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

In Michael Crichton’s Timeline (1999), a trio of graduate students travel back in time to medieval France to bring back their professor, who’s stranded in the year 1357. It’s not Crichton’s best novel — he has to work uncharacteristically hard to sell the scientific premise of the story — but it’s exciting, well written, and, as usual, [...]

You may know Michael Cart for his clarion reviews in Booklist. Or maybe you know him for his witty and candid “Carte Blanche” columns (I especially admired his recent look at Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, and John Stanley, the big three of classic kids’ comics). Or maybe you’ve heard him wax poetic as the world’s [...]

I should probably get this out of the way: I think Matthew McConaughey is a talented actor. Yes, every single romantic comedy he’s been in has been dreadful, but don’t forget he did Dazed and Confused, and U-571, and Two for the Money. He’s a talented dramatic actor, that’s the thing, but he doesn’t do [...]

Steven Kroll has died (“Steven Kroll, an Author of Children’s Books, Dies at 69,” by Dennis Hevesi, New York Times). From history to Hanukkah, Kroll wrote about it all. The author of 96 (96!) books for children, he started his career at Chatto and Windus publishing house in London and moved to Holt, Rinehart and Winston [...]

The National Book Critics Circle announced their winners: Biography How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, by Sarah Bakewell Poetry One with Others: A little book of her days, by C.D. Wright Criticism Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West, by Clare Cavanagh [...]

Every essayist should be fortunate enough to know a filmmaker like Tucker Capps. Capps’ trailer (or short film, really) for Ryan Van Meter’s If You Knew Then What I Know Now (Sarabande, 2011) is a beautiful thing. Using techniques I can’t even begin to guess at, the film is one part animation and one part [...]

You probably already know this, but there’s going to be a fifth Die Hard movie. It’s in the early-planning stages, which means we have no idea what the movie’s going to be about, but it’s a good excuse for some book-related Die Hard fun facts. Die Hard, the 1988 movie that launched the franchise (and [...]

Ted Danson spoke about his ocean activism at ALA’s Midwinter conference in San Diego, and now he’s making the media rounds to talk about his smart and beautifully produced book about the state of the oceans, Oceana, reviewed in Booklist‘s Spotlight on the Environment in the March 1 issue. This is no passing moment of [...]

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) have announced Golden Kite winners and honorees Fiction Turtle in Paradise, by Jennifer Holm NonFiction The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie, by Tanya Lee Stone Picture Book Text Big Red Lollipop, by Rukhsana Khan Picture Book Illustration A Pocket Full of Posies, by Salley Mavor [...]

The Pen/Faulkner shortlist has been released: A Visit From The Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg, by Deborah Eisenberg Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon Model Home, by Eric Puchner Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives, by Brad Watson  The winner will be announced on May 7th, and receive [...]