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

I love Ian Rankin’s John Rebus mystery series. Rebus is a  curmudgeonly soul, and sometimes bends the rules of policing or conventional morality to get to the villains he’s chasing. He’s terrible at maintaining his own personal relationships, mostly because he’s married to his job. But deep down, he maintains a strong ethical code and is capable of [...]

I have read all three of Kate Morton’s spellbinding Gothic novels now, and just read her first, The House at Riverton, last. Morton knows how to write parallel stories that draw you in. She tells a good story well and entices with atmosphere, period detail and suspense. But when I finished The House at Riverton, [...]

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 [...]

I’ve begun my annual task of collecting all of the best-of-the-year lists and awards into one sortable spreadsheet. This is my fourth year compiling this massive labor of love-hate, and I almost chose to let it go this year, but once the lists started to come out, I just couldn’t resist. The analytical side of me loves [...]

I’ve tried in book groups and in print to describe the pleasures of Jasper Fforde’s latest series starter, Shades of Grey, and on every occasion the task has defeated me. It will probably thwart me again. I could get lost in the delightfully quirky details of the dystopian future world that Fforde sketches–a world in which [...]

While casting about for topics for Book Group Buzz today, it occurred to me that I’ve never written here about the author who is perhaps my favorite contemporary American writer, Richard Russo. Now seven novels and one book of stories into his career, Russo has yet to produce a book that isn’t worthy of book [...]

The October selection for my library book group was Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann.  This 2009 novel has won a number of prizes, including the National Book Award.  Set in New York City, it takes as its central motif the famous 1974 tightrope walk of Philippe Petit between the World Trade Center [...]

In Silas House’s debut novel, the quilt that the title character is piecing together is his own life. The incident that dominates Clay’s life happened when he was only four years old: his mother, Anneth, was killed on an icy Appalachian mountain. Despite their limited time together, Clay has grown up much like Anneth: spiritual but [...]

Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow has a great first line: “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.” As soon as I read the first line, I wanted to know this girl’s story. Narrated by two voices, Silver Sparrow tells the story of a secret, ‘outside’ daughter, Dana, and Chaurisse, the ‘real’ daughter who is unaware of [...]

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 [...]

Here are the answers to the Misheard First Lines quiz. The misheard part of the line is marked in orange, the correct substitution in green. If you haven’t looked at the quiz yet, jump here first. 1. Many years ago, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon [...]

Here’s a little fun for your weekend. Below are ten famous first lines from novels, but in each case, the line has been garbled in translation. For each of the ten lines, see if you can identify the novel from which it comes and how it was misheard. I’ll post answers next week. 1. Many [...]

Which will make it onto your reading group lists next year? The National Book Award Finalists for 2011 were announced yesterday in Portland, OR and while there are some surprising omissions, there are also some surprising nominations. Click through any of the above links for the full lists of nominations in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and [...]

I recently read a book that has been lingering in my mind for weeks. The themes that Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden explore somehow resonated with me. Madden’s novel is about the long-term friendships and family relationships, the ways in which we do and do not communicate with one another and all of the [...]

I can’t stop thinking about Olive Kitteridge. Olive, the book written by Elizabeth Strout (for which she was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction), and Olive, the woman — a large-boned, blunt-talking retired schoolteacher living in a small Maine town — who dominates the pages of Strout’s engrossing novel.  Olive Kitteridge is the book [...]

With his simple, elegant style, a generous dusting of artful platitudes, and deep exploration of human nature, Leif Enger is a bit of a throwback. His writing evokes two of my favorite authors–John Steinbeck and Wallace Stegner–as well as other novelists from even earlier times. His first book, Peace like a River, was an unusual tale of American adventure that looked closely [...]

I just finished the book that is bound to be one of the buzziest books this fall–Chad Harbach’s debut, The Art of Fielding. It’s a book with larger than life characters written with such warmth and compassion that you come away imbued with a sense of wonder. I finished the book so satisfied–with the characters, [...]

A Toby Ball that is. Ball is a writer, activist (working for nonprofits such as The Carbon Coalition and the Crimes Against Children Research Center. Born in DC, raised in Syracuse, NY, he now lives in Durham, New Hampshire. Ball is the author of two excellent period thrillers. Scorch City was just released at the [...]

The God of Carnage (2006) is a remarkable play by the French playwright Yasmina Reza. After winning many awards in its original French, the English translation by Christopher Hampton won both Britain’s Olivier Award and Broadway’s Tony Award for Best Play. Stars including Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, [...]

If your book group is looking for something new strong on character and language with weighty themes and complex family dynamics, try Martha Southgate’s The Taste of Salt. Narrated at times from the various perspectives of the Henderson family, the book primarily focuses on Josie Henderson, a black marine biologist working at the Woods Hole [...]