Unshelved by Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes

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Introducing @bookblrb

by Bill ( link to this post | email me | my twitter )

bookblrb logo

How short can a book talk get? Let's find out.

Gene and I have spent the last few months going through hundreds of our book recommendations, turning each into a very, very short blurb. How short? Each fits in in a single tweet along with a link to find out more. In fact they're so short that even the phrase book blurb starting feeling ponderous, so we shortened it to bookblrb™ .

We will send a new one out every day. Twitterers can Follow @bookblrb, and Facebookers can Like our Bookblrb page. The rest of you can find @bookblrb on our home page, and we hope to add it to the email and RSS feed very soon.

We hope @bookblrb helps you find even more great books to read and share.

P.S. While we were going through all those reviews we also tagged them all.

P.P.S. There's also a Facebook page for Unshelved. Twitterers can follow me (@billba) and Gene (@ambaum) and get strip and blog updates at @unshelfeed.

Graphic Novel Reviews

by Gene ( link to this post | email me | my twitter )

In this week's Unshelved Book Club you'll find graphic novels about a cat lady, maids and butlers, kids crossing the universe to save their father, gay superheroes, fantastic hypoglycemic hallucinations, divorce, Obelix, a robotics club vs cheerleaders for school funding, and the Rocketeer.

"My Mom the Librarian" print

by Bill ( link to this post | email me | my twitter )

We've had several requests for a print of Pat Race's great My Mom the Librarian mother's day strip. Now Pat informs us that he is going to do a small print run priced at $30 each. Interested? Drop him a line!

Guys Listen

by Bill ( link to this post | email me | my twitter )

Our sponsor this week is Listening Library, letting you know about Guys Listen, motivating guys to be curious about words, books, and life! This companion to Guys Read stars author Jon Scieszka and school librarian Rose Brock. They are trying to address the following dire statistics:

The U.S. Department of Education reading tests for the last 30 years show boys scoring worse than girls in every age group, every year.
Eighth grade boys are 50 percent more likely to be held back than girls.
Two-thirds of Special Education Students in high school are boys.
Overall college enrollment is higher for girls than boys.

Please click through to learn how you can help guys of all ages enjoy books, whether by reading or listening, and get a free Guys Listen 2 CD sampler.

P.S. Listening Library also sponsored last week's Unshelved Book Club with four great audiobook suggestions!

Unshelved @ BEA

by Bill ( link to this post | email me | my twitter )

In case you are already making your plans for BEA - and why wouldn't you be? - please note that Gene and I be delivering Surviving the Public in room 1E02 at 1pm on Friday, May 31. It's a fun, useful guide for dealing with difficult people, like no talk about customer service you've ever heard.

Please note that this is our only scheduled appearance at this year's BEA. This year, instead of being stuck at a booth selling goods and signing books, we will be walking around the exhibits floor, going to programming, and visiting with our favorite authors. So really our talk is your one and only chance to catch us, except by sheer happenstance.

Finally, enjoy a blast from the past: a helpful comic we made for the good folks at BEA entitled What Would Dewey Do @ BEA? (PDF).