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Last-Minute Literary Gifts For Every Member of the Family

By Emily Temple on

Was it just us, or did the holidays totally sneak up on everyone this year? If you’re headed to a family gathering this weekend and scrambling for last-minute gifts for your relatives, don’t forget that you pretty much can’t go wrong with a good book. It’s all a matter of picking the right book for the right relative. Sound hard? Well not to worry, dearest procrastinators, we’ve got you covered. After the jump, read through our suggestions (and our second choices) for books for every member of your family. Let us know what you ended up choosing in the comments! … Read More

Books

The Books That Made the Most ‘Best Of 2012′ Book Lists

By Emily Temple on

December means a lot of things. Our normally latent shopping gene starts itching like crazy, mint-flavored coffee starts sounding like a good idea, and every single media outlet (ourselves included) puts up their “best of” everything lists. Well, ’tis the season. In an effort to distill all those year’s end book round-ups — and let’s face it, be a little meta — we looked at 16 lists from 14 media organizations and counted up the books that tickled the most critics this year. Turns out, they had quite a few differing opinions — on those 16 lists alone, we noted more than 150 unique titles — but also agreed across the board on a few knock-outs. After the jump, feast your eyes on the most popular books of the 2012 best book list season — and let us know if you agree with consensus or think the world’s gone mad in the comments. … Read More

Books

The 10 Best Debut Novels of 2012

By Emily Temple on

This year, all are agreed, was a pretty great one for books — but it was a particularly good one for debut novelists, which impressed us over and over again with their ingenuity, seriousness, and talent. This year’s debuts ran the gamut from sci-fi masterpieces to realistic war novels, with several magic-tinged worlds floating around in between. Looks like the novel/this insufferably ironic generation/reading itself isn’t a lost cause after all. Read on for our favorite debut novels of the year, and since we already had to tearfully eliminate quite a few from our list of loves, feel free to add them back on for us in the comments. … Read More

Books

2012 National Book Awards Finalists Announced

By Emily Temple on

The twenty finalists for the 2012 National Book Awards were announced this morning by David Steinberger, Chairman of the National Book Foundation’s Board of Directors, on (somewhat randomly) MSNBC’s Morning Joe. The finalists are a satisfying mix of established writers (five Pulitzer Prize winners, two recipients of MacArthur “Genius” grants) and fresh talent (five of the books are debut works) across four genres: fiction, nonfiction, poetry and YA. While we expected National Book Award darling Junot Díaz to get a nod, we were pleasantly surprised to see Dave Eggers’ newest book, which has been sort of a sleeper, on the list, and definitely psyched to see Louise Erdrich’s The Round House among the finalists. The winners will be announced on November 14. Click through to read the full list of finalists, and let us know your predictions in the comments. … Read More