Likely Stories
A Booklist Blog
Keir Graff and editors from Booklist's adult and youth departments write candidly about books, book reviewing, and the publishing industry
Archive for the 'Books and Reviewing' Category
Wed, December 5th, 2012
Me and Oprah
Posted by: Donna Seaman
It’s funny how, when you spend your life immersed in books, unbidden thoughts of a book can presage an event. We’ve been focusing here at Booklist on the best books of 2012 for our Editors Choice list, but a 2013 title kept popping up in my mind. This morning it surfaced again, and I found [...]
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| Posted in Book Groups, Books and Reviewing, I on the News, Likely Stories, Readers' Advisory
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Tue, August 7th, 2012
When Your Heroes Get Old
Posted by: Bill Ott
Just read Dan Kraus’ fine review of Jonah Winter’s “You Never Heard of Willie Mays?!” which will run in our September 1 issue. Terrific book, but I was frankly appalled by the premise. Really? Young people have never heard of Willie Mays? Given that he retired from baseball almost 40 years ago, I guess I [...]
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Wed, June 6th, 2012
Ray Bradbury R.I.P.
Posted by: Donna Seaman
Tributes are pouring in to honor the great writer, humanitarian, and library advocate Ray Bradbury, who died today at age 91, leaving us with nearly 30 books and 600 stories, works that profoundly changed our perceptions of ourselves, life on earth, and the entire universe. In our latest Spotlight on Science Fiction and Fantasy, editor [...]
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| Posted in Books and Reviewing, I on the News, Likely Stories, sf, Writers and Writing
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Tue, May 29th, 2012
Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box,” Tweet by Tweet
Posted by: Donna Seaman
I’ve been a Jennifer Egan fan since her first book, The Invisible Circus, came out in 1995, so I was thrilled at the triumph of her most recent novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. It was Booklist‘s 2011 Top of the List, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Rumor has [...]
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| Posted in Books and Reviewing, Likely Stories, Reading the Screen, sf, Trendspotting, Writers and Writing
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Fri, April 27th, 2012
My Night at the Edgars
Posted by: Bill Ott
I’d been to the Edgar Awards, honoring the finest in mystery fiction, a couple of times in the past, but this year was different: an invitation to sit at legendary crime fiction editor, publisher, and bookstore owner Otto Penzler’s table is not to be passed up. The room was crawling with big-name authors, including a [...]
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| Posted in Awards, Books and Reviewing, Crime Fiction, Mystery Month
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Wed, February 8th, 2012
And the Hatchet Goes to . . .
Posted by: Keir Graff
The winner of the Hatchet Job of the Year Award has been announced. For his 1,000-word evisceration of Michael Cunningham’s By Nightfall, Adam Mars-Jones takes the cake (with a golden hatchet in it, naturally) and a year’s supply of potted shrimp, too. Judge Sam Leith praised Mars-Jones’ savage attack thusly: “Adam Mars-Jones’s review of Michael [...]
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Fri, February 3rd, 2012
Secrets from My Shelves: Tricks Your Cat Can Do
Posted by: Katharine
As a child it was my dream to put the family’s pure-bred, tortoiseshell Himalayan cat on a leash and parade her around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, this cat’s Siamese-influenced DNA and generally grumpy disposition meant I could barely pet, let alone catch, hold, and harness her. A few feeble attempts left me morose. As a consolation [...]
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| Posted in Books and Reviewing, Likely Stories
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Wed, February 1st, 2012
Ten Commandments of Book Reviewing and a Guide to Hatchet Jobs
Posted by: Keir Graff
As a book reviewer—not, I hasten to point out, a book critic—I always enjoy seeing other reviewers’ rules or guidelines for doing the job. Last year, Robert Pinsky did an admirable job of reducing the rules to three; I added one of my own but, in retrospect, I might amend it. I recently received a [...]
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Wed, January 11th, 2012
Good Prize for Bad Review
Posted by: Keir Graff
As reported by Jill Lawless (Lucy, your long-lost sister is a reporter!) in the Associated Press, the brand-new Hatchet Job of the Year Award will celebrate “the angriest, funniest, most trenchant” book review of 2011. The winner will receive a year’s supply of something called potted shrimp (courtesy of the Fish Society)—so you know the [...]
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| Posted in Awards, Books and Reviewing, Feuds, I on the News
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Fri, December 2nd, 2011
Secrets from My Shelves: Madonna’s Sex
Posted by: Daniel Kraus
(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.) Way over on my lowest, leftmost shelves (right next to the cookbooks, for some unsanitary reason), rests Sex, the [...]
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| Posted in Books and Reviewing, Books as Objects
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