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About The Millions

Welcome to The Millions, offering coverage on books, arts, and culture since 2003. The Millions has been featured on NPR and noted by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Village Voice, among others. To search the site, use the "Search The Millions" box above. To search for books (and support The Millions), use the Amazon search box above. To learn more about The Millions, its contributors, and its guest contributors and to find our book reviews, check out the pages listed below:

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Notable Posts

New to The Millions? The posts listed below are a good place to start. If you want to read them in chronological order start at the bottom of the list.

The Millions on NPR

A Year in Reading 2008 | Google and the Literary Landscape | Murakami in Berkeley | The Best Sports Journalism Ever | David Foster Wallace 1962-2008 | Batman and the Intellectuals | Amazon Extends its Reach | Most Anticipated 2008 - Part 2 | The Millions on MPR | The Prizewinners International | The Prizewinners | A Milestone | Obama and Faulkner | Short Story Week 2008 | Big in Japan | Most Anticipated 2008 | A Year in Reading 2007 | The Nail Polish Method | The Trusted Fellow Reader | In the Groves of Academe | A History of Magic: A Children's Librarian Reflects on Harry Potter, and Offers a Post-Hogwarts Syllabus | Most Anticipated 2007 - Part 2 | Bandaids for Broken Book Sections | A Walking Tour of New York's Independent Booksellers | Four Years of The Millions | Keepers of the Flame: A Reply to n+1 | The Assimilation of the Book Blog | Most Anticipated 2007 | A Year in Reading 2006 | Hard to Pronounce Literary Names | The Most Anticipated 2006 - Part 2 | World War 2 Fiction and nonfiction | Book Expo Dispatch: Targeting Litblogs | Thanks for Three Years from The Millions | Welcome to the New Home of The Millions | Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions | Most Anticipated 2006 | A Year in Reading: New Yorker Fiction 2005 | The Reading Queue Revisited | A Lawrence Weschler Reading List | The Millions Turns Two | The New New Journalists | Most Anticipated 2005 | The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Scoop | Goodbye, LA | What Makes a Bookstore | My Last Ballgame | Happy Birthday! | The Manifesto | I've decided to reinvent The Millions...

Ask a Book Question:

If you've got a question about books, my fellow readers and I will happily attempt to answer it for you. What kinds of questions are allowed? Anything about books. To submit your question, email me. Here are the previous installments:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70

Staff Picks

The "staff picks" shelf in any good independent bookstore is a treasure trove of book recommendations. Unmoored from media hype and even timeliness, books are championed by trusted fellow readers. With many bookselling alums in our ranks, we offer our own "Staff Picks" in a feature appearing irregularly.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

The Millions Quiz

So that you may get to know us better, and so that we may get to know you. Nightstand Reader, Fresh, Old, and Moldy, The First Time is Always the Best

Inter Alia

A sporadic column 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Quarterly Report

Book industry trends 2006: Q2, Q3, Q4. 2007: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. 2008: Q1, Q2, Q3

Books

Bookmark these links to stay on top of the hottest books.
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Arts & Letters Daily | The Morning News | Radosh.net | largehearted boy | kottke | waxy | Fimoculous | Marginal Revolution | onegoodmove | The Comics Curmudgeon | identity theory | BLCKDGRD | Guernica | if:book | signandsight.com | nextbook | Shane Lavalette | The New York Review of Books | bookforum | failbetter | three percent | Book Covers | The Wilson Quarterly | BREVITY Creative Nonfiction Blog | Foreign Policy | Library of Congress Blog | Freakonomics | More Intelligent Life | Interesting Times | Omnivoracious | The Bugle | Open Letters | BuzzMachine | Romenesko | Lost Remote | Doc Searls Weblog | Maisonneuve | The Walrus | The Globe and Mail | the kitchn | apartment therapy | LBC | Bookdwarf | Booksquare | Conversational Reading | Terry Castle | Filthy Habits | The Elegant Variation | Emerging Writers Network | Fernham | Golden Rule Jones | Literary Saloon | LitKicks | About Last Night | carolyn kellogg | Jacket Copy | Rake's Progress | Shaken & Stirred | Slushpile | Syntax of Things | The Mumpsimus | The Reading Experience | The Written Nerd | Tingle Alley | MetaxuCafe | Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind | Out of the Woods Now | Condalmo | bookride | The Valve | Ghost Word | Chekhov's Mistress | Black Marks on Wood Pulp | standBy Bert | BookFox | Kate's Book Blog | Rarely Likable | Stacked | PersonaNonData | Books, Inq. | Felicia Sullivan | inside books | Old Hag | Thumb drives and oven clocks | Pete Lit | Sean Ferrell | Lux Mentis | reeling and writhing | two umbrellas | emdashes | NewPages Blog | Silliman's Blog | John Baker's Blog | ReadySteadyBook | Nota Bene Books | Stephen Schenkenberg | Earthgoat | PEN America | Books are my only friends | BookLust | Baby Got Books | The Hopeless Writer | The Eclectic Chapbook | Light Reading | languagehat.com | KR Blog | Quiet Bubble | Bibliophile Bullpen | Chicken Spaghetti | Petrona | Dark Party Review | pages turned | Maud Newton | counterbalance | bookbabie | GalleyCat | So Many Books | Book World | Sans Serif

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What I'm reading now

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

On Deck

You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon

The Reading Queue

(The Reading Queue Explained)

1. Black and Blue: The Golden Arm, the Robinson Boys, and the 1966 World Series That Stunned America by Tom Adelman
2. Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
3. The Fall Of Baghdad by Jon Lee Anderson
4. The Verificationist by Donald Antrim
5. Darkmans by Nicola Barker
6. Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth
7. The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block
8. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
9. Slightly Out of Focus by Robert Capa
10. Heart of Darkness, Youth, Typhoon: Three Short Novels by Joseph Conrad
11. His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
12. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
13. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe by Robert Gellately
14. Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
15. The Pacific by Mark Helprin
16. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
17. Round Rock by Michelle Huneven
18. The Politics of Glory by Bill James
19. Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones
20. Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman
21. English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
22. Crossing California by Adam Langer
23. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre
24. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
25. Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee
26. McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 13
27. The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn
28. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
29. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner
30. Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler
31. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
32. The Wild Trees by Richard Preston
33. The Clerk's Tale: Poems by Spencer Reece
34. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter
35. American Pastoral by Philip Roth
36. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks
37. The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders
38. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
39. Child 44 by Tim Rob Smith
40. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
41. Mr. Jefferson's University by Garry Wills
42. The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

Books That I Read in 2008

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson (review)
The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux (review)
The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez (review)
The Mansion by Alvaro Mutis (review)
Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh (interview)
War Nerd by Gary Brecher (preview)
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden
The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

Books That I Read in 2007

The Cottagers by Marshall N. Klimasewiski (LBC nominee)
Guerillas by Jon Lee Anderson (review)
Paper Trails by Pete Dexter (review)
Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead by Alan DeNiro (LBC Pick!)
Sacco And Vanzetti Must Die! by Mark Binelli (LBC nominee)
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (review, 2)
Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker by David Remnick (review)
In the Wake by Per Petterson (review)
Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski (review)
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee (review)
Liberation by Joanna Scott (review)
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow (review)
Pastoralia by George Saunders (review)

Books That I Read in 2006

Other Electricities by Ander Monson (LBC nominee)
The White Earth by Andrew McGahan (review)
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow (review)
Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux (review)
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (review)
I Never Liked You by Chester Brown (review)
The Girl in the Glass by Jeffrey Ford (LBC nominee)
Television by Jean-Philippe Toussaint (LBC Pick!)
Ticknor by Sheila Heti (LBC nominee)
An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson (review)
The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D'Ambrosio
White Spirit by Paule Constant (LBC nominee)
Michael Martone by Michael Martone (LBC Pick!)
The Diviners by Rick Moody (review)
Firmin by Sam Savage (LBC Pick!)
ManBug by George K. Ilsley (LBC nominee)
Without Feathers by Woody Allen (review)
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (review)
Seven Loves by Valerie Trueblod (LBC nominee)
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O (LBC Pick!) (review)
Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones (LBC nominee)

Books That I Read in 2005

Generations of Winter by Vassily Aksyonov (review)
Brotherly Love by Pete Dexter (review)
Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan (review)
13: The Story of the World's Most Popular Superstition by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer (review)
All This Heavenly Glory by Elizabeth Crane (LBC nominee) (review)
Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis (review, 2)
Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell (review)
Bulletproof Girl by Quinn Dalton (review)
Looking for a Ship by John McPhee (review, 2)
Fraud by David Rakoff (review)
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (LBC Pick!)
The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey (review)
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (review)
Belly by Lisa Selin Davis (review)
Absolutely American by David Lipsky (review)
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki (review)
Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam (LBC nominee)
Angel of Forgetfulness by Steve Stern (LBC Pick!)
Our Napoleon in Rags by Kirby Gann (LBC nominee)
10:01 by Lance Olsen (LBC nominee)
Mutual Life & Casualty by Elizabeth Poliner (LBC nominee)
The People's Act of Love by James Meek (review)
Small Island by Andrea Levy (review)
Plain Heathen Mischief by Martin Clark (review)
Garner by Kirstin Allio (LBC Pick!)
Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha by Edward Falco (LBC nominee)
Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson (LBC nominee)

Books That I Read in 2004

Everything's Eventual by Stephen King (review)
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (review)
Paris Trout by Pete Dexter (review)
The Known World by Edward P. Jones (review, 2)
Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes (review)
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (review)
The First World War by John Keegan (review)
The Last Amateurs by John Feinstein (review)
Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuscinski (review)
Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick (review)
The Outlaw Sea by William Langewiesche (review)
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Jumpers by Tom Stoppard
The Singing by C. K. Williams (review)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (review)
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen (review)
Founding Fish by John McPhee (review)
Naked in Baghdad by Anne Garrels (review)
In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat by Rick Atkinson (review)

Mrs. Millions Has Been Reading

Currently reading the top book on the list.
Now rated, by Mrs. Millions herself, from 0 to 5 *'s

Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden
American Pastoral by Philip Roth ****^1/2
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris ****
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz ****
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris ***
Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan *****
Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon ***^1/2
Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman ****^1/2
The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez ****
Last One In by Nicholas Kulish **
Dishwasher by Pete Jordan **^1/2
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin *****
The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux ****^1/2
The Cottagers by Marshall N. Klimasewiski *
Blue Taxi by N. S. Koenings ^1/2
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson **^1/2
Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee ****^1/2
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 ****
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware ***
English Passengers by Matthew Kneale ***
Looking for a Ship by John McPhee ****^1/2
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ****
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre ****^1/2
White Earth by Andrew McGahan ***^1/2
Crossing California by Adam Langer ***^1/2

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