The CNF Librarian

Pardon my language here, but James Frey is the biggest bullshit artist. My undergraduate degree was in English with a focus on creative writing. My previous graduate degree is a Masters of Fine Arts in Nonfiction Writing. James Frey sullied nonfiction writing and memoirs. There are elements of fiction enlisted when writing literary or creative nonfiction, essays, and memoirs. These elements are supposed to be what is used to tell the story, what is used to build the narrative. At its very core, however, it is still supposed to be true. Frey's idea of embellishment for the sake of the narrative (The Smoking Gun, 2006) is an idea that is rooted in the "creative" of creative nonfiction, but the truth is still supposed to be there. In my MFA classes, we had to discuss Frey and the biggest scam of nonfiction. Frey shopped his story around to different publishers under the idea that it was fiction, but it was rejected (debated on the premise that it was, simply put, jus...

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe By Charles Yu Synopsis:  Charles Yu is a time machine technician. He lives in his one-person TM-31 Recreational Time Travel Device with his dog, Ed (who may or may not exist) and TAMMY, his computer, who has low self-esteem and is completely in love with him (and, when Charles is honest with himself, he reciprocates). Charles's life is, put succinctly, non-existent. He travels through time, space, and dimensions, fixing the problems of time travelers who have broken their worlds through paradoxes and bad choices, but when it comes to Charles's own life--he remains inside the TM-31, never really connecting. Until he does exit, one day, to visit his mother in her sad, digitally time-looped existence. On his return, he witnesses the TM-31 opening, and he sees himself, future Charles, stepping out. Panicked, Charles shoots himself, because he has to fix the paradox. The now-dying version of Charles hands his shooter a book...

I'm sure you've noticed--but our Horror titles aren't exactly flying off the shelves. I've been thinking about how we might be able to promote this collection, and I've come up with a way we might be able to get some of our other circ stats up as well. While our Horror books  aren't moving, our survival horror video games  are. These games are extremely popular right now, and with Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding  getting ready to come out, they're only going to increase in popularity. So, what I'm thinking we could do is a combined display, where we pair up horror book titles with similarly-themed horror video games. For example, we could pair up the popular PS4 title Until Dawn  (a slasher-style game about teens trying to survive, a la Cabin in the Woods, Friday the 13th, etc.) with Riley Sager's Final Girls (about the survivors of slasher-style attacks) . These both play off the idea of surviving a slasher-style horror event. I wouldn't ne...

The Hideaway by Lauren K. Denton Synopsis: Sara's life is perfect. She owns a thriving restoration business in New Orleans, and everything in her life is in order. However, when her grandmother, Mags, passes away, Sara must return home to Sweet Bay, Alabama, to take care of her grandmother's estate: a past-its-prime Bed & Breakfast called The Hideaway. She's been given instructions to fix the place up, and then she can sell it if she wishes. With every intention of settling affairs quickly, Sara comes home--but what she doesn't expect to find are her grandmother's secrets, of a love story long gone, and her own love story, just beginning. Told from the perspectives of Sara's present journey with the Hideaway and love interest Crawford, and Mags's past with lost love William, two stories unfold, with secrets revealed and long-held romances finally coming home. Romance Characteristics­¹: Emotional tone to draw readers in toward happy endi...

NOX by Anne Carson Pub Date: April 27, 2010 ISBN: 978-0811218702 Page count: 192 pp Publisher: New Directions Review Posted Online: February 10, 2018 In her return to poetry after a five-year hiatus, Carson explores the depths of grief following the death of her brother through a collection of artifacts. When Anne Carson's brother died in Copenhagen in 2000, she didn't find out until two weeks later. To cope with the loss, she wrote poetry, collected old photographs and letters, examined language, and sketched and scribbled her way to some semblance of a meaning for his death and, ultimately, his life. Her collection of artifacts became Nox , all the pieces coming together in an accordion-style set of pages, haphazard yet neatly bound all at once inside a fold-over box. Carson mixes the writing of her brother with an examination of Catullus's poem 101: "for his brother who died in the Troad." As she examines Catullus's poem, so she examines the life of ...

On Collection Development: I think that when there are fewer reviews available for a title, the selector needs to rely more on what the patron base requests. While there might be few reviews for a title, if there is high demand for a subject, then it needs to be met. If a title isn't reviewed in many places, and the demand isn't high for the subject or genre, then I feel it could be easily overlooked (perhaps to the detriment of the library). If the selector doesn't know about the review source, they might not even know the book exists. Library Journal and Kirkus are sometimes the first stop for selectors to know what is coming up in new publications, so if something is only reviewed in one or two places, it may be missed. Ebook only Romantic Suspense Novel: The reviews for this title aren't great. There's spelling and grammar errors, and the tone of the review from the blog just feels way too conversational. If I'm looking for a review of a title to possibly ...

Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore Synopsis: Nathan Quinn has been studying humpback whales for years, with one nagging question driving him: Why do the whales sing? While out on the boat with Amy, his intelligent and gorgeous research assistant, Nate attempts to take a photo of a humpback whale's tail fluke...only to find that the tail has some unusual markings. Across the fluke, Nate sees the words "BITE ME". Startled, Nate questions what he saw, but begins to find more and more evidence that someone--or something--is seriously messing with him. What follows is a new twist around every corner, with Nate finding a lab destroyed, a journey to the bottom of the ocean, an encounter with a dangerous megalomaniac, and a group of friends with a mission to discover why in the world a whale would call to order a pastrami on rye. Adventure Characteristics¹: Hero goes on adventure to an exotic, unknown, or mysterious place Starts in Ha...

I wandered into a not-so-local library on Wednesday afternoon and approached the service desk. I told the librarian (possibly just staff? This is a very small library, and no one was wearing badges with name or designation) that I was looking for a recommendation of a good book. She brought me over to the new arrivals shelf and pointed out a couple authors who have been popular with their users (Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson). I nodded to those suggestions, but I didn't really show much interest. I was hoping she might ask something, anything really, to narrow down the options. She did ask if I enjoyed mysteries, and I told her that I did, so she toured me through that section (which was right next to the new items) and suggested Mary Jane Clark. She then said she didn't read these authors much, but she preferred autobiographies instead. That got my attention more, and as she was apologizing for not having a lot of recommendations, I told her that I was into biograph...