Timely Reference: Gas Prices and Driving Tips

Swiss Army Librarian has compiled a list of links related to maximising car fuel economy, including driving tips and gas price comparison listings.
Additionally, Slate recently took a look at car idling and determined that though it doesn’t hurt to turn off the car if you’ll be idling more than 10 seconds, it doesn’t help much […]

Summer Books Season

USA Today posts its lengthy interactive list of summer fiction and non-fiction. You can sort by title, author or release date, and look at all the books at once or only fiction or non-. Excerpts available for some.
Politics and Prose Bookstore’s Summer Favorites 2008, with separate lists for hardcover fiction, paperback fiction, pb mystery, airplane […]

Bit Lit?: The Appeal of Vampire Novels

The Guardian books blog examines what’s so appealing about vampire fiction, beginning with a short history of the theme and comparing older and seminal fictional works about the blood-drinkers with modern vampire lit, which tends to humanise and glamourise the vampire. As always, the comments offer more titles and food for thought ….

Start of Summer Books Season

is now here.

Book to Film

The latest book to be tapped for movie stardom: Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist — “currently at number six on The New York Times bestseller list, 20 years after its first publication” — will be made into a film, directed by Laurence Fishburne and produced by Harvey Weinstein. It’s “the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd […]

Noble Borders?

Book-selling giant Barnes & Noble, Inc. booksellers is considering buying its somewhat smaller rival, book-selling giant Borders Group, per the Wall Street Journal (sub. req), which also commented on the same rumour in November in its Deal Journal. Borders indicated in March that it was struggling and might be willing to be sold. The WSJ […]

Booklists: War, and Procrastination

Both tips from RAO:
In Slate, “Procrastination Lit: Great novels about wasting time,” a “small and unnerving category of literature that is not only about procrastination but that, in form and style, enacts the frenetic paralysis of irrational delay,” compiled by Jessica Winter. Books included are three by Thomas Bernhard (In The Lime Works, The Loser […]

The Bad Seed: Evil Children in Fiction

Shelf Talk at Seattle PL offers an annotated list of about 20 books and movies featuring very bad children. More in the comments.

More Spring Books

The National Book Critics Circle announced its Spring 2008 Good Reads List this weekend, comprised of 10 fiction, 5 non-fiction, and 5 poetry titles. (More Spring Book recommendations here.)