a display of books with the theme of Illuminating Winter Tales. There is one sign with only the title and suggestions of other books on the sign. 

The display itself is simple and clean with the emphasis on the books. It's also blends genres on the display. You could add a QR code with a link to an eBook collection with the same theme or a blog post about the theme. Overall, it's a great display that brings book covers to readers as soon as they enter the space. 

They make use of endcaps to provide more reading ideas. This one is tied into a reading challenge "Feeling Blue." They have used the only sign to provide more reading suggestions. This sort of display is easy for anyone to fill in. 

There is a "Warm Up With a Hot Romance" endcap. I love the visual effect of the multicolored covers. 

I love the idea of having a display with titles recently returned, especially if they are backlist titles that might be new to a lot of readers. 

There is not a season for those interested in genre fiction. I love the horror display up in December. While you should fill displays. Having one with empty spots will help reinforce to other patrons that the books are on display to be checked out. 

   

The first step in unshelving your collection and letting the covers help sell your backlist titles to patrons is putting easels up on the shelves like they have done here. It draws the eye to the shelf and is a simple way to put up faceouts. You will be surprised what will get checked out simply because it is faced out. 

Using Library Aware from EBSCO does make some of this signage easy but you can replicate these great ideas. Don't feel intimidated if your library can't afford that product. Use the idea and go from there. Offering readalikes for books with long wait lists is another way to draw attention to your backlist. 

Finally, this is a great use of a bulletin board in a public library, Encourage people to place holds so you know what will be popular!

I loved seeing how LaGrange promoted their collection. Hopefully, you saw some ideas that you can borrow for your own collection. I will try to post more pictures from libraries I visit. 

Five For Friday - Winter Horror

 To give you a peek behind the scenes, when I picked this theme, I wasn't sure we owned enough titles that weren't checked out to do this post. I requested a pile and then checked the books and authors to make certain that I had some diversity there before I took the picture. Sometimes, you might have to tweak the idea - I could have included more thrillers, suspense, or mystery titles - to make it work. I have several images below I included a cart filled with titles to provide an example of a display on a cart. Both sides of this cart could have been filled with books. 

The title is winter horror but don't hesitate to put suspense or thrillers on the cart. People will read across genres so you don't have to limit yourself. This also makes it easier to keep the display full.

I always suggest a simple sign and minimal decorations. The focus should be the books - not signage and decor. It's possible to completely obscure the books with too many signs!

Here are two option for Five for Friday. This picture can be used for social media or a blog. 

You don't need fancy fixtures for a book display. Create a display of five for your picture and then fill in the cart with other titles and leave it somewhere in your building where people can discover it. You don't have to put a fiction display near the fiction. Move it to a place where it will be a surprise!

This is just a small book cart with a sign. I've used them around our building and in programs. 

Book Display Basics – Diversity

 I have mentioned diversity more than once. Because they are planned in advance, there is no excuse to not include a diverse group of authors, authors from around the world, small press titles, and books about marginalized people. Bestselling, very popular books don't need our help to find their readers. The biggest names in publishing have media appearances and large advertising campaigns along with huge audiences. The nature of publishing in the United States is that it is dominated by people from similar backgrounds. Our job is to find titles that need the spotlight shown on them. 

Diverse books are part of any library's collection. Authors like Colson Whitehead write books that win awards and draw attention from readers. Most library's have collections which include his books. A walk through your stacks will reveal books by authors of color, LGBTQ authors, immigrant authors, and works in translation. Unless your collection development policy or purchasing rules are extremely strict, you will likely find small press titles as well. When these titles leave the new books area, they often get lost in the stacks. The new book area is a curated, smaller group of titles which does allow more attention to fall on the books shelved there. 

The truth is that we should actively work towards expanding the diversity in our book displays and book lists. If you constantly struggle to fill in a display or a list with books that are written by people are underrepresented then your collection development may need to be reviewed. The world is a big place filled with a huge variety of people. Don't presume that your patrons' interests are limited to books about people just like them. Feed their curiosity by displaying books that will introduce them to someone or someplace new. 

One way to increase your ability to provide the best readers advisory service to your patrons is by having your staff take a new ALA eLearning course called Actively Anti-Racist Readers’ Advisory Services. It's a two part webinar taught by Becky Spratford of RA for All and Robin Bradford, a collection development and readers advisory expert. The course is designed to change your mindset and "learn how to help your entire organization craft an actionable plan to seamlessly incorporate the values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging into your regular RA practices." Moving from having a passive approach where racism is acknowledged as something to be avoided to becoming someone who is active in promoting, sharing, and being an advocate for the underrepresented is a powerful transformation. I have taken course from Becky and Robin before and I encourage you to register for their course. 

Upcoming Appearances - ARRTcon

 On Friday, December 6 I will be speaking at ARRTCon 2024 which is being held at the 95th Branch of Naperville Public Library in Illinois. I will be presenting about book displays as part of merchandising your collection for effective readers advisory. There will be a horror panel, moderated by Becky Spratford, as well. Her post about ARRTCon is available here. 

You can register for ARRTCon here. ARRT is a great organization for Chicago-area librarians who are interested in readers advisory, genre studies, book discussion training and other adult reading professional development. 

If you are in the region and will be attending, come up and say hello I will be at sessions outside of my own presentation. I will also post my slides and photos after the conference. 

If you celebrate Thanksgiving in the US, I hope you have a relaxing and joy-filled holiday. I will be with family here in Florida. 

Five for Friday - Puerto Rico

 Let the news prompt you when you are struggling for ideas for book displays or lists. For this week's Five for Friday, I've picked out some adult fiction and non-fiction about Puerto Rico. When you create a display like this - make sure that you include both fiction and non-fiction as well as using authors from the region. 

For this Friday, I chose 5 books about Puerto Rico- fiction, a biography, and a cookbook. In addition to the photo of the books, a link to an online list of books (physical or eBooks) could be added. Don't stress yourself out worrying about a snappy title; we aren't copywriters for an advertising agency, after all. Even something as simple as "Learn more about Puerto Rico" would work. A display inside your building with more books or a sign with a QR code to an online list will complement it nicely. 

December Book Display Ideas

 

December is almost upon us! This year has flown by and it’s time to think about merchandising your collection for December. While there are two big holidays to consider, I would always suggest that you include some displays and lists that are not about Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Not every patron celebrates Christmas or holidays in general. There will also be patrons who are seeking a break from holiday preparations, even if they do celebrate Christmas.

I also suggest that while winter-y décor is appropriate in the northern hemisphere, avoid decorations that are Christmas oriented. For those who are not from Christian backgrounds, it can be off putting to see a tree and so forth in their library.  Perhaps youth library staff can have the youngest patrons create snowflakes to hang from the ceiling. Adding a small Menorah for Hanukkah or Kinara for Kwanzaa doesn’t balance out a giant Christmas tree in your lobby.

An idea for an interactive display or passive program would be to ask patrons to put their best memory from this year on a card of some sort. You can display them on a bulletin board with a cart of books about memories nearby. At the end of the month, transition it to hopes for the upcoming year and add books about positive psychology, planning, or hope in general. Whether or not you mediate this program depends upon your building and your patrons. Set up separate ones in your youth and young adult area if that works better for your building and the expectations of your stakeholders.

Both programs can be replicated on your website or social media. Have patrons email you their answers and you can aggregate them in a post, in your building, or online.  If they write their memory or hope down, images can be posted, and your library can be tagged with whatever tag you come up with for these programs or your online passive programs in general. Don’t hesitate to do both – patrons who primary use eBooks and eAudiobooks should not be excluded from your programs if you are able to post about them online.

Fiction is filled with winter themed titles in every genre. Don’t forget to just use books with frozen, snow, cold, frost, winter and so forth in the title. Winter horror, thrillers, and suspense novels will be popular as will mysteries and romance. Winter starts on December 21^st officially, but this display can be up all month.

It’s best of the year time. Any outlet that sells books or has book news and reviews will be releasing their best of year lists. Review them and compare them to your collection. You may find titles that you need to order. Check for books that could use a circulation boost, especially those by underrepresented authors or from smaller presses. The books which were best sellers and filled your request list don’t need the boost that a book display or booklist can provide. Remember to make copies of the lists you post online available for patrons in your buildings. You can also put a shelf talker where the best of books are shelved and add read-alikes for when they are checked out.

December also includes Pearl Harbor day. It’s a good time to dig out military history, World War II history and fiction that haven’t circulated in a while. You can pair this display with a program with your local Veteran’s Administration office or hospital to highlight available services for veterans. There are constantly new historical fiction titles about World War II being published which makes this an easy display to keep filled.

With Hanukkah and Kwanzaa both starting near Christmas this year, they might not get the attention they deserve. While your youth collection likely has many options, don’t forget to add Jewish history books and fiction by Jewish authors as well as books by Black authors and 1960’s Black history to fill in your adult display and lists.

I hope this gives you some options beyond Christmas books for your December displays. While I have put up displays with holiday movies, music, and books, I always try to add some displays that are not Christmas themed. Remember that your library needs to represent everyone in your community.