This list includes links to recommendations of books in many categories, including fiction, foreign fiction, politics and current events, cookbooks, crime and mystery novels, and National Book Award Winners.
The Big Pictures: Best Gift Books 2008 : NPR:
NPR (National Public Radio) weighs in with some gift suggestions, with the following warning: “A few of the gorgeous tomes below tip into the 20-pound range, so to give you a sense of what you might be lugging and/or mailing, we’ve included the physical attributes of each title.”
Writers strike out on their own with a website | csmonitor.com:
Striking writer Peter Hyoguchi was walking the picket line outside Disney’s ABC Studios in Burbank, Calif., in January when he had an epiphany. What if scriptwriters launched a website featuring their work, which they would own and control free of studio interference?
That hunch is about to be tested. After months of planning and delay, Mr. Hyoguchi and his colleagues have turned their seemingly quixotic idea into a reality. Two weeks ago, they launched an online ‘network’ for original programming named Strike.TV. It marks an ambitious effort to connect film and TV writers to the fledgling world of online video. The portal will run 45 original Web series with more than 200 episodes from such veteran writers as Lester Lewis, a producer on ‘The Office,’ and Ken LaZebnik, a ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ scribe. Shows include actors Timothy Dalton and JoBeth Williams.
Movie and television writers try out the Internet in a way that allows them both creative freedom and a new outlet for making money. Offerings on StrikeTV include comedy, horror, science fiction, soap operas, and drama.
Best nonfiction books of 2008 | csmonitor.com:
The Christian Science Monitor offers its gift-giving guide to nonfiction.
Here’s a list of some of the things I’m thankful for as this Thanksgiving weekend winds down:
Just as holiday decorations appear earlier and earlier every year, The New York Times is getting an early start on making its gift-giving suggestions. So, with all proper fanfare, here are some of its lists:
This is the first page of a multi-page listing of books in the categories of fiction & poetry, and nonfiction.
Notable Children’s Books of 2008
This short list includes at least something for all ages.
Holiday Gift Guide: Books That Tower Above the Rest
Here Times book reviewers Janet Maslin and Michiko Kakutani offer their “10-Favorites lists of books that we enjoyed enough to buy for friends.”
The Internet vs. books: Peaceful coexistence - Los Angeles Times:
Books require a different sort of communion with one’s subject than the Internet. They foster a different sort of memory — more tactile, more participatory. . . . For literary works, books are still, and most likely always will be, indispensable.
In the Los Angeles Times Beau Friedlander, editor of AirAmerica.com, weighs in on the debate over whether the Internet is supplanting printed books. Tangentially, he also addresses the question of whether the Internet is making us dumber; his answer seems to be that books and the Internet provide us with different kinds of information that are useful in different situations.
Ultimately, Friedlander quotes Markos Moulitsas Zuñiga, founder of the political website the Daily Kos:
Google makes it possible to learn anything, near instantaneously. Like natural selection, there are species that adapt to the changing environment around them and thrive, and others die off.
Books | “Promised Land” looks at books that shaped who we are | Seattle Times Newspaper:
Some books are so well-known that almost no one actually reads them. They have had so much influence that we ‘know’ them merely by living in the world they have helped create. And yet, as the distinguished poet, novelist and critic Jay Parini demonstrates in ‘Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America,’ there’s a lot to learn by giving them another (or a first) look.
The Seattle Times reviews Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America by Jay Parini.
Michael Crichton Dies - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com:
Michael Crichton, the author of the blockbuster science-fiction novels ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘The Andromeda Strain’ and ‘State of Fear,’ has died. He was 66.
Essay - How to Read Like a President - NYTimes.com:
“You can tell a lot about a president — or a presidential candidate — by what he reads, or says he reads,” declares Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, in this essay in the New York Times.
After discussing both John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s favorite books, Meacham concludes:
McCain and Obama are so different in so many ways, but they do share one thing: a kind of tragic sensibility. Judging from the books they cite as most important, they embrace hope but recognize the reality that life is unlikely to conform to our wishes.
Will knowing about each candidate’s favorite books influence how you vote next Tuesday?