Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

OMG – this is the best book trailer I’ve seen yet: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters from Quirk Classics I loooved the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies audiobook – currently available as download-only from Audible, not until October on CD  from Brilliance. Total strangers wondered about my sanity as I strolled down the sidewalk [...]

Today’s panel at ALA Annual was a happy reunion of nearly all the members of the 2008 Odyssey Award committee, while those missing lent their support from afar. The wonderful women who served with me on that first-year committee are an amazing group of children’s and YA literature experts with a deep knowledge of the [...]

Shoplifting $1500 worth of audiobooks? That’s what happened at Books-a-Million in Rock Hill, S.C. Here’s a quote from a WCNC.com story by Maria Kotula:
“We busted him two months ago, he was going into our bathroom and stealing audio books,” says Deaton. She adds, “about $1500 worth of audio books in one day.”

Thanks to Simply Audiobooks [...]

Yay! Lisa Von Drasek takes on Kristof of the NYT on summer reading in her EarlyWord post Summer Reading? Good! Assigned Reading? Bad. The Horn Book’s Roger Sutton anticipated this debate last week with his Twitter question, “Topic for my class today: why does required reading feel more difficult?”
My response? The automatic reaction of [...]

Industry leaders react to APA sales survey results in Spoken-Word Audio Market Holds On, a Publishers Weekly article by Jim Milliot. Thoughtful comments on changes due to the economy, the library & bookstore markets, shifts from CD to downloads, DRM, and the increase in sales of pre-loaded Playway audiobooks.

Pre-loaded audio format and downloads increase, childrens & YA numbers decrease. Total industry revenue down only 6.7%. Audiobooks remain a bright spot in publishing. Get more information by reading the complete 2009 APA Sales Survey press release here.

Two great articles from BooklistOnline to celebrate: Sue-Ellen Beauregard’s Fall Audiobook Preview 2009 will help you get your order list ready to submit with tons of terrific new audiobooks for adults, YAs, and children. Joyce Saricks’ At Leisure column this month is Audiobooks: The Acid Test where she shares her audiobook addiction and her preferences [...]

Just arrived via UPS – advanced listening copy of Graceling from Full Cast Audio! You can grab a sneak peek by watching this video or see & hear Tamora Pierce discuss the title here. I love the fact the Full Cast staff videographer Jamil Munoz documents the recording sessions! Are there other audiobook addicts out [...]

Audies award-winning author & narrator Davis Sedaris signs iPods & more for digital readers. Here’s a quote from Andrew Adam Newman’s New York Times article Kindle Joins a Literary Ritual: Authors Can Autograph It:
Mr. Sedaris wrote in a recent e-mail message that he has actually signed “at least five” Kindles, and “a fair number of [...]

Little Dorrit in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audiobook. Great observations on our changing relationship with story in Ann Kirschner’s Reading Dickens Four Ways: How ‘Little Dorrit’ Fares in Multiple Text Formats from the The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Chronicle Review. I particularly like this quote:
Audiobooks also impose a certain discipline. I think of this as [...]