Insatiable by Meg Cabot is the kind of vampire lite schlock that chaps my hide. How the hell can you have a vampire book with no sexual tension at all and no biting, no draining of blood? The only reason Stephenie Meyer got away with that shit is because she was writing about teenagers and tapped into every woman’s genetic [...]

Sometimes you need to break your own rules. I recently bought a paperback pulp-fiction sci-fi/fantasy book at the supermarket (do we even call them that anymore, supermarkets? Grocery store? Can I just say Cub or is that too Minnesotan?). There were two rules I had as a stay-at-home Mom. One, no Oprah (still in tact). The other was no grocery [...]

Stephenie Meyer is going to become the Madonna of authors if she doesn’t watch it. The Twilight Saga books made her a millionaire. The movies are making a mint and giving millions of women, young and old, “practice” material. Then she agrees to a graphic novel concept – after all of the words have been written and two or three [...]

I read Julia Leigh’s Disquiet last year and it was so brilliant and haunting that I’ve been desperate to read more of her work. (I have a thing for brilliant and haunting.) In my scouring of the internet – an by scouring I mean one click on Google – I found that Disquiet was her second novel/novella. Her debut novel, [...]

Disclaimer: I went to college with Adam Rapp for two years I think, might have only been one. We knew each other in the way that you know your boyfriend’s friends. He’s a great guy but I couldn’t tell you his favorite food is or his favorite band. I read The Year of Endless Sorrows last year and loved it. [...]

I know nothing of Kevin Sampsell. I’d never heard of him or his publishing house – Future Tense Publishing – before an online publicist put me in touch with him. So I came into A Common Pornography a blank slate. I must say how grateful I am that he touts his book as a “memory experiment.” Memoir is a tricky [...]

Every year I participate in the Barnes and Noble Gift Wrap for charity. And every year I get about ten new book ideas and recommendations. Two years ago it was Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal – you can listen to the BCB podcast here. Last year I only had two shifts and didn’t talk [...]

10. The Fractured Fairy Tales of Lynn Roberts: Ms. Roberts, along with her illustrator brother, give us three charming renditions of some old classics. Cinderella as an 1920’s flapper girl, Rapunzel as a long-haired hippie of the 1970’s and Little Red, a brave little guy who gets the wolf to burp out Grandma with ginger ale. The stories and pictures [...]

God Bless Twitter. And not just any Twitter, but celebrity Twitter. If it weren’t for Neil Gaiman, @neilhimself– I know, we are still working on our relationship – I would never have discovered Jonathan Carroll, @JSCarroll. With a title like, The Ghost In Love, I was expecting an eerie, sad love story. Instead, The Ghost In Love proves itself as [...]

Bill Scheft doesn’t need me to tell you how funny his book is. Larry David has a blurb on the front cover. Larry fucking David (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld). Also, Lewis Black (The Daily Show) weighs in with a blurb on the back. Which makes me wonder if 50-year old white comedians from New York only associate with and appeal [...]