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Some reviewers and readers may find this hard to believe, but I will miss Dominick Dunne (“Dominick Dunne, Chronicler of Crime, Dies at 83,” by Enid Nemy, New York Times). He has always been a favored writer on my reading list. I would call him a guilty pleasure author except his writing and storytelling were [...]

Picture-book trailers usually adhere to one formula: artwork  /  zooms   x  pans  +  music = trailer. There’s something soulless about this approach; by removing both the effort of reading as well as the interaction of parent and child, we’re left with a simulacrum of an experience, a readaloud as interpreted by a robot. However! Occasionally [...]

Gotta keep up with the Joneses (er. Krauses) here on Likely Stories, so consider this the inaugural launch of Webcomics Wednesdays to align with Book Trailer Thursdays by my esteemed colleague and hall-mate, Dan Kraus. While I’m not a huge fan of Harvey Pekar’s (though in the photo on my ALA ID card I look surprisingly similar [...]

It’s possible you’ve never heard of mystery writer Jay Bennett. Hell, I never met him. But Bennett—who died on June 27 at the age of 96 (“Jay Bennett, 96; wrote crime novels, scripts,” by Dwight Ott, Philadelphia Inquirer)—had a profound effect on my life. And now that a little time has passed, I’m realizing that [...]

Are there statistics about library patrons who listen to NPR? I have the feeling there’s a big overlap. My ears pricked up this morning when Susan Stamberg began describing the favorite cafe of a writer I much admire, Eduardo Galeano, who lives in Montevideo, Uruguay. Stamberg’s conversation with the brilliant and controverisal writer is worth a listen.  And here’s [...]

This is what passes for big news in the world of book trailers: when a video teaser for Thomas Pynchon’s mystery novel Inherent Vice hit the internet recently, the literati started buzzing. Could that possibly be the famous recluse Pynchon himself doing the voice-over? All anyone had to go on was an old Simpsons episode [...]

The movie Julie and Julia is as delightful as everyone says. Even the men in the audience seemed to like it. The viewing prompted me to go back to the books from whence the movie came. Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France (delivered posthumously by her grandnephew, Alex Prud’Homme) both charms you and makes you want [...]

Here’s a quick ‘n dirty look at who won/was nominated for what in the last week: Brunonia Barry (The Lace Reader, 2008) won the 2009 Baccante literary prize. She will be recognized at a ceremony on September 26th in Matera, Italy. Author/illustrator Gail Gibbons (Tornadoes, 2009) will receive the prestigious Regina Medal on April 7, [...]

Instead of the usual three nominees for the $5,000 Thurber Prize for American Humor, there are four! The winner will be announced Oct. 1. And the finalists are:   Lamentations of the Father, by Ian Frazier I Was Told There’d Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley Wrack and Ruin, by Don Lee The Idiot Girl and the [...]

It’s not often that a book trailer comes along that changes your life. This is just such a trailer. That voice-over: how it chills the blood. The imagery: how it lifts the soul. By traveling to his home town to shoot the trailer for his novel The Monster Variations (Delacorte), author Daniel Kraus did the [...]