Following on from my earlier post, "Overheard in a Bookstore", here's a link to some more gems; this time collected by Shelf Awareness, including:

"I definitely don't want nonfiction. I like autobiographies and history."

"This is the only bookstore I've ever been in that didn't have a popcorn machine."

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There have been mumblings in certain quarters recently suggesting that libraries are a waste of money in this day and age.

Pardon me, but I beg to differ; and this is why:

• Two-thirds of Americans have a library card.
  
  
• Every day 300,000 Americans get job-seeking help at their public library.
  
  
• 13,000 public libraries offer career assistance. By comparison, the US Department of Labor offers 3,000 career centers.
  
  
• Americans are six times more likely to visit a public library than they are to attend a live sporting event. US public libraries receive 1.4 billion visits annually.
  
  
• Small business owners and employees use public library resources 2.8 million times each month to support their businesses.
  
  
• 5,400 public libraries offer free technology classes - that's more technology training classes than there are computer training businesses in the US. Every day, 14,700 people attend free library computer classes - a retail value of $2.2 million.
  
  
• Every day, 225,000 people use library meeting rooms at a retail value of $11 million. There are more meeting rooms available at public libraries than there are meeting rooms in all the US conference centers, convention facilities and auditoriums combined.
  
  
• Most public libraries offer internet access - a vital resource for the approximate 1 in 4 people who do not have internet access at home.
  
  
• Every day, US libraries circulate 7.9 million items. That's more materials than FedEx ships worldwide.
  
  

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People say the strangest things! Here are a few real customer quotes overhead by British booksellers ....  

• A rather smart middle-aged female customer, accompanied by a sullen looking teenager who, having browsed for a while, bought a copy of The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  Half an hour after leaving the shop, she reappeared at the counter waving the book and demanding her money back. When one of the shop's staff asked what was wrong, she replied:   "It's absolute rubbish - there's not even anything about Italy in it. My daughter is planning to go Euro-railing in the summer and there don't seem to be sections on any of the countries she wants to visit."
  
  
• A customer, on seeing a copy of Great Expectations:
  "Look, they bring books out on all the TV programmes now."
  
  
• "Can you tell me if Anne Frank wrote any other books?"
  
  
• "Do you have maps?  You know, actual maps. Mappy maps..."
  
  
• Customer: I'm quite a staunch feminist you know.
  Bookseller:  Er.....hello
  Customer (handing over a slip of paper): Could you tell me whether you're able to get hold of these 3 titles on feminism for me...
  Bookseller:  No problem, I can order all three of them and they should be here by tomorrow.
  Customer:  My goodness, aren't men so much quicker with technology than women!

With thanks to the folks at Independent Booksellers Week

I recently joined the ranks of suspense novelists and while I didn't give the word suspense much thought as I was writing, I've since given it quite a bit of brain time. I suppose seeing your book called "A Novel of Suspense" on the cover will do that.

While suspense is a literary category that can embrace many different types of stories, it is also one of the most natural of elements in the real world. The broad definition I've come to these days is that suspense is simply a recognition of the fact that we don't really, on a moment to moment basis, know what the hell's going to happen next. Of course our natural defenses, the same ones that limit what noises come into our ears or what sights come into our eyes, keep the lid on this what's-coming anxiety and allow us to function. But then there are the moments, the ones most often exploited by writers, in which we can't deny that we are in the dark about the future, that we don't know what's around the corner.

The "what-ifs" that kick off so much of our mystery/thriller/suspense fiction are often rooted in our anxieties about life itself. What if I woke up in a strange land? What if I opened my freezer and found a severed hand there? What if an airplane dropped out of the sky and wiped out my back yard? The beauty of finding these oddities between covers is that we have some assurance the author does know what's going to happen next and will lead us through the suspense to the safety of knowledge.

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The New Yorker has chosen its "20 Under 40" list of fiction writers worth watching. The last list was published in 1999 and included future literary stars such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Nathan Englander and Junot Díaz; plus the likes of Michael Chabon, Jeffrey Eugenides, and David Foster Wallace, who were already relatively well known - so the new list has been much anticipated.

The list will be published in the double fiction issue of The New Yorker that arrives on newsstands June 7.

As it happens, BookBrowse has been following these authors too. Below are links to bios of all 20, plus links to many of their books (at least one for each author) and, where available, links to their websites:

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Is it just me, or does there seem to be a wave of "intersecting lives" novels lately? I'm talking about novels which are structured around characters and place and which move forward episodically, rather than via a driving, suspenseful plot, a genre which is also sometimes called "a novel in stories." Two of the most decorated books of recent years fall into this category: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Other recent entries include A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert, Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon, and the forthcoming The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse.

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