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

Yesterday The Chicago Public Library announced the latest selection in its One Book, One Chicago program: Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin. In the report I saw on the local news, the official who announced the selection seemed almost defensive, explaining that Brooklyn was chosen in part because it’s about Irish immigrants; Chicago, of course, is a big [...]

On a bitter cold Saturday in January, the KCPL/Kansas City Star FYI book group gathered to discuss City of Thieves by David Benioff. All remarked how the weather was in keeping with the book’s setting, the bleak Russian landscape in the winter of 1941-42. Lev and Kolya are given an impossible task by a general. [...]

Participants from five divisions at Williamsburg Regional Library gathered for a meeting about books with musical themes. The thematic format is a great way for us to identify books that our patrons might enjoy, and this theme was a goldmine. We discovered several excellent titles that everyone-reads-the-same-book groups would never consider. Cela led off with [...]

Spurred on by terrific reviews, my fascination with the Middle Ages, and the fact that it was an Oprah Book Club pick, I bought a copy of  Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth more than a year ago and never managed to finish it.  Now I don’t have to–it’s been made into an eight-hour television series that [...]