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

The 2008 World Fantasy Award winners have been announced: Novel Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc) Novella Illyria, by Elizabeth Hand (PS) Short Story “Singing of Mount Abora,” by Theodora Goss (Logorrhea, Bantam) Anthology Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, by Ellen Datlow, Editor (Tor) Collection Tiny Deaths, by Robert Shearman (Comma) For [...]

Michael Crichton, a bestselling author who seemed to have a direct line to the zeitgeist, has died. I can’t get the official site to load right now–it’s probably getting a lot of traffic–but there are several articles up, including one from the BBC (“Author Michael Crichton dies, 66“). Read David Pitt’s review of Crichton’s Next [...]

Allow me to introduce Courtney Jones, a new blogger at Likely Stories. As the editorial assistant for both Booklist‘s Books for Youth section and Booklist Online, Courtney has impressed all of us with her highly adaptable skillset, her tireless work ethic, and her unflagging good nature. (And she’s only been with us since July!) Starting today, Courtney will be taking [...]

David Lipsky’s Rolling Stone article about David Foster Wallace (“The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace“) is just amazing. Funny, fascinating, heartbreaking. If you know anyone who suffers from depression–and maybe even if you don’t–you won’t be able to finish it without tears in your eyes. When we lose someone like Studs Terkel, we [...]

Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng are using the proceeds of What Is the What to build a school in Deng’s hometown, Marial Bai, Sudan. (There’s a lot more information at the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation site.) In the video below, Eggers follows Deng with a camera as Deng gives a guided tour of his family’s various [...]

Studs Terkel is dead. People keep saying it’s a tremendous loss–and it is, of course–but he leaves behind a tremendous body of work. Never one to rest on his laurels (and he certainly would have had a wry comment about that), the Working guy just kept . . . working. A great listener, a hell of a talker, [...]