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

As the Writer’s Almanac reminds us, today is the birthday of Dashiell Hammett. Even if you think you know his story, give it a read: In 1931, Hammett began a 30-year affair with a script girl who would eventually become a playwright: Lillian Hellman. Their relationship inspired the characters of Nick and Nora Charles, the [...]

If you haven’t read the Mystery Showcase feature “Desperately Seeking DeSario,” read it right this instant. Don’t do it for me; do it for Joseph P. DeSario, the author of Sanctuary–I novel I fell in love with when I was 15 and read repeatedly until three months ago when I tracked down DeSario and discovered [...]

Steven Kroll has died (“Steven Kroll, an Author of Children’s Books, Dies at 69,” by Dennis Hevesi, New York Times). From history to Hanukkah, Kroll wrote about it all. The author of 96 (96!) books for children, he started his career at Chatto and Windus publishing house in London and moved to Holt, Rinehart and Winston [...]

Ted Danson spoke about his ocean activism at ALA’s Midwinter conference in San Diego, and now he’s making the media rounds to talk about his smart and beautifully produced book about the state of the oceans, Oceana, reviewed in Booklist‘s Spotlight on the Environment in the March 1 issue. This is no passing moment of [...]

I’ve written thousands of reviews for Booklist over the last 30-plus years, but I don’t think I’ve ever written one where there wasn’t something left unsaid. When your reviews rarely exceed 200 words, the cutting-room floor is always well carpeted with points that might have been made, phrases that might have been turned. Perhaps most [...]

Before the Harry Potter books—and after them, too—there was the Redwall series (The Sable Quean, 2010), over 20 books set in different eras and different parts of the Mossflower woods and featuring the robust cast of characters who inhabited them. Jacques’ death on February 5th (“Brian Jacques, Writer of Redwall Series, Dies at 71,” by [...]

In case you need more proof that Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is a monster and must be stopped, she’s written a book. She wanted to surprise everyone by writing fiction.  Don’t get too excited, A Shore Thing is basically a novelization of her life, with plenty of GTL* for everyone. To add insult to injury, the Today [...]

Craig Johnson, author of the top-notch Wyoming mystery series starring Sheriff Walt Longmire, has a great holiday tradition. Every year, he e-mails his fans a brand-new, unpublished short story. This year, he cut it a little bit closer to Christmas Eve than usual, and so I was away on vacation by the time it arrived. Now [...]

The next year will bring a torrent of arresting literary memoirs, memoirs by writers about literary parents or husbands or near-relatives. Joyce Carol Oates remembers her late editor husband, Raymond Smith, in A Widow’s Story. Anne Roiphe chronicles her stint as muse to her unstable first husband in a forthcoming memoir. Gail Godwin sheds light [...]

A quick roundup of the last week and a half before I don my camouflage coverall, smear my face with dirt, and go hunting for wild turkeys with my bare hands. Just kidding–who am I, Ted Nugent? Good old cranky Robert McCrum–why, he even scowls in his headshot! Last week, took books to task for ballooning [...]