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

Paolo Bacigalupi really knows how to draw the hostility out of a questioner. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Printz, and a National Book Award finalist, he’s got just the kind of medal-laden shelf that I live to upend. So it’s freaking killing me that I can’t quite do it. Y’all read The Drowned Cities? [...]

The fourth annual 31 Horror Films 31 Days Challenge is accomplished. And for the third year straight (let us never speak of 2009!) I claim victory. I prepared a full statement last night. And I quote: Bwa-ahaha-aha-hhah-ahahahaaha-a-ha-a-hahaha-hahh-ah-ahahahaah-ahah-haa-hah-ahahah-hahah-hahhha-a-ah-aaa-ha-ha-ah-aa-ha-haha-ha-ha-haha-a-aha-ha-ah-a-ha-hah-ah-a-aa-hahahaha-aha-ahah-h-ah-a-ha-haa-ah-a-ha-h–ha-hahhahahah-ah-ah-h-a-a-a-ha–a-h-ah-a-h-ah-a-a-h-ahhahahaha-ha-a-ha-h-ahaahhaa-h-a-ha-ha!!!!!!! End quote. This “victory” I speak of was not a comfortable one. I clawed through my 31st film [...]

David Moody, for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, is the author of the Hater and Autumn series of post-apocalyptic novels. He’s also written a standalone novel, Trust, which features a group of aliens stranded on Earth. While very different in many ways, his books share a common theme: ordinary people tossed into [...]

Carrie Ryan, Lawyer. What the heck was wrong with that? But no, drunk on the accomplishment of mastering U.S. law, this ambitious lass up and decided to burden the general populace with a few more volumes of bound pages. Hence The Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Dead-Tossed Waves, and The Dark and Hollow Places. [...]

Courtney Summers lives in Canada. Now, it’s true, I’m not a quote-unquote “expert” on Canada, but I’m pretty danged smart so let me paint you a picture of her writing life. Somewhere in the frozen, unforgiving Canadian tundra squats an ominous black cabin stinking of yak hide and bear piss (aka “the smell of fear”). [...]

Enjoy (yes, you must!) this week’s trailer for The Last Policeman, a book David Pitt calls a “solidly plotted whodunit with strong characters and excellent dialogue,” a preapocalyptic thriller for those who think the postapocalypse has gone utterly blasé. Sure, asteroid-countdowns have happened before, but this memorable beginning to a planned trilogy promises to entertain.

Everyone’s convinced that Victoria Dahl is the bee’s knees. (Provided that we’re talking about an abnormally titillating bee with unusually come-hither knees.) She’s the award-winning, USA Today-bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romances. Impressive? Sure. But does she have the stamina to withstand my super-sexy cross-examination? Let’s get started — right after I slip [...]

There’s a famous line from John Carpenter’s They Live: “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubble gum.” That’s exactly what I did to the third annual 31 Horror Films in 31 Days Challenge. Previous Octobers I suffered the tortures of the damned, with the final days [...]

From the Department of I’m Shocked, Shocked, NPR reports that the NYTRB is mostly by and about white males (“Are ‘The New York Times’ Book Reviews Fair?“). Also on NPR.org (“Books Have Many Futures,” although I couldn’t find audio), Linton Weeks presents this amusing scenario: Other types of books are not only meant to be [...]

In “Before the Flood,” Margaret Atwood describes what made her go back to the dysopian future in “The Year of the Flood” (by Guy Dixon, The Globe and Mail): One of the things people are working on now, and were working on in 2001 when I was actually halfway through Oryx and Crake, is the [...]