Nothing of importance.

A special treat for you: You, like me, (if you are a librarian, anyway) probably receive pleas from authors to buy their books. Frequently this is a form letter with a book mark or two, sent to the generic "Librarian" or sometimes "Acquisitions" at your library. I get these. I frequently don't order the books listed, oftentimes because they are self-published works that have received no reviews. The other day, I received an advertisement, directed to me, the "dear Librarian," and I found it so silly I had to share. The buy-my-book plea begins thusly: "Money is tight, but libraries are crucial. I do everything I can to support all libraries, and I hope you will consider ordering my literary thriller...." I won't tell you the name of the thriller nor the author, although I will say that I did order the book, because it is the sequel to a book that has had reasonable circulation these last 2 years. This non-sequiter-filled opening did not convince me to buy this book. If this book were a stand-along novel, I would have passed it by specifically *because* of this terrible argument. Yes, I can agree that libraries are important and of course I understand how tight money is. I'm glad the author feels he does everything he can to help libraries, but, since I've never seen him here volunteering in my library, nor seen any checks come past my desk with his signature, I'd maybe like a list of how he thinks he's helping. Writing a few thrillers of dubious quality and mundane subject hardly makes my list of "helping" libraries-- just something else we'll have to spend money on, find shelf space for, then weed in a few years when no one can even remember how to spell this guy's name.