Notable Books of 2006

Oh yeah, it's been awhile since my last post...a year to be exact. So, here is a New Years resolution to keep this blog somewhat up to date. My first post for 2007 is a list of books voted "Most Notable" from the American Library Association. I post the press release below so that you can get the full flavor of how the list was created. I am not sure if Brooks owns ALL of these, but I am sure we have a majority. Just click here to search the catalog:

January 21, 2007
PRESS RELEASE

The Notable Books Council of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division American Library Association (ALA), has compiled its year 2007 list of outstanding books for the general reader. These titles have been selected for their significant contribution to the expansion of knowledge and for the pleasure they can provide to adult readers. This is “The List for America's Readers:”

Fiction
Bigsby, Christopher, Beautiful Dreamer, St. Martin's, $21.95.
Dean, Debra, Madonnas of Leningrad, Morrow, $23.95.
Desai, Kiran, The Inheritance of Loss, Grove, $24.
Doig, Ivan, The Whistling Season, Harcourt, $25.
Grenville, Kate, The Secret River, Canongate, $24.
Khadra, Yasmina, translated from the French by John Cullen, The Attack, Doubleday/Nan Talese, $18.95.
Lansens, Lori, The Girls. Little Brown, $23.95.
McCarthy, Cormac, The Road, Knopf, $24.
Meek, James, The People's Act of Love, Cannongate.
Mitchell, David, Black Swan Green, Random House, $23.95.
Murakami, Haruki, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Knopf, $24.95.
Savage, Sam, Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, Coffee House Press, $14.95.

Nonfiction
Bechdel, Alison, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Houghton Mifflin, $19.95.
Egan, Timothy, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, Houghton Mifflin, $28.
Flannery, Tim, The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, Grove/Atlantic, $24.
Greene, Melissa Fay, There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey To Rescue Africa's Children, Bloomsburg, $25.95.
Hessler, Peter, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present, HarperCollins, $26.95.
Horne, Jed, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City, Random House, $25.95.
King, Ross, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World of Impressionism, Walker, $28.
Kohlberg, Elizabeth, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, Bloomsburg, $22.95.
Philbrick, Nathaniel, Mayflower: A Story of Courage Community, and War, Viking, $29.95.
Phillips, Julie, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, St. Martin’s, $27.95.
Zoellner, Tom, The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire, St. Martin’s, $24.95.

Poetry
Flenniken, Kathleen, Famous, Univ of Nebraska Pr, $17.95.
Satterlee, Thom, Burning Wycliff, Texas Tech Univ Pr.
Slavitt, David R., William Henry Harrison and Other Poems. LSU Pr, $16.95.
This list will be available on the Notable Books Web page on the RUSA/ALA Web site (http://www.ala.org/rusa/notable.html).

Since 1944, the goal of the Notable Books Council has been to make available to the nation’s readers a list of 25 very good, very readable, and at times very important fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books for the adult reader. The Council consists of members selected from the membership of RUSA /CODES (Collection Development and Evaluation Section). RUSA is a division of the American Library Association.

Members of this year’s Council were: Charlene R. Rue (Chair), Brooklyn Public Library; Sara Maxine Taffae (Vice-Chair), State Library of Louisiana; Alicia Kathryn Ahlvers, Kansas City Public Library; Raymond W. Barber, H. W. Wilson Company; Hope Cockrell, Denton Public Library; Ellen T. Fain, Queens Borough Public Library; Gloria Gehrman; Patricia L. Gregory, Saint Louis University; Steven Jablonski, Skokie Public Library; Rhea Joyce Rubin, Rubin Consulting; Forest Turner, Suffolk County House of Correction; and Brenda Clark Wegener, Mercantile Library with Brad Hooper (Booklist).