The Devil Wears Prada opens up in theaters today. Are you going to go see it?

Looking at Member Reviews, the book was very well liked. See for yourselves here.

Posted by Matt Soreco at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Janet Evanovich’s Twelve Sharp released a week ago. Member reviews have been fantastic so far.

Are you a fan of the Stephanie Plum series?

Posted by Matt Soreco at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Larry Shapiro at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

The new Robert Parker, BLUE SCREEN, is terrific, like most of his recent books.  It seems to me Parker went through a bad patch about five years ago where he was in danger of going stale.  Then he popped out of his slump—I don’t know how to put it more elegantly—and has been amazingly consistent ever since.  And not just with the Spenser novels.  I have a weakness for the Sunny Randall series.  I might be somewhat in love with her.

Another extraordinary thing about Parker is that he makes it look easy.  It takes no effort at all to read the books, and it almost seems like lazy writing, except that I know it’s very hard to create that effect.  Lazy writing is sloppy, and Parker is never sloppy.

A few years ago, I was at a lunch that Parker and his wife, Joan, attended.  It was fascinating to see them interact.  They are from the same small town, and Parker’s dad worked for his future wife’s dad, who owned the factory that employed just about everybody.  Some people who saw them in action at the lunch thought that she must be the inspiration for Susan in the Spenser novels.

Posted by Larry Shapiro at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A study commissioned by the children’s book publisher Scholastic reports that kids start losing their enthusiasm for reading around age nine.  The decline continues through their teen years.  The number one reason, according to participants in the survey, is the difficulty of finding books they like.  Kids whose parents are readers are somewhat better off.

Posted by Larry Shapiro at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ann Coulter was on the Today show yesterday to promote her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Lauer pressed her on her views and controversial statements made in the book.

Check out the interview here:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13186261/ 

Did Coulter cross the line? Let us know what you think.

Posted by Matt Soreco at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dean Koontz’s latest, THE HUSBAND, is now on sale. It’s as good as his other recent books, which is saying a lot.

Nobody except Dean Koontz knows how many novels he has published, and maybe not even he.   Many of the early ones were written in haste and while he was still learning, and published under other names.  I understand Koontz has said he doesn’t mind if his fans collect the early books, as long as they don’t read them.  He’s come a long way.  I remember when he was a science fiction writer—a name, but not a star—and then started getting attention for horror.  Like Stephen King, he taught high school while he was trying to get established, and had experiences in childhood—more extreme in his case than King’s—that helped fuel the imagination of a horror novelist.

For a while, Koontz was considered not quite first rate.  I don’t mean that he was ever really a lousy writer, but it took a while for the recognition to come.  Even while his fans were gobbling up the books, the review attention wasn’t there, or wasn’t respectful.  There’s nothing new in that—lots of our most popular writers have been trashed in reviews, and respect comes grudgingly when the sales numbers are stellar. And Koontz was a paperback novelist—there was still that chasm of respectability between writers who published in hardcover and the paperback original writers.

The book critics started to come around a few years ago.  Now most of his reviews sound like fan letters.  At the same time, I’ve heard some readers say the books aren’t as scary as they used to be.  Koontz still delivers, but what he delivers is different.  Now a reader can expect characters who are memorable and appealing, and an enormous amount of heart, something akin to a spiritual quality, along with the scary parts.  That may sound like a messy combination in a thriller, but Koontz makes it work.

I can’t think of anyone to compare to him to.  He’s become unique.

Posted by Larry Shapiro at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)