{"id":122,"date":"2009-01-14T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2009\/01\/14\/those-underappreciated-backlist-gems\/"},"modified":"2009-01-14T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T08:10:00","slug":"those-underappreciated-backlist-gems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=122","title":{"rendered":"Those Underappreciated Backlist Gems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Connie Rockman posted an interesting comment on my "WHEN?" post last week that went as follows: "My all-time favorite is one of Jim Murphy’s lesser-known but most fascinating titles – Across America on an Emigrant Train<\/a><\/em> [Clarion Books, 1993]. Also a ‘who’ book because it’s based on the diaries of Robert Louis Stevenson about his journey to visit his lady-love in California, but he paints a very realistic picture of our country in 1879. The hazards of air travel today pale by comparison to the hazards of rail travel in the 19th century. A great read."<\/p>\n

\"\"I was struck by the similarity  between Connie’s statement and an experience I frequently have in our store when a customer asks me to recommend a non-fiction book for an adult. Almost invariably this non-fiction fan mentions having enjoyed The Devil in the White City<\/a><\/em> by Erik Larson. When I ask if they’ve read any of Larson’s other books, about 80% of them say they’ve read Thunderstruck<\/a><\/em>, but only about 2% of them have read Isaac’s Storm<\/a><\/em>, which I think (and I know others who agree) is his best book.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reading Connie’s remarks got me thinking about all the authors who reach the spotlight with the publication of one book, when there’s a gem (or several) in their backlist that are continually overlooked. Sara Pennypacker<\/a> has deservedly reached the spotlight of late for her Clementine<\/a> series, but my favorite pieces of her writing are the wildly entertaining Stuart’s Cape<\/a><\/em> (which I was devastated to learn is now out of print!) and Stuart Goes to School<\/a><\/em>. Apart from needing to be reissued with much bigger print (MUCH bigger print!!) and a thicker spine, I see no reason why these books shouldn’t have benefited from the recent uptick in Pennypacker passion, but their current lack of widespread availablity certainly suggests they have not. Hmmmm.<\/p>\n

Think about the times you’ve said to someone, "If you think THAT book by so-and-so-who-just-hit-the-big-time is good, you should go back and read THIS book." Now would you please take a moment to champion those backlist gems here? I know some of you have been DYING to announce to the world that YOU knew so-and-so was going to hit the big time when you first read their book _______, even though no one else appeared to be aware of it. This is your chance to say "I loved them when" or (possibly better) "I told you so."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connie Rockman posted an interesting comment on my “WHEN?” post last week that went as follows: “My all-time favorite is one of Jim Murphy’s lesser-known but most fascinating titles – Across America on an Emigrant Train [Clarion Books, 1993]. Also a ‘who’ book because it’s based on the diaries of Robert Louis Stevenson about his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}