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. [22 May]
Politics and Prose Bookstore’s Summer Favorites 2008, with separate lists for hardcover fiction, paperback fiction, pb […]
Filed under: book reviews, readers advisory, booklists, fiction, publishing, seasonal previews, oprah, non-fiction on May 29th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
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 ….
Filed under: readers advisory, horror, fiction, romance, paranormal, vampires, gothic on May 26th, 2008 | No Comments »
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 […]
Filed under: readers advisory, booklists, fiction, holidays, postmodern on May 19th, 2008 | No Comments »
Shelf Talk at Seattle PL offers an annotated list of about 20 books and movies featuring very bad children. More in the comments.
Filed under: readers advisory, booklists, fiction, paranormal, suspense on May 5th, 2008 | No Comments »
The big question for many: When will Dan Brown’s next book, following his wildly successful The DaVinci Code (2003), be published? Jeffrey Trachtenberg, writing in the Wall Street Journal today, says it’s a mystery:
“[T]he nation’s biggest retailers can barely restrain themselves. ‘We’re constantly asking,’ says Bob Wietrak, vice president of merchandising at Barnes & Noble […]
Filed under: readers advisory, history, fiction, publishing, dan brown, historical fiction on January 25th, 2008 | No Comments »
George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman adventure series, published from 1969 to 2005, died of cancer today in England. More from the AP, Guardian, and The Independent.
Filed under: fiction, obituaries, series on January 2nd, 2008 | No Comments »
“According to the Associated Press, Oprah Winfrey has chosen Ken Follett’s 1989 novel The Pillars of the Earth for her next bookclub pick. Follett’s newest book, World Without End, is a sequel. The Pillars of the Earth is a love story set in 12th-century England. Unlike Follett’s other books, this one is a big historical […]
Filed under: readers advisory, fiction, media, oprah, bookclub on November 14th, 2007 | No Comments »
Camille DelVecchio compiles an annotated list of comfortable books, ones that evoke childhood, with ‘languid’ pacing, familiar situations, some predictability, and nothing ‘boring, sappy, or patronizing.’ Her list of 15 books includes Good Poems for Hard Times, Calvin & Hobbes cartoons, and books by Philip Gulley, Anne Tyler, Peter Mayle, Carrie Brown, Bill Richardson, […]
Filed under: readers advisory, booklists, fiction, gentle reads on November 6th, 2007 | No Comments »
Apparently best-selling writer Stephen King thinks short stories are alive, but barely, while short story writer Jack Livings in Newsweek is a bit more optimistic, though given the evidence and arguments he presents, I’m not sure why.
Among Livings’ faint-praise responses to King’s short story death-knell:
“There’s evidence that the size of the audience for literary short […]
Filed under: fiction, crime fiction, magazines, short stories on November 5th, 2007 | No Comments »
The Guardian Arts blog takes on the sport of boxing in literature: “Literature and boxing shouldn’t go together. One is concerned with refining our consciousness; the other with trying to clobber someone into unconsciousness as artfully and as swiftly as possible. Yet of all sports writing it is boxing that seems to have inspired some […]
Filed under: readers advisory, booklists, fiction, sports on October 20th, 2007 | No Comments »