Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

A few recent news stories that have stuck in my head . . . .
At a time when independent bookstores seem like an endangered species–when even the chains that have displaced them are closing branches (see Bill Ott’s Back Page)–it’s comforting to read about an old-fashioned bookshop that is still thriving. In the Guardian, Jeanette Winterson (The [...]

“It always cracks me up when publishers do this,” e-mails Kaite Stover. Me, too. And with budgets shrinking, I’m guessing we’ll see more stock-photo races.

Oh, great.
More thoughtful.

Just asking: when did tome become synonymous with book? I ask because, in a Chicago Tribune article about the Kindle yesterday, the writer stated how many “tomes” the device could carry. Talk about a tin ear for the English language. My trusty Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (though a print artifact, only marginally a tome) [...]

On NPR, Rick Kleffel talks to Victoria Blake of Underland Press about a new form of fiction: the “wovel” (”The Wovel: Literary Alternative to Browsing Blogs“). Basically, it’s a serial novel with a Choose Your Own Adventure twist at the end of each installment–the readers vote on what should happen next.
Voting is open from Monday to [...]

Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustave le Clézio, speaking at the Swedish Academy (Le Clézio uses Nobel lecture to attack information poverty,” by Richard Lea, The Guardian):
“To provide nearly everyone on the planet with a liquid crystal display is utopian,” he said. “Are we not, therefore, in the process of creating a new elite, of drawing a [...]

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t write in library books. But when you’re reading a library book, isn’t it always interesting to see what the scofflaws have written? Here’s a photo of a piece of marginalia, from a book believed to be The Plunder Squad, by Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake), that proves [...]

There’s a nice post by Anne Trubek on the GOOD blog, seconding James Gleick’s NYT Op-Ed (”How to Publish without Perishing,” also linked Monday). Gleick wrote:
Forget about cost-cutting and the mass market. Don’t aim for instant blockbuster successes. You won’t win on quick distribution, and you won’t win on price. Cyberspace has that covered. Go back [...]

Dan Kraus just reminded me to take a look at the Book Design Review’s Favorite Book Covers of 2008. I love this stuff. Seeing books that are physically beautiful is a great reminder that, no matter how handy a Kindle can be, e-books will never be as satisfying as a book made of paper–just as an [...]

At Likely Stories, we cover book covers, with a little help from our friends. First, you can test your skill at judging books by their covers–it’s a shameless but quite clever way to drum up a little revenue from Amazon’s associates program. (Thanks, Ben!)
Second, Bookninja has a funny book-cover contest. (Thanks, Dan!) Hope no one minds [...]