Book Buzz Encore
Wednesday, 1:30 – 4:30pm
Is Nancy Pearl the librarian equivalent of a rock star? At the 11th PLA National Conference, Nancy presented Book Buzz where she highlighted the best new books with a panel of publishers to a standing-room only, overflow crowd. Now Nancy will come to MLA to do a Book Buzz encore with the help of Talia Ross of Holtzbrinck Publishers and Virginia Stanley of Harper Collins Publishers. Following their presentation, authors Joseph Finder, Kim Ponders, and Claire Cook will talk about their latest works and how libraries have impacted their writing careers.
Speaker: Nancy Pearl is the former director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. She speaks to library and community groups across the country and reviews books regularly on NPR’s “Morning Edition”, Wisconsin, Seattle, and Tulsa public radio stations. She is the author of Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; Now Read This: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1978-1998 and Now Read This II: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1990-2001.
Talia Ross coordinates the library marketing efforts of all of Holtzbrinck’s adult trade publishers including St. Martin’s Press, Tor/Forge, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Henry Holt, and Picador, among others. Prior to that she spent several years in academic marketing at Perseus and was briefly with Springer. Please visit her on the web at www.HoltzbrinckLibrary.com.
Virginia Stanley is Associate Director, Library Marketing, General Books Group, HarperCollins Publishers. She began her publishing career at Doubleday & Co., working in the Art Department from 1984-1988. In 1988 she moved to Harper & Row, starting in the Art Department and quickly moving on to Academic & Library Marketing. In the mid 90s she switched her focus entirely to Library Marketing and became the Associate Director of Library Marketing. She was featured in Library Journal’s Movers & Shakers issue in 2002. Virginia was instrumental in making HarperCollins a corporate member of Friends of Libraries USA (FOLUSA) and is responsible for the $10,000 FOLUSA/HarperCollins Award in honor of Barbara Kingsolver, given annually to a Friends group in a library with a small budget.
Joseph Finder has a B.A. in Russian studies from Yale, a master’s degree from Harvard and taught on the Harvard faculty. Finder’s first book, Red Carpet, was a controversial expose about Armand Hammer’s ties to Soviet intelligence. Finder is also the author of the thrillers The Moscow Club, Extraordinary Powers, The Zero Hour, High Crimes, Paranoia, Company Man, and Killer Instinct. High Crimes was made into a major motion picture starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman in 2002. Finder is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers and continues to write extensively on espionage and international affairs for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. He lives in Boston with his wife and daughter.
Kim Ponders served in active duty in the Air Force during the first Gulf War and was one of the first female aviators to fly in a war zone. She still serves as an officer in the Air Force Reserves. In her artfully constructed debut novel, The Art Of Uncontrolled Flight, Ponders relies on her own memories and combat experiences to offer an oft unheard voice—a woman’s perspective on war. By infusing the dark backdrop of battle with lyrical fiction, Ponders humanizes the courage, ugliness and fear of war. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two children.
Claire Cook is the bestselling author of three novels, Multiple Choice, Must Love Dogs (the movie adaptation stars Diane Lane and John Cusack) and Ready to Fall, with a fourth, Life’s a Beach, to be published by VOICE, the new Hyperion imprint, on June 5. About Life’s a Beach, Adriana Trigiani said, “Claire Cook has an original voice, sparkling style and a window into family life that will make you laugh and cry.” Mary Kay Andrews called it, “Tender, touching and terribly, terribly, funny!” Jacquelyn Mitchard proclaimed, “Claire Cook is wicked good.”
We are adding more information about the MLA 2007 Annual Conference every day.