The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty is a sensitive and moving portrait of a precocious girl and her single mom living just shy of real poverty in 1980′s Kansas.  Ten-year-old Evelyn is gifted, but risks failing school because her homelife is chaotic.  Tina, her mom, just can’t catch a lucky break.  The characters and scenes were very true and I hated to see it end. 

In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker is one of my favorite Parmesan cheese books. Many people will eat and enjoy food they profess to hate if it’s cooked properly and has enough Parmesan cheese on it. Many readers who claim they can’t stand science fiction will read and enjoy the first book in this smart, quirky time travel series. Ispo facto–Parmesan cheese book.

When the Company "rescues" 5-year-old Mendoza from the Spanish Inquisition, they bring her back to the 24th century to become a time-traveling cyborg. Here, she and two other operatives travel to 1553 England to retrieve now-extinct cancer-curing botanicals. The time travelers’ attempts to blend in and the hilarious color commentary they receive about 16th-century England from their futuristic radio reports are comedy gold. I’m just as likely to recommend this book to an adventurous fan of Carl Hiaasen as I am a Connie Willis reader.

New York Times chart topper Chelsea, Chelsea, Bang, Bang by Chelsea Handler is not for everyone. She has a bit of a potty mouth and is what well-meaning handbooks for girls warn against as "promiscuous." Which, really, is what makes her so fun to read. Until the waiting lists come down, recommend these other humorous accounts of bad girls living large:

Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin
Self-proclaimed D-list comedian Griffin candidly discusses her childhood, career struggles, and painful and public divorce. And then dishes about every celebrity she’s ever met and every civilian who’s ever done her wrong.

Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat, and Freaks by Lisa Lampanelli
The "Queen of Mean’s" politically incorrect memoir has several recurring themes–eating too much will make you fat, a good man is hard to find (insert joke here), and you’ve got to have a thick skin and great material to make it as a lady comic.

The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro
From the horrors of a high school reunion to the morning after archaeology of a hard night out partying, everywoman Notaro collects some of her best essays from the Arizona Republic to paint a deliciously unflattering portrait of herself.

Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants by Jill Soloway
Soloway, writer and co-executive producer of Six Feet Under, uses examples from her own drama-filled life to segue into rants about breast implants, Hollywood, and the perils of being yourself.

It’s Not Me, It’s You: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
How does a nice Jewish girl from Queens became a Hollywood writer and producer and proud (if a little tipsy) mother of three? Chelsea Handler herself blurbs, "More fun than an all little person nativity scene." Is there higher praise than that?

As promised, the slideshow and handouts from the PLA program, Books:  The Top 5 of the Top 5 are up and ready for your downloading pleasure!  Click the button above, or link here:

http://shelfrenewal.com/programs/pla2010presentation/

All of the handouts feature the email addresses of the presenter, so please, feel free to contact any one of us for further information.

And may we just tell the rest of you, how great this was?  Not even in our own words, but Twitter told us so:

“In “Books: the Top 5 of the Top 5.” The panel is brilliant, I am not worthy.”
“Books: the top 5 of the top 5. It’s like the rock stars of RA in here!”

And Library Journal covered the Virtual Conference version (slightly shorter) that we did right afterward:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6724342.html

Thanks everyone!  We hope you enjoyed it!  We’re already thinking of a program for PLA 2012, and don’t forget that each and every one of us would be happy to travel to your library and present to your staff!

This week’s Web Crush is A Bookshelf Monstrosity.  
Amanda, a library science student at MTSU, blogs about book news, reading adventures, libraries, and more.  She’s got an easy to read, charming style.  Check it out at http://bookshelfmonstrosity.blogspot.com/.

Kayrn Bosnak’s (she of SaveKaryn.com fame) first novel is a hilarious romp through the dating world.  From my LJ Summer Read Round Up of 2006:  "Delilah wakes up in bed with her boss. Why is that a problem, besides her having been fired just yesterday and her boss being kind of disgusting? Because it means she has now hit her self-imposed limit of sleeping with 20 men. Refusing to up her number, Delilah tracks down her previous 19 conquests, convinced that she has to make it work with one of them. As she begins a cross-country trek, she finds one in jail, one who has become a priest, and more than one who won’t speak to her. Is Delilah doomed to a life of celibacy?"

Variety reports that it’s being made into a movie starring Anna Faris.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in Portland for PLA this year, please come see this program –
Stop by and say hello… I’d love to meet you!
Books:  The Top 5 of the Top 5
http://www.placonference.org/e_pop_profiles.cfm?session=1&session_id=127383&class_id=125021

Friday, March 26^th 2010.  10:30am-11:45am
Room: Oregon Convention Center – D137-140

Featuring:
Rebecca  Vnuk
Author, Read On… Women’s Fiction
Neil  Hollands
Adult Services Librarian, Williamsburg Regional Library
Kaite  Mediatore Stover
Head of Readers’ Services, Kansas City Public Library
Barry  Trott
Adult Services Director, Williamsburg Regional Library
David  Wright
Reader’s Advisory Librarian, Seattle Public Library

Click here for more PLA 2010 Conference News coverage from the editors of Library Journal and School Library Journal.

Flashpoint by Lynn Hightower introduces single mom and Cincinnati homicide detective Senora Blair. When Senora gets to close to a female serial killer who likes to see her handiwork go up in flames, the killer puts Senora and her loved ones in her twisted sites. Hightower does a great job creating a credible working mom who beats herself up for a nutritionally dubious dinner as she runs out the door to catch a killer. Like many of the series books that end up on our dusties list, this one needs special handselling because the series ended in 2000 with the fourth book, The Debt Collector. (And on a side note, as a native Buckeye, I particularly enjoyed the little bits of southern Ohio culture, like stopping in a chili parlor to grab a bite. Oh, how I pine for a good coney every now and then.)

Seeing Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on the New York Times Bestseller list makes me love the American book buying public. Way to embrace the absurd, hardy readers! And this new genre really lends itself to a great road-trip game. So for my friends heading out to Portland for PLA, here are few of my own suggestions to get you started. Send us your bestselling ideas!

Grapes of Wraith
The Great Depression just got a whole lot worse.

Little Women: The Return of Beth
Beth’s ghost haunts the March girls as they try to move on with their post-war lives.

Crime and Punishment and the Song You Can’t Get Out of Your Head
Worst. Punishment. Ever.

Huckleberry Finn: Warlock at Last
Literature’s favorite scamp unlocks his supernatural powers.

Kelpie in the Rye
A mythical Irish pony lures phonies to their deaths.

Werewolf Don Quixote
Can a hirsute hero prove that chivalry isn’t dead?

Jane Eyre: The Gypsy Fights Back
Angered at being mocked by Mr. Rochester’s poor drag impersonation, a real gypsy reincarnates his crazy wife as a seemingly not-bent-on-revenge house cat. 

We’ll be presenting our program, Readers, Writers, Books, and Blogs for the Adult Reading Roundtable!

Readers, Writers, Books, and Blogs
Wednesday, March 31 at 1:30 p.m.

Oak Park Public Library
834 Lake Street

Registration is a mere $15.  Surely, a small price to pay to get to see us live.