Book Discovery and Reviews

New book alerts and publishing news, book reviews and recommended reading lists. Includes booksellers and literary periodicals. Online versions that promote print publications are included when they include a critical mass of blurbs worth the click.

Cleveland Live Books The place to track authors and literary events in the Northeast Ohio area. Also, there's an online version of The Plain Dealer’s Everywoman Book Club and a readers' forum hosted by Cuyahoga County Public Library.

Amazon.com. An online bookstore with a huge selection -- over 2.5 million titles. Contains recommendations by genre and broad subject, new and popular titles. Lists books in the news, best sellers and award winners, including NYT Book Review and Oprah. Many titles have a synopsis and published reviews with additional comments submitted by visitors to the site. Now available is a Look Inside the Book feature -- selections of pages from thousands of books.

Barnesandnoble.com Another large bookseller online with blurbs and author interviews, plus a list of 100 top sellers, books in film and other subject features. Additional features are the searchable message boards on various genres and the e-news alert.

New York Times Book Review Free, but requires registration. Extensive, searchable archive contains 50,000 book reviews back to 1980. Also find current reviews, first chapters, special lists and editors' choices, and a readers' forum.

Salon Magazine Books / Reviews  Reviews, and interviews -- sponsored by Borders Books and Music.

Washingtonpost.com: Books & Reading - home of Chapter One, a large selection of first chapters! Plus, signed book reviews and a best seller list.

January Magazine Since 1997, this e-magazine has presented the "skinny on new and interesting titles" and the people who make them.

WeeklyWire Books This is an amalgam of alternative newsweeklies and sometimes an alert to works not covered elsewhere.

USA Today Book Shelf Book news and reviews, each Thursday the best-seller list (plus vote for your own favorite), special section on business books. USA Today links to Barnes and Noble.

American Library Association's Booklist online. This leading review medium for librarians offers concise information on a wide range of books. Find also, book lists, author interviews and feature articles. The Editors' Choice lists are top-notch.

Library Journal digital An offshoot of the venerable library publication. News and features combine with LJ's hot picks, pre-publication alerts, bi-weekly best-seller list based on library buying, special evaluative reports, e.g., best reference books.

Publishers Weekly The book publishing news magazine. Each week the new PW bestseller lists are in place, including children's and audiobooks. Another resource is Authors on the Highway, an author tour calendar.

Reviews of Books Keepers of this site mine the Internet to find and group reviews you can access without registration or fee. Handy compilation.

BookSpot.com Part of the StartSpot.com group. Useful compilation of reading resources.

Boston Book Review The witty BBR print product is for literate readers. BBR reviews are touted as high quality and learned critiques by writers and scholars. Subscribe to the bi-monthly e-mail Gazette. Part of the BookWire package.

New York Review of Books It's not mass-market, but it is a leading forum for thoughtful, in-depth, intellectual discourse of books and the larger issues that they raise. Published here are the major writers of the day, shaping our culture and our future with pointed opinion and well-crafted argument. Always interesting. A special treat is the complete contents of the first issue from 1963 with contributors such as Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Hardwick, Mary McCarthy, Gore Vidal, William Styron.

Baker & Taylor Publications Prepublication lists of titles in various categories from this large distributor to libraries and the retail trade. Be the first on the waiting list at your library!

litreview.com British and breezy. The crime book notices by Philip Oakes are fun reads in themselves. Interesting graphics.

The Times Books Good reviews and a good source for British books. Choose the Books section (under Quick Clicks). See also the venerable, weekly Times Literary Supplement.

The Richmond Review The first literary e-magazine in the UK

Los Angeles Times Books Current issue reviews and the place to find out what they're reading in Southern California.

The Booksmith Make a stop at this independent bookstore in Haight Ashbury. It's interesting to check out their bestsellers list, plus they compile some worthwhile annotated reading lists, from erotica to the jazz age to Scottish literature.

Bookreporter.com A newer launching from a "virtual community of booklovers." Its intent is to review good reads for the "passionate reader." The Book Report Network also comprises Teenreads.com and Kidsreads.com.

BookRadio Audio interviews with authors. You'll need the RealAudio Player plug-in.

Beatrice WWW Author interviews: young authors, maximum cinema, women authors, politics, journalism, biography, queerness. Hipness.

Central Booking: Read Like Crazy... An e-zine for the "opinionated, discerning bibliophile." CB focuses on "that pathetically euphemistic category known as 'quality contemporary fiction' with occasional trips into essays and criticism." "NPR, Salon and cool bookstores" pick a lot of their authors. Update: Alas, CB has ceased publication, but you can still sign up for the e-mail newsletter and the forums section is still in operation.

Under the Covers Book Reviews "Books Worth Reading Past Bedtime" as submitted by readers with reviews.

Curled Up With a Good Book A bookseller's list and reviews of books fair to excellent. One way to take it in is to check the site map in the Archives.

Reader's Robot From a library in British Columbia. Readers' recommendations.

YAHOO! list of Book Review sites

BookPage Digital version of the monthly general interest book review publication distributed at bookstores (and libraries). Signed reviews, author interviews, an Oprah Book Club section.

Oprah's Books Books from the Book Club, books seen on the show and in the magazine O.

Online Literary Criticism Guide from the Internet Public Library provides an introduction to finding criticism on the Web. Its own Online Literary Criticism is a superb resource, with over 2500 critical and biographical sites linked. Literary Resources on the Net is another gateway to scholarly sites. When you're in the mood for some academic inquiry, these are good places to start.