Southern California’s National Public Radio station, KCRW, makes its popular Bookworm radio show available as a free weekly podcast. Host Michael Silverblatt is a critical reader and in-depth interviewer of the "Who’s Who" of contemporary literary fiction and poetry. Whenever I’m preparing for a book discussion, one of the first things I do is dash to the computer to see if Michael Silverblatt has interviewed the author. I know I’ll hear a great discussion and gain lots of literary insight to share with my group. Recent guests include Rita Dove, Jonathan Lethem, and Barbara Kingsolver. 

I desperately want to get my hands on the new nonfiction book, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up: A Love Story.  It just sounds right up my alley.  Which got me thinking about other not-too-dry, engaging (no pun intended!) nonfiction books about love.  Head on over to your 152s and your 306s and put these out for perusal…

Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of Love is fascinating and makes for great reading.  Ackerman, author of the equally engaging A Natural History of the Senses, takes the reader on a delightful love trip through time, from ancient mythology to medieval lovers to modern-day relationships.

Why We Love:  The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love by Helen Fisher explores love from an anthropologist’s point of view, that we are all hard-wired to act predictably in matters of love.

A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon uses nerual science research to explain why we fall in love, yet does it in an entirely readable way.

Here Lies My Heart:  Essays on Why We Marry, Why We Don’t, and What We Find There from the editors of Beacon Press brings together 20 essays by authors such as Barbara Ehrenreich and David Mamet (!) discussing all manner of romantic relationships.

While we’re hoping many of you followed us over to Library Journal last fall, we suspect some folks might be coming across our site for the first time, or, didn’t make the switch.  Take a look at what we’ve been getting up to over there…

We crushed on The Readers Advisor Online, Book Dwarf, and KDL’s What’s Next, among others.

Karen found you readalikes for Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed, Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, and provided timely resources on Haiti, both fiction and nonfiction…

While Rebecca wondered if there were any readalikes for The Lovely Bones, raved about Learning to Fly and Erasure (the novel, not the 80s band, although she loves them too) and showed her affection for post-apocalyptic fiction.

So come on over and keep track of us over at Library Journal! You can easily subscribe to the feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ShelfRenewalBlog

We have some non-LJ stuff in store this Spring, such as a program for ARRT, and Rebecca will be speaking at ILA’s Reaching Forward, PLA 2010 in Portland, and the Illinois State Library’s On the Front Lines.  So we’ll keep posting that sort of thing here on the good ol’ original ShelfRenewal site.

So, keep track of us here, but don’t forget about the blog at LJ… see you there!

Karen and Rebecca

Adriana Trigiani’s Brava, Valentine is probably making the rounds of the reserve lists at your library, so why not steer your women’s fiction authors to some of these readalikes – stories of big Italian families, romance, and whimsy.  Divertiti!

Claire Cook is a great readalike choice in general for Trigiani, because her warm and witty novels feature close families and humorous situations, with just enough romance.  In Summer Blowout, Bella works at her family’s salon as a makeup artist.  Unfortunately, so does the rest of her crazy extended Italian family.  Tensions escalate when Bella discovers that her ex-husband has been secretly dating her youngest half-sister, and they plan to wed. Laugh-out-loud scenes and great quirky characters abound.

Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank features the Russos, transplants to Hilton Head from Jersey.  Their daughter Grace lives nearby in Charleston, is trying to be an independent woman, but her needy family keeps calling her home, away from her Irish doctor boyfriend.  Funny and charming with realistic characters, much like Trigiani’s work.

Susan Volland’s Love and Meatballs finds 30-something Jo Cerbone working tirelessly in her family’s Italian restaurant, trying to juggle 2 very different men.  Romantic and full of quirky secondary characters with funny "scenes from an Italian restaurant".

Another restaurant-themed romance is Millie Criswell’s The Trouble With Mary, where we find Mary Russo and her large, too-close-for-comfort Italian family.  When Mary decides to branch out and open her own Italian restaurant, she falls for the food critic who at first, gives her a terrible review. Criswell continues with several other romances featuring Russo family and friends, including The Trials of Angela and Mad about Mia.

Summer in Tuscany by Elizabeth Adler finds ER doc Gemma heading to Tuscany with her teenage daughter after her mother, Nonna, discovers she’s inherited land there.  Adler does a great job painting the Italian landscape and writing feisty female characters. 

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn
Strong-willed widow Lady Julia Grey is a heroine for historical fiction and romance readers alike. In the first in the award-winning series, Lady Julia learns that her husband hired private investigator Nicholas Brisbane shortly before his death. Could Sir Edward have met with foul play? Manly and mysterious Brisbane seems to think so, and bored Lady Julia could use a a nice diversion from her Victorian-era grieving. Julia’s eccentric family is as warm and open as Brisbane’s past is cold and closed. Whatever will these seemingly opposite characters find in common?

Next month, Raybourn releases The Dead Travel Fast, introducing Theodora Lestrange, a Scottish writer on her way to 19th-century Transylvania to meet a friend who is about to be wed. Vat vill she find?

Louise Erdrich’s new book Shadow Tag is an autopsy of a self-destructive marriage. Gil is a renowned artist and Irene is his constant subject. The anger and alcoholism that consume them make Irene want to flee and Gil desperate to keep their family together. Suspecting that Gil is reading her diary, Irene begins to keep two–one that she keeps in a safe deposit box at the bank and one that she uses to bait Gil and keeps where he can find it. Gil takes his anxiety out on their three children, who all sense an escalating unease but are in disagreement about whether their parents should divorce.

The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg
A family reunion is complicated when Caroline asks her two siblings if they remember the way their mother singled her out for abuse.

The Great Man by Kate Christensen
Two biographers interview the women who knew the most about late artist Oscar Feldman — his wife and mother of their autistic son; his sister, an artist in her own right; his longtime mistress and mother of their two daughters, and his mistress’s best friend.

The Photograph by Penelope Lively
Landscape historian Glyn Peters finds a photograph of his late wife holding hands with her brother-in-law and begins talking to their family and mutual friends to form a clearer picture of the woman he married.

The Ice Storm by Rick Moody
Teenagers Wendy and Paul act out their confusion and frustration at the instability that their alcoholic father and unfaithful mother have created in their 1970′s Connecticut home.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls was raised by parents who were, at best, unconventional. Her best-selling account of a childhood filled with uncertainty and broken promises stands out of her ability to write about their "adventures" without rationalizing or apologizing for her parents’ behavior. 

This week’s Web Crush is Kent District Library’s What’s Next:  The site that will make you look brilliant.  Seriously.  Every time I pull this out, the patron looks at me as though I am a genius -perhaps they think I know all this myself?  Any book in any series, in series order.  Put in what you know, it spits out a list of the series in order for an easy printout the patron can keep.

http://ww2.kdl.org/libcat/WhatsNextNEW.asp

I thought I’d kick off your Black History Month reading with a great story revolving around the publishing world and a black author whose uber-literary books keep getting shelved in the African-American section of Barnes and Noble.  It’s Erasure, by Percival Everett.

In Erasure, a black author, sick and tired of no one reading his historical literary novels (involving Greek philosophers), writes a ridiculous spoof of contemporary street lit called "My Pafology", submits it to his agent as a joke, and is shocked when it garners multi-million dollar deals.  It gets even worse when, in an attempt to stop it from being released, he changes the title to a four-letter word…which garners it a National Book Award nomination.  Readers are treated to chapters from the fake book (terrifically funny and horrifying at the same time), and an interesting look at what goes on behind the bestseller lists. 

Last month, Karen covered books similar to Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project.  This morning, I was delighted to stumble upon a post on Rubin’s blog, entitled "Twelve Tips for Reading More".  The very first tip is, "Quit Reading.  I used to pride myself on finishing every book I started. No more. Life is short.  There are too many wonderful books to read."  

I personally have the 50 page rule – if the book doesn’t grab me by then, it’s off the reading pile.  Or heck, even if I do get past page 50 but I get bored, or annoyed, I’m not above skimming right on over to the end. (ah, The Magicians, I really wanted to like you.  But you lost me 2/3rds of the way in…).  I do make a note on my Shelfari list of "did not finish".  

What about you, readers?  Do you finish every book you start?  What do you do if you can’t get into a book?

I’d encourage everyone to check out Rubin’s twelve tips.  They’re all very simple, but amusing and practical.

Cathedral by Raymond Carver
In those big studies of American reading habits, thousands of people routinely identify themselves as short story readers. All I can say is, they don’t borrow their books from my library. There are exceptions–Olive Kitteridge, Interpreter of Maladies, collections by already bestelling authors like John Grisham’s Ford County. But for the most part, short story collections are the dustiest part of my collection. Which is why I look for every opportunity to display, handsell, and gush about Raymond Carver’s superb Cathedral, shortlisted for the National Book Award in 1984. In the title story a man describes the night his wife invited a blind man over for dinner. That’s it. One awkward dinner with a stranger. One of those stories where "nothing happens." Except, amazing things happen. Subtle observations and small actions actually open worlds. Gush.