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

When I saw that the Tony Hillerman Prize, an award for mysteries set in the American Southwest, had gone to a novel set in 1930s Salt Lake City, I was thoroughly excited. I’m from Utah, lived in Salt Lake for almost 10 years, and although I’ve been transplanted in the East for over a decade [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I just visited my cousin, Rebekah, owner of the Kohala Divers business in Kawaihae on the Big Island, and she was generous enough to write for Book Group Buzz about her book group. About a year ago a wonderful woman in Waimea, Hawaii, Gale Bates, proposed the idea of a business themed book club in [...]

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, [...]

The All-the-Best-Books Compilation (ABBC) is finished for 2012! I’ve compiled 180 different best-of-the-year lists and awards into one big spreadsheet, in the process finding over 2700 books that were mentioned as one of the best books published in the U.S. in 2012. You can download the final ABBC spreadsheet at my other blogging home, Williamsburg [...]

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 [...]

This month the Other Realms book group discussed Jo Walton’s Hugo and Nebula award-winning Among Others. I have written about this book here before and suffice it to say this was another one of those I-love-this-book-too-much scenarios that can add a dash of challenge to a book group facilitator’s life. I did, however, have some [...]

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 [...]

Of late, I have flitted restively from book to book, unable to alight anywhere for long. This happens to me sometimes. If only there were a blog I could consult for book suggestions…hmm…well, never mind.  In the meantime I have my old standby: cookbooks. I need to consult them anyway during the course of each week, so [...]

The end of compilation is within sight now on the best books of 2012. You can download the ABBC spreadsheet with all the results from over 120 different sources at my other blogging home, Williamsburg Regional Library’s Blogging for a Good Book. The final edition will add about 40 more sources and will be available [...]