Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

When it came to making a book trailer for the series starter Leviathan, author Scott Westerfeld had more resources available to him than the usual $0.00 allotted by publishers. Or at least that’s the impression I get from this rather spectacular production, which is more exciting than the last 800 movie trailers I saw. The [...]

It’s possible you’ve never heard of mystery writer Jay Bennett. Hell, I never met him. But Bennett—who died on June 27 at the age of 96 (”Jay Bennett, 96; wrote crime novels, scripts,” by Dwight Ott, Philadelphia Inquirer)—had a profound effect on my life. And now that a little time has passed, I’m realizing that [...]

Here’s a quick ‘n dirty look at who won/was nominated for what in the last week:
Brunonia Barry (The Lace Reader, 2008) won the 2009 Baccante literary prize. She will be recognized at a ceremony on September 26th in Matera, Italy.
Author/illustrator Gail Gibbons (Tornadoes, 2009) will receive the prestigious Regina Medal on April 7, 2010 for [...]

Daniel Kraus, who usually patrols the video beat here on Likely Stories, was himself captured on video at ALA’s annual conference, at a reading he gave from his forthcoming novel, The Monster Variations. (He shot down my suggestion that I shoot video, then turned around and gave an exclusive to Greg Landgraf for AL Focus. He [...]

You have to admire 23-year-old Lauren Conrad. TV star? Yes! Fashion designer? Yes! And now, a best-selling author of the YA novel, L.A. Candy. Despite her celebrity, Lauren faces the same pitfalls other writers do. As she noted in a recent interview (”‘Hills’ ex-star Conrad’s career is alive as writer,” by Alicia Rancilio, Chicago Sun-Times):
The [...]

Author B.R. Collins and editor Emma Matthewson received the 2009 Branford Bose Award for The Traitor Game. The honor is given to a debut YA author and their editor for nurturing and guiding the new author through the world of children’s publishing.

Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go was far and away my favorite YA novel published in 2008, which is saying something considering the absolute murderer’s row of impressive YA novels unleashed last year. I’ve just finished the second book, The Ask and the Answer, and will have a review for it coming up in [...]

Last week, the UK’s Carnegie Medal for Literature (not to be confused with that other Carnegie Medal) was awarded posthumously to Siobhan Dowd, who died of cancer three months after Bog Child was completed. With only three novels under her belt and a fourth on the way, Solace of the Road (to be released Oct. 2009), [...]

It used to hold that one of the reasons you became a writer was that you were the sort who ducked out of photographs and preferred to communicate through quill-written correspondence. These days, though, these Salingeresque avoidance techniques won’t win you much love from your publisher–and probably won’t push many books, either.
So Penguin’s the Screening [...]

The £30,000 Orange Prize is the FUBU of awards: an all-female judges’ panel picks a winner from a roster of books by female authors including the likes of Toni Morrison. The panel picked Home, by Marilynne Robinson as this year’s winner.
Of course, a gender-driven prize could not exist without some controversy. In 2001, an all-male shadow [...]