Everything you ever wanted to know about apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes is contained in  Michael Pollan’s witty and insightful The Botany of Desire. He uses these four plants to explore genetic engineering, prohibition (Oh, Johnny Appleseed, I’ll never think of you the same way again), greed, commerce, beauty, corporate agriculture, and more. It’s a book that you want your best friend to read at the same time so that at the end of each section you can say, “Wow. So what do you think this means for…” or “Maybe we should be careful about eating/breathing/smoking so much…” I’ve often said that for me the true test of popular nonfiction is how annoying it makes the reader. When I was reading this book, I was so full of fascinating tidbits that I was insufferable. That’s a good book!

If the words “scrunchee,” “cassingle,” or “McDLT” mean anything to you, I don’t have to introduce you to the  delightfully stereotyped cast of the 1980s Sweet Valley High series. Francine Pascal’s update, Sweet Valley Confidential, catches the reader up on Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield (spoiler: Vampy Jessica did something bad and angelic Elizabeth swears she’s not going to forgive her this time.) We also get to see whether the years have been kind to Lila Fowler, Bruce Patman, and the rest of the gang. Here’s the thing about this book. It doesn’t matter if it’s good. (Entertainment Weekly put it pretty bluntly, “Make no mistake: This is a very bad book, bloated and silly and, worst of all, often quite boring.”) It doesn’t matter because it’s a book that gets people talking about books. This is the time to grab Lizzie Skurnick’s nostalgia fest Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading and do a display, booklist, blog post, or just have it at your service desk as a conversation starter for a day or two. (The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, Daughters of Eve, Then Again Maybe I Won’t…. this book is a pimply time machine!) Imagine if you literally asked EVERY patron you deal with today, “And would you like me to put you on the waiting list for Sweet Valley Confidential?” I’m only half kidding. What a way to get your readers thinking back to those defining reading experiences. Skurnick’s last chapter, “Panty Lines: I Can’t Believe They Let Us Read This” discusses those adult books we borrowed from a friend’s older sister and read with flashlights, My Sweet Audrina, Wifey, Clan of the Cave Bear, Flowers in the Attic, and Domestic Arrangements. So make a fake yearbook page with book covers (Audrina, girl, you are totally most likely to write a tell-all!) or make your staff picks formative reads-themed for the week. Let the light of Sweet Valley shine down on your readers (and have fun!).

Guys Can Read is the website of the weekly podcast of the same name.  Luke Navarro and Kevin McGill “talk life, manhood and the stories that shape us” .  They cover literary fiction, science fiction and fantasy, and nonfiction, with graphic novels sometimes thrown into the mix as well.  For anyone who thinks young men don’t read… Luke and Kevin will convince you that they can, indeed.

http://www.guyscanread.com/

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In Baker Towers, Jennifer Haigh paints an evocative picture of a post-World World II mining town in Pennsylvania. After Stanley Novak dies unexpectedly, his widow and children  try to escape their dreary life.  Mother Rose struggles but can never escape the narrow-mindedness that goes along with small town life.  Her five children try to fit in to the world around them, awash in the many changes of the era.  Spanning three decades and a host of rich characters, this is a deep and true family story, and Haigh captures the hardscrabble era with grace and sympathy.  For fans of historical fiction (WW II era), family dramas, and those who simply enjoy  good writing.

Cleaning toilets to make money for her hepatitis medicine, 50-year-old Alison recalls her younger days as a model in Paris and New York. She remembers, too, her brazen friend Veronica who died of AIDS. There is an almost oppressive bleakness to Alison’s life. Even though her younger years were filled with lights, cameras, and drama, she was never particularly interesting as a person–simply someone who was exposed to interesting things because of her appearance. Like Marge Piercy’s The Longings of Women or Jennifer Egan’s Look at Me, Veronica is an unforgettable portrait of a woman making the best of an unexpected second act.

Why do people always act so surprised when a fantasy book ends up on the New York Times Best Sellers list? Every time R.A. Salvatore has a new book come out there’s a nearly choreographed mass head scratching. You probably heard it last week when Patrick Rothfuss’s The Wise Man’s Fear debuted at number one. The magician Kvothe spins out his fantastical life story in this sequel to The Name of the Wind.

We sometimes forget that many of our fantasy readers don’t have book blinders on. They don’t read 600-page dragon-covered tomes exclusively. They’re also reading Clive Cussler or David Baldacci. They’re checking out our graphic novels and titles from the Book Group collection. So don’t forget to spotlight those “surprise” fantasy hits from years past. There’s a larger audience than you might think.

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
Shea, the last heir of Shannara, must save the humans, gnomes, trolls, dwarfs, and elves of the world by defeating the Warlock Lord with an enchanted sword.

The Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher
Tavi thinks that he is without the magical talent of his people, but when Alera is torn apart by conflct between rebels and loyalists he discovers that he may hold the key to his realm’s survival.

Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind
After his father is killed for refusing to release The Book of Counted Shadows, Richard Cypher slowly assumes the mantle of his birthright and begins a quest filled with all manner of magical allies and enemies.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Although it’s trite to call something “Harry Potter for grownups,” it fits the bill here. Outsider Quentin Coldwater
slips through an invisible fence and is admitted to a private college for the responsible study of magic and sorcery.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
Magic is fading and the approaching winter will last decades. Three royal families of the Seven Kingdoms band together to defeat the ruling Targaryens’ mad king, Rhaegar

Lamentation by Ken Scholes
The sudden destruction of Windwir, a great city of 200,000 people and the famed library of the Andofrancine Order, signals to Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, that a war unlike any other is fast approaching.

Like all the best bloggers, blonde moms and authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke love what they do. So it’s awesome that what they love is reading chick lit and gushing about it. (Oh, and they love their kids and occasionally gush about mommy stuff, too.) Chick Lit is Not Dead features lots of giveaways, interviews, and great author segments like

• 25 Things Liz & Lisa Want To Know About…
• 5 Do’s and a Do-over
• 5 Things Liz & Lisa Didn’t Know About…

And, not to sound shallow, but it’s a really pretty site. Liz and Lisa take their writing and marketing seriously, and it shows. They’re smart cookies with a taste for Hermes and happy endings. What’s not to like?

Oh lordy do I need a good laugh.  What with all the political strife going on, the mass destruction in Japan, and the scary threat of nuclear meltdown, I’ve just about had it with the real world. So I’m diving into my pool of happy books.  Here’s the book that made me laugh the loudest in 2008:

Driving Sideways is a laugh-out-loud road trip novel that takes on a serious subject – a young woman with a devastating disease gets a second chance at life thanks to a kidney transplant.  But instead of a sappy or issue-driven plot, Riley takes her characters on a crazy cross country trip, and pretty much made me laugh on every single page.  (Major bonus points for referencing the Menards jingle as well!  Midwestern readers, you get me.)

28-year-old Leigh is traveling across the country to visit the family of her organ donor. Diagnosed with kidney disease as as a teen, Leigh has always been a homebody, carefully choosing her next steps.  But ever since her transplant, she’s been trying all kinds of new things, throwing caution to the wind to set out on an adventure.  She’s convinced that this newfound free-spiritedness must be a trait her donor had, so she’s determined to find out more about this person, with unexpected results.   Witty dialogue, fun characters, and an fast-paced plot mark this debut novel, which by the way also puts an interesting spotlight on living with a chronic disease and the aftermath of organ transplantation.

Of all of the 352 pages, my husband just had to decide to peak over my shoulder when Phoebe Millbury finally succumbs to her passion for the rogueish Rafe Marbrook, bastard brother of the Marquis of Brookhaven. We were on a plane, and he was so shocked that I would be reading such racy content in public that he literally sputtered. I just raised a libariany eyebrow and kept reading. The first in a trilogy, Celeste Bradley’s Desperately Seeking a Duke introduces three cousins who must be the first to marry a duke in order to inherit the family fortune. Pheobe, a vicar’s daughter, is the star of this saucy tale of love, lust, and ridiculous 19^th-century inheritance law.

Spring’s around the corner, cabin fever’s got everybody ready to lash out at the least little thing, people are shaking from their Lenten deprivations… what better time to get your envy on. Live vicariously through these book-bound, green-eyed monsters.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
In this dark morality play, the former lovers of restaurant critic and photographer Molly Lane are forced to confront their feelings for her, and each other, after her death.

Embers by Sandor Marai
After 41 years, Konrad and Henrik reunite in the castle at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains where they last saw each other the day of a portentous hunting party.

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
Lifelong best friends, broadcast journalist Tully and stay-at-home mom Kate, finally face off over the envy-shaped elephant lying in the middle of their relationship.

Something Blue by Emily Giffin
How’s this for a silver lining? The fling between Darcy’s best friend and her fiance may end up being the best thing that ever happened to her.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Privileged Amir’s jealousy of servant’s son Hassan reveals a cowardice in Amir that he only overcomes decades later when he returns to Afghanistan to help Hassan’s son.