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

Maggie Stiefvater’s new book The Scorpio Races may be a young adult fantasy, but it has everything I look for in serious adult fiction. Stiefvater takes the various Irish and Scottish myths about water horses and turns them into a page-turning, atmospheric novel. In the book, the capaill uisce are dangerous, flesh-eating horses that emerge [...]

Like many readers, I encountered Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” in high school and loved it. Sadly, like most of those other students, and I’m betting many of you, I didn’t follow up and never read anything else by Jackson. She’s one of those authors I always knew I’d like, but somehow she never made [...]

What scares you? In the staff book group at Williamsburg Regional Library, we were asked to choose books that might scare us. Here are some of the adult and young adult titles that our readers brought to the meeting. Melissa likes Victorian stories, so she chose a collection of ghost stories from that era written [...]

The Children’s Book Council of Australia recently named the winner in the Picture Book category, Hamlet by Melbourne artist Nicki Greenberg. It’s a graphic novel based on the Shakespeare play. Yet the author is encouraging parents to review her graphic novel before giving it to very young children. It may be a picture book, Greenberg [...]

Wendy McClure’s memoir of her love and search for the reality behind the fiction of an American classic of childhood is a great idea for a one-time theme for a book group. McClure chronicled her Little House quest in The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of ‘Little House on the Prairie‘. Readers [...]

I recently read Tina Fey’s memoir, Bossypants, and I found it a fantastically funny, entertaining read. Told in episodic essays, Fey relays her unexpected rise in the ranks of theater to improv to “Saturday Night Live” to her show “30 Rock.” But what has stayed with me the most, and what has been much discussed [...]

I’m always looking for an exceptional youth or young adult novel to offer my book groups. These books are almost always exceptionally well written. To me, that means lovably flawed characters who experience realistic changes in their lives, compelling story lines, and lively pacing. Of course, these are the hallmarks of any good discussable book. [...]

Last week my colleague David Wright and I presented for our library’s Volunteer Appreciation event. We decided to frame our presentation around the “treasures” of the library–those books that librarians love to tell patrons about, the ones that they send to the volunteers to tape and glue and keep limping along year after year. David [...]

The staff book group at Williamsburg Regional Library met today to discuss books with Middle Eastern and South Asian settings. Over a great potluck lunch of Mexican food (our meeting was originally scheduled for Cinco de Mayo but got postponed) our readers pulled out their usual variety of interesting choices. Laurie from Youth Services had [...]

Recently the Downtowners Book Group at The Kansas City Public Library discussed one of my favorite book group titles, Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. This book has a compelling plot, realistic characters, and a solid pace. It would be a good choice for mystery book groups looking for something different. I’ve used this book in discussion [...]

Children’s literature is a favorite among book groups. Titles aimed at kids are usually a speedy, easy read and can provoke all sorts of memories, good and bad about libraries, reading, books, and beloved or beloathed characters. Book groups looking for a one-stop resource for selecting a youth title that will appeal to the largest [...]

My 2010 Megalist compiles votes from over 170 sources into one spreadsheet and provides the final word on the best reviewed books of the year. In previous posts, I’ve provided top 10 lists for general fiction, historical fiction, mysteries and thrillers, narrative nonfiction, and biographies and memoirs. Today let’s look at this year’s crop in young [...]

When book groups make the news it’s for one of two reasons.  Either Oprah is reading or men are. Anytime Oprah opens a cover, publishers salivate. Book groups across the nation are about to make an overnight bestseller. Anytime men gather to talk about reading material that does not require power tools, it’s time to [...]

I pay close attention to national and international book awards, but I’m also interested in state book awards. These awards are the ones that find those sleeper titles that become book group favorites through word of mouth. Last week the short list for the Minnesota Book Awards were announced. The winners will be revealed on [...]

The staff book group at Williamsburg Regional Library met for our annual Christmas meeting, with the theme of books where a cold or icy setting played an important role. The resulting choices will induce shivers in more ways than one! Other book groups might experiment with some of the following titles of their own wintry [...]

One of the things I do to shake up my book groups a little is select a young adult title. Aside from looking over the National Book Award winner and nominees in the Young People’s Literature category, I ask for suggestions from teen lit fans, and I check this blog, GreenBeanTeenQueen. Sarah is a Teen [...]

The educators at Stambaugh Middle School (Auburndale, FL) are taking some lessons from Hogwarts. They’ve created a book group around the Harry Potter books that not only introduces the joy of reading to students, but also helps them improve reading comprehension, writing skills, and even civic responsibility. It’s no wonder that the books are seeing [...]

When it comes to books on current events my discussion groups are divided. Some readers want the latest bestselling political nonfiction titles to discuss and others don’t want that much scholarly detail getting in the way of a good story. Recently, USAToday featured four young adult novels on the Iraq war that will also appeal [...]

Is a blog post by a man in his 40s about Little Women a bit weird, perhaps even a little creepy? Well, maybe so, but I’m reading about Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy, and I’ve got to confess, I like them, I like ‘em a lot. This all got started a few months ago, when [...]

Forget those swooning vampires and moony werewolves. Here’s a series with real bite and much more to talk about than whose team you’re on. Suzanne Collins wraps up her Hunger Games trilogy with a more than worthy concluding entry, Mockingjay. Readers who have been waiting for the final volume may be shocked at some of [...]