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So, for the first time ever, there’s a short story in Booklist. Called “Reading Is My Business,” it’s in the May 1 issue, our Mystery Showcase, and it’s a hard-boiled tale about a boozy book reviewer named . . . Keir Graff. And it’s written by . . . yep, you guessed it, me. What’s going on here? [...]

I may not always be first, but I do get there eventually. The winners of the 2007 Nebula Awards have been announced. Novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon Novella “Fountain of Age,” by Nancy Kress Novelette “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” by Ted Chiang Short Story “Always,” by Karen Joy Fowler Script [...]

With the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in Anaheim fast approaching, whiz kid Dan Kraus has put together a handy primer on taking part. (Stars director of membership development John Chrastka, who, rumor has it, was born wearing a tweed blazer with a pipe in the pocket.) Gee willikers! Check out this swell 1950s-style educational [...]

Ashes to ashes, pulp to pulp. A forthcoming biography of Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV’s mistress, written by Veronica Buckley (Christina, Queen of Sweden, 2004) is being recalled due to its reliance on a faulty source (“Hoax diary snares Bloomsbury,” by Claire Armitstead, the Guardian‘s theblogbooks): The problem, it turns out, is with the attribution of a little-known document [...]

The 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been announced. And there’s one name that’s conspicuously absent. Biography Young Stalin, by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Knopf) Current Interest Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature through Peace and War at West Point, by Elizabeth D. Samet (Farrar) Fiction Be Near Me, by Andrew O’Hagan (Harcourt) Art Seidenbaum Award for First [...]

At Booklist Coffee™ this morning, we were discussing My Beautiful Mommy and one of the youth books editors suggested another potentially untapped market: the very young children of very old celebrities. As some luminaries move on to their third, fourth, and fifth marriages, there does seem to be a growing opportunity here. Should any entrepreneurial types [...]

I just finished reading Alan Black’s Kick the Balls last night–it’s very funny. And while many people have suggested that memoirs, especially humorous memoirs, should be assumed to have disclaimers, Black provides one anyway. I admire its economy: Some names and identities have been changed to protect the guilty. A little timing manipulation helped the flow [...]

According to the CBC, the German publisher Bertelsmann AG is planning a print version of Wikipedia (“German publisher plans printed version of Wikipedia“). Well, the German part, and only the most-searched articles. Still, I hope shopkeepers are prepared for the people who show up with pens, scissors, glue, and alternate pages.

Celebrate National Poetry Month by reading Ray Olson’s review of Fakhraddin Gorgani’s Vis & Ramin (Mage), or even the book itself, or some other book of poetry, or a single poem, or even by writing a poem. I’ll admit it, I’m a little behind in my celebrating, too, but, counting today, there are seven fulls days left in [...]

So Dmitri Nabokov will not be burning his father’s manuscript. From Die Welt (“Nabokovs “Laura” wird doch nicht verbrannt,” von Wieland Freund): Der Fall hielt die Literaturfreunde in Atem. Vladimir Nabokov wollte, dass sein letzter Roman verbrannt wird. Die Witwe brachte es nicht übers Herz, Sohn Dimitri Nabokov (73) hatte die Tat bislang immer mal [...]