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

The Lefty Award is my favorite Mystery novel award. It’s given to the best humorous mystery by the attendees of the annual Left Coast Crime convention. Book groups with a penchant for crime fiction will get a kick out of these current winners and nominees and past winners and nominees. Just because the book is [...]

For genre fiction with style to spare, interesting characters, and something to say, Charlie Huston is one of my go-to writers. Starting in 2004, he’s published 12 novels now, and there’s not a clinker in the bunch. While elements of the fantastic sometimes sneak into his work, Huston is primarily a crime writer, and if [...]

Looking for references and resources in the mystery genre always turns up a fun surprise. The latest item I found lurking in the 800s is The American Detective: An Illustrated History by Jeff Siegel. The flyleaf makes a grand claim about the 168 page book being “a comprehensive look at the evolution of one of [...]

Novels that use plots “ripped from the headlines” are usually excellent selections for book groups. When the headline gets back into newsprint, it’s even more interesting for readers. A recently published book group favorite, The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, takes a literary look at a 23-year-old crime and, since it’s fiction, takes the initiative [...]

The announcement for a new anthology of crime stories couldn’t come at a better time. As you may have gathered, May is Mystery Month at Booklist and Short Story Month everywhere. In August, fans of both can enjoy an anthology with a great title: Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense. [...]

May is Short Story Month. This is a great time to ease a book group into approaching the short story with more than just trepidation. And what better way than to coat the short story in a little urban grit to make it go down smoother? Start with Akashic Books ‘noir’ series and look for [...]

Book groups like mystery novels and they like books that provide many topics for discussion. For book group facilitators who make great efforts to find crime fiction that fits the bill, have a look at El Gavilan by Craig McDonald. McDonald has been gaining popularity for his Hector Lassiter books, crime fiction with literary and [...]

I went down under to find the next blog on my favorites list. Read Watch Play celebrates reading in all forms and their credo is available here. For every month in 2013 RWP is running themed discussions on their blog and twitter feed. April was #CrimeRead month and while we’re dubbing May the merry month [...]

When I give workshops about book groups the #1 conundrum presented during the Q&A is “how do we get more men to attend?” My stock answer is always, “Men are reading. But most of the men I know don’t want to schedule a time to talk about what they’re reading. The book conversation is happening [...]

There are lots of books in my Book Group Toolbox, but this one, Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven’t Touches Since High School, is going to be the source I consult when the group wants to read a classic. Author Kevin Smokler understands why and how classics can become shoved aside [...]

Most readers will be familiar with Caroline Preston’s latest novel, The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt. However, don’t let her first novel, Jackie by Josie, slip past your reading radar. Book groups looking for a discussable summer selection will enjoy this light-hearted look at the business of biography. Jackie is a doctoral student suffering a bout [...]

G. Willow Wilson’s debut novel Alif the Unseen is an unusual and appealing blend of political thriller, Arabian Nights fantasy, and literary fiction. The protagonist is the title character, a young Arab-Indian man living in an unnamed Persian Gulf state. He makes his living as a hacker, but for the most part, instead of trying [...]

Jess Walter’s most recent novel is Beautiful Ruins, and his title aptly describes all of the exquisite moments in the somewhat broken lives of his characters. The novel opens in Porto Vergogna, a tiny cliffside village too small even to be included in the nearby Cinque Terre, the five beautiful villages on the Ligurian Sea [...]

“There were two worlds here, behaving as if their own was all that mattered.” Despite the fact that we have not seen the sun in months, spring is in the air and that means it is time for the first Greendale Reads book discussion of 2013.  Our title this month was Flight Behavior by Barbara [...]

In the prologue to Sutton, J. R. Moehringer (previously known for his memoir The Tender Bar) admits that the history in his novel about bank robber Willie “the Actor” Sutton is largely invented. In real life, Sutton was tight-lipped with the press, and when he did speak to them, he often fed them misinformation. Normally, [...]

First I said forget it, absolutely not, I won’t read it.  Then I picked it up gingerly and scanned the first few pages, pausing to roll my eyes in case anyone was watching.  Then I ducked down an alley and devoured it. When I heard about the set up of Jojo Moyes novel, Me Before You (working class young [...]

Here are some books I’m looking to add to the book group rotation in 2013-2014. All are bowing in April. Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley:  I have a book group that likes to read books about women’s lives and relationships. This story about a mother and her two daughters who escape a religious cult [...]

Wanted to share my latest biblio-web find, The Book Smugglers. This pair of self-professed OCD “book junkies” review science fiction and young adult titles (essentially whatever they like). They post four book reviews a week and trade out reviews of movies, music, television, other cross over items. Once a month they two blog runners will [...]

Cleverly disguised as a comic novel about an artistic stay at home mom who is too hip for the hippie-hipster lifestyle of Seattle, Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple is a good selection for book groups looking for a seriously funny book. Book Group Buzz featured the book in this post last year. At [...]

In light of the historic news we are all waiting to hear from our Supreme Court, it might be a good time to focus some attention on the Lambda Literary Foundation and it’s recently announced list of Awards finalists. The Lambda Literary Awards recognize “the best lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books of the year [...]