Posted byOur daily round-up of bookish links. Tastes great with coffee. __________________________ “I am no longer doing interviews on the internet.” I’m just way, way too busy at my job at the buggy-whip factory. __________________________ “I’m uncomfortable about the fact that Aurum Funds, an investment company which exclusively manages funds of hedge funds, is sponsoring the [...]
Read the full postLatest And Greatest
Most Recent Posts
Posted byCrossover Appeal is a weekly feature that challenges the idea that you have to choose a side between YA and adult fiction. Each week we’ll feature a book that has been marketed as YA and a book that has been marketed as adult and tell you why everyone should be reading them, no matter what happens [...]
Read the full post
Posted byYesterday Goodreads announced the Best Books of 2011 in the Goodreads Choice Awards, and the winners are nothing if not diverse: The winner for Favorite Book of 2011 was Veronica Roth’s debut young adult novel Divergent. The winner of Best Fiction of 2011 was 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. The winner of Best Nonfiction of 2011 was Alexandra [...]
Read the full post
Posted byIf you’re a person who uses a quote as your email signature, whose quotes section of your Facebook page is approximately as long as War and Peace, and who is always starting conversations with things like, “Well, you know what Jonathan Franzen said about baseball, right?”, well…this post is for you. Like many readers, I [...]
Read the full post
Posted byLast month, I read a fantastic book that I very nearly passed on because I found its cover completely unappealing. I know. Insert your “don’t judge a book by its cover” reference here. You’ve heard it a thousand times if you’ve heard it once. And you know what? I call shenanigans. If readers weren’t supposed [...]
Read the full post
Posted byWalking through Pére Lachaise yesterday, a friend and I were musing about what it would be like to be so renowned that people still flocked to your grave long after you were dead. We were on our way over the cobbled streets of the famous cemetery heading toward Oscar Wilde’s grave. When we got there, [...]
Read the full postOur daily round-up of bookish links. Tastes great with coffee. “So there is a great breach between the persons of letters who would otherwise lead the public conversation about books and the vast majority of the reading public. No wonder they are so small a voice.” It stings because it’s true. __________________________ “If you’re [...]
Read the full post
Posted byThis is a guest post by Jenn Northington. She is the co-founder of the Bookrageous podcast and the events manager for WORD, a bookstore in Brooklyn, and haunts the interwebs as jennIRL. ___________________ It turns out, “handselling” is not an official word. I know, because I checked. I am going to have to complain to my connections at Merriam-Webster, [...]
Read the full post
Posted byIn this season of “Best of” lists, I want to take this opportunity to talk about the also-rans, the books that would have been amazing, except for that one thing that just drove you crazy. It’s the one thing that kept the book from blowing you away. In fact, it made you angry. You wanted [...]
Read the full post
Posted byAfter every five or six works of Very Serious Literary or Classic Fiction, I need a bookish palate cleanser- a book that is entertaining and plot-centered but not so badly written that it’s distracting. I’ve tried a number of palate cleanser candidates, but I always return to the same thing. My genre kryptonite is Agatha [...]
Read the full postOn Sunday, Flavorwire posted its list of the top 1o “most criminally overlooked books” of 2011. Since I haven’t read (or even heard of, if we’re being frank) a single novel on their list, I’m making my own. Here it is (in no particular order): 5. The History of History, by Ida Hattermer-Higgins — Fans [...]
Read the full postOur daily round-up of bookish links. Tastes great with coffee. __________________________ “95% or more of all writers sold their own manuscripts directly to editors.” Ah, 1940. __________________________ “This is a bleak but mesmerizing piece of filmmaking; it offers a glancing, chilled view of a world in which brief moments of loyalty flicker between repeated acts [...]
Read the full post
Posted byThey might be the great chroniclers of what happens between mankind’s ears – giving language to our greatest fears, hopes and experiences – but it turns out authors are terrible at describing what happens between the sheets. Sex scenes are their Waterloo. They can describe what perplexes us, but not what propagates us. To honour [...]
Read the full postAlright, time to unmask last week’s mystery author. But first, a recap of the clues: 1. My first language was French. 2. I was born in a hotel. 3. I served in an ambulance unit during World War I. 4. I was in a motorcycle accident with Hemingway in which he broke his arm. I was [...]
Read the full postLa Coupole and Le Select (two of Hemingway and Fitzgerald’s favorite restaurants/hangouts) are now two big tourist traps. As I write this, I am at L’Atelier (next door to Le Select), a place I imagine those two great men would be more likely to frequent if they were here today. It is the restaurant that [...]
Read the full postYou can have your Pulitzers. You can debate your National Book Awards and your Orange Prizes. You can argue over the Man Booker and mourn the abstruseness of the latest Nobel Winner. As for me, there is one book award I care about. I am interested in the others, but I genuinely care about The [...]
Read the full post
Posted by1) Preliminaries: Frying pan. Wine. Small pig. Vacuum the guest room. 2) Attitude: Softened butter. Hand towels. 3) Unmolding, flambeeing, and serving? Avert your face, when igniting the rum, likewise, when cousin Constanza waxes poetic about the Tea Party, and your son Gregory has been occupying Portland in a tree. 4) With French puff pastry you [...]
Read the full postOur daily round-up of bookish links. Tastes great with coffee. “The shift has something to do with a re-evaluation of bookstore patrons’ skill set. They can, after all, read the book for themselves—in fact, they may have done so in advance of the author’s visit.” Bookstore readings need a shot in the arm. And [...]
Read the full post
Posted byThis may sound just a tad ungrateful, but I hate thank-you notes. It’s not the thank you—I have no problem saying thank you, unlike some people—it’s the notes. I am horrible about writing them and I don’t even really like receiving them. I appreciate the thought (I hear that’s what counts), but then I have [...]
Read the full postLast week, a classic novel jumble. This week, a word search of literary terms.
Read the full post