Booklist Online: More than 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers - from the trusted experts at the American Library Association

Guests on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert’s spoof of the O’Reilly Factor, sometimes have just as much trouble facing Stephen Colbert as others do Bill O’Reilly–for completely different reasons, of course. O’Reilly often shouts and interrupts, making it hard for people to get a word in edgewise. Colbert interrupts, too–his satire is wickedly accurate–but more [...]

Speaking of good books for bad times, Gawker looks at authors’ stock-market speculations–speculative fiction, to be more precise–asking, “What have our finest authors found to redeem us from this depression?” Speculative fiction often refrains from defining the terms of an economic collapse, but it’s always forced to either solve the problem or make things considerably worse [...]

The New York Post (“Sis Family Feud’s One for Books,” by Bruce Golding) reports on a literary lawsuit where the facts may be more entertaining than the fiction. The author of the soon-to-be-published novel Hedge Fund Wives makes some serious claims about her sibling’s claims to her creativity: Writer Tatiana Boncompagni Hoover claims in court papers [...]

Ten happy writers have received 2008 Whiting Writers’ Awards–and checks for $50,000. They are recognized for “exceptional talent and promise in early career,” and they are listed below. (Because some of them don’t yet have books to link to, I’ve just reproduced the copy from the press release, adding links to the books we’ve reviewed.) [...]

From the Associated Press (“Acclaimed author Tony Hillerman dies at 83,” by Amanda Lee Myers): PHOENIX – Tony Hillerman, author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes — Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee — died Sunday of pulmonary failure. He was [...]

At Likely Stories, we cover book covers, with a little help from our friends. First, you can test your skill at judging books by their covers–it’s a shameless but quite clever way to drum up a little revenue from Amazon’s associates program. (Thanks, Ben!) Second, Bookninja has a funny book-cover contest. (Thanks, Dan!) Hope no one [...]

Well, I’m back. I had a great time at the Montana Festival of the Book. There were many memorable moments, but I’ll restrict myself–due to fatigue and an imminent conference call–to two. First, during the “When Commerce and Controversy Collide” panel, devoted to discussion of Sherry Jones’ The Jewel of Medina, the panelist seated immediately [...]

It’s been a quiet week here at Lake Wobegon–er, Likely Stories. Behind the scenes, though, I’ve been rushing around, getting the November 1 issue up on Booklist Online, helping guest editor Mary Ellen Quinn put the finishing touches on the new REaD ALERT (hitting your in-box soon), and getting ready for a quick trip to [...]

When times are tough, we turn to books for help. In Slate, Erica S. Perl suggests books to read to your children during a financial crisis: Many of the books I discovered during the late ’70s featured themes of economic hardship that made my circumstances seem manageable by comparison—a happy coincidence, I thought at the [...]

Three things you need to know about American Libraries. First, they now have their own blog! Called Inside Scoop, here’s how it’s described by editor-in-chief Leonard Kniffel (A Polish Son in the Motherland, 2005): While I don’t expect to blow the ALA website out of the water with Inside Scoop, I do expect to offer up-to-date [...]