Our list already includes many important industry resources. Like Publishers Marketplace, where you can research agents and editors, and GalleyCat, where you can find the hottest breaking news on digital and print publishing. We keep links there to big thinkers and sassy reviewers, to breaking news and conversation starters. You’ll even find our other agencies over there, because everyone’s better off when we’re all sharing what we know.

What are we missing? We want you to help us find the newest and most exciting literary sites on the web. So let me know in the comments below – where do you go for the most up-to-date book news? (BESIDES the fantastic DGLM blog, RIGHT?!)  Where do you find new books to read or catch up on the latest industry gossip? What sites offer the best fun for a bookish lifestyle?

When Mike Hoogland wisely used his post to solicit feedback on our blog posts, readers responded with some good ideas, including Anthony Pacheco’s excellent suggestion to post cover reveals and new releases. I’m pleased to oblige.  Nothing is more exciting, in fact, than having the opportunity to trumpet news of our clients’ work.  And this last week has given me two terrific titles to tout.

Country western singer turned sustainable food expert Liz Carlisle has just published Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America.   A good while back I posted her pitch letter as an example of a successful nonfiction pitch, and now months later, amid celebrations, workshops alongside bestselling author Michael Pollan and wonderful food created by chef Claudia Krevat, her book is making its debut.   Her book trailer is above.

Another work of  narrative nonfiction is also just out, this by veteran reporter and journalism professor Joseph Coleman.  UNFINISHED WORK:  The Struggle to Build an Aging American Workforce is a smart, story-driven analysis of a quiet revolution that is even now underway—people are living longer and the social and economic implications are vast.  For better and worse, retirement is changing, and the stories of the men and women who are working into their seventies and eighties make for an eye-opening and provocative read.  Happily, agenting is a career that has no mandatory age of retirement, so my hope is to represent authors for the next forty or so years, when I can commute to the city by jet-pack.

Although lentils and eighty-year old Japanese artisans might appear to have little in common, these two disparate books do provide a kind of snapshot of the projects I represent: narrative non-fiction that blends brainy, big-ideas with the human stories of men and women who are the heart of any good book.  I look for writing that can deliver both fine-grain, immersive prose about people and places and then back up to furnish context and analysis.  Finally, these books are excellent examples of unlikely or overlooked topics that have a great deal to tell us about the world in which we live.

All of it was informative and very helpful—and I believe it led to a better year in blogging for DGLM and our readers. So I will do so again here. Let’s call it our year-end review.

What do you guys enjoy about our blog? What keeps bringing you back for more? What would you like to see us do differently, do better?

This is your chance for some input. Our readers are important to us, and we want to blog about what you want to read about. So please, don’t hold back. What’s on your mind?

We’ll be blogging as usual over here at www.dystel.com now instead of at Blogger, and there are also some other things for you to explore over to the right (unless you’re not currently reading this on the site itself, in which case you might want to just poke your head in and take a look!).  You might be interested in learning more about us and our clients.  If you’re an author looking for representation, perhaps you’ll want to peruse our FAQ, Submission Requirements, Who We Are and What We’re Looking For, and Nonfiction Proposal Guidelines.  Need something new to read?  Check out our Staff Recommendations, Recent and Forthcoming Titles, and What We’re Reading in the column on the right. Maybe you want to know where we’ll be?  We’ve got a calendar with our upcoming conferences and events in that sidebar as well!  Of course, if you’d like, please feel free to use the links over there to Subscribe, Follow, or Like us and share our site with others!  The new blog should start feeding into our Twitter and Facebook accounts today, so if you’re already following us there, you don’t need to do anything.  If you’re reading us in a blog reader, please subscribe to the new RSS feed.

Make yourselves at home!

As always, we want to hear from you!  What do you think of the new digs?  Any suggestions for improvement?  Glitches we may not have caught?  (We hope not, but let us know if so!)  New features that you’d like us to consider?  We can’t always implement everything recommended to us, but we’re always open to hearing your ideas.

Just in time for the holidays, new staff recommendations from us here at DGLM to add to your shopping or wish lists!  Check ’em out!