CollectionDev

Collection Development

The Reader's Shelf, collection development features, collection management articles, and roundups of subjects on the verge.

Every Reader a Reviewer: The Online Book Conversation

Book talk burgeons online, but finding review sources to trust isn't easy.

Collection Development: Not Ready For Boot Hill

Western fiction is unique among the major fiction genres recognized by public libraries (which would include romance, mystery, and sf) in that it is defined principally by its physical setting?the American West (usually anywhere west More...

the reader's shelf: Superheroes, Super Reads

As comic books and graphic novels (GN) find more mainstream success, readers tempted to check out the adventures of their favorite superpowered characters are often frustrated by the sheer volume of stories available, while others More...

Collection Development: The New Golden Years

If shuffleboard and ?early bird specials? are your idea of retirement, you?re out of touch. For today?s older adults, retirement means adventure, travel, volunteering, and second careers, options that our parents and grandparents never had More...

Books for Dudes: Brew Your Own Beer

Last word in the dictionary? Every dude knows it's zymurgy, the study of fermentation, though most dudes know it as 'beer science.'; Is there any product dearer to a dude's heart? Beer takes precedence over More...

Books for Dudes: Surviving This Hellish Economy

So I'm on this century ride, and a dude pulls up next to me, and we start chatting about the headwind (strong) and the temperature (brisk), and, as conversations among cyclists seemingly always do, we More...

Tag Team Review No. 7: Cindy Gerard's Take No Prisoners

Full disclosure: in the late 1980s, this Book Review editor read a slew of bodice rippers for her young adult amusement. Oh, how the romance genre has evolved since those days of simpler titillation. In More...

The Word on Street Lit No. 7

Librarians have repeatedly voiced their concern that street lit's characters too often fall into stereotypes. Women are portrayed as ultra-sexy gold diggers; men, ruthless perpetrators of violence concerned only with stacking cash and using women More...

Top Ten Holds from the Sno-Isle Library System, WA

Behind every best seller you're likely to find alibrary hold.See what patrons are lining up to read at the Sno-Isle Library System (WA). 1. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. Ecco: HarperCollins. ISBN More...

Books for Dudes: Soldiers' Memoirs of Iraq

We live in a world where you have a better chance of spying a dodo in a library than a dude. A dude isn't retired, after all. A dude has a job, maybe more than More...

The Word on Street Lit No. 2

Appropriately for Women's History Month, the following titles in this second installment of our new column-click here to read the first by Rollie Welch-focus on women's stories, depicting the realities of inner-city life as experienced More...

Tag Team Review No. 2: Campaigning for President

It's time for match two in our new Tag Team Review series, and if you're a glutton for book punishment, you've come to the right place because Jordan M. Wright's recent Campaigning for President: Memorabilia More...

The Word on Street Lit No. 1

Street lit, ghetto books, or urban fiction: no matter what you call this hot genre, itsmany incarnationsseldom remain on library shelves and rack uplengthy reserve lists. For our purposes, we'lldub it street lit, but what More...

Tag Team Review No. 1: Ultimate Blogs

Welcome, book-blood-hungry fans, to the very first Tag Team review, wherein two librarians take on the same book, in this case Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web, coming outnext weekfrom Vintage.Contender No. 1: Douglas More...

Top Twenty Holds from Gary (IN) Public Library

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. In Gary, IN, the 2008 presidential campaign and John Edwards share ground with the "Bluford High" series, a more school-library More...

Parenting Short Takes: Is Parenting Out of Control?

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesWith no small amount of assistance, my first-grade twins served me breakfast in bed yesterday. They were so proud for having pulled off this feat of greatness that they climbed into More...

Digital Dreams and Dashboards: Notable Government Documents 2009

Though some libraries thrived in 2009, many more took a beating, and the fiscal crises that have struck many states and thousands of municipal governments in 2010 increase the odds that the effects of the More...

Books for Dudes: A Motley Mother's Day Bouquet

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThough I talk a good game of undermining women in the battle of the sexes, I totally give it up to moms. Moms make up one-third of the recipe that includes More...

Book Cheer: Elenita Chmilowski Roots for Kitty Martini and Candice Reed's Thank You for Firing Me!

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesSelf-help tends to elicit love or hate. Inour fifth Book Cheer, Elenita Chmilowski offers the former with her praise of Kitty Martini and Candice Reed's Thank You for Firing Me!, a More...

Classic Returns: Reprints, Updates, and Bargains

Head back toBookSmack!for more stories'Well, I'm back,'; he said. Classic Returns makes it's glorious, um, return as aregular monthlyitem in BookSmack! (I do a lot of work on this newsletter, so it might as well More...

Book Cheer: Bill Clegg's Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesName: Virginia StanleyTitle: Director of Library Marketing, HarperCollins PublishersFavorite Genres: Coming of age, fiction, memoir, humor. Virginia Stanley; email: Virginia.stanley@harpercollins.com; blog: Librarylovefest.comLifelong Favorites: Books that I've held close to my More...

The Price of Admission

The long wait for the thick envelope, the hope of early admission, the obsessive creation of lists of top choices and safety schools-these are rites of passage for many students. The complicated and mysterious process More...

Parenting Short Takes:The Father-Daughter Bond & Baby Signing

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesPublishing seems to have a case of spring fever, with authors cranking out the humor titles. In my spot on the map, parents are thrilled with the warmer weather, as kids More...

35 Going on 13: Sisterhood

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesMy sister and I are very close. We live in the same town and talk every few days. Believe it or not, today is her birthday. I prefer to forget my More...

Best Poetry of 2009

Armantrout, Rae. Versed. Wesleyan Univ. ISBN 978-0-8195-6879-3. $22.95.It's been too long coming, but Armantrout finally shone as she should this year, receiving a nomination for the National Book Award and winning the National Book Critics More...

Top Twenty Holds from Multnomah County Library (OR)

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold.Afterthe Public Library Association conferenceinPortland, OR, Multnomah County librarians are back to work and watching new ones fromBarbara Kingsolver, Lorrie Moore, More...

Cozies: 22 Core Titles

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesCozies, frequently defined as mysteries where the murder occurs offstage, offer readers reliable pleasures. These books contain less violence, sex, and gritty language than the norm, have an engaging tone (ranging More...

RA Crossroads: The Lost City of Z

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAs Lewis Carroll's Alice so aptly points out, "What is the use of a book...without pictures or conversations?" Welcome to RA Crossroads, where books, movies, music, and other media converge, and More...

Books for Dudes:Spring Self-Improvement

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesI gained about ten pounds this winter-gross. Not only that, but the kitchen faucet's outflow has slowed to a trickle, the garage door opener broke, my soon-to-be teenager is giving me More...

Military Studies

It seems that mankind's second favorite occupation is war-whether engaging in it or writing about it. These titles show us that while much about war's roots, conditions, and results remains the same over the years, More...

Book Cheer: Michelle Fadlalla Roots for Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesShort story collections rarely get love. However, in this fourth installment of Book Cheer-the true story of 12 library marketing directors reviewing one another's titles-Michelle Fadlalla goes a long way toward More...

PLA 2010 Conference: Floating Collections Move from Outlier to Best Practice

'Floating'; is here to stayModel maximizes collections money while raising circLook for more best practices on the web Just a few years ago presentations on floating collections were sparsely attended programs that tended to either More...

Big, Super-Happy Fun Gluten-Free Adventures: Cookbooks for National Autism Awareness Month

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe mystery of autism haunts parents, educators, and other people working to improve the lives of children with this condition. While it is important to remember that special diets are not More...

Parenting Short Takes: Health, Heroes & Motor Skills

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThis month's reviews span many subjects, but if they do what they promise, then we will be stress-free and healthy; have access to heroes; be good sleepers; possess playful imaginations; demonstrate More...

Top Twenty Holds from Darien Library (CT)

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. Chris Cleave recently spoke at Darien Library, CT, butLittle Bee has been popular there since the hardcovercame out early last More...

35 Going on 13: Spring Publishing

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAt my home in the Pacific Northwest, the crocuses in the yard are the first sign of spring. When I see them, I know that winter is truly over, and a More...

Webcast: Beyond Subject Headings: Adding Appeal to the Art of Suggesting Books

Appeal is not a new language, just a new mindsetUsing appeal benefits both patron and the readers' advisorAdjectives do the heavy-liftingAppeal allows for greater discovery of recommended reads across genresLooking to go beyond subject headings More...

RA Crossroads: Alice in Wonderland

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThere is a reason, other than it is a great line, that an epigraph taken from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland prefaces all RA Crossroad columns. Lewis Carroll's book serves as an More...

27 Graphic Novels for Women's History Month

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesWorst women's comics news for 2009: DC Comics cancelled Birds of Prey, the long-running and much-loved series about a superheroine team. Best news for early 2010: the Birds will be back More...

Book Cheer: Chris Vaccari Roots for The Poacher's Son

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesChris Vaccari's contribution to our new Book Cheer column-"the true story of 12 library marketing directors reviewing one another's titles"-couldn't be better timed. Spring training isin full swing, LJ's annual Baseball More...

Read Me a Letter: Epistolary Fiction and Nonfiction

Incredible as it may seem, before email, instant messaging, texting, and tweets, people communicated through letters, which arrived with exotic stamps, postmarks, and airmail stickers. Epistolary works, stories based on letters and diary entries, are More...

35 Going on 13:Honoring African American Achievement

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIn honor of the shortest month of the year, I offer a short-and-sweet list of books on a special subject. February is more than the month of Valentines, midwinter breaks, and More...

Parenting Short Takes: Happy, Powerful & Liberated

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesMy son was "Star of the Week" at school recently, so we pilfered the family scrapbooks in search of pictures to bring in and share. He adamantly refused to have any More...

Top Twenty Holds from Prince George's County (MD)Memorial Library System

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. As usual, James Patterson rules the list, but self-help, music CDsfrom Jay-Z and Alicia Keyes, and street lit-best-selling author Deja More...

Editors' Spring Picks: Must-Reads from John Waters, Justin Cronin & More

Spring is nearly with us, and the spring books are already in our hands. From literary sf to a filmmaker's heroes to poetry everyone should read, we've plucked our favorites-find the two pomegranate references-just for More...

LJ Best Sellers of 2009

Head back toBookSmack!for more stories Patterson, Evanovich, Gladwell, and Myron. What do these authors have in common? They wrote the most-borrowed titles of 2009 in U.S. libraries. The data is based on circulation/holds figures from More...

Starred Reviews: February 2010

Head back toBookSmack!for more stories February 2010 brings a whopping 77 starred titles from our two print issues and Xpress Reviews (online-only). Sports makes another strong showing via standout titles from our annual Baseball Roundup. More...

Books for Dudes:Red-HotValentine Read-Togethers

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThis Valentine's Day, fuggedabout the chocolates and overpriced greeting cards. Don't bother withyour pathetic little annual midday trip to the florist or scratching out a tired tattoo on the Victoria's Secret More...

RA Crossroads: Of Monsters & Other Remarkable Creatures

Pet Memoirs

Bradley, Carol. Saving Gracie: How One Dog Escaped the Shadowy World of American Puppy Mills. Howell Book House: Wiley. Mar. 2010. c.256p. ISBN 978-0-470-44758-1. $21.99. PETSTo reveal the horrors of the puppy mill industry, award-winning More...

Book Your Baseball Season!

HistoryAchorn, Edward. Fifty-Nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had. Harper: HarperCollins. Mar. 2010. c.384p. photogs. bibliog. index. ISBN 978-0-06-182586-6. $25.99.A team winning streak of 20 games More...

LJ Best Graphic Novels 2009

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAs best-of-2009 comics lists kudzu their way across the media, the New York Times, Village Voice, Publishers Weekly, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble are joined by every comics blogger sporting calloused More...

35 Going on 13: Love Is in the Air…and on the Shelves

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThis year, my local Target started stocking for Valentine's Day on the day after Christmas-red, green, and gold giving way to more red and yards of pink. February 14th marks one More...

Parenting Short Takes: Sex, Poop & Outdoor Play

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesJust like life with children, some months in publishing are better than others. This column has some excellent offerings, and libraries can't go wrong with any of the starred selections below. More...

Short Takes:24 Spring Memoirs

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe memoir genre rolls on with this batch of 24 from Team Memoir, who are joined by Tania Barnes, Bette-Lee Fox, and Anna Katterjohn. Standard (and some would argue, tired) themes More...

Top Twenty Holds from Unalaska Public Library

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. Along with pop fiction and Wimpy Kid, fantastical fiction-from Charlaine Harris's "Harper ConnellyMystery" Grave Secret to Diana Gabaldon's An Echo More...

RA Crossroads: Bow Down, Edward Cullen, to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Book Cheer: A New Column by the AAP Trade Libraries Committee

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesWelcome to BookSmack!'s inaugural Book Cheer column, the true story of 12 library marketing directors reviewing each other's titles. 'This,'; in the words of creator Talia Sherer, chair of the Association More...

From Aya to Zapt!: 24 Graphic Novels for African American History Month

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe past year has left tweens and teens with many more quality comics that increasingly depict engaging African American main characters. Plus, we have our Main Man himself, Mr. President, the More...

Books for Dudes: The Superhero-Snuggie Connection

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesFollowing up last month's look at stoic dudes in pop culture, this first column of 2010 examines stoicism in graphic novels. If you missed "The Tao of Dude," I'll sum it More...

Back from the Dead: Kirkus Reviews Finds Buyer, To Resume Publication

The venerable publication Kirkus Reviews, the demise of which was announced last month, doesn't look to be closing after all. A notice on the magazine's web site states: Kirkus is working toward an arrangement with More...

Read This in Moderation:Ten Booze-Infused Graphic Novels

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIt's the time of year to make merry, so we thought it fitting to present ten graphic novels (and one anime) tapping that eons-old social lubricant for merry-making: alcohol. Our selections More...

BookMatch:An RAInnovation via Screencast

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIn an illuminating screencast created especially for BookSmack!, popular services manager Ricki Nordmeyer and adult services librarian Mick Jacobsen explain the Skokie Public Library's new BookMatch program. This patron pleaser takes More...

Parenting Short Takes: "Sneaky Fitness" & Child Rearing Equality

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe starred titles this month represent a humorous but realistic flow in how parenting often works: start with a fully engaged partner; plan and prepare for your desired outcome; when reality More...

The Word on Street Lit

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAs 2009 winds down, street lit continues to mature as a literary genre with well-written novels that feature strong character and plot development and intriguingly rendered stories. The latest releases by More...

Top Twenty Holds from Wake County Public Libraries

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. Push, the 1996 novel on which the new movie Precious is based, hits number one.A new movie tie-in edition is More...

From Williamsburg's Stacks: Favorite 2009 Books

Known for its innovative and passionate approach to readers' advisory service, the Williamsburg Regional Library, VA, is fortunate to have a group of librarians who read widely across genres and who have varying reading interests. More...

Short Takes: Ten Diet & Fitness Guides

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIt wouldn't be the holidays without an excess of diet-and-fitness guides. This year's grouping leans heavilytoward the diet end of things. Although exercises are included in some of the titles, the More...

RA Crossroads: Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAs Lewis Carroll's Alice so aptly points out, 'What is the use of a book...without pictures or conversations?'; Welcome to RA Crossroads, where books, movies, music, and other media converge and More...

Books for Dudes: The Tao of Dude

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesSo I'm sitting at my desk one fine day a few weeks back when an email from my editor (Heather McC) bingles in. I wonder, "What news?" She mentions that More...

35 Going on 13: The Best YA for Adults 2009

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe month of November brings some of my favorite things: the smell of baked pumpkin, the first gingerbread spice latte of the season, and the annual best-of lists. More than a More...

Top Twenty Holds from Hennepin County Library

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. Local author William Kent Krueger's Heaven's Keep-the latest title in his small-town-Minnesota-set mystery series-is drawing a crowd. And Nora Roberts's More...

Parenting Short Takes: Ethics& "Endless Adolescence"

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesFrom feeding the youngest eaters to getting your college grad to enter the real world, this month's Short Takes offers something for parents at every stage of the journey. The diversity More...

Flying the Friendly Skies!

Humans have always had a desire to fly. From Leonardo da Vinci and his studies and drawings of flight to Orville and Wilbur Wright's flying machine to Amelia Earhart and her famous disappearance, the world More...

Short Takes:Winter and Spring 2010 Memoirs

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesJust when you thought there was a memoir drought, along comes another installment in our Short Takes series by Lynne Maxwell, Elizabeth Brinkley, and Lauren Gilbert. This crop of 14 features More...

Books for Dudes: Read-Togethers for Couples

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesFirst, a word about the term dude: I know it's passé. I know that, and I hope you do, too. That's partly why I love it. As a guy I wear More...

RA Crossroads: War via Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesAs Lewis Carroll's Alice so aptly points out, 'What is the use of a book...without pictures or conversations?'; Welcome to RA Crossroads, where books, movies, music, and other media converge More...

Short Takes: Rock, Pop & Hip-Hop Graphic Novels

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesYou can't draw the sound of music, but that hasn't stopped aficionados from making comics about musicians and their oeuvre. Maybe it's the cultural substrate-if you like comics, making or reading More...

Top Twenty Holds from the New York Public Library

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. Lorrie Moore, Jennifer Weiner, and Sophie Kinsella make their first appearances in the "Top Twenty Holds" series, highlighting New Yorkers' More...

The Word on Street Lit

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesThis month's street lit picks focus on characters who struggle to redeem their pasts. While these young men and women may make bad choices, they do take the time and More...

Paging Reacher Fans

Boyd, Noah. The Bricklayer. Morrow. Feb. 2010. c.400p. ISBN 978-0-06-182701-3. $24.99.FA highly skilled operative leaves his government organization, having become fed up with its bureaucracy and incompetence, but is lured back for a specific project More...

Families in Crisis

Greenwood, T. The Hungry Season. Kensington. Feb. 2010. c.300p. ISBN 978-0-7582-2878-9. pap. $15. FThis compelling study of a family in need of rescue is very effective, owing to Greenwood's (Two Rivers) eloquent, exquisite word artistry More...

35 Going on 13: Retro Redux

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe joy, and the tragedy, of teen literature is that it has a remarkably short half-life. Every day, debut authors emerge to take the shelf space of the old. Many classic More...

The Fall of the Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesTwenty years ago this November, the world changed when the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) responded to increasing Eastern bloc unrest by permitting its citizens to cross into West Germany. The More...

Books for Dudes: Grooming Will Get You Girls

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAll dudes would be wise to join the Big Boys Club, which requires its members to clean their teeth, wash their mugs, and dress natty. Fall, with its back-to-school clothes shopping, More...

Enter the New OldUndead: 11 Horror Tales for Halloween

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIt's an interesting time to be a fan of horror. Library shelves are bursting with the stuff, but in many cases it's little more than a gimmick. A vampire romance, a More...

Starred Reviews: October 2009

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIt's gotten blustery here in New York. My fellow subway commuters aretoting more books, and friends are asking for cold weather recs. The 73starred reviews from LJ's print October issues (not More...

Webcomics Redux: Help Yourself to Octopus Pie, Harvey Pekar,and xkcd

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesWebcomics equal cartooning unhomogenized and unpasteurized. In the virtual world, emerging creators can experiment with formats and content and have the luxury of fine-tuning their work in vivo via interactions with More...

RA Crossroads: Jack the Ripper and From Hell

35 Going on 13: Back to School

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesIt has been a whole lot of years since September meant the start of a new school year for me. Even so, I cannot help but feel the ominous tick-tock of More...

Parenting Short Takes: Raising Readers, Twins, and Toddlers

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesAs a librarian, I have spent 15 years "spying" on patrons perusing books. While I often plead with them not to judge a book by its cover,I would be remiss to More...

Top Twenty Holds from Boulder Public Library

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. In Boulder, CO, nonfiction requests reflect the community: as Reference Specialist Terzah Becker says, "We're a very liberal, athletic, and More...

Prepub Exploded: February 2010, Pt. 1

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesYes, February is the dead of winter, but you can bring a little light into your life with John Banville's misbehaving gods; Giordano Bruno's undercover efforts in Elizabethan England, courtesy More...

Books for Dudes: A Relationship Master Class

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesI admit my relationship mistakes*. Although I have made a lot, I have also learned a great deal-mostly that relationships are hard and that there has to be a lot More...

Starred Reviews: September 2009

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe September 1 issue of LJ is important to us Book Review editors because it means a book cover story. This year, the One Book program scored that coveted real estate, More...

Books for Dudes: A Relationship Master Class CORRUPT FILE DO NOT USE

I admit my relationship mistakes*. Although I have made a lot, I have also learned a great deal-mostly that relationships are hard and that there has to be a lot of mutuality. The relationship is More...

RA Crossroads: Diana Gabaldon's Outlander Books

Of Cubicles and Circ Desks: 10 Graphic Novels for Labor Day

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesThis Labor Day graphic novel roundup zooms in on bureaucracies and libraries. While notoriously undersung in most comics, office workers are beginning to show up in nonfiction manga-style titles. Publishers More...

The Blingdom of God: Books on the Religion of Hip-Hop

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesThe characteristics of what qualifies a movement as a religion are varied and debatable, but most religions have at least three dimensions: a doctrine or statement of faith, a narrative, and More...

Parenting Short Takes: "Good" Girls, "Bad" Boys, and Left-Brainers

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesDeath, divorce, curses, and a lack of sleep. One look at the titles below, and you would have to wonder if there is anything good going on in parenting. While the More...

35 Going on 13: Let's Hear It for the Boys

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesMy friends know that, as far as teen lit is concerned, I am a little boy crazy. In past columns, I have already reviewed some my favorite boy books-including Melvin Burgess's More...

Professional Media

Brumley, Rebecca. Electronic Collection Management Forms, Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines Manual with CD-ROM. Neal-Schuman. 2009. c.503p. index. ISBN 978-1-55570-663-0. pap. $149.95 with CD. Libraries often need to develop or amend policies to manage e-resources, and More...

Top Twenty Holds from Austin Public Library

Head back toBookSmack! for more storiesBehind every best seller you're likely to find a library hold. The choice fiction inAustin, TX, is more literary-the holds less dominated bythe authors ofmultiple best sellers we usually see More...

Woodstock 40th Anniversary: Nine Photo Books & Movie Tie-Ins

Head back toBookSmack!for more storiesTo complement not only the 40th anniversary of the festival (Aug. 15–18) but also the Aug. 28 nationwide Image from Woodstock Vision. Janis Joplin, Performer's Pavilion.©Elliott Landy. release of Ang Lee's More...

Blogs