Macmillan’s Library Marketing department is proud to present Kevin King as this month's featured librarian.
Kevin built a reputation for exceptional patron service as the teen services librarian at Kalamazoo Public Library; the NYLA 2007 conference program called Kevin "THE Teen Services King." Then, at the top of his game, he switched roles to head of loan and outreach services, primarily serving adults.
Kevin discussed his transition with us, explaining how working with teens prepared him for working with adults:
You made quite a name for yourself as the teen services librarian at Kalamazoo Public Library. Why did you switch roles to adult services? It was the next step in my plan for complete global library domination. Seriously though I wanted to bring some of the concepts and ideas I used working with teens to adults, specifically customer service. I also had been noticing that the newest patron void, 19-30 year olds, needed to be filled with innovative programs such as a recent visit from New York Times best-selling author and zombie expert, Max Brooks. Over 200 zombie freaks invaded KPL! The change in positions also allows me to continue advocating for teens as they transition into adulthood.
What advice would you give librarians serving adults for the first time?
Exceptional customer service is paramount when interacting with any patrons, especially adults.
If you do not like people, find a new job because today’s library cannot afford having a grump serving the public. You also need to be willing to provide more than answers to genealogy questions and the newest Grisham book.
If you had to give a conference presentation on your switch, what would you title it and what would the thesis be?
I would call it “The Move to the Dark Side Isn’t So Dark: How You Can Survive Interacting with Adults.” The presentation would stress how you can apply many of the skills needed to work with teens to developing programs and events to best serve adults.
Books for the Transition
Macmillan titles about the tumultuous journey to adulthood
A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah 0-374-53126-9 $12.00 Available Now Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Upstate Kalisha Buckhanon 0-312-33269-6 $11.95 Available Now St. Martin's Griffin
Do you feel your work with teens prepared you for any aspect of your new position as head of loan and service outreach? How so?
I realized early on that many of the programs we had developed for teens could easily be adapted to adults. As I stated above, patrons ages 19-30 are being underserved and since many in that group were former teens I was able to discover what they needed to use the library. We invited some hip young authors, started an acoustic concert series, and really beefed up the music and movie collections. So far it has seemed to work since we have had record numbers with these types of programs this summer. Most importantly, anyone who is working with adults needs to keep their finger on the pulse of what is popular and try and stay ahead of the trends. That is a very similar plan that we used with teens. By the way, we did not abandon the more traditional adult patrons. KPL still offers some cool book groups and a fabulous Community Reads program.
What differences do you notice between planning teen events and planning adult events? What factors do you have to consider that you did not have to consider before?
The biggest factor is that instead of serving Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Oreos as snacks we offer coffee and brownies. The factors that go into planning events for adults are no different than teens or even children. Patrons want more from their libraries then they did even ten years ago. We should be providing a “360 Experience” by offering not only materials, technology, answers and programs but also an experience that makes them proud of their community. That is how libraries will stay relevant. Most importantly we give them what they want with a genuine (or at least a really good fake) smile.
We are looking for the next Librarian of the Month. If you have someone in mind, please email us—we're eager to hear from you!
Macmillan’s Library Marketing department is proud to present Kaite Stover as this month's featured librarian.
Whether she is talking about a book at the Kansas City Public Library where she is Head of Central Library Readers’ and Circulation Services, discussing books on "Book Doctors" for NPR affiliate KCUR, or writing her half of the popular Booklist column "He Reads She Reads", it seems that Kaite always has the perfect book in mind.
When it comes to book talking, Kaite has more than a couple of pearls of RA wisdom:
What qualities must a book have in order for you to recommend it to your patrons? Plot, pacing, atmosphere, etc.? A “good” book is one which meets the reader’s requirements, not mine, and all good readers’ advisors know this. It always helps us to speak with extra enthusiasm when we can suggest something we have read and enjoyed, but at the forefront of our minds is “what will most satisfy this reader?”
What are some of the differences between RA at a small library (like Emporia Public Library) versus those that you encounter at a large library (like Kansas City Public Library)?
At Emporia Public Library I was able to spend a little more time with the reader. EPL had a slower pace during the course of the day and I’d see quite a few more of my regular patrons than I might at KCPL. However, at KCPL I have a much larger selection to promote to readers. We’re always certain to find something for the reader to take home and enjoy. In Emporia, which was a medium-sized town, I found myself doing RA in the grocery store or at the movie theatre or the bookstore. I’d run into my patrons everywhere and someone was always asking me to “put a book on hold when you get back to work” or “give me something good to read right now!” and drag me over to the paperback shelves. In Kansas City, “what are you reading right now?” is my favorite ice-breaker at business functions and it’s a great segue to start talking about the Library and all its services and events.
In your 2003 “Movers and Shakers” profile, Library Journal notes that you “love…sponsoring book groups, both in the library and online.” Which books did you find the most discussable? Why?
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt was one of the most discussable books since the readership was firmly divided between loving it and hating it. A Changed Man by Francine Prose generated much discussion over a person’s ability to completely change a perspective. One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus prompted conversation about characters, story and point of view. Readers enjoyed it for many different reasons and I found that delightful conversation fodder.
Our Latest Reading Group Gold Picks
For more discussion ideas, browse our Reading Group Gold brochure:part 1part 2
Sarah's Key Tatiana de Rosnay 0-312-37084-9 $13.95 October 2008 St. Martin's Griffin
Home Marilynne Robinson 0-312-35511-4 $25.00 September 2008 Farrar, Straus & Giroux
The Tsarina's Daughter Carolly Erickson 0-312-36030-4 $24.95 October 2008 St. Martin's Press
The Accidental Santera Irete Lazo 0-312-38188-3 $24.95 October 2008 St. Martin's Press
Sea of Poppies Amitav Ghosh 0-374-17422-9 $26.00 October 2008 Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Soul Tobsha Lerner 0-7653-2010-X $14.95 Available Now Forge Books
Some of the best books that generate discussion are the ones many people disliked. It’s much easier to point out those segments of a book that a reader didn’t care for and articulate why. When everyone loves a book, conversation stops at “Oh, I loved this book!”
When you speak at RA conferences, what are some of the most popular questions you field from the audience?
“What’s it like to work with David Wright?” (It’s great! He’s one of the most talented people I’m lucky to know! The “He Reads, She Reads” column was all his idea)
“Is David Wright as funny in person as he is in his columns?” (Funnier. And so very witty and creative.)
“How many books can you read in a month?” (Hmm. About 25? More, if I’m reading thrillers)
“Are you a fast reader?” (Oh, lord, NO! I used to be. I’m slowing down as the years zip by. I think I’m trying to savor every word when I read now. Which is rather odd when you think about it, because I love thrillers and by nature, those books have a very speedy pace. I should be able to knock off one of those in an evening. Sometimes I can. But I mostly try to prolong the suspense by slowing down my reading.)
Where do you go to find new Readers’ Advisory tips?
I read the newsletters from NoveList and Readers’ Advisor Online. I read the blogs over at Booklist. I read Neal Wyatt’s column at Library Journal online. I get most of my ideas talking with other librarians or readers. Conferences and workshops are great for that. Every time I teach a workshop, I think I walk away with a new idea from the attendees. At conferences, I pay close attention to the Table Talk discussions. You can really start some good brainstorming with a smaller group of people than you can in a lecture hall that holds 300.
How did you begin writing your “She Reads” column for Booklist? David Wright (whom I’d barely met) approached me at PLA in Seattle in 2004. He said he’d talked to Bill Ott at Booklist about this idea he had for a male-female perspective on readers and reading and he told me he’d always liked my writing (prompting me to think, “where on earth has he read anything I’ve written?”). I said I’d do it if I could be the guy. He laughed and said, “No.” So I said I’d do it anyway. We started coming up with topics and subjects that meshed with Booklist’s already scheduled Spotlight features. This worked very well with Romance, Sports, First Novels, Mysteries, etc. It seemed there was a definite male-female attitude to reading in those areas. It’s very important to David and me that we don’t come across as flip or insulting. We purposely avoid the personas of “man hater” or “woman bashing”. Our tone is very important to us. We know our audience are educated, thoughtful, creative readers and we try to make our columns reflect that.
What advice would you give librarians trying to brush up on their RA skills?
Every couple of years I try to rewrite my Reader Profile. This is a tool that was invented by Joyce Saricks and employed by the Adult Reading Round Table folks in Chicago for a program. I’ve found that my reading tastes change from time to time and when I understand what I like about reading, then it helps me listen to and understand other readers when they talk about what they like about their own reading.
Try to read in genres that you don’t particularly follow. Talk about reading as much as you can with other people. I can’t stress that enough. Reading can be an intimate activity that says quite a bit about a person, however, it’s also a social one when we gather in book groups or just share the last great book we loved. Get used to talking about books with friends and family. You’ll never run out of cocktail party conversation and it’ll be much easier to strike up a conversation in the stacks of your library or bookstore.
We are looking for the next Librarian of the Month. If you have someone in mind, please email us—we're eager to hear from you!
Our Fall 2008 "First Fiction" flyer is now available. Librarians are great champions of first-time authors, and we think that this piece really connects with the excitement of discovering a new writer.
September 2008
"A belief that sustains many of us (or at least something we desperately hope) is that any disease that might befall us will be within the scope of the medical establishment to cure or contain. Unfortunately, that's not always the case, as poet Sarah Manguso discovered, when, as a college junior, a baffling illness high-jacked her life. It turned out (after many mis-diagnoses, late-night runs to emergency rooms, blood exchanges, stays in the psych ward as a result of severe depression, and various other indignities to the mind and body that patients routinely suffer) that she had an extremely rare autoimmune disease known as CIDP (which stands for Chronic Idiopathic Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy).
It's related to Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which a gradual numbness and later paralysis takes over the body and, as Manguso tells us early in this grueling memoir, "may resolve spontaneously, relapse and remiss indefinitely, or progress and terminate in death." Manguso's lyrical memoir, The Two Kinds of Decay, written almost 11 years after the disease's first symptom—numb feet—first appeared, and several years after she went into remission, is best described as a prose poem. It's written as a series of three or four line impressions of what was going on in her life. As engrossing (and somewhat terrifying) as the description of the course of her illness is, what makes this book so memorable is Manguso's command of the language she uses, struggling to find ways of describing what's happening to her body in words that are precise, economical, and unhackneyed. The wonder is that she succeeds so beautifully: in the last chapter, Manguso writes: "This is suffering's lesson: pay attention. The important part might come in a form you do not recognize." "
"Before her death (at 84) last year, Grace Paley finished what would be her final book, a collection of poems called Fidelity. Although I've long been a fan of Paley's brilliant short fiction—her voice is unmistakable and, once encountered, never forgotten—I'd never read much of her poetry. But after being thoroughly drawn into the poems in Fidelity, I definitely want to go back and see what I've missed.
These poems, written in the last years of her life, deal primarily with aging and with love and death, with those larger themes woven into poems about friendship and family relationships. All the poems are marked, like her fiction, with her distinctive voice, her deadpan humor, and her take on the ways of the world. Reading them is not a depressing experience, despite the subject matter. They are, though, especially poignant because both reader and writer are aware of what's just over the horizon. One of my favorites in the collection is called "An Occasional Speech at the Interfaith Thanksgiving Gathering." (The extra spaces between the words in the poems are correct; a good question to ask oneself or one's bookgroup is why Paley chose to space out her words that way, and why those particular words were chosen to be set apart.) It begins: "Anyone who gets to be/eighty years old says thank you/to the One in charge then im-/mediately begins to complain" and goes on to talk about the ironies of the very first Thanksgiving. And here's the beginning of "On Occasion": "I forget the names of my friends/and the names of the flowers in/my garden my friends remind me/Grace it's us.the flowers just/stand there stunned by the sun." But the best poem, the most moving and true poem, in the book is "Sisters." It is an exquisite tribute to those people no longer in her life. In the course of the poem Paley tells us: "I wanted to say that/my friends were dying/but have now become absent the word dead is correct/but inappropriate" and ends "their fidelity to the idea that/it is possible with only a little extra anguish/to live in this world at an absolute minimum/loving brainy sexual energetic redeemed." Which would be a perfect line for Paley's gravestone."
Table of Contents
Home
by Marilynne Robinson
""Beautiful...An elegant variation on the parable of the prodigal son's return." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Man in the Dark
by Paul Auster
"Darker and more impactful than The Brooklyn Follies and with broader appeal than Travels in the Scriptorium...This best-selling author witha cult following of literati finally offers one to please fans of both fan bases." —Library Journal (starred review)
The View from Garden City
by Carolyn Baugh
"Baugh weaves a rich tapestry of women’s lives through their stories. Without preaching, she demonstrates that patriarchal custom, not religion, places women in subservience. The narrator’s neighbors, all vibrant, intelligent individuals, provide the narrator with more of an education than her classes. This timely, important, readable book should be in most libraries." —Library Journal
Zoe's Tale
by John Scalzi
"Engaging character development and Scalzi's sharp ear for dialogue will draw in new readers, particularly young adults." —Publishers Weekly
Burial of the Dead
by Michael Hogan
"The intricate plot builds to a singular finale that delivers an unexpectedly satisfying balancing of the scales." —Publishers Weekly
The Hanged Man
by David Skibbins
The cops have jailed the wrong person: dominatrix Thérèse de Farge. Sally McLaughlin, a feisty paraplegic hacker, sets out to save her friend and ropes Warren Ritter, sarcastic tarot card reader and general overall eccentric, into yet another murder investigation.
Hot Titles: November 2008
What books will your patrons be asking for three months from now? Check back here regularly for lists of our hottest forthcoming titles from all of Macmillan’s adult publishers.
Prince of Stories Hank Wagner, Christopher Golden, & Stephen R. Bissette St. Martin's Press 0-312-38765-2 $29.95
The Shamus Award is given by the Private Eye Writers of America to honor excellent work in the Private Eye genre, and was created by Minotaur author Robert J. Randisi in 1981. Committee members of PWA select nominees and winners. Winners will be announced at Bouchercon in Baltimore this October.
The Traveler: An Inspirational Tale
The Traveler tells the story of a young man who packs up all his time in search of the best way to spend it. You can learn more about the book and its creators by clicking the video above.
I am thrilled to report that my good friend Nora Rawlinson (former librarian turned celebrity thanks to her progressive and groundbreaking approach to collection development) had a new brainchild, a tool to help make your job (and life) easier. Nora, who started as a librarian in Baltimore County then ran Publishers Weekly & Library Journal and even had time to lead the library services department @ Hachette – has just launched Early Word, a web site for collection development and readers advisory librarians. It offers easy access to publishers’ resources and features the "Give 'em What They Want" blog on buying for demand.
The Wrecking Crew Thomas Frank Metropolitan Books 0-8050-7988-2 | $25.00
"One of the sharpest political commentators around, Frank is required reading for every concerned citizen." —Publishers Weekly
“A forceful argument that resurrecting equitable, intelligent government starts with understanding how the present plutocracy came about.” —Kirkus Reviews
"This staggering history of systematic greed will inject new energy into public discourse as a historic election looms." —Booklist
A Better Angel Chris Adrian Farrar, Straus & Giroux 0-374-28990-5 | $23.00
"Illness, loss and grief assume ingeniously arresting forms in this short-story collection from a uniquely gifted author...quite unforgettable fiction." —Kirkus Reviews
“The moment you feel as if you’ve discovered the meaning in his words, it slips between your fingers and leaves you unsettled, unmoored, and unmistakably impressed.” —Booklist
"With heartbreaking imagination, Adrian illuminates how people act out their grief on their own bodies and the bodies of others, and enter the world of the spirit in the process." —Publishers Weekly
Man in the Dark Paul Auster Henry Holt & Co. 0-8050-8839-3 | $23.00
"Darker and more impactful than The Brooklyn Follies and with broader appeal than Travels in the Scriptorium...This best-selling author with a cult following of literati finally offers one to please both fan bases." —Library Journal
“An utterly authentic story of culpability and survival, the vortex of loss, and our endless struggle to translate terror into understanding.” —Booklist
"Probably Auster's best novel, and a plaintive summa of all his books that—we now see—have gone into its making." —Kirkus Reviews
Don't Tell a Soul David Rosenfelt St. Martin's Minotaur 0-312-37395-3 | $24.95
"A harrowing ride equal to James Patterson's or Harlan Coben's best…The book deserves a wide audience and is highly recommended for popular fiction collections." —Library Journal
“High-voltage entertainment from an author who plots and writes with the verve and wit of Elmore Leonard...Rosenfelt ratchets up tension with the precision of a skilled auto mechanic wielding a torque wrench.” —Booklist
"Stellar...Rosenfelt keeps the plot hopping and popping as he reveals a complex frameup of major proportions with profound political ramifications both terrifying and enlightening." —Publishers Weekly
Atmospheric Disturbances Rivka Galchen Farrar, Straus & Giroux 0-374-20011-4 | $24.00
"Witty, tender, and conceptually dazzling, Galchen’s metaphysical tale of longing, grief, love, and the volatility of the self gracefully charts the tempestuous weather of the human psyche." —Booklist
“Enthralling...Don't be surprised if this gives you a Crying of Lot 49 nostalgia hit.” —Publishers Weekly
"Everything is other than it appears to be in Galchen’s assured debut—an intricate puzzle powered by an urgently beating heart...A superb first novel." —Kirkus Reviews
For more information about our children’s publishers, please visit:
Three or more starred reviews make these books All-Stars
"What should our book club read next?" Reading Group Gold has the answer
Not sure what your group should discuss next? If you are looking for group read ideas, Macmillan's Reading Group Gold brochure features a broad selection of supplementary materials for book club favorites like Gail Tsukiyama, Tom Perrotta, and Marilynne Robinson.
And be sure to check the Reading Groups section of our website—we are always adding new titles!
The Snake Stone Jason Goodwin Farrar, Straus & Giroux 0-374-29935-8
| $25.00
An Istanbul bazaar is full of exotic goods, yelling vendors, and chaotic customers; to mystery writer Jason Goodwin, author of The Snake Stone, that makes an Istanbul bazaar the perfect place for a murder.
Click here to listen to Goodwin discuss the charm and mystique of the ancient Turkish city on NPR's Morning Edition.
According to West Point grad and Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich, American dependence on oil and credit has lead our government to pursue solutions to our problems overseas. In his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Bacevich argues the real problems are at home.
Click here for more about this book from Bill Moyers.
Salim Hamdan just completed one of the first trials of a Guantanamo Bay Prisoner. Jonathan Mahler's new legal thriller, The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power, recounts the historic struggle of a military lawyer and a young law professor to bring Osama bin Laden's driver in front of a judge.
Click here to listen to NPR's All Things Considered.
Public sector incompetence may be no mistake. In Thomas Frank's new book The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, Frank argues that elected Republicans have deliberately built deeply flawed bureaucracies in order to perpetuate conservative interests.
Sweetheart Chelsea Cain St. Martin's Minotaur 0-312-36847-X
| $24.95
To New York Times bestselling author Chelsea Cain, Portland is a character: a woman with a complex. Maybe that is why Portland makes an ideal setting for Sweetheart, the second book in serial killer Gretchen Lowell's stomach-turning story.
Click here to listen to Chelsea Cain discuss Portland and her new thriller on NPR's Morning Edition.
had a new brainchild, a tool to help make your job (and life) easier. Nora, who started as a librarian in Baltimore County then ran Publishers Weekly & Library Journal and even had time to lead the library services department @ Hachette – has just launched 
Macmillan All-Stars 
