Booksquare

We are lucky: we remember a time when reading was actually something one did in school. You sat down with a book, often one of your own choosing, and you read it. Right there in public. In full view of other students. Of course, they were also reading (or pretending to read), so it was […]

We had our first clue that SoCal is entering Awards Season (you will recall that we don’t celebrate the traditional seasonal structure here; we are an efficient community, and have streamlined the year in to two halves: Summer and Awards Season) when we tried to buy citronella oil in mid-July. No can do. If you’re […]

It was a good weekend at The Guardian, and while we’re working our way through their story on editors (this is one that requires deep thought), we turn our attention to the notion of books and libraries and people who are precious about such things. It reminds us of those who only eat pasta with […]

We are bemused by the fact that The Traveler didn’t catch fire with audiences. Because the author “lives off the Grid” — apparently that statement always requires quotes, possibly even air quotes if said out loud; this leads us to believe most who write this phrase don’t know what it means — Doubleday tried creative […]

MJ Rose is conducting a survey of authors who use their advances as their marketing budgets. Pop over to Buzz, Balls & Hype to respond. Advances – The New Marketing Budget

GOOD MORNING: Army Archerd has bowed out from his long-running comfort read “Just for Variety” column. The retiring scribe will now focus his energies on books and memoirs. . .Though Archerd tended to focus on classic Hollywood, his name-dropping columns was refreshingly unique due to Archerd’s use of real words rather than the cryptic (to […]

The Emerging Writers Network has conducted another e-panel for publicists. This time around, Dan Wickett grills three in-house publicists: Darlene Faster – Shaye Arehart, Michael Taeckens – Algonquin Books, Ami Greko, publicity assistant – Viking. We’re going to assume that you understand the basics here, so we’ll get right to what we think is the […]

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: anyone who thinks sisterhood means playing nice all the time, well, you don’t have sisters. In our (never humble) opinion playing nice in reviews does any genre a disservice. Many years ago, a consensus emerged among a group of romance reviewers, resulting in a policy that […]

What is a poor writer to do these days? At every turn, someone is complaining about being unfairly depicted. Heck, just last week, we received an email from a writer who received a threatening letter because her character just happened to have the same name as a living, breathing human. It makes us wonder just […]

This just in (again): the New York Times has discovered that authors are writing about 9/11 and their reactions to said tragedy. We realize that it’s a lot to ask, but it would be great if such a major newspaper looked back at its previous coverage of this issue and found a different way to […]