Romancing the Recession
The NYT just discovered that the romance is hot, at least in books. We all know that, but it is amusing to read the article to see how difficult it can be to get real figures in this business....
View Article‘Bad Parent Lit’
The Wall Street Journal identified the trend, (Bad Parents and Proud of It), but our friends at Shelf Awareness gave it the moniker, ‘Bad Parent Lit.” Not only are new and forthcoming books part of the...
View ArticleLivin’ the Moment
These days anyone who dares to complain about work adds “But at least I have a job.” Yet, as evidenced by what we’re reading, Americans are not fulfilled by their work. Alain de Botton’s The Pleasure...
View ArticleNordic Gore
Nathaniel Rich, editor of the Paris Review, recently read nearly thirty Scandinavian crime novels, to try to discern “why the most peaceful people on earth write the greatest homicide thrillers” for...
View ArticleVampire Morality
Many years from now, some cultural historian will come up with a plausible theory about why vampires are so popular right now. For now, the Philadelphia Inquirer observes that today’s vampires are...
View ArticleThe Beck/Oprah Effect
Two names you may not have expected to hear in the same sentence — Glenn Beck and Oprah Winfrey. Nonetheless, Motoko Rich’s headline in the NYT today says that “Glenn Beck Is Becoming New Oprah.” But a...
View ArticleMetroDads
Lizzie Skurnick, author of Shelf Discovery, takes a jaundiced and very funny look at the “rush of literary fathers gushing about how to raise their perfect children,” in The Book Beast, focusing on,...
View ArticleMost Literate Cities
New York, with the highest concentration of large book publishing houses, ranks way down at #29 on the just-released list of the most literate U.S. cities, below Lexington-Fayette, KY (#15) and New...
View ArticleWhat’s with the Blood Sucking?
Why are vampires so popular right now and what does that say about our culture? NPR’s Margot Adler set off to answer these questions. As research, she read 75 currently-popular vampire titles (full...
View ArticleBefore CSI
The current edition of my new favorite column, Newsweek‘s “We Read It [So You Don't Have To]” doesn’t live up to its name. It features The Poisoner’s Handbook and, rather than serving as a substitute...
View ArticleLet’s Do the Monster Mash
USA Today asks the burning question of the hour – with all the literary mashups already published and more on the way, will readers lose interest? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, released last year...
View ArticleThe Religious Thriller
Arriving at #28 on the 3/21 Extended NYT Fiction best seller list is Heresy by S.J. Parris, a pseudonym for Stephanie Merritt. It’s her first outing under this name, her first time writing an...
View ArticleLoving the Unreliable Narrator
Sarah Weinman is one of the few people writing thoughtfully about mysteries in the mainstream media these days (as well as on her own site, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind). This week, in the L.A....
View ArticleHeyday for Bad Parents
In a thoughtful essay in Sunday’s NYT BR, children’s editor, Julie Just points out that bad parents (rather than simply absent ones) are making their way in to children’s books, …some of the most...
View ArticleWhy Men Don’t Read Books
On the Huffington Post, writer and former book editor Jason Pinter argues that, contrary to the prevailing opinion, men will read, they’re just not being provided with the proper manly material (and,...
View ArticleThe Death of Fiction
On her L.A. Times book blog, Jacket Copy, Carolyn Kellogg refutes the New York Observer story that claims “Fiction has become culturally irrelevant.”
View ArticleAmericans Becoming Less Insular
The phenomenal success of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series in the U.S., has brought attention to other foreign crime writers. According to a story in today’s Wall Street Journal, The flood of imported...
View ArticleTen Reasons Why
Wondering why ”This summer belongs to Stieg Larsson”? USA Today‘s Deirdre Donahue gives ten reasons. On next week’s NYT best sellers list (8/1), the books show amazing longevity by topping...
View ArticleOne More Time for Amish Romances
USA Today joins the growing trend of writing about “one of the fastest-growing genres in romance publishing,” novels with Amish settings (Business Week, The Wall Street Journal and the AP have all...
View ArticleSic Transit…
How quickly one goes from literary darling to Jonathan Franzen, the Writer We Love to Hate (Newsweek, 8/26).
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