HomeRUSA Notable Books Council releases 2008 list

Contact: Eileen Hardy
Marketing Specialist, ASCLA/RUSA
(312) 280-4398
ehardy@ala.org

For Immediate Release,
February 1, 2008

RUSA Notable Books Council releases 2008 list

The Notable Books Council of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), has compiled its year 2008 list of outstanding books for the general reader. These titles have been selected for their significant contribution to the expansion of knowledge and for the pleasure they can provide to adult readers. This is "The List for America's Readers:"

Fiction

Bloom, Amy, Away: A Novel, Random House, $23.95.

Carlson, Ron, Five Skies, Viking/Penguin Group, $23.95.

Chabon, Michael, The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel, HarperCollins, $26.95.

Clarke, Brock, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes In New England, Algonquin Books, $23.95.

Clinch, Jon, Finn: A Novel, Random House, $14.00.

Crace, Jim, The Pesthouse, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $24.95.

Englander, Nathan, The Ministry of Special Cases, Knopf, $25.00.

Holthe, Tess Uriza, The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes, Crown, $23.95.

Jones, Lloyd, Mister Pip, The Dial Press/Bantam Dell Publishing Group, $20.00.

McEwan, Ian, On Chesil Beach: A Novel, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $22.00.

Malouf, David, The Complete Stories, Pantheon, $27.50.

Petterson, Per, Out Stealing Horses: A Novel, Graywolf Press, $22.00.

Trevor, William, Cheating at Canasta: Stories, Viking/Penguin Group, $24.95.

Nonfiction

Ackerman, Diane, The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story, W.W. Norton, $23.95.

Angier, Natalie, The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, Houghton Mifflin, $27.00.

Ayres, Ian, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart, Bantam/Dell Publishing Group, $25.00.

Godwin, Peter, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group USA, $24.99.

Groopman, Jerome, How Doctors Think, Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin, $26.00.

Howell, Georgina, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, $27.50.

Isaacson, Walter, Einstein: His Life and Universe, Simon & Schuster, $32.00.

Kingsolver, Barbara, Kingsolver, Camile, Hopp, Steven L., Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of Food Life, HarperCollines, $26.95.

Margonelli, Lisa, Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.00.

Weisman, Alan, The World Without Us, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, $24.95.

Poetry

Bosselaar, Laure-Anne, A New Hunger, Ausable Press, $16.00.

Kennedy, X. J., In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems 1955-2007, Johns Hopkins University Press, $35.00.

This list will be available on the Notable Books Web page on the RUSA/ALA Web site (http://www.ala.org/rusa/notable.html).

Since 1944, the goal of the Notable Books Council has been to make available to the nation's readers a list of 25 very good, very readable and at times very important fiction, nonfiction and poetry books for the adult reader. The Council consists of members selected from the membership of RUSA /CODES (Collection Development and Evaluation Section).

Members of this year's Council were: Sara Maxine Taffae (Chair), State Library of Louisiana; Patricia L. Gregory (Vice-Chair), Saint Louis University; Alicia Kathryn Ahlvers, Kansas City Public Library; Susie F. Brown, Shaker Heights Public Library; Hope Cockrell, Denton Public Library; Danny J. Gillane, Lafayette Public Library; Steven Jablonski, Skokie Public Library; A. Issac Pulver, Saratoga Springs Public Library; Rhea Joyce Rubin, Rubin Consulting; Andrea J. Slonosky, Long Island University-Brooklyn Campus; Shawna Saavedra Thorup, Fayetteville Public Library; Brenda Clark Wegener, Mercantile Library; and Brad Hooper (Booklist).