March Book Sense Picks Preview

Here is a preview of the March "Book Sense Picks," which will be posted with booksellers' comments on BookWeb next week. Independent booksellers in the Book Sense program will receive their Picks fliers in the February Red Box.

Looking ahead, the deadline for nominations for the April Book Sense Picks list and for the Book Sense Poetry Top Ten is Friday, February 4. Book Sense Picks Editor-in-Chief Dan Cullen especially encourages booksellers to nominate titles (either frontlist or backlist) to the Poetry Top Ten list, and reminds booksellers that nominated titles for the monthly Picks lists can always include nonfiction as well as fiction.

The deadline for the Spring History Top Ten is Friday, February 11. The focus of the History list -- again compiled in association with The History Channel -- will be on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the politics of his time. Booksellers are encouraged to nominate frontlist or backlist titles, in hardcover or paperback on either FDR or the key issues of the day, such as World War II, the Depression, or important social changes. The History Channel will be airing "FDR: A Presidency Revealed" in the spring. Watch BTW for more details.

To nominate titles for the Picks lists, just e-mail a few sentences about the title to [email protected], or use the convenient Web form at www.bookweb.org/read/6305.

The Picks flier is designed for store use during the month of March, and it is one component of a monthly program that also includes a downloadable PDF flier of 20 additional titles. The PDF flier -- retitled this month to "Book Sense Notables" -- features booksellers' quotes and is designed so that it can be distributed in the store. In addition, an electronic file of shelf-talkers of these titles will also be made available in a downloadable PDF format. (For more on Book Sense Notables, click here.)

1. March: A Novel, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking, $24.95, 0670033359)

Articles of War: A Novel, by Nick Arvin (Doubleday, $17, 0385512775)

The Illuminator, by Brenda Rickman Vantrease (St. Martin's, $24.95, 0312331916)

Ireland: A Novel, by Frank Delaney (HarperCollins, $26.95, 0060563486)

Before the Frost: A Linda Wallander Mystery, by Henning Mankell (New Press, $24.95, 1565848357)

The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $25, 0743247531)

Luncheonette: A Memoir, by Steven Sorrentino (Regan Books, $24.95, 0060728922)

Most Wanted: A Novel of Suspense, by Michele Martinez (Morrow, $23.95, 006072398X)

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott (Riverhead, $24.95, 1573222992

Speak Softly, She Can Hear: A Novel, by Pam Lewis (Simon & Schuster, $23, 0743255399)

Drive Like Hell: A Novel, by Dallas Hudgens (Scribner, $23, 0743251636)

Fat Girl: A True Story, by Judith Moore (Hudson Street Press, $21.95, 1594630097)

Holy Tango of Literature, by Francis Heaney (Emmis Books, $12.99 paper, 1578601592)

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith, by Martha Beck (Crown, $24.95, 0609609912)

Season of the Snake: A Novel, by Claire Davis (St. Martin's, $23.95, 0312332823)

Tamburlaine Must Die, by Louise Welsh (Canongate, $18.95, 1841956252)

Cast of Shadows: A Novel, by Kevin Guilfoile (Knopf, $24.95, 1400043085)

The Face of a Naked Lady: An Omaha Family Mystery, by Michael Rips (Houghton, $24, 0618273522)

Missing Persons, by Stephen White (Dutton, $25.95, 0525948597)

Pinkerton's Sister, by Peter Rushforth (MacAdam/Cage, $26, 1931561990)