Monday, October 3rd, 2022

October 2022 Early Reviewers Batch Is Live!

Win free books from the October 2022 batch of Early Reviewer titles! We’ve got 170 books this month, and a grand total of 3,710 copies to give out. Which books are you hoping to snag this month? Come tell us on Talk.

If you haven’t already, sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing/email address and make sure they’re correct.

ยป Request books here!

The deadline to request a copy is Tuesday, October 25th at 6PM EDT.

Eligibility: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, Italy, Germany, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Malta and more. Make sure to check the message on each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

A Fade of LightThe Mediterranean Migraine Diet: A Science-Based Roadmap to Control Symptoms and Transform Brain HealthDust ChildLittle Mr. Prose Poem: Selected Poems of Russell EdsonYour Emergency Contact Has Experienced an EmergencyI Am Still with You: A Reckoning with Silence, Inheritance, and HistoryA Noble Cunning: The Countess and the TowerPrimus, Over the Electric Grapevine: Insight into Primus and the World of Les ClaypoolRising From Down UnderA Tinderbox in Three ActsA Shiver in the LeavesEndpapersMan in a CageHeroes of an Unknown WorldCracked: My Life after a Skull FractureStudies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of SpeechMelpomene's GardenThe Blackout Book ClubBeyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to ImmigrationThe Inner Athlete: Train Your Brain, Push Your Limits, Be UnstoppableTake Me HomeWe Knew All AlongWinter's ReckoningArthur Who Wrote SherlockThe Magic MomentMy Name Is Not Ed TugWhen Words Have PowerThe Next WitnessHis Delightful Lady DeliaA Daughter's CourageChessie at BayWhen Fire Splits the SkyJohnny Lycan & The Vegas BerserkerThe Hammerhead ChroniclesThe Train To HellUntrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian CommunityUncommonPursuit: Airborne Adventure and Intrigue in the Lafayette Flying CorpsThe Vandals: Migration to the RhineDestiny of Determination: Faith and FamilyRule Trouble: The Case of the Illegal DragonAfrican Sun RisingThe BlessedA Dragon in the RoughThe Crumbling CityThe Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race, and ReligionOn the Level: Poems on Living with Multiple SclerosisA Walk in the DarkNew Arcadia: RevolutionNightmare AlleyBuried Talents: Overcoming Gendered Socialization to Answer God's CallStock Charting Book for Beginners: A Great Source for Learning Charting Analysis for Successful Stock TradesSummary of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep FriendsSummary of The Great Reset and The War for The WorldSummary of Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood SugarMidnight CravingSong of VirgoDiscordSummary of The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned AmericaThe Stars in Their EyesSummary of Plays Well With OthersTricked in OctoberSummary of Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of SubmissionSummary of Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of MiseducationThe Dead Man in the GardenBabble!: And How Punctuation Saved ItA Different Kind of Normal: My Real-Life COMPLETELY True Story About Being UniqueLittle EchoNarwhalicorn and JellyOn This AirplaneScaredy Squirrel Visits the DoctorSeekers of the FoxStar: The Bird Who Inspired MozartStrum and Drum: A Merry Little QuestWhen Two Worlds CollideRogue FlightSuper Sleepover!Unstoppable Us, Volume 1: How Humans Took over the WorldBad FormGround ControlDream Job Pilot?: Everyday Life of Helicopter and Airline PilotsTwilight HeistThe Price of AtonementThatchThe Folly: A Moment in TimeMind of AngelsThe Heart of a WolfCan You Spot the Leopard?: An African SafariRayna Larson and the Kingdom of PetuniaAllaigna's Song: ChoraleHow Grim Was My ValleyUnder PressureThe Golden RuleThe Midnight CallDa Vinci on the LamCharacters of HuffinfieldThe Last WarThe Phoenix and the SwordThe Velvet Badge: A New York NoirBeing Clutch: How the Young Athlete Can Create Confidence and Conquer Anxiety Through VisualizationAngled for RevengeThe Keeper: An InvitationNaomi Teitelbaum Ends the WorldFleshed Out: A Body Horror CollectionOf Blood and Silver RunesConversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of AmericaRoses and Ashes: Poems About Feminism and Sexism, Love and HateConfronting the Storm: Regenerating Leadership and Hope in the Age of UncertaintyThe PalladiumThe Forgotten Skill: What Can We Benefit from Learning Calligraphy?Santa's Fuzzy Little VisitThe City Grew MonstersThe Menopause Relief Paradox: What Anger, Heat, Weight Gain, Cognitive Decline, and Immune Frailty Really Is, and the 5 Easy Steps Any Woman Can Take to Reset the Mind-Body ConnectionTheresa et al.The Veracity of LiesSelling Yourself: Why There's More To Making Money Online Than You've Been ToldAntuna's StoryThe Rise and Fall of AntocracyAntunites UniteJackie Stories 1: A Boarding School FriendJackie Stories 2-3: A Rival at Work & A Waspish NovelistDeath at the FeteWhat Is GIS and Its Applications?: Everything You Need to Understand About Geographic Informations Systems, So That You Can Benefit From Using OneThe Spellbound AbbeyThe Lost WitchThe Son of FireStolen SummersSlow DogPlenum: The First Book of DeoMinotaur's LairGod of Fire: Greek MythsChanging Rhythms: Poems on Life, Fantasy and ArtThe ConspiracyThe IslandHuman Anatomy and Physiology Coloring Book with Facts and MCQ's (Multiple Choice Questions)Superhero Math - Division: Grades 3-5 with Answer KeyAmerica's Loveless Age: Trumpism, FemPower, The End of PatriarchyLittle Tim and the Magic ApplesThe Poetree: A Life Journaling GuideA Child of SzaboAdira: Journey to FreedomTraptionMushroom Identification Book of the UK: A 4-Step Mushroom Field Guide for Identification, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Mushrooms & Wild Fungi of Britain and EuropeFrigg's Journey to AnasgarThe Chaos AgentsLove and Only WaterTrophyDon't Shake the Mango Tree: Tales of a Scottish MaasaiThe Officer's GambleRaised Bed and Container Gardening: 9 Practical Steps For Turning Your Backyard or Balcony Into Your First Successful Vegetable Garden. Low-Cost and Beginner-FriendlyWatson Falls: A Small Town with a Deadly SecretAdventLucid RevengeWinter PaleOld Wizards HomeDrop Dead Dangerous: The Lethal Attraction of Road Trip Killer, Paul John KnowlesSocial Skills for Kids 3 to 10: How to Help Your Child Develop Nine Social Skills Needed To Be Happy, Confident, and Successful as a Child and Grown-UpHuman Anatomy and Neuroanatomy Coloring Book with Facts & MCQ's (Multiple Choice Questions)Lost PackagesThe Muse of FreedomKnucklebonesGorgon VillaWhat Will SurviveDoctor KnifeBreak Through Burnout: Triumph over Stress and Anxiety, and Win Back Your Life!The Journey of Neil the Great Dixter CatAnger Management for Better Parenting: A Guilt Free Guide to Not Wrecking Your Kids and Peacefully Navigate Tantrums and MeltdownsThe Summer of FestivalsEchoes of EnmityThe Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Victorian England: Volume Four

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

111Publishing Akashic Books Algonquin Books
Amherst College Press Bethany House BHC Press
Black Rose Writing BOA Editions, Ltd. Book Summary Publishing
Brazos Press Bumpity Boulevard Press Cinnabar Moth Publishing LLC
Circling Rivers City Owl Press Crooked Lane Books
Greenleaf Book Group History Through Fiction Hot Tree Publishing
IVP Academic Kakkle Publications Liz Fe Lifestyle
Malarkey Books Mirror World Publishing NeoParadoxa
NewCon Press Niv Publishing OffBeat Publishing
Plough Publishing House PublishNation Pulp Literature Press
Quiet Thunder Publishing Rootstock Publishing Sley House Publishing
Small Beer Press Thinklings Books Tundra Books
University of North Georgia Press Unsolicited Press West Margin Press
Wise Media Group

Labels: early reviewers, LTER

Monday, August 1st, 2022

August 2022 Early Reviewers Batch Is Live!

Win free books from the August 2022 batch of Early Reviewer titles! We’ve got 229 books this month, and a grand total of 4,739 copies to give out. Which books are you hoping to snag this month? Come tell us on Talk.

If you haven’t already, sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing/email address and make sure they’re correct.

ยป Request books here!

The deadline to request a copy is Thursday, August 25th at 6PM EDT.

Eligibility: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, India, Ireland and Germany. Make sure to check the message on each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Funeral GirlRandomWeird and Horrific StoriesSundownHow to Make Friends with a GhostRomantic and Horrific StoriesEscape to Witch CitySir Simon: Super ScarerFantastic and Horrific StoriesThe Dollhouse: A Ghost StoryFuneral Train: A Dust Bowl MysteryA Suitable Companion for the End of Your LifeHonor's RefugeWomen in EngineeringWomen in BotanyThis Is the SunScientific and Horrific StoriesMysterious and Horrific StoriesMother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of ParenthoodThe Further Adventures of Miss PetitfourWomen in MedicineThe Maze CutterIf You Cry Like a FountainThe End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and SocietyMystery of the Lost LynxChildren of SugarcaneThe Weary BluesThe HomecomingThe Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time: The Arctic Mission to the Epicenter of Climate ChangeA Trillion Trees: Restoring Our Forests by Trusting in NatureWatersongBecoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our FutureThe Great BearA Death in DurangoTheir Ghoulish Reputation: A Folk Horror AnthologyDream States: Smart Cities and the Pursuit of Utopian UrbanismLittle Tim and the Magic ApplesCaesar's LordDouble O Stephen and the Ghostly RealmThe Stone ChildThe Doctor From Hell: The True Story of Harold Shipman One of Britainโ€™s Most Prolific Serial Killer With an Estimated 218 VictimsAdulting 101: How Not to Move Back Home with Your Parents: 135 Life Skills - Money Matters, Cooking, Job Interviewing, Car Basics, Dating, and Everything Else You Should Know Before You're 25Crybaby: Infertility, Illness, and Other Things That Were Not the End of the WorldShout Out for the Fitzgerald-TroutsShadow ClocksFrom the LighthouseBlack No MoreThe Rogue and the PeasantThe Spirit PhoneMuddy People: A Muslim Coming of AgeCrimes Against Nature: Capitalism and Global HeatingEste es el SolAfrica for Africans; Or, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus GarveyReady, Set, OhDaddy Will Fix ItIRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital WorldThe Portals of Sparkling FallsInhuman ActsYour Writing Matters: 34 Quick Essays to Get Unstuck and Stay InspiredStripThe CollectorThe OrchardCanciรณnExtreme VettingA Pale Box on the Distant ShoreLocation Isn't AnythingHead Like a HoleThe Queen of Summer's TwilightThe SuperOptimist Guide to Unconventional Living: Alternative Strategies for Navigating the PresentGlorious FiendsLeadership for the New Female ManagerThe Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro LifeThe Big Festival of Lights: Stories and Plays for HanukkahThe Ghosts of Lewis ManorClear the Space... Feel the Rush: Declutter Body, Mind, and Stuff, and the Real You Shines ThroughBurning America: In the Best Interest of the Children?The Babyโ€™s Christmas BlessingBone Saw SerenadeBarnum's AngelWild & FreeBeyond Amazon: A Metaphysical Journey Through Time and Space: How Curtis Trueheart Came to Live in the Village of Duachi, by the Golden SeaRagsThe Demi-Wolf and the HunterBad PressCity of RuinThe Harpyโ€™s LullabyCalypso, Corpses, and CookingA Gem of TruthStriding Rough Ice: Coaching College Hockey and Growing Up in the GameThe Remembering TreePregnancy Guide for Men: How to Be the Best Partner and Father from Conception to Birth and Beyond: Plus 10 Life Hacks for New DadsProphet's DebtRookDestiny's RogueWorthy of LegendTo Win a PrinceThe Veiled Threat of MagicAdulting 101: How Not to Move Back Home with Your Parents: 135 Life Skills - Money Matters, Cooking, Job Interviewing, Car Basics, Dating, and Everything Else You Should Know Before You're 25Stronger Than LongingSo Damn SketchyTwo Guns Across Texas: Historical Tales of the Texas RangersThe Judas Conspiracy: A JFK ThrillerForget Me NotThe Day I DiedThe Ugly StepsisterBurnCleopatraโ€™s Eternal Journal: Three Short Stories Starring Three Overbearing GhostsDeath and the MaidenThe Sins of the FathersIn the Wild LightThe Sun Never SetThe Crimson FathersThe Junkyard DickThe Secrets that Kill UsMaking Mental Might: How to Look Ten Times Smarter Than You AreTap Talk, Tidbits, and Tips for Dilettante Tappers: The World's Only Completely Nonessential Guide to Tap DancingThe Brilliant MirageProving a VillainThe Last Dollar PrincessHow to Grow and Use Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms: A Mushroom Field Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions and Images for Mushroom Identification, Cultivation, Usage and RecipesSummary of Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of MiseducationNoises from the Other SidePaper ForestsA Flower Girl?Night's Reign(R)EvolutionAnthesisHot SetSummary of Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of SubmissionSloth StoryYour Super Gut Feeling Restored: How to Restore Your Life Energy and Overall Health from The Inside OutSharon, Lois and Bram's One Elephant Went Out to PlayWilla the WispEyes of the WolfThe Baby's Christmas BlessingBetter TogetherVox Astra: When Clouds DieAwakenGateways to the ParanormalThe Guide to Being a Dictator's MistressMushrooms of the Pacific Northwest Foraging Guide: A 5-Step Mushroom Field Guide for Identification, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Pacific Northwest MushroomsThe Gateways of AlkademahThe Many Perfect Midnights of Meredith HillAverage JoeThe Ballad of Rochester JailTales of the Women of Norse LegendLucid BodiesHawaii Aloha: Stories and SongsStop Binge Eating for Good: Your Journey to Recovery and BeyondCalled to the DeepHow to Date a FuryBeyond Abuse: An Empowered Journey of Soul, Science & Self-HelpSuffer!Empath and Psychic AbilitiesFlipping Houses Quickstart Guide: The Simplified Beginner's Guide to Finding and Financing the Right Properties, Strategically Adding Value, and Flipping for a ProfitDeborah's GiftThe Welsh Dragon: A Novel of Henry TudorThe 3-Part Beginner's Guide to Manage PCOS Symptoms: A Modern Guide to Improve Your Hormone Balance and Repair Your Metabolism. Complete With Anti-Inflammatory PCOS Recipes.The Song of Everywhen: Books 1-3GabrielleMy Girly UnicornThe Hand We Are DealtThe Sky Never Came DownNadia's ShoesThe Midwife of DreamsGuรญa del Embarazo para Hombres: Cรณmo Ser el Mejor Compaรฑero y Padre, Desde la Concepciรณn hasta el Nacimiento y Mรกs Allรก. Incluye 10 Consejos Para Padres RecientesThe Land of Fake BelieveDestiny of Determination: Faith and FamilyMoments In MishmashAfter PlutoniumJilting JoryHomeland Insecurity: The Birth of an Era of Unrest in AmericaAwaiting ArrivalThe City WifeThe Rain City HustlePieces of Past: Hurts...You Are Your Healer: The Ultimate Guide to Heal Your Past, Transform Your Life & Awaken to Your True SelfThe Odd Dad Guide: Wise-Ass Rules for New AdultsCharacters of HuffinfieldWest of the SoundFinding My MojoSea Change in CrimsonKLEENYou Have Everything You Need to Get What You Want: You Have the Power to Change Everything!The Ninth StarIn Search of Beira's HammerSmall Stories: A Perfectly Absurd NovelAgapi & Other Kinds of LoveThe Harpyโ€™s LullabyMirrorheartFather's DayThey Whisper in My BloodSummary of Why I StandThe April Fools!GRE Quantitative Reasoning Supreme: Study Guide with Practice QuestionsFinancial Management Essentials You Always Wanted to Know (5th Edition)Whispers of a Soul: Poems, Prose and ThoughtsStreet People Portfolio: Invisible New York Made VisualThe Last WarThe BroochDistant Flickers: Stories of Identity & LossPregnancy Guide for Men: How to Be the Best Partner and Father from Conception to Birth and Beyond: Plus 10 Life Hacks for New DadsThe Trophy CaseSecrets, Lies and Rhubarb PiesPregnancy Guide for Men: How to Be the Best Partner and Father from Conception to Birth and Beyond: Plus 10 Life Hacks for New DadsGuรญa del Embarazo para Hombres:Cรณmo Ser el Mejor Compaรฑero y Padre, Desde la Concepciรณn hasta el Nacimiento y Mรกs Allรก. Incluye 10 Consejos Para Padres RecientesIs THAT a Hat?Alive Again Study Guide: Find Healing in ForgivenessSouthern Highlands: Obi of MarsFighting Her TouchPacific Northwest Edible Plant Foraging & Mushroom Field Guide: A Complete Pacific Northwest Foraging Guide with 50+ Wild Plants & Mushrooms, 18+ Recipes & 150+ Instructional Colored ImagesAdira: Journey to FreedomBeyond Amazon: A Metaphysical Journey Through Time and Space: How Curtis Trueheart Came to Live in the Village of Duachi, by the Golden SeaOn the Emancipation of HatredThe Seed of CorruptionTouchpointsThe Shoebox SecretFinding the One: A Practical Guide to Manifesting Your Soul MateFarawayerAny JoeAtrocious ImmoralitiesWoodstock to St. Joseph'sThey Whisper in My BloodTrapped in IranNecropolisPreventing Her Shutdown: Losing My Wife to Alzheimer'sThe Lost and Found of Green TreeNFT Your Art: Maximize Profit By Converting Traditional Art Into NFTsSuperhero Math - Multiplication: For Grades 3-5 with Answer Key

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Akashic Books Akashic Media Enterprises Bellevue Literary Press
Bethany House BHC Press Black Rose Writing
Broadleaf Books Brown Paper Press Cinnabar Moth Publishing LLC
City Owl Press ClydeBank Media Coach House Books
Crooked Lane Books Czidor Lore, LLC Dark Lake Publishing LLP
eSpec Books Essential Reads Fontreal
Greenleaf Book Group Greystone Books Greywood Bay
Henry Holt and Company Las Hermanas Publishing Hot Tree Publishing
Icon Books Identity Publications Islandport Press
Lerner Publishing Group Link Press NeoParadoxa
New Wind Publishing NewCon Press Ooligan Press
Paul Stream Press Pioneer Publishing PublishNation
Quiet Thunder Publishing Revell Rootstock Publishing
Science, Naturally! Scribe Publications TFIG
Thinking Ink Press True Crime Seven Tundra Books
Underland Press Unsolicited Press Vibrant Publishers
Well-Tailored Books West Margin Press Wise Media Group

Labels: early reviewers, LTER

Wednesday, March 27th, 2019

TinyCat’s March Library of the Month: The Feminist Library on Wheels

To read more about TinyCat’s Library of the Month feature, visit the TinyCat Post archive here.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re proud to feature The Feminist Library on Wheels, our first (free) mobile lending library to join the feature! They’re doing a great service promoting marginalized voices throughout their local communities.

Co-founder and library volunteer Dawn Finley answered my questions this month:

First, what is your library, and what is your mission—your “raison d’être”?

The Feminist Library On Wheels is a free mobile lending library of donated feminist books, founded in July 2014. Our mission is to celebrate and promote feminist works, and move them among communities to center marginalized voices and experiences. F.L.O.W. joyfully empowers people to find tools for liberation, making feminism accessible to all. We try to make feminism, books, and human-powered transportation more available and visible; all three can be tools for self-determination, greater mobility, and welcoming community. Our main branch is located at the Womenโ€™s Center for Creative Work, a nonprofit focused on supporting feminist creative communities in Los Angeles.

Tell us some interesting ways you support your community.

We reach a variety of audiences, all of whom have very different relationships to feminism, books, and mobility. A common query from people who approach us at events is something like, โ€œI wish I knew more about feminism but I donโ€™t know where to start.โ€ We try to meet people where they are, and to make feminism less scary and intimidating.

Another question weโ€™re often asked is whether we have men among our cardholders: we do, and weโ€™re glad to offer a free and nonjudgmental resource to men who might not feel comfortable or confident seeking out feminist books elsewhere. Weโ€™re also able to provide materials that arenโ€™t on the shelves at local public libraries, or are in such high demand at academic libraries that they become hard for students to find. Because we bring small pieces of the library to so many different settings, itโ€™s interesting to both consider and watch how the books and their new readers connect with whatever is happeningโ€”the way someone attending an art opening discovers a collection of essays on an as-yet-unarticulated idea, or someone new to political activism comes to the Womenโ€™s March and walks away from our booth with an introduction to anarchism.

Now that we have more volunteers on duty for office hours, weโ€™ve been able to more directly help people in the network of the Womenโ€™s Center for Creative Work, like when one of our volunteers provided unique and in-depth research advice for one of the artists-in-residence here. Each month the Womenโ€™s Center prints a bulletin and calendar, which includes both news and themed reading recommendations from F.L.O.W., connected to programming and events in our community.

That’s incredible! Speaking of recommendations, what are some of your favorite items in your collection?

We have a neat selection of items in our special collections, which includes signed copies of books authors have sent us or devoted readers have gifted, as well as several uncommonly available publications like the Womanโ€™s Buildingโ€™s Chrysalis magazine and Country Women (pictured right). Weโ€™re also lucky to have a substantial zine collection, donated by small organizations and individuals, which helps us support an expansive and generous take on the idea of authority in our collection. New visitors are often surprised and pleased to know we have a large section for young readers and teens too.

What’s a particular challenge you experience, as a small library?

Since our lending policy is intentionally very open and generous, thereโ€™s a decent percentage of the books we check out that are never going to find their way back to us (which is fine, we want the books to live long and full lives out in the world). Since we donโ€™t have a lot of money in the bank, itโ€™s hard to keep some of the titles weโ€™d like to have as staples on our shelves to meet the demand we have for them from cardholders (things like bell hooksโ€™ Feminism is for Everybody, Audre Lordeโ€™s Sister Outsider, anything by Octavia Butler or Sandra Cisneros, and more). We often find ourselves just outside the qualifying criteria for grant funding, and weโ€™re small enough that both writing and implementing large grants would be a major commitment of labor we canโ€™t quite manage yet (not to mention our more ethical concerns about participating in the non-profit industrial complex).

It sounds like your library accomplishes quite a bit despite its challenges. As far as using TinyCat to help your library: what’s your favorite aspect? Anything you’d love to add?

I love it that TinyCat gives us the ability to have a โ€œrealโ€ online catalog anyone can use to browse our collection using tools that donโ€™t require a degree in library science to master. A lot of our volunteers are or have been librarians, or are currently in MLIS programs, but some of our volunteers donโ€™t have any kind of professionalized training, and we like the idea of being able to readily share both the books themselves and the labor involved in running the library with people from many backgrounds, who have lots of different kinds of experience and expertise. I canโ€™t leave out my second favorite thing: the amazingly efficient and cheerful help from staff!

Iโ€™d love it if we could search and manipulate our circulation data a little more easily (to generate a list of most-checked-out books to update our donation wishlist, for example). Since weโ€™re mobile, a TinyCat app would also be amazing!

I hear you! Although we don’t have mobile scanning capabilities at this time, TinyCat is mobile-friendly (you’ll just need to keep a bookmark for your TinyCat in your browser, most likely). As far as circulation reports and statistics are concerned, those are high on our list of features we hope to add in the near future—we’ll be sure to let you know if/when anything changes on that front.


Want to learn more about the Feminist Library on Wheels? Follow them on Facebook and Instagram, visit their website here or on Squarespace, check out their Patreon page, and be sure to explore their library on TinyCat.

To read up on TinyCat’s previous Libraries of the Month, visit the TinyCat Post archive here.

Calling all TinyCat libraries: become TinyCat’s next Library of the Monthโ€”just send us a Tweet @TinyCat_lib or email Kristi at kristi@librarything.com.

Labels: libraries, Library of the Month, TinyCat

Wednesday, February 4th, 2015

Better recommendations: Display

Over the next week or so we’ll be talking a lot about recommendations on LibraryThing and LibraryThing for Libraries. We’ve been doing a lot of work on this part of the site, and will be rolling out a number of improvements.

Today we’re debuting a new system for showing recommendations on works.

Check it out:

  1. Recommendations page for The Fault in Our Stars
  2. Recommendations page for Archaeology and Language
  3. Work page for Code Name Verity

And come talk about it on Talk.

Details. The first change is to the “brief” display on work pages. We have a new way of showing a “shelf,” with both cover and title. We think this is more appealingโ€”to more usersโ€”than the previous text-only system.

Screenshot 2015-02-04 13.51.09

You can expand to “see more,” to get two more rows, then “see all” to get ten or more. The deeper you go the less confident we are that the recommendation is a good one. But our recommendations are often quite good deep.

If it’s not more appealing to you, you can see the recommendations as text, with series “tucked under.”

Screenshot 2015-02-04 13.51.48

If you want to keep it that way, click the “edit” pencil. To keep the number of icons down, you’ll only get this if you click to change views. (Not everyone will like this. I do.)

Screenshot 2015-02-04 13.54.27

Besides “covers” and “text” you can also choose to vote on recommendations, as before.

Screenshot 2015-02-04 13.55.46

The new way of seeing recommendations has transformed the “All recommendations” subpage. (Here’s the ugly, list-y thing it looked like before.) To the various recommendation types we’ve added “More by this author,” which sorts the authors books by their algorithmic similarity to the book in quesiton, and “‘Old’ Combined Recommendations” for members seeking to compare the old algorithms with the new.

As before, this page shows all the different elements that make up LibraryThing’s “main” (or “combined”) recommendations.

Screenshot 2015-02-04 13.58.44

And come talk about it on Talk.

A note on authors and repetition. Algorithmic recommendations are something between a science and an art. There’s a lot of math involved, some of it very complex indeed. But the mathematically “right” answer isn’t much good if it’s boring. So, mathematically, one James Patterson book is statistically most similar to two dozen other James Patterson books before and other author can contribute a book. But who wants to see row after row of that?

Turning math into something stimulating and diverse, yet credible, is complex process. In this case, the same-author problem is addressed not in the initial data, but “at display,” by limiting how many times an author may appear on a given line. You can see this, for example, in the recommendations for The Fault in Our Stars, which restrains John Green from taking over, or Horns, which restrains Joe Hill, but also Steven King, Justin Cronin and others.

Because of differences in screen size, members will now sometimes be presented with slightly different recommendations lists, as books get pushed between rows. We think the drawbacks there are outweighed by the visual benefits of not overloading members wih repetitive recommendations.

Labels: design, new feature, new features, recommendations, Uncategorized

Friday, July 25th, 2014

Interview with Maximillian Potter

Some excerpts from our interview with Maximillian Potter, which initially appeared in July’s State of the Thing.

Maximillian Potter is the senior media advisor for the governor of Colorado. He is also an award-winning journalist, and the former executive editor of 5280: Denver’s Magazine. His first book, Shadows in the Vineyard, detailing the events surrounding an attempt to poison one of the world’s greatest wineries, is out this month.

We have 10 copies of Shadows in the Vineyard available through Early Reviewers this month. Go here to request one!

Loranne caught up with Maximillian this month to discuss the crime, the writing process, and, of course, wine.

For those who have yet to read Shadows in the Vineyard, could you give us the nutshell version of the book?

The narrative engine of the book is the story of an unprecedented crime that was committed against the most highly regarded and storied winery in the world, the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Located in the heart of France’s Burgundy region, the DRC (in wine-speak) produces seven of the world’s finest and—go figure—most expensive wines, including La Tâche, Richebourg, and arguably the most coveted wine on the planet, Romanée-Conti, which, in the unlikely event you could find it available for purchase, is likely selling for north of $10,000. The French government regards the DRC as something of a national landmark. Think of the winery as something akin to America’s Liberty Bell, only it produces wine.

In January 2010, the co-owner of the Domaine, Monsieur Aubert de Villaine, received a note informing him that a small piece of his winery’s most prestigious vineyard, Romanée-Conti, had been poisoned and most of the rest of the vines in that parcel would be killed unless De Villaine paid a one million euro ransom. A substantial part of the book deals with the criminal investigation, the investigators, the sting operation that caught the bad guys, and the unlikely and tragic end of the investigation. But the crime is only a piece of the book.

For the crime to be fully appreciated, the reader must understand Burgundy. So the criminal investigation becomes a way to explore the characters, culture and history of region. To go with a viticulture metaphor, I think of the crime as the main vine trunk and the subplots as the shoots of the vine. We come to know the incredible history of wine in Burgundy, which begins with bands of holy men on the run; then the Prince de Conti—the James Bond of pre-revolutionary France; and of course, the De Villaine family, which co-owns the Domaine, and the tensions that nearly pulled apart their winery and the disciplined tenderness that held it together.

Shadows is about about a crime, wine, family, obsession and love.

You first brought this story of wine, intrigue, and sabotage to the public in a Vanity Fair piece in 2011. What drew you to this particular story, so much that you decided to expand it into a book? What was the most challenging part of bringing the tale to life in a longer format?

I sensed there was a book to be written not long after I first arrived in Burgundy to report the Vanity Fair story. I’d been doing magazine stories for the better part of 20 years and this was one of the three times in all of that time when I’d felt that there was so much rich material it ached for a book. In this case, I first started thinking of a book during my very first meeting with Monsieur Aubert de Villaine. Before I’d met Aubert, in my mind’s eye, I pictured him as a soft-palmed, ascot-wearing French aristocrat who charged way too much for a bottle of wine and probably had whatever happened to his vines coming. Within hours of talking with him, I began to realize how ignorant my image of him had been.

While many vinegrowers, or vignerons, refer to their vines as their enfants, for Aubert, these vines were indeed his children. What’s more, they are his legacy, handed down through generations, and these vines are entangled with French history. The Domaine, as Monsieur de Villaine puts it, is something much bigger than any one person or vintage.

Even in the face of the attack on this sacred trust, his demeanor remained unwaveringly kind and gentle. When I learned of what he had decided to do, or rather not do, to the bad guys when they were apprehended, well, I was stunned by his mercy and forgiveness. Aubert once told me, โ€œThe world could use more hugs.โ€ The world could use more people like Monsieur de Villaine. So meeting him was a moment.

Other factors that got me thinking a book that needed to be written were the remarkable history of the Burgundy region, the jealousies and intrigue interwoven throughout the the region and the history of the Domaine itself. When I discovered that the Prince de Conti—after whom the winery and its celebrated vineyard is named—may very well have almost trigged the French Revolution decades before it occurred, that struck me as irresistible.

The hardest thing about expanding what started as a magazine piece into the book format was having to leave so many stories and so many great characters out of the book. …Sigh.

The neat thing about Shadows—especially for wine novices like myself—is that you bring a large dose of historical context into the tale, showing us how the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti came to be, and developed into the revered vineyard it is. Was it difficult to strike a balance between providing that context and maintaining focus on the ongoing story?

Well, thanks and I’m glad you liked it. While I found myself with many options when it came to great characters and magnificent historical subplots, yes, it was difficult to find what I hope is a compelling structure that strikes the right balance of historical context and true crime. I wanted to satiate oenophiles, but also captivate wine novices.

For me, when it comes to writing, structure is close to everything—if that’s wrong, it’s all wrong. Perhaps giving myself too much credit, I consider myself a pretty average human, especially when it comes to curiosity and attention span; in determining the structure, I considered what it was about Burgundy that I had found so compelling and I went with that as my guiding strategy. As I began writing the book, I found myself saying to friends that the crime was what first drew me to Burgundy, but the poetry of the place was what kept me coming back. The thing was, once I was into reporting the crime, in Burgundy talking with Aubert and so many other Burgundians, I came to learn that, My gosh, the crime really is not the most interesting thing about this region and the people who cherish and cultivate it; there’s so much more. And so, I tried to structure the book accordingly.

Before all of this, I didn’t care much about wine, didn’t care much about France. I wouldn’t have been much interested in a book about either. (Happens a lot when you write for general interest magazines, by the way.) I certainly wasn’t one to pick up a book about wine. I wrote the book for people like me. Ultimately, I guess, I wrote the book primarily thinking of people who haven’t yet discovered wine but who should. I hope Shadows will be something that readers remember, the people and stories, and that those memories will enhance the flavor and enjoyment of their next glass of burgundy, or maybe inspire them to try their first burgundy.

What was the most interesting or surprising thing you learned as you researched for Shadows in the Vineyard?

Gosh, so much. In terms of reported material, the story of the Prince de Conti was the most stunning to me. Such a remarkable character. He personifies that old nonfiction writers truism that fact really can be stranger (and so much more awesome) than fiction.

On a more existential level, I was struck by the fact that everyone I met in Burgundy and who loved Burgundy, who worked in wine and believed in the magic of the terroir of the place—everyone of them was broken. In some way, each of these Burgundy believers was—is—broken, or maybe a better way of saying it has died a little at some point because of tragedy. (Who among us isn’t like that, I guess.) Yet, in Burgundy, they find the promise of starting over, of the rebirth, of the hope, that comes in every new vintage. Burgundians are aware of this. That’s pretty awesome. At least, I think so.

»For more from Maximillian, read our full interview here.

Labels: author interview

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

May Author Interviews!

This month’s State of the Thing, LibraryThing’s monthly newsletter of features, author interviews and various forms of bookish delight, is on its way to your inbox. You can also read it online. It includes author interviews with Hilary Mantel, Naomi Novik, Jonathan Gottschall, and Melissa Coleman.

I talked to Hilary Mantel about her new book Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel to Wolf Hall, published this month by Henry Holt.

Originally, you’ve said, you planned just “one enormous book” on Thomas Cromwell, but now we’re looking at a trilogy. When did you realize first that his story needed two books, and now three?

I think that fiction, even historical fiction, is inherently unpredictable. You know what the story is, but you don’t know until you tell it where its power is located, where
you will place the focus and how you need to shape it. I did originally imagine there would be just one book, but as I began to tell the story of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More, I realized that it needed to be played out properly, that it couldnโ€™t be hurried: that it was, in fact, the climax of a book, not an episode in a book. At that point, I decided that Wolf Hall would end with More’s death, and the royal party heading for the house named in the title. With Bring up the Bodies, the process of discovery was virtually the same, though it still caught me unawares. I came to write the end of the Boleyns, and realized that I already had a book; the buildup to that tragedy is so stealthy, the climax so horrifying, that I thought the reader would want to pause, close the book, take a breath.

So the whole project reshaped itself for a second time, and very swiftly; in each case, the process of realization took a split second; and the second after that, it seemed obvious. To some readers it might sound as if my method of work is very disorganized. I’d prefer to think of it as an organic, evolving process: sudden discoveries and sudden demands breeding changes of tactics. I like to gather my material, think for a long time, but make the business of writing itself as spontaneous and flexible as possible. If I can I like to take myself by surprise.

What was it about Thomas Cromwell that initially drew you to him as a way to write about the Tudor period?

It appealed to me because his character had never been explored properly in fiction or drama. Cromwell was the son of a blacksmith and brewer, and this stratified, hierarchical society, he rose to become the king’s right-hand man and eventually Earl of Essex; you have to ask, how did he do it? Luck? Calculation? Both, surely, but what combination of the two? And what drove him? When you worked for Henry VIII, the stakes were so high. One slip and you were dead. I wanted to try to work out what combination of ambition and idealism motivated Cromwell. In what ways was he typical of his time, and in what ways unique? And as I was asking myself, as I always do when I write I historical fiction, how did this man’s life feel, from the inside?

When you stand in Cromwell’s shoes, familiar events are defamiliarised. The story, which is irresistible in itself, comes up fresh and new.

Read the rest of our interview with Hilary Mantel.

I also talked to Naomi Novik, the author of the fascinating Temeraire fantasy series. The latest volume, Crucible of Gold, was published in March by Del Rey. Some excerpts:

On your website, you offer a few “deleted scenes” from the Temeraire books, and you note there “I tend to write fast and revise heavily, and I cut liberally.” Tell us a bit more about your writing process: when do you do most of your writing? Where? Do you compose in longhand, or use a computer?

I have no rules other than that I tend to change my rules fairly often. Each book has worked differently. My life has changed quite a lot over the course of writing the series—I have a new baby now, so I write from 9:30 to 4:30 because that’s when I have child care. My natural state of writing is really more writing from 11 in the morning to 3 a.m.; that’s my intuitive style. I do generally like to work at a fairly fast pace—when it’s flowing I’m getting two to three thousand words a day. I still like to get the skeleton down and then polish it. My single biggest trick for when I need to focus and get productivity is to go somewhere where there isn’t internet, so I’ll go to a cafรฉ with a laptop and just write there. It’s actually getting increasingly hard to avoid the internet, though. I don’t really write longhand unless I get stuck; if I get stuck, then what I do is grab a journal and start writing some longhand, and that loosens things up a bit. Once I’ve started, I like so much having the freedom to revise heavily and save different versions that I always really want to be on the computer.

Anything you’d like to tell us about the next Temeraire volume (the eighth)? Have you selected a title yet? Any hint of where Laurence and Temeraire might be off to next?

My working title for it is “Luck and Palaces,” and I suppose I can give a hint, which is that that is from a translation of poems by Wisława Szymborska, and the line is about the city of Kyoto. So that’s my little hint. The other clue I will give is that it’s the year 1812.

Read the rest of our interview with Naomi Novik.

I had the chance to talk with Jonathan Gottschall about The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, published in April by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

If you can give us the nutshell version, what is it about stories (whether it be fiction, or drama, or televised sports, or dreams, or computer games) that makes us as humans so attracted to them, and gives them such a powerful hold over us?

Homo sapiens is this weird sort of primate that lives inside stories, and we don’t know why for certain. I cover several competing ideas in the book, but they all break down into two big categories. 1) We like stories because they have hidden evolutionary benefits. 2) The mind isn’t designed for story, it has a glitch that makes it vulnerable to story. In the latter view, fiction is like porn—a mere pleasure technology that weโ€™ve invented to titillate the pleasure circuits of the brain. I argue that story addiction is mainly good for us: story is a whetstone for the mind, and it acts as a kind of social glueโ€”helping to bind individuals together into functioning societies.

It was an experience with a song that prompted you to write this book, as you note in the opening pages. Tell us about that moment, and do you see significant differences in the way humans are affected by stories in different media (print, song, video, &c.), or does the impact tend to be similar?

One day, I was driving down the highway and happened to hear the country music artist Chuck Wicks singing “Stealing Cinderella”—a song about a little girl growing up to leave her father behind. Before I knew it, I was blind from tears, and I had to veer off on the road to get control of myself and to mourn the time—still more than a decade off—when my own little girls would fly the nest. I sat there on the side of the road feeling sheepish and wondering, “What just happened?” I wrote the book to try to answer that question. How can stories—the fake struggles of fake people—have such incredible power over us? Why are we storytelling animals?

And yes, different forms of storytelling affect us in different ways. Most popular songs are stories set to music, and they evoke powerful emotion. The same goes for films. People respond so intensely and authentically to film, that when psychologists want to study an emotion, like sadness, they subject people to clips from tear-jerkers like “Old Yeller” or “Love Story”.

Read the rest of our interview with Jonathan Gottschall.

Last but not least, Lisa Carey interviewed Melissa Coleman about her book This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family’s Heartbreak, now out in paperback.

What made you decide to write this memoir? Was it something you always intended to write about?

Somehow I managed to avoid writing, and talking much, about my childhood for many years, fearing, I think, that I was responsible for some of the tragic things that happened. However, with the birth of my children, the past began urging me to make peace. I also found myself wanting to celebrate the beauty and connection to nature in my childhood, and the amazing effort made by my father, Eliot Coleman, and others, to lay the foundations for today’s organic food revolution.

How much research was involved to bring such rich detail to the parts that occurred before you were old enough to remember it? You have your mother’s journals. Did your parents help you otherwise in the process of telling this story?

I began with my own scraps of memories, images from photos, and family stories, but I needed to do a lot of research to fill in the blanks. There was my mother’s journal, numerous news articles about us, books by the Nearings and others, and I tracked down and interviewed many of the apprentices and people who visited us during the 1970s. It was only with the help of all these people, especially my parents, that I was able to tell this story.

Was this a difficult book to write? Or was it liberating?

Both! It’s incredibly difficult to dig into painful events in the past, but also very rewarding to let them go and find the beauty beneath. The liberation that came was something like what comes from making compost. You put all these scraps of things into a pile and let them settle and soon enough they turn into black gold, as my father calls compost, the rich soil in which new life can grow.

Read the rest of Lisa’s interview with Melissa Coleman.


Catch up on previous State of the Thing newsletters.

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Labels: author interview, authors, state of the thing

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Free movie passes to “The Road” in Detroit and Philadelphia

The folks who are bringing Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to the big screen are inviting LibraryThing members to attend free advance screenings of the new movie.

You can start speculating on the adaptation now, in the Made Into a Movie and Book vs Movie groups. This was one of those books I bought so I could loan out. I can’t wait to find out what the attendees think.

There are two screenings, with limited seating. Tickets will be given out to the first-emailed, first-served.

Philadelphia (downtown)
Sunday, November 15th at 7:30 pm

Detroit area (Novi, MI)
Thursday, November 19th at 7 pm

If you live in either area, and are interested in attending, email Holly Cara Price (hcp@ddanielspr.net). It’s first-come, first serve, so email her ASAP if you’d like to go. Holly will email you instructions on tickets and the theater location.

For the rest of us, the movie will be released November 25th: http://theroad-movie.com/

Here’s the movie synopsis:
From Cormac McCarthy, author of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, comes the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of the beloved, best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, THE ROAD. Academy Award-nominee Viggo Mortensen leads a distinguished cast featuring Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron, Academy Award-winner Robert Duvall, Michael Kenneth Williams, Molly Parker, Guy Pearce and young newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee in this epic post-apocalyptic tale of the survival of a father (Mortensen) and his young son (Smit-McPhee) as they journey across a barren American landscape that has been destroyed by a mysterious cataclysm. THE ROAD boldly imagines a future in which men are pushed to the worst and the best that they are capable of – a future in which a father and his son are sustained by love and an unshakable morality even in the face of total devastation.

Directed by John Hillcoat

Update 11/13/09:

Today in the Wall Street Journal is an incredible, lengthy interview that Cormac McCarthy. The writer spent a record 7 hours with McCarthy talking about the film, the book, and life in general.

Labels: advance screening, Detroit, Michigan, movie event, movies, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Friday, September 18th, 2009

LibraryThing, IndieBound and love

As Tim blogged last night, we needed some help from members to link LibraryThing data on bookstores to IndieBound data. We connected 1,200 automatically, but that left 1,362 that had to be done manuallyโ€”checking exact names, addresses, sometimes even creating a new “venue” on LibraryThing Local.

Tim posted the plea for help at about 5:30 pm last night. By 11 am this morning, it was entirely done. That’s right, in less than eighteen hoursโ€”most of which were in the middle of the night, in the US at leastโ€”LibraryThing members completed the task. That’s incredible. Insane. Fantastic.

As Tim tweeted, “IndieBound/LT demonstrates what I believe: Independent bookstores can win online if they engage the community. Love is powerful.” His sentiments were retweeted all over, and the IndieBound folks agreed. (See IndieBoundPaige, mattsupko, SarahABA on Twitter)

LibraryThing members are indeed an incredible community, and love indeed is powerful.* We’re going to add a new helper badge to recognize these folks. Thank you, thank you.

*Anyone who hasn’t seen Clay Shirky’s “The Internet Runs on Love” talk, should (blogged

Labels: bookstore integration, indiebound, love