Friday, April 18, 2025

Unshelve Your Collection Idea - Book Club Picks for April 2025 from Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly does a great service by including a regular feature in which they list many book club picks, some with celebrities leading them and some you may not have heard of. 

There are a number of book clubs included that focus on diverse works such as the Jewish Book Council Book Clubs, Mocha Girls Read, Sapph-Lit, and the Subtle Asian Book Club. Some of them have their own dedicated websites, some are based on Substack, and others ariden organized on social media.

A rotating book display with a small footprint would be to pick one or two a month and focus on their recent and past picks. I would avoid those which pick well known books unless you want to do a "Try these titles while you wait for [popular book]" display. Picks by Reece's Book Club or Read with Jenna tend to have holds that build up quickly. Working on a display like this would be great readers advisory practice for a library worker who is new to readers advisory. 

If you have local book clubs that either meet in your library or elsewhere in your community, you can include them as well. Promoting reading is a always something we should do. Not everyone will be able to come to the clubs which are directly sponsored by your library. Giving patrons online options and options outside of your building will encourage both reading and the discovery of books and authors they have missed. Don't see it as a competition. 

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Unshelving Your Collection Idea- NPR Book of the Day

 One quick and easy way to get some readers advisory information about recently published books is to listen to NPR's podcast Book of the Day. From their website: 

In need of a good read? Or just want to keep up with the books everyone's talking about? NPR's Book of the Day gives you today's very best writing in a snackable, skimmable, pocket-sized podcast. Whether you're looking to engage with the big questions of our times – or temporarily escape from them – we've got an author who will speak to you, all genres, mood and writing styles included. Catch today's great books in 15 minutes or less.

 While this is certainly something that library staff should be encouraged to listen to when not at a public service desk, it's also an opportunity for a quick and easy book display that will be small enough that it can be fit in almost anywhere in a library. 

If you don't own that book, you can skip a day. Remember to check your eBook and eAudiobook collections as well. A book display in your library can also reference those collections to remind patrons that you are a source of digital materials as well. It's also a great readers advisory post for social media. 

Here is an example of a sign that could be posted on a public service desk: 


'Adventures in the Louvre' will teach you how to fall in love with the famous museum


Scan this code to check out this book from our eBook collection!

April 15, 2025


From NPR.org: 

Elaine Sciolino has one mantra: "Never go to the Louvre on an empty stomach or with a full bladder." The former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times has written a guide filled with her best advice for enjoying the world's most-visited museum. Her new book, Adventures in the Louvre, is part journalism, part memoir and part art history. In today's episode, Sciolino speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about the contested origins of the museum's name, the staff's love-hate relationship with the Mona Lisa, and why some Louvre visitors might feel underwhelmed.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

Support our local NPR station! [Name of station] [website]

W. W. Norton & Company

Be certain to credit NPR and the publishers when you use their text and images. I would reference your local NPR station in case patrons want to listen as well as NPR.org


 

Friday, March 28, 2025

Unshelving Your Collection Idea - Summer Scares Adult TItles

 Horror, like every genre, is read all year. Summer Scares is a joint reading program between the Horror Writers Association, Booklist, iREAD, NoveList, and Book Riot. It is focused on encouraging people to read more horror. Three titles in three categories (adult, young adult, and middle grade) are selected as well as a spokesperson. For 2025, the spokesperson is Kendare Blake. The selections are always backlist titles and include a diverse selections of authors and levels of scare.


The three adult titles this year are:

  • Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca (Titan Books, 2022)
  • Reprieve by James Han Mattson (William Morrow, 2021)
  • The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager, 2019)
The young adult titles this year are: 

  • Devils Unto Dust by Emma Berquist (Greenwillow, 2018)
  • The Getaway by Lamar Giles (Scholastic Press, 2022)
  • Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons (Tor Teen, 2023)
The three middle grade titles this year are: 
  • Eerie Tales from the School of Screams by Graham Annable (First Second, 2022)
  • Ravenous Things by Derrick Chow (Disney Hyperion, 2022)
  • Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon (Scholastic Press, 2020)

 It is also a great book display idea to include in your summer book display schedule. Booklist hosted three webinars with the three authors in conversation with a moderator. They are free to view so you can recommend them to your co-workers. You can view the adult author webinar here, on Booklist's YouTube channel.

You can use this year's titles as well as those from previous years on a book display, of course. Add other books by those authors as well. If you have any horror short story anthologies, you add them as well. 

One of my favorite parts of these interviews with the authors selected for any given year is hearing the reading suggestions of the authors. People love reading suggestions from celebrities and authors. If you watch the video, you can hear these suggestions: 

The Dumb House - John Burnside

This is a great list of authors and books to use to create a display! 

All the information and links related to Summer Scares is on Becky Spratford's blog, RA for All: Horror. 

The videos with the young adult authors is here and the middle grade video is here

Monday, March 24, 2025

Unshelve your collection - Finished Series

 I received Book Riot's newsletter for romance called Kissing Books yesterday. The primary topic was about different romantasy series. There was a subheading that I thought would be a great theme for a book display:  Finished Romantasy Series to Consume Immediately. This is a way to bring attention to some of those series that your readers may have missed. 

There are readers who would rather not endure the stretch of time between novels or even whether or not a series will be completed. Remember that part of the reason to have a lot of different kinds of displays is to capture all kinds of readers. 

You can obviously expand beyond romantasy. This is a fun project for anyone on staff who is a fan of a particular genre. Expand the search to include your eBooks collection. It can also be paired with a display of new series . You can create a sign with a message like "Get on board now!" I find that setting up contrasting displays is a fun way to reach more people and to showcase more titles. 

Don't forget to mirror the display with young adult and juvenile titles so that younger readers are not left behind. 

Here are some lists to get you started: 

Goodreads - Completed Series

Epic Reads - 40 Completed Book Series to Binge Guaranteed to Keep You Reading

My Heart is Booked - Must Read Completed Series

Owl Crate - Six Best Completed Romantasy Series For When You Need The Next Book


Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Unshelve Your Collection Idea: Book Club Picks.

A great choice for a fill-in book display or when your bucket of ideas has run low is to see what the various book clubs have chosen. Fortunately, Publishers Weekly has a list of more book club choices than one could imagine. 


You can check this page monthly and focus on a different book club each month. There are options beyond celebrities and booksellers like-


Black Men Read

The Jewish Book Council

Mocha Girls Read

Sapph-Lit

Subtle Asian Book Club

Good Morning America YA Book Club

Eclectix Book Club

Don't forget to include the book clubs at your library as well as your local independent booksellers!






Friday, February 21, 2025

Unshelve with help from journals - Publishers Weekly - New Historical Fantasies Reimagine the Past

Genre blends are everywhere and patrons are checking them out. Publishers Weekly recently featured an article about historical fantasies - New Historical Fantasies Reimagine the Past. The article includes a breakdown of some of the major trends in this blend as well as providing some titles. There is also a link to an article about historical fantasy with mermaids. This is a great idea to borrow for a book display or online book list. 

Some more places to check for titles: 

Johnson County Library: The Past, But With Dragons
If your library subscribes to Novelist, you can check there for read alikes as well. 

Using this idea can be a way of promoting your fantasy collection outside of romantic fantasy.

Some lists, like the Goodreads one, include titles that might lean more to other genres like horror (Grady Hendrix's Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is included). Don't let that stop you from adding a book to a display. This isn't a test and there aren't really wrong answers. Go into your stacks and find some fantasies with a history angle that can be part of the display. 

You can include a link to the Publishers Weekly article if you post a book list online. Otherwise, you can include a QR code with a link to the article in your physical display. 



Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Unshelve With Love - Valentine's Day!

 Romance is the most obvious choice for a Valentine's Day book display. Just remember to include a wide variety of titles and authors unless you decide to focus on a subgenre like romantic suspense or trope like friends to lovers. Here is a link to my posts with information and ideas about romance and book displays. 

Kissing Books, the newsletter from Book Riot, has a list of suggestions in a recent newsletter. With the heading "Bad Romance: The Best Romantic Horror for Valentine’s Day." For more information on horrormance, they have a primer and a list of book recs.  They also suggest horror books for Valentine's Day.  Use their suggestions as a starting point. 

(I recommend subscribing to newsletters and browsing them to get ideas for book displays."

There are other options for "Bad Romance." Check your suspense and mystery collection for tales of love gone wrong. True crime and biographies also have options. Including some self help/relationship books is also something to try. You can place bookmarks around with information about local resources for victims of domestic violence or pair the display with information about your local shelters. Some shelters accept donations of items for those who arrive without anything. 

Dessert baking and cookbooks also can be a display for Valentines Day. If you start in January, you can set up a craft for your sweetheart display. People need time to create something! You can create adult and youth take- and - make craft kits with a simple valentine to craft and add that to the display. 

Getaways? Find travel books and books about exotic, romantic places. Include information about any local favorites. Dig into your fiction and non-fiction. I guarantee you have many books about Paris and Hawaii on the shelf. Check your movie collection for movies that take place in romantic locations. 

Some people choose to celebrate "Galentine's Day" and celebrate female friendship and independence. That's another great theme for a display. Find fiction and biographies about independent women and that feature great female friendships. Look into your self help section for books about living solo and friendship. 

Remember with any holiday that you can pair a display that is exactly what everyone expects with one that is outside of their expectations. So a romance display with some form of a Bad Romance display. A romantic getaway display with a trip-gone-wrong display. Show off more of your collection and introduce your patrons to something they didn't know they wanted!


Unshelving the ALA Annual Conference in Philly.

  I will be attending the American Library Association Annual Conference in Philadephia. My hope is to post some content related to what I p...