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Nonfiction Views: Putting together the weekly book lists [1]

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Date: 2022-12-13

Not much going on in the publishing world these weeks around the holidays. The doldrums will last until January, when the Winter/Spring publishing season begins. I create three lists of new release books each week, one for this Nonfiction Views series, one for a comment I contribute to one of the two weekly Black Kos diaries, usually the Tuesday afternoon version, of books of interest to that community, and finally for the email I send out to my Literate Lizard Online Bookstore of the new releases I’m featuring for the week at 20% off (and here’s a hot tip for Kossacks: your 15% off DAILYKOS coupon code discount stacks on top of other discounts—you’ll get a double discount!)

Since so little is going on right now, I thought I’d discuss how I sift through the new releases each week. My primary source is Ingram, the largest book distributor in the United States. The image at the top of this diary is a portion of their ‘Street Smart’ list for next week, December 20th. Tuesday is the traditional release day for new books, and publishers prohibit sales of their top books before the official publishing date. That date is the ‘street date,’ hence Ingram’s term ‘Street Smart.’ Back when I worked at Barnes & Noble, the term used for embargo date titles was ‘Strict on Sale.’

The Street Smart list is my primary source for selecting new releases to feature on Daily Kos and in my email, since almost all of the top books across all categories will be on that list. The list for December 20th has only 201 titles for me to sift through. In the heart of the publishing season, it is common for there to be 600 to 800 titles to sift through.

As you see from the screenshot, all categories are mixed together: you see cookbooks, manga, a novel for children, and the one title likely to make next week’s Nonfiction Views list, a deep dive into T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

By limiting my search to the Street Smart list, I know I'm missing some interesting titles. While every book has an official publication date, publishers don’t embargo sales before the date for every book. University press titles and second tier authors often will not be on the Street Smart list. There are hundreds of other books published each week that I simply don’t have time to sift through.

When it comes to my selections for Black Kos, I tend to dig a little deeper. I start with the Street Smart list, but also use Ingram’s curated lists like ‘Forthcoming Black Nonfiction’ or ‘Black Picture Book Fiction.’ I can sort those lists by date, and they often show me worthwhile books with a particular publishing date but which are not embargoed, just the sort of book I would miss by limiting my research to Street Smart. Sometimes I’ll even do a power search for a particular date, which will have hundreds if not thousands of results (including shoddy self-publishing output.) But I can then refine those results by specific subjects, and often can come across an overlooked gem.

I admit to making value judgments, particularly in my Black Kos lists. My intention is to bring books of interest and quality to the community. I tend to skip over Black-oriented genre fiction, like romance and ‘Urban Fiction’ titles. I do often include Science Fiction and Mysteries by Black authors; they just feel more substantial to me, especially in how they work in themes of race and caste.

With books for children and young adults, I focus on those that specifically address Black themes. That said, there is also a wide variety of children’s books featuring a diverse cast of characters that make no special point of the race or ethnicity. I think these books are incredibly valuable for children in the way they present everyone just as human beings, normalizing that worldview for young minds. But for my curated Black Kos lists, I focus on books that deal specifically with the lives, traditions and challenges of Blacks and Latinx families, both those that celebrate and instill pride, and those that take on problems.

The slender list of this week’s noteworthy nonfiction follows, and below that is a few samples of the images I include with the Black Kos lists.

THIS WEEK’S NEW HARDCOVERS

The Jeffersonians: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, by Kevin R. C. Gutzman. A complete chronicle of the men, known as The Virginia Dynasty, who served as president from 1801 to 1825 and implemented the foreign policy, domestic, and constitutional agenda of the radical wing of the American Revolution, setting guideposts for later American liberals to follow. The three close political allies were tightly related: Jefferson and Madison were the closest of friends, and Monroe was Jefferson’s former law student. Their achievements were many, including the founding of the opposition Republican Party in the 1790s; the Louisiana Purchase; and the call upon Congress in 1806 to use its constitutional power to ban slave imports beginning on January 1, 1808. Of course, not everything the Virginia Dynasty undertook was a success: Its chief failure might have been the ineptly planned and led War of 1812. In general, however, when Monroe rode off into the sunset in 1825, his passing and the end of The Virginia Dynasty were much lamented. Kevin R. C. Gutzman’s new book details a time in America when three Presidents worked toward common goals to strengthen our Republic in a way we rarely see in American politics today.

The Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England's Most Famous Dynasty, by Sarah Gristwood. A brilliant history of the Tudor dynasty, showing how the rules of romantic courtly love irrevocably shaped the politics and international diplomacy of the period.

The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73, by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair. When Paul McCartney issued a press release in April 1970 announcing that the world’s most beloved band, the Beatles, had broken up no one could have predicted that McCartney himself would go on to have one of the most successful solo careers in music history. Yet in the years after the Fab Four disbanded, Paul McCartney became a legend in his own right. Now journalist and world-renowned Beatles’ historian Allan Kozinn and award-winning documentarian Adrian Sinclair chronicle in technicolor McCartney’s pivotal years from 1969 to 1973, as he recreated himself in the immediate aftermath of the Beatles breakup – a period when, newly married and with a growing family, he conquered depression and self-doubt, formed a new band, Wings, and recorded five epochal albums culminating in the triumphant smash, Band on the Run.

All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them. If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be appreciated. Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 15% each week). We also partner Libro.fm for audiobooks. Libro.fm is similar to Amazon’s Audible, with a la carte audiobooks, or a $14.99 monthly membership which includes the audiobook of your choice and 20% off subsequent purchases during the month.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/13/2141559/-Nonfiction-Views-Putting-together-the-weekly-book-lists

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