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

“That woman” was how the British establishment referred to Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee who swept King Edward VIII off his throne in 1936, and together, as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, they led aimless, frivolous lives thereafter. A new biography called That Woman, by Anne Sebba (St. Martin’s, $27.99), will be published in [...]

This week’s BTT doesn’t quite qualify as a trailer, but I’d argue that it has the same intented result as one: what better way to drum up excitement for a new book than by inviting the blogosphere to step right up and share hilarious and heartbreaking tales of their own? The Why We Broke Up [...]

Being celebrated by the literati as the most venerable of critics, we editors are inevitably invited to stand before the assembled gala crowd, looking smashing in our tuxes and holding our martinis, to give our opinion of the about-to-be-published book. Sometimes this goes well. Other times it goes really, really, really badly. To give you [...]

(Has anyone ever gone over to your bookshelf, picked up a book, and said, “What is this doing here?” This series of blog posts explains some of the more curious findings on one Booklister’s home shelves.) Visitors to my stately personal library sometimes scoff at the condition of my David Mamet section. Not because they [...]

So, I’ve been away for a while. Now that Sarah Hunter is doing a fine job taking over the awards beat, I’ve had a little more time to nurse my growing Hunger Games addiction. Annie Bostrom has been kind enough to let me share my rabid anticipation of the film and fill in for this [...]

Last night, at the Oscars of the literary world, The National Book Foundation announced the winners of this year’s National Book Award. This year, the event was broadcast live via webcast, and the full video of the event—including some groan worthy jokes and shameless plugs from John Lithgow—is available at the National Book Award’s website. [...]

If you have anything remotely to do with kids’ lit in Chicago, get your butt over to the Harold Washington branch of the Chicago Public Library on Wednesday, November 16, from 6 to 8pm in the Pritzer Auditorium, to experience the madness that is the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, the first in what is planned [...]

Canada’s biggest annual literary prize was awarded last night to Esi Edugyan for her novel Half-Blood Blues about jazz musicians in Paris. Her novel was selected from an impressive shortlist, including award-winning author Michael Ondaatje. Here’s the (impressive!) shortlist from which her novel was selected: The Free World By David Bezmozgis The Antagonist By Lynn Coady [...]

This year’s Chicago Tribune Book Prizes were awarded this weekend at the Chicago Humanities Festival. The Literary Prize went to Stephen Sondheim, renowned musical theater lyricist. The Heartland Prize, given to one nonfiction and one fiction author, awards works “embodying the spirit of the nation’s heartland.” Here are the winners! Freedom By Jonathan Franzen The [...]

After there was Cowboys & Aliens the movie — well, not after: at roughly the same time — there was Cowboys & Aliens the novel, published by Tor and written by Joan D. Vinge. Novelizations, books written from screenplays, can be pretty awful (I have a few things to say about them over here), but this [...]