The Fall book season is upon us! Fall seems to be busy for every industry, but September and October are particularly busy times in publishing. Lots of literary festivals, lots of marketing and pushing of the “hot books this fall.” Publisher spend most of the fall trying to get readers’ attention, hoping their top books will be remembered at Christmas time. Not sure whether that is misguided marketing or not, but it happens.

Based on advance reading copies, Quill’s Fall listings and the Globe and Mail, here are my Fall Picks. The disclaimer is that these are the books I want to read, not necessarily the ones that I think will be the hot books. I noticed a strong native theme in my picks. Not sure why that is.

Amazon Listmania: Monique’s Fall Picks

And what am I reading now? I was asked that today.

Bookmark Now by Kevin Smokler. Little disappointed that Kevinsmokler.com has not recently been updated. I found out after the fact that Kevin was in Vancouver talking to the SFU book immersion group. I would have loved to sit in on that discussion.

Also reading Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars (and hoping that Darren Barefoot will remember to pass on Seth’s link about book publishing).

What do you think about book marketing? Do you read reviews? See book ads in the papers, here about books from friends?

I heard that promoters of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink were handing out copies at Robson Square on Saturday and were having a difficult time getting people to stop and talk to them. I guess the “power of thinking without thinking” was too much for people.

I passed by a mother and daughter this weekend. They walked by Book Warehouse on 4th Ave. and the mother stopped to look at the bargain books out front. “Books!” the little girl said. “I hate books.”

Scott told me once you can gauge how smart someone is by the number of books they’ve read or have in their library. My apartment is wallpapered with books. Smart maybe, but cool?

Kevin Smokler’s introduction to Bookmark Now is a great essay on the fun or coolness of books and the book industry. It’s definitely worth reading.