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Tomorrow, March 19, is a day of celebration. It’s Certified Nurses Day, for one. It’s also the birthday of Earl Warren (the judge), William Bradford (the pilgrim), and Wyatt Earp (the gunslinger). But more important to the children’s literature world, tomorrow marks the publication of Laurie Halse Anderson’s new book Wintergirls, one of the hottest titles of the [...]

The Mystery Writers of America have announced their shortlist for the Edgars. Although, I wouldn’t want to have this guy leering at me everyday: Best Novel Nominees Missing, by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press) Blue Heaven, by C.J. Box (St. Martin’s Minotaur) Sins of the Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno (Simon & Schuster – Scribner) [...]

(Previously on Nerd vs. Nerd.) Category: Novels, 1900-1950 Mother died today. The winners’ hopes died, too, as they looked at each other, both of them thinking, That sounds incredibly familiar. The correct answer–which turns out to be one of George W. Bush’s favorite books–went unguessed. Embarrassed silence all around. Category: Children’s Books More than anything else in [...]

So, according to an article on Bookseller.com, which I found out about through the ArtsJournal‘s excellent daily newsletter, the author R. N . Morris is republishing his 2007 crime novel, A Gentle Axe, in a surprising fashion. Not content with hardcover and paperback — and, I pre sume, audiobook, Morris is serializing A Gentle Axe [...]

(Previously on Nerd vs. Nerd.) Category: Children’s Movies Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. This read with groans by The Losers, and received with laughter by The Winners. The card was refiled under the assumption that [...]

Computer “archaeologist” David Ward has unearthed a software program from the early days of the Cold War that does something much more deadly than target missiles: it writes poetry. Badly. (“World’s First Computer Was Used to Generate Love Poetry,” by Nigel Bunyan, Telegraph.) Visit the Manchester Mark I emulator if you dare–and don’t say I [...]

Amid a lavish, star-studded ceremony Salvatore Scibona accepted the New York Public Library’s $10,000 Young Lions Fiction Award, for The End. All right, maybe “star-studded” is going too far. But, the award’s founder, Ethan Hawke, played host while “Watchman” star Billy Crudup read passages on stage. To learn more about the Young Lions’s award, visit [...]

If you were intrigued by any of last year’s stories (“Publishers battle to sign up Europe’s sex sensation,” by Jason Burke, Guardian) about Charlotte Roche’s explicit German best-seller, Feuchtgebiete (or Wetlands), you’ll want to read Gillian Engberg’s Booklist Online Exclusive review of this newly translated title, which is also today’s Review of the Day. I’m not [...]

Every day at Booklist we face a barrage of press releases, queries, and demands. Will you review this first-time author’s second-person account of a third-generation farm family? we are asked. My author is an expert on the mortgage crisis–in fact, his ability to pay his own mortgage is in crisis–and is the ideal interview subject, we are told. Our product, [...]

The votes are in, and the National Book Critics Circle has named winners: Fiction 2666, by Roberto Bolaño Nonfiction The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins  Autobiography My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, by Ariel Sabar Biography The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, by [...]