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

If you’re coming to the American Library Association’s 2010 Annual Conference in Washington, DC (and if you haven’t decided yet, you’d better hurry), please be sure to add the Booklist Online program, “Everyone’s a Critic: The Future of Book Reviewing” to your calendar. It will be held Saturday, June 26 from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at the [...]

Colleen Mondor is one of Booklist’s many ardent, expert, and versatile freelance reviewers. I rely on Colleen to cover all kinds of topical nonfiction, with a strong emphasis on books about nature and environmental concerns and Alaska, where she lived for a decade or so after college. Colleen grew up in Florida, not far from [...]

April brings Earth Day and The Orion Book Award .  Established in 2007, the award celebrates books “that deepen our connection to the natural world, present new ideas about our relationship with nature, and achieve excellence in writing.” I served as chair of the selection committee last year, and had I served this year, I would have nominated several of [...]

Back in December, in Booklist‘s Spotlight on Sci-Tech, we featured Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life  of Henrietta Lacks, a powerful chronicle of the life of the woman who, unbeknownst to her, gave the world  HeLa cells, the first “immortal” human cells grown in a lab, cells that have made countless medical advances possible for the last five [...]

Messages began to accumulate like snow online over the weekend as the chilling news of poet Lucille Clifton’s death began to travel from one poetry lover to another. I feel bereft as so many others do because Clifton was the sort of poet who spoke to everyone about everything that matters with unfailing clarity, conviction, and [...]

On Saturday, the National Book Critics Circle gave nods to the best in fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, biography, poetry, and criticism, including Booklist’s own Donna Seaman. For the complete list of finalists, visit the NBCC’s blog. Winners will be announced on March 11.

Many of us feel helpless in the face of catastrophes, especially one as devastating as the earthquake that hit Haiti Tuesday, January 12. We can make donations to humanitarian efforts, and we can channel our compassion by learning more about a place we perhaps know little about.  Stories help us connect with the “common humanity” President Obama reminds us of, [...]

And then there were three. Prepublication book-review journals, that is. After 82 or so years of opinionated, often caustic, looks at books, Kirkus Reviews is shutting up shop. (“Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews Close,” by Richard Perez-Pena, New York Times–keep reading, the Kirkus bit is at the bottom.) I didn’t always like what they [...]

News reports claim that most Americans are not worried about or even interested in hearing about climate change. It ranks last on the list of  things that keep us up at night, long after job fears and money woes. But the truth is, everything is connected. Answers to financial crises are found in new green industries and [...]

Nook, vook, blook, p-book, wovel, poegel . . . am I forgetting anything? Some in the publishing industry say that, thanks to e-readers such as the Kindle, people are reading more books (“E-Book Fans Keep Format in Spotlight,” by Brad Stone, New York Times). Who, exactly, says this? Well, the manufacturers of the Kindle, but [...]