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“I collect nothing—with a passion.”  (p. 6). It is not until page forty-six of the book Collections of Nothing by William Davies King that the author refers to his collecting as hoarding.  As bad as that word may sound when doing a self-analysis, the good news is that King is neither a traditional compulsive hoarder [...]

As plans for next year’s book groups begin to gel, perhaps now is a good time to look at the titles selected and match them up with one of the 20 trends listed here. The folks over at Online Courses have gathered some ideas that may sound familiar, but we can always use reminding, refreshing, [...]

OK, I know, you’re all playing with those new digital readers that you found under the Christmas tree, but put them aside for a minute. It’s time to enjoy something retro: Penguin has released a box of postcards that feature classic covers from its British paperbacks. You can sample a few more pictures here. Why [...]

2011 was a good year for reading. It felt as though many good books were published, but personally I just felt as though I enjoyed more books this year than in years past. On occasion, when assembling a “best” list I am struck with how few books I unequivocably loved. But this year was different and [...]

I read for theme.  Every once in awhile, I stumble upon a book that sings for me and I loose myself in the text.  For me, Damascus by Joshua Mohr was such a book. Ironically, it has a Christmas theme.  One of the main characters in this novel is Owen, the owner of a bar [...]

I’ve posted the link to the first edition of my 2011 All the Best Books Compilation (ABBC). This is my fourth year of compiling all of those different best books lists and awards into one convenient sortable spreadsheet where you can see how many different mentions each book received from over 150 authoritative sources. The [...]

The Seattle Reads 2012 selection was recently announced–Amy Waldman’s debut novel, The Submission. The Submission has garnered much praise in the past year and was named as Esquire’s Book of the Year. Here is what Esquire had to say: I have no idea how Amy Waldman came to write her first novel, The Submission (Farrar, [...]

One of the nice things about a book discussion is that you can use it as an opportunity to vent if you have issues with a book.  I might need that opportunity. I need to vent about Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer. My first issue is fame. [...]

The recently revived Kansas City Star FYI book club met to discuss Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. This fascinating slice of little known American presidential history will enthrall any book club. Put it on the list for next year’s potential reads. At the recent discussion readers were impressed with Millard’s ability to weave [...]

It’s my favorite time of year! Year-end best of lists! Books, movies, television, music, websites, fashion faux pas and anything else folks care to list. While they’re probably not the first to post their best list, the Kansas City Star posted their Best Books of 2011 list over the weekend. What I liked about this [...]

Full disclosure:  I am a picker.  Can’t help myself, can’t stop myself.  However, I am not a hoarder because I actually use my precious stuff in found object mixed media assemblages.  Please ignore the fact that in my basement I have more crap stuff then I could possible make into art if I started today [...]

The book world is a whirl right now, full of new developments and unsure futures for the familiar components of its culture. On bad days it can induce insomnia and terror in a book lover, especially those of us who have tied our careers to books. But as we celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, [...]

After starting out our genre study with Murder in Mesopotamia (see my posting from November 18th), the group spent the back half of the discussion talking about the novel Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris.  What is the magic that occurs when a book so invigorates a discussion group that the moderator can actually sit out [...]

Did you know that Nancy Pearl has a show on the Seattle Channel called “Book Lust” where she has been interviewing a variety of authors for years? Well, now you know and your life will be better for it. And these interviews are all spectacularly noteworthy. I can’t think of very many other places, other [...]

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 [...]

This round of my Crime and Mystery Book Discussion group at my library (in its continuing efforts to spend this year doing a genre study) focused on the Golden Age Puzzle Novel.  The novel I selected for our benchmark golden age puzzler was Murder in Mesopotamia, the fourteenth Hercule Poirot novel written by Agatha Christie.  [...]

Last month, I had the pleasure of introducing Jeffrey Eugenides at an event in Seattle and the podcast recently became available of his talk. Eugenides read from his new novel, The Marriage Plot, and answered questions from the audience. It was a packed crowd and Eugenides was warm, funny, intelligent and thoughtful in his responses. [...]

Third time lucky. Or not.  I read Extemely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and reported back on March 21, 2010 and then again on October 8th this year after our local book discussion.  Now, it was onto the Wisconsin Library Association. The Readers Section of WLA is devoted to story.  Besides a [...]

My wife and I usually go to the movies on Friday night, so an essay at The Millions struck my attention this morning. It touts the new Library of America compilation of the film criticism of Pauline Kael, The Age of Movies: Selected Writing of Pauline Kael. It also argues that passionate debate about films is yet another item [...]

I am sure our colleagues in Southern Indiana will rise to the defense but the new collection of connected short stories by Frank Bill with the name Crimes In Southern Indiana is not going to be used to attract tourists or new residents to that area. Each story in this collection is brilliantly presented.  They [...]