Booklist's Shelf Care

On this episode of Booklist’s Shelf Care: The Podcast, host Susan Maguire talks to the Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table’s Jessica Jenner about the Best Graphic Novels for Adults reading list, Audio Editor Heather Booth gives us the skinny on the Odyssey Award winners, and Adult Books Associate Editor Annie Bostrom and I figure out who is more of a Kristy.

Here’s what we talked about:

2020 Best Graphic Novels for Adults

Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna, illustrated by the author, translated by Helge Dascher.

Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy and Octavia Butler, illustrated by John Jennings.

Come Home, Indio by Jim Terry, illustrated by the author.

Best Graphic Novels for Adults Reading List nomination form.

Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, read by Bahni Turpin.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds, read by Jason Reynolds.

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, read by Elizabeth Acevedo and Melania-Luisa Marte.

When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, read by a full cast.

Kent State by Deborah Wiles, read by a full cast.

We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Growing Up Bookish and Bossy with the Iconic Series edited by Marisa Crawford and Megan Milks.

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder.

Welcome to the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional conversation series where Booklist talks to book people. This Shelf Care Interview is sponsored by Naxos Audiobooks.

In this episode of the Shelf Care Interview, Heather Booth talks to narrators Barry McGovern and Marcella Riordan, and producer Roger Marsh, the team behind FINNEGANS WAKE.

Welcome to the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional conversation series where Booklist talks to book people. This Shelf Care Interview is sponsored by Dreamscape Audio.

In this latest installment, Heather Booth talks to the team behind MURDER BY PAGE ONE, Olivia Matthews and Janina Edwards.

Olivia Matthews is the cozy mystery pseudonym of award-winning author, Patricia Sargent of a reader. She's been inspired by writers, such as Walter Mosley, Dick Francis, and Tammy Hogue who put ordinary characters in extraordinary situations. Raised in New York city, she lives with her husband in Ohio.

Janina Edwards is an earphone award winner, a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and recorded her first audiobook in 1987. She excels in portraying authentic characters and voices, the African diaspora west Africa, Southern us and west Indies. Janina is also a yoga teacher, a musician who plays the violin and Kirtan wallah and is owned by two cats.

MURDER BY PAGE ONE is available now!

Raúl the Third is the Pura Belpré Honor-winning illustrator of ¡VAMOS! LET'S GO TO THE MARKET and ¡VAMOS! LET'S GO EAT. He is currently working on the expanded world of his ¡Vamos! series. He grew up in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, México, and now lives in Boston, Massachusetts with colorist and collaborator Elaine Bay and their son, Raúl the Fourth.

His new books, TAG TEAM and TRAINING DAY will be publishing May 4 from Houghton Mifflin Books for Young Readers.

On this episode of Booklist’s Shelf Care: The Podcast, host Susan Maguire talks to Karen Toonen, Collection Services Manager at the Naperville Public Library (IL) about how her library’s circulation changed during lockdown, and what she did about it; Audio Editor Heather Booth shares the five essentials of business books on audio; and Adult Books Editor Donna Seaman shares what she’s reading and loving.

Here’s what we talked about:

Reunion Beach: Stories Inspired by Dorothea Benton Frank by Elin Hilderbrand, Andriana Trigiani, et al.

It Had to Be You by Georgia Clark.

The Cult of We by Eliot Brown.

Bridgerton, aka The Duke and I by Julia Quinn.

Naked in Death by JD Robb.

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall. Read by the author.

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin. Read by Robin Miles.

All Together Now: A Newfoundlander’s Light Tales for Heavy Times by Alan Doyle.

Heather’s Tips for Selecting Business Books on Audio:

1) Look to the stars!

2) Look to the *other* stars

3) Think like a talk-y management business-y type

4) Shop the airport

5) Trust the content

The Man Who Lived Underground, by Richard Wright.

Leonora in the Morning Light, by Michaela Carter.

Leonora Carrington Tarot card deck

Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth, by Tony Hiss.

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard.

Welcome to the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional conversation series where Booklist talks to book people. This Shelf Care Interview is sponsored by Seaman Capital.

In this episode of the Shelf Care Interview, Susan Maguire talks to J. William Lewis, author of The Essence of Nathan Biddle. Alabama native J. William Lewis is a former lawyer who lives in Shoal Creek, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. After a clerkship for the Honorable Walter P. Gewin on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Lewis practiced law in Birmingham for over three and a half decades. Presently, Lewis serves as an executive officer of his family's investment company, Seaman Capital, LLC, and related companies. He's been married to Lorraine Seaman Lewis for more than half a century.

His debut novel, The Essence of Nathan Biddle, comes out on June 1st from Greenleaf Book Group Press.

Welcome to the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional conversation series where Booklist talks to book people. This Shelf Care Interview is sponsored by HMH Books for Young Readers.

Ally Carter writes books about sentinels, spies, thieves, and diplomats. She is a New York Times best-selling author whose novels have sold over three million copies and have been published in more than twenty countries. She lives in Oklahoma, where her life is either very ordinary or the best deep-cover story ever.

Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery is available now!

(For the full notes with links, visit booklistonline.com/shelf-care)

On this episode of Booklist’s Shelf Care: The Podcast, Susan gets real scared…Summer Scare(d), that is! Ha ha ha ha ha, good one.

Hear from author Silvia Moreno-Garcia and librarian horror expert Becky Spratford, librarians Konrad Stump and Evelyn Gathu, and Booklist’s own Julia Smith about this year’s Summer Scares program, from how the books are selected to that one author in the UP who can only be reached if you call the gas station in town.

Here’s what we talked about:

Summer Scares 2021 list:

The Hunger, by Alma Katsu (2018)

The Cipher, by Kathe Koja (reissued by Meerkat Press, 2020)

Frankenstein in Baghdad, by Ahmed Saadawi, translated by Jonathan Wright (2018)

Undead Girl Gang, by Lily Anderson (2018)

The Diviners, by Libba Bray (2012)

The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline (2017)

Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, by Hal Johnson and illustrated by Tom Mead (2015)

Ollie’s Odyssey, written and illustrated by William Joyce (2016)

Whichwood, by Tahereh Mafi (2017)

RA for All: Horror

Women in Horror month

Horror Writers Association

Summer Scares 2020 Program Guide (2021 guide is coming soon…)

UP Notable Books 2020

Yoopernatural Haunts: Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society Case Files, by Brad Blair, Tim Ellis, and Steve LaPlaunt

The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle

Case File 13: Zombie Kid, by J. Scott Savage

In the Valley of the Sun, by Andy Davidson

Goosebumps series, by R. L. Stine

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz, illustrated by Stephen Gammell

Welcome to the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional conversation series where Booklist talks to book people. This Shelf Care Interview is sponsored by Lerner Publishing Group.

In this episode of the Shelf Care Interview, Julia Smith talks to Traci Sorell. Traci is the award-winning author of We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, which received a Sibert honor, a Boston Globe–Horn Book honor, an American Indian Youth Literature Award (AIYLA) honor, and an Orbis Pictus honor. She also wrote At the Mountain’s Base, an AIYLA honor book, and coauthored Indian No More, an AIYLA winner. She has penned poems for anthologies such as Thanku: Poems of Gratitude and No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History. Like Mary Golda Ross, Traci is a Cherokee Nation citizen—although writing comes easier to her than math. She lives in Oklahoma.

Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer is on sale March 2, 2021 from Lerner.

Every year, Booklist editors pull together the most noteworthy books of the year for the Editors’ Choice, and every year, Susan Maguire chases them down to talk about those books. This year was both no different and completely different, as each of our fine editors sent in a voice note featuring favorites from the list, books that deserve an additional shout out, hot trends, etc. Please enjoy these bookish testimonials. Wow!

Find the full show notes on www.booklistonline.com/shelf-care.

Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots. By Morgan Jerkins.

These Ghosts Are Family. By Maisy Card.

Year of the Rabbit. Written and illustrated by Tian Veasna. Translated by Helge Dascher.

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Shortlist

Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist. By Celia Stahr.

Recollections of My Nonexistence. By Rebecca Solnit.

African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. Edited by Kevin Young.

The Night Watchman. By Louise Erdrich.

The Magic Fish. Written and illustrated by Trung Le Nguyen.

Dungeon Critters. Written and illustrated by Natalie Riess and Sara Goetter.

Everything Sad Is Untrue: (A True Story). By Daniel Nayeri.

Before the Ever After. By Jacqueline Woodson. Read by Guy Lockard.

I Killed Zoe Spanos. By Kit Frick. Read by a full cast.

This Is Your Time. by Ruby Bridges. Read by the author.

My Mother’s House. By Francesca Momplaisir. Read by a full cast.

The Switch. By Beth O’Leary. Read by Alison Steadman and Daisy Edgar-Jones.

Tokyo Ueno Station. By Yu Miri. Read by Johnny Heller.

Clap When You Land. By Elizabeth Acevedo. Read by the author and Melania-Luisa Marte.

Girl with the Louding Voice. By Abi Daré. Read by Adjoa Andoh. Everything Sad Is Untrue: (A True Story). By Daniel Nayeri.

Black Is a Rainbow Color. By Angela Joy. Illustrated by Ekua Holmes.

Upright Women Wanted. By Sarah Gailey.

When No One Is Watching. By Alyssa Cole.

Skunk and Badger. By Amy Timberlake. Illustrated by Jon Klassen.

Fly on the Wall. Written and illustrated by Remy Lai.

Girl on a Motorcycle. By Amy Novesky. Illustrated by Julie Morstad.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. By Samin Nosrat.

The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained. By Nik Sharma.

The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food. By Marcus Samuelsson, Osayi Endolyn, and Yewande Komolafe.

Parakeet. By Marie-Helene Bertino.

The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh. By Candace Fleming.

Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera. By Candace Fleming. Illustrated by Eric Rohmann.

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team. By Christina Soontornvat.

A Wish in the Dark. By Christina Soontorvat.

King and the Dragonflies. By Kacen Callender.

Felix Ever After. By Kacen Callender.

Legendborn. By Tracy Deonn.

The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice. By Lisa DeSelm.

Given. By Nandi Taylor.

Gimme Everything You Got. By Iva-Marie Palmer.

Jane against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights. By Karen Blumenthal.