Thank you to everyone who filled out the survey last week. Note: it’s still open if anyone else wants to send in feedback. It will be interesting to look back to see how this changes and grows.

From the people who filled  it out so far, mystery & crime was the top genre.

Iris Johansen, Patricia Cornwell, David Baldacci, Tami Hoag, Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, Adriana Trigiani, Sue Grafton, Margaret Maron, Tom Hardy were some of your favorite authors. Many more were listed.

Favorite books included; anything by Winston Churchill, “The Grapes of Wrath,” Even Duncan series by Iris Johansen, “The Prodigal Summer” by Barbara Kingsolver, “Secret Life of Bees,” by Sue M. Kidd, and the Bible. Plus many more.

The biggest thing I learned from the survey is that you would like to see more book reviews. Even though you have your favorite genres, you were open to see reviews from a wide range of books from old to new, from fiction to nonfiction. So that is my goal. Along with the reviews printed in The Roanoke Times’ Sunday books page, I’ll have more reviews running on just the blog. Look for those coming soon.

A judge halted New York’s soda ban today, one day before it was set to go into effect. Most of the comments I’ve read regarding this suggest a lot of people thought it was ridiculous; it infringes on people’s rights and is a pain for restaurants. Restaurant owners would have to replace glasses, but could still offer unlimited refills which basically made the whole ban useless.

My freshmen year at college I worked in the dining hall wiping up milk and refilling trays and other small jobs. I watched as students came in and grabbed their trays and glasses. The glasses used were tiny orange juice sized glasses, maybe 8 oz.  In theory this should limit people’s soda consumption like the ban suggested, but no, everyone would simply take multiple glasses. I saw some people come through the line with six or seven glasses.

So the ban was kind of silly, but the idea of watching our sugary intake is not. In light of this, our video of the day is from Michael Moss’s book “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.”

What other healthy eating books have you read? What do you recommend?

How many of you purchase ebooks based on price? Do you look through books based on topic, or do you start with the deals section?

DBW reported that previous No. 1 ebook, “Safe Haven” by Nicholas Sparks, was No. 25 in December. They attributed its rise in ranks to No. 1 in January due to a price drop from $7.99 to $3.99. It has gone through several price changes and now is $5.70 (on Amazon), and has been No. 1 every week in 2013 until this week when it was unseated by “Beautiful Creatures” by Kami Garcia.

The four books in the “Beautiful Creatures” series sit at No. 1, No. 4, No. 7, and No. 10. Once again DBW attributes this “due at least in part to a price drop to $2.99.”

I’m sure price is a factor, but what percentage of the rise is really due to the price? I wonder if for these books rise in ranking had more to do with the fact that both had movies released this month.

Another thing these books have in common is that after prices dropped and sales increased, the prices also increased. However sales are still strong leaving me to wonder if price was the key driving force.

Obviously lower prices have helped self-published books and books published by less well known authors. “Wait for Me” by Elisabeth Naughton a self-published ebook sits at No. 5, selling at $.99. Would this have sold as well if it were priced at $7.99?

And of course, if you’ve been thinking of purchasing a book and notice the price drop you may be more likely to purchase it, but do you think like we say at the newspaper, content is king?

What’s your take?

If you follow the book business at all you are well aware that brick and mortar bookstores across the country are falling prey to what they call “showrooming.”

Showrooming is when a customer comes into the store and browses books, finds books they want to purchase, but instead of purchasing in the store they go home and buy books cheaper from an online retailer.

Some neighborhood booksellers cite this as a reason many are going out of business. The model they are set up under, having to pay rent for a location and not having the wiggle room to discount as deeply as Amazon, they can’t compete.

So what should they do?

An article on WashingtonPost.com asked the question whether brick and mortar bookstores should consider charging customers to browse. They quoted Victoria Barnsley, UK HarperCollins CEO, as saying it’s “not that insane.” She said bookstores would become like ‘book clubs.’

However, most of the retailers they asked said this was not an option they’d consider.  ”“If it comes to charging admission for customers to browse, we’re done,” said Mark Laframboise, the manager of Politics & Prose in Washington.”

I have to agree. I doubt I’d ever go to a bookstore where I had to pay to browse. And despite believing we should support local bookstores, with the economy the way it is most people are going to go for the cheaper option. And who can blame them for that. However, I do think it’s wrong to specifically ‘browse’ and buy elsewhere.

What do you think of paying to browse? How can a small neighborhood bookstore compete? What are your suggestions? What kind of store would you love to visit and buy from? And return again and again? What would make you a loyal customer?

A new online book retail site, Bookish.com, launched Monday, February 5th.

The site was founded by Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster not only to offer a place to buy books, but as a place to engage with other readers and authors, and to help you find books you’ll enjoy reading. But don’t worry the offerings aren’t limited to the 3 founding publishers, 16 other major publishers are participating as well.

It’s supposed to be a one-stop shop and will offer exclusive content such as author interviews and reviews, including a couple comedic reviews by ‘The Onion‘.

Each title has a page which includes a description, ratings/reviews, a list of related books, favorite quotes, related videos and sample chapters.

Users will have the ability to create a virtual shelf of favorite books and a wish list. They’ll have the ability to rate books and get recommendations based on past books they’ve enjoyed.

Here is the full press release with more information on what the site is all about.

Go to the site, play around, and let me know what you think.

It’s a nice looking site with some good features, but I wonder if it will change the way people purchase and share books. What do you think? Will you find this useful?

Any Bridget Jones fans out there?

The original book “Bridget Jones’s Diary” written by Helen Fielding was published in 1996–yes, it’s been that long. The book, written in diary form, chronicled the hapless love life of Bridget Jones, a 30-something, single, career oriented, British woman.

Anyone who’s read it recognized its roots in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” Mr. Darcy anyone? And the movie brilliantly cast Colin Firth in that role.

According to Knopf Double Day, the books “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and the sequel  “Bridget Jones Edge of Reason” combined sold over 15 million copies.

The books spoke to a generation of women and helped make the chick lit genre wildly popular.

And now, 17 years later, Bridget Jones is back. A new book is set to be published in November of this year.

What will it be about?

According to this Publishers Weekly article, ”it will examine a new phase in [Bridget's] life.” Author Helen Fielding said, “My life has moved on, and Bridget’s will move on, too.”

The Huffington Post reported on the new book asking if Bridget Jones still matters. Does she still speak to 30-something year old women? Or even to the original readers who are now a bit older and possibly not that into the same chick lit genre anymore. The consensus  seemed to be that if Bridget were the same woman who struggled to ‘get it together’ then the book would be a pass.

What do you think? Did you relate to Bridget Jones? Do you want to see her back?

Is this a must read, a maybe or a pass?

I hope you love this image showing the ten rights of a reader as much as I did. I think I’ve done all of these. How about you?

Random House posted this image on facebook, which linked to an edudemic blog post by Jeff Dunn. The image was taken from ‘Rights of the Reader’ by Daniel Pennac.

You can get a pdf of the image from Walker Books.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is Monday. In honor of his memory I’m posting this video of a new book by Taylor Branch, “The King Years,” which ”brings to life eighteen pivotal dramas, beginning with the impromptu speech that turned an untested, twenty-six-year-old Martin Luther King forever into a public figure on the first night of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Five years later, minority students filled the jails in a 1960 sit-in movement, and, in 1961, the Freedom Riders seized national attention.”

What other poignant books have you read about Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement? What books would you recommend?

Most of our time here on the blog we talk about nonfiction and fiction novel length books. But I’m curious to know how many of you prefer shorter fiction to longer works.

What sparked this curiosity was the announcement of The Story Prize finalists–The Story Prize is an award given annually “to honor short story collections, which other major book awards for fiction often overlook”–as well as a post I saw last week on GalleyCat asking whether writers should master writing short stories before moving ahead to the more challenging novel. It compared a novel to a symphony.

Personally, I think that question undermines the difficulty of writing short fiction making it sound like a stepping stone to something greater. Can’t a short story in and of itself be compared to a symphony? Does something have to be long to be complex?

Honestly, I haven’t read a huge selection of short stories, most of them being old classics, but of the ones I have like “The Interlopers” by Saki (H. H. Munro) and “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl as well as others by Edgar Allen Poe, Earnest Hemingway, O. Henry and James Thurber, they have made a much deeper impact than many of the novels I’ve read. I especially like ones that pack a good punch at the end.

Have you read any of the story collections from the three finalists for The Story Prize: “Stay Awake” by Dan Chaon, “This Is How You Lose Her” by Junot Díaz, and “Battleborn” by Claire Vaye Watkins? Who’s your pick for the winner?

What sort of short stories do you read? Are there any you’d like to recommend?