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

There’s no question that the Printz Honor–winning Octavian Nothing duet presents readers with an intellectual challenge. In his National Book Award acceptance speech for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; Volume One: The Pox Party, Anderson himself described the books as “a 900-page two volume historical epic for teens, written in [...]

I have a confession to make: I read Parade. Every week, after I work my way through the Sunday paper, or what’s left of it, I turn to this slim little tabloid knowing that I’ve truly saved the best for last. No, I am not particularly interested in learning What America Earns, nor do I [...]

Over the last week quite a number of books received awards. Here’s the best of best: The 2009 NAIBA Books of the Year Prize winners are: Fiction   A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick Nonfiction Hurry Down Sunshine, by Michael Greenberg Trade Paperback Original Buffalo Lockjaw, by Greg Ames Picture Book The Curious Garden, by [...]

When I started Book Trailer Thursday back in 1986, I was just a lad with an Apple IIe and a dream. Who could’ve guessed that 1,825 posts later, BTT would be the revered institution that it is today? Okay, so I’ve only been doing BTT for a few months, but the response has still been [...]

Short post today, but I’d like to point you to one of my favorite webcomics, and one that made me unhate the color purple in one fell swoop (bad Northwestern grad!)–Gunnerkrigg Court. Earlier this year, the first 14 chapters were printed into a beautiful book comic by Archaia Studios with Orientation. If this panel from the [...]

The American West, without a doubt, is one of the most fascinating and intriguing regions of the United States. The vast openness, stark prairies, sheer cliffs and rock faces, and lethally beautiful deserts have a hold on Americans, as well as many people of the world, that is mysterious and unfathomable. The West is the [...]

I know something happened this week–everybody was talking about it. Writing about it, even. Something, something . . . some guy published a book? Oh, yeah! Dan Brown thrilled the world by finally–finally–giving us The Lost Symbol. The New York Times, which really is getting the hang of this breaking-the-embargo thing, wrote, puzzlingly, that Brown [...]

On Thursday, September 10, Daniel Kraus gave a thumbs-up to a 30-second spot touting Laurie Ann Levin’s God, the Universe, and Where I Fit In. On Saturday, September 12, Bonita Rodriguez posted the following comment: This is a good one; we viewed it in lit class. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuALxOAL0Ok The link leads to a trailer for Eva’s [...]

Terry Pratchett’s Nation is so exciting and funny that’s it’s almost too easy to forget the tragedy at its center. Young Mau is paddling back to his tiny island nation after spending a month alone as part of his manhood ritual. When he gets there he finds that everyone has been wiped out by a [...]

It’s been so long since I’ve posted that I had to dust off the blog’s dashboard before I could start. And, somehow, my fingers got stuck inside the computer monitor, and it was hours before the IT department could come to my desk and set me free. Very embarrassing. The real problem has been a combination of [...]