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

Over at Deadline, there’s an interesting story that says Robert Zemeckis, director of such films as Back to the Future, What Lies Beneath, Cast Away, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, is in “early talks” to remake The Wizard of Oz (1939) using the original screenplay. The movie would be live action, not motion-capture animation, which [...]

President Obama’s brand-new children’s book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, illustrated by Loren Long, is an ode to the creativity, generosity, and pluck of 13 famous Americans as well as an inclusionary invitation to children to feel part of the American family. Among the profiled are Helen Keller, George Washington, Martin Luther [...]

Headlines also considered: Sterling’s Gold Lacks Luster; Sterling’s Gold Slightly Tarnished; Sterling’s Gold a Cheap Alloy; Sterling’s Gold Fools No One; Sterling’s Gold Merely Iron Pyrite; Sterling’s Gold Is No Gem; Sterling’s Gold Lacks Eureka Moments; and you get the idea. Opportunities for metallurgical wordplay abound with the pun-tastically titled Sterling’s Gold: Wit & Wisdom [...]

In my first outing with e-books, I read Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars on an iPad. When it came time download George Bush’s Decision Points, I assumed the iPad and I would continue our nodding acquaintance. So you can imagine my surprise when the iTunes store  had never heard of Decision Points. It was like going [...]

Two weeks’ worth of weeklings here. Sorry! On Amazon, readers punish writers for their publishers’ pricing models–again (“Stars fall in Amazon protest about ebook prices,” Benedicte Page, Guardian). Authors found themselves in the firing line this week as fans furious at sudden rises in Amazon’s Kindle prices protested by giving their books one-star reviews on [...]

I finally got to see The Town, Ben Affleck’s splendid movie based on Chuck Hogan’s 2004 novel Prince of Thieves. Like Dennis Lehane’s Gone, Baby, Gone (which Affleck also made into a fine film), Prince of Thieves is a gritty Boston crime story. Doug MacRay is the leader of a small group of hold-up men. [...]

so I have here on my desk the uncorrected proof of Zone, by Mathias Enard, which will be published December 14 by Open Letter although, really, it seems that Zone Books would have been a more appropriate publisher but anyway, the book concerns a French-born Croat intelligence officer who takes a train from Milan to [...]

This video for Dave  Cullen’s Columbine (which we starred), takes a news-magazine approach, starring Cullen as “reporter,” speaking to the camera in front of his library or while driving his car, stroking his chin at material evidence, and walking through the relevant scenes: the high school hallways and cafeteria, the permanent memorial. Combined with chilling [...]

A while back (here, as a matter of fact) I talked about 127 Hours, Danny Boyle’s forthcoming movie about Aron Ralston’s rather unsettling story of courage and survival. The trailer’s online. It’s interesting and tantalizing. Take a look:

It’s probably safe to assume you’re aware of the myriad Sherlock Holmes stories written by people who are not, strictly speaking, Arthur Conan Doyle. Or the James Bond novels by writers who bear not even a passing resemblance to Ian Fleming.   Those are probably the most famous literary spin-offs, but they’re  hardly the only ones. From time to [...]