Last year's fall list, published into the teeth of a presidential election and a financial meltdown, hedged its bets—lots of nostalgia, no surefire blockbuster authors and light even on the literary. Not so this year. Dan Brown returns, and King and Grisham and Steel and Albom and Patterson and Sparks are right there, too. What might all this flash mean for booksellers and librarians who have to make wise choices as to what to stock and in what quantities? We asked around.
Stuart Applebaum, corporate spokesman for Random House, which has several big books coming, is both excited and wary about how the markets will respond. “It's an extraordinary fall for us, but in this economy nothing is assured. We have been working at it hard since late winter. A great list alone might have been fine back in the day, but in 2009 it just isn't enough.”
Booksellers are less measured in their enthusiasm. Karen Corvello, head buyer at RJ Julia in Madison, Conn., says, “The Dan Browns and Michael Crichtons will bring people in, and the range is so broad this season—Lethem, Roth, Atwood—there's something for everybody, which doesn't happen every season.”
Librarians, some anyway, are ready. Columbus (Ohio) Metropolitan Library's Robin Nesbitt says that they were “selective in the spring and summer, waiting for these titles to hit. At the BEA we made note of all these big titles, and we plan to buy heavily.”
If the U.S. economy continues its slow recovery, there is general hope that book sales will flourish. “Books are such a good deal,” says Corvello, “compared to, say, a flat-screen TV.”
