PW Tip Sheet: In Defense of Not Finishing

I am a slow reader, and not just because I read six or ten books at once. On my to-finish table are one time-travel thriller, one dysfunctional family novel, one Vietnam war novel, three books of short stories, two classics-in-translation and, most recently, a thousand-plus-page journal of psychonautical self-discovery called The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.

PW Picks: On Sale the Week of November 14, 2011

It doesn’t get any bigger than this week’s biggest release: Jeff Kinney’s sixth entry in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Cabin Fever, drops an astounding 6 million copies on the book-buying world this Tuesday, the biggest release of the year in both kids’ and adult books.

Q&A: Why Kevin Wilson Loves Nicole Kidman

Just two months after the release of Kevin Wilson's debut novel, the production company of Nicole Kidman and Per Saari had acquired the screen rights--with Kidman herself expected to fill the role of clan matriarch Camille Fang. PW caught up with Wilson for a phone interview about movie adaptations, Nicole Kidman’s strangest roles, and why happy endings make no sense.

Q&A: Deborah Davis, Keeper of Oprah's Flame

Abrams celebrates the legacy of America’s most beloved talk-show host with this week’s release of The Oprah Winfrey Show: Reflections on an American Legacy. Nonfiction author Deborah Davis, whose friends describe her beat as “the rich and the dead,” was tapped to write Abrams's 25-year retrospective. The Tip Sheet spoke to her over the phone this week about condensing 25 years of television history into a six-month whirlwind of viewing, researching, and writing.

PW Tip Sheet: The Best Books Blues

It’s that time of year again: the time when Publishers Weekly puts out our Best Books list, which—lucky you!—debuts in today’s PW Tip Sheet. Not coincidentally, it’s also the time when I discover that I’ve wasted my reading year on less-than-the-best, and subsequently tack 25 or 50 new titles onto my to-read list.

Two Questions for a Bookseller

Jef Blocker, a manager at Atlanta’s six-year-old Bound to be Read Books, fills us in on some spooky happenings among the stacks.

Reading List: Daniel Annechino

Daniel Annechino spent two years researching serial killers before penning his gripping and memorable debut novel, They Never Die Quietly. Just in time for post-Halloween withdrawal, Annechino gives us his recommendations for the best serial killer nonfiction out there.

PW Picks: On Sale the Week of November 7, 2011

The most noteworthy books hitting stores this week includes big guns like Stephen King, Umberto Eco, Don DeLillo and Annie Liebovitz; fringe darlings in sci-fi hero Phillip K. Dick and conservative stalwart Newt Gingrich; and highly anticipated books from Robert K. Massie (Catherine the Great) and Christopher Paolini (Inheritance). Plus: two volumes looking to cash in on earlier smash successes—Heaven Is For Real and The Hunger Games, respectively—and a biography of late, beloved author Kurt Vonnegut (yet another fringe darling, a sci-fi hero humanist stalwart).

PW Tip Sheet: Here Come the Memoirs

This week is chock-full of memoirs...but why do we read them?

Reading List: John Hodgman

Coming out this week is That Is All, the final installment of a trilogy of nonsensical almanacs from the sly, satirical John Hodgman (The Areas of My Expertise), contributor to The Daily Show. Hodgman shares the four books that inspired his oeuvre.

Ranking Sherlock Holmes Stories? Elementary

"When I was asked to write The House of Silk, I reread the entire canon and promptly fell in love with them all over again, and if I have one hope for my book, it’s that it will introduce a new generation of readers to these wonderful stories."

PW Picks: On Sale the Week of October 31, 2011

Our top books hitting bookstores this week, featuring books by Joan Didion, Condoleezza Rice, Malcolm Gladwell and Marcel the Shell. Read our reviews and full On-Sale Calendar.

Excerpt: Don’t Peak in High School

An exclusive excerpt from The Office writer and actress Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) out on November 1 from Crown.

Drawing Board: Awkward Family Pet Photos

Yes, Awkward Family Pet Photos is finally a book. Mike Bender and Doug Chernack, coauthors of the New York Times bestselling Awkward Family Photos, have returned with another "celebration of awkwardness."

Literary Cage Match: Which Book Deserved to Win the Booker?

Deputy Reviews Editor Mike Harvkey and News Editor Gabe Habash settle, via cage match, who should've rightly won the Man Booker this year.

Debbie Nathan's Reading List

"Researching Sybil Exposed often felt like rummaging through an Olde Curiosity Shoppe crammed with dusty books."

One Question for a Bookseller

Dustin Kurtz, a bookseller at Manhattan’s beloved McNally Jackson, gives us the skinny on bestselling backlist titles.

PW Picks: On Sale the Week of October 23, 2011

Our top books hitting bookstores this week. Also includes links to our reviews and full On-Sale Calendar.

PW Tip Sheet: The Book Award Blues

What a week it’s been for indignation. The National Book Award finalists (announced last week) came under criticism from Salon’s Laura Miller for its rarefied selections (“the literary equivalent of spinach”), while the Man Booker committee attracted grumbling for the opposite reason, for dumbing down literature by privileging readability over quality. NBA judge Victor LaValle published a rejoinder to Miller on PW’s Book News Web page,and a coterie of British writers came together to support an alternative to the Booker, the imaginatively named Literature Prize. (Whew. And we haven’t even mentioned the bad week Lauren Myracle has been having.)

But so much sturm and drang, I’d argue, is wonderful for literature.

Six Questions for Jay Rubin, Haruki Murakami's Translator

Haruki Murakami’s much anticipated IQ84 is out this week. We caught up with Jay Rubin, Murakami’s longtime translator, to find out the pleasures (no cognates!) and pains (trembling hands!) of his trade.