Sponsored by Udon Entertainment
Oscar François de Jarjeyes is a young noblewoman raised as a son by her father. As commander of Marie Antoinette’s palace guard, Oscar is brought face-to-face with the luxury of King Louis XVI’s court at Versailles. Joined by her servant André, Oscar is privy to the intrigue and deceit of France’s last great royal regime. Available for the first time in English! This deluxe hardcover volume contains the first 22 chapters of Riyoko Ikeda’s historical fiction masterwork.
Welcome to Check Your Shelf! This is your guide to help librarians like you up your game when it comes to doing your job (& rocking it).
Collection Development Corner
Publishing News
- Shipping delays complicate the holiday season for indie booksellers.
- The effect of a no-deal Brexit on indie publishers.
New & Upcoming Titles
- Publisher’s Weekly lists its adult book announcements for Spring 2020.
- Melville House and Skyhorse are each publishing a copy of the impeachment report documents.
- Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias, and John Banville each sign two-book deals.
- Alix E. Harrow will publish two fractured fairy tale novellas with Tor.
- Sona Charaipotra announces her next book!
- Jasmine Guillory’s next book will be published in June 2020.
- Not an actual article here, but I just learned that My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Vol. 2 will hopefully be published in September 2020!
- Must-read books coming out in December.
- 20 most anticipated debuts of 2020.
Best Books of 2019
- Best books from AV Club, Booklist, Electric Lit, L.A. Times, People, Town & Country, and Vox.
- Powells picks its best fiction, nonfiction, science fiction, horror, & graphic novels, & kids/YA novels.
- Kirkus and Electric Lit pick their favorite nonfiction.
- CrimeReads: best crime novels and psychological thrillers.
- Tor.com: Best YA SFF and horror.
- Electric Lit: best short story collections.
- Vulture picks the best comedy and overlooked books of the year.
- Bill Gates talks about his 2019 book picks.
- Best books of 2019 written by women.
- Best queer YA of 2019.
- Best book covers of the year.
- If you’re on Twitter, make sure you’re following and participating in the #libfaves19 rundown!
- LitHub did some number crunching and came up with the Ultimate Best Books List of 2019.
What Your Patrons Are Hearing About
- The Revisioners – Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (New York Times, Washington Post)
- Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos – Peter Bergen (New York Times, Washington Post)
On the Riot
- Best book covers of the year.
All Things Comics
- Best graphic novels of 2019.
On the Riot
- Solving the Superman “problem.”
- All the superhero movies coming in 2020.
- 5 comics about history and culture.
- 7 great comics by Asian American writers and illustrators.
- Read Harder: Read a graphic memoir.
Audiophilia
- Libro.fm has your holiday gift guide right here!
- Top audiobooks of 2019 from Libro.fm, Paste, Wired, OverDrive, and Audible.
- 10 best audiobooks of December 2019.
- Kids’ audiobooks perfect for listening and gifting.
- The joy of listening to authors read their own audiobooks.
- According to this romance audiobook narrator, “sometimes a moan is required.”
On the Riot
- Read Harder: a poetry audiobook.
Book Lists, Book Lists, Book Lists
Children/Teens
- Books to help teens find their inner activist voice in 2020.
Adults
- 9 novels to give to your favorite climate change skeptic this holiday season.
- 20 books to make you want to pack your bags and travel.
- 3 books that explore the violence of women’s appetites.
- 5 books that belong on any time traveler’s TBR.
- The best Latino books, according to Latinx writers.
On the Riot
- 20 must-read picture books from 2019.
- 50 must-read books you may have missed in 2019.
- 10 epic fantasy novels like Wheel of Time.
- 7 books that illustrate life as a woman in politics.
- 8 books about badass female scientists.
- 5 poetry collections by women in translation.
- 3 books that open up complicated conversations about interpersonal violence.
- Read Harder lists for a historical fiction novel not set during WWII, a play by an author of color or a queer author, a book about a natural disaster.
Level Up (Library Reads)
Do you take part in LibraryReads, the monthly list of best books selected by librarians only? We’ve made it easy for you to find eligible diverse titles to nominate. Kelly Jensen created a database of upcoming diverse books that anyone can edit, and Nora Rawlins of Early Word is doing the same, as well as including information about series, vendors, and publisher buzz.
Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter. Currently reading Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke.