Enjoy one of these titles about famous people or events from African American history.

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and February's the perfect time to enjoy a classic or 'modern classic' love story. Book Browse is an excellent source for timeless tales of romance.

Author Kage Baker died yesterday at home in Pismo Beach, CA.  Baker was best known for her Company series of time travel novels. She was 57.

The Mystery Writers of America has released the list of the nominees for the 2010 Edgar Allen Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television. To qualify, the work must have been published or produced in 2009. The Edgars will be presented April 29, 2010. How many have you read?

Do you like to participate in polls?  You can help rank the Top 100 Sci-Fic Books of All Time.  Do you agree with the top 10?  Card, Herbert, Asimov, Adams, Orwell, Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov and Gibson are wonderful but I think I'd mix the order a bit myself.  All I know is that stumbling across this list gave me a few more titles I want to look up.  Hope you enjoy it!

The 2005 runaway best-seller "The Glass Castle" set the bar for memoirs. Now its author Jeannette Walls has produced a "you can't put it down" novel about her maternal grandmother (Grandma Smith in "The Glass Castle").  
"Half Broke Horses" tells the tale of Lily Casey Smith who ranched, flew planes, broke horses, taught in one-room schoolhouses, married and raised two children. She had grit and gumption to spare. Lily died when Jeannette was only eight years old so Jeannette learned most of these stories from her mother Rosemary.  (It was fascinating to see Rosemary as a child in this novel. How did that sweet child grow up to be the author's disconnected parent?)  Jeannette says in the author's note: "I saw the book more in the vein of an oral history, a retelling of stories handed down by my family through the years, and undertaken with the storyteller's traditional liberties." And what a storyteller she is!

Enjoy these titles before, during, and after the Super Bowl - read about the history of the Super Bowl, the men who coached in it and the men who played in it!

Comi-Cons are comics conventions, with the most famous U.S. Comi-Con in San Diego every July.  This is the big event where Hollywood pulls out all the stops to promote their geek-friendly film and television projects, and a mecca for anyone who wants to meet the creators of their favorite comics.

But there are other Comi-Cons as well.  New York is hosting one this October, and since New York City is the heart of comics publishing you'd be able to meet some of the extarordinary talent behind your favorite titles.

A little closer to home is Wizard World Chicago this August, with a focus on celebrity guests as well as comics, collectibles, and special events.

Our own Midwest Comic Book Association hosts two events locally at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, SpringCon in May and FallCon in October.  We have a wealth of local comics creators living in Minnesota and this is the place to meet them! 

Amazon's Kindle has generated a lot of press lately. Now there's competition. Here's a website called The Best eReaders that provides background on eReaders and another, eBook Reader Review, which compares the top ten.

Booklist's Top 10 Romance Fiction for 2009 is a mix of contemporary, historical, paranormal, and western love stories.

Romancing the Blog has some wonderful suggestions for holiday romance novels, great to give as gifts or for own reading pleasure! Be sure to check out the blog responses for even more recommendations.

The Holidays may bring on a variety of emotions, many of them strongly felt.  If you're looking for cathartic horror there's a surprising number of tales that might satisfy.  There's the classic ghost story A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and now the subversively funny and horrific The Stupidest Angel: a Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore.

The Archangel Raziel comes to earth seeking a small child to grant a Christmas wish to and settles on 7-year-old Joshua in the idyllic town of Pine Cove, CA.  Unfortunately, Raziel's not the brightest bulb in the light strand and doesn't realize bringing the Santa little Joshua watched getting murdered back from the dead might not be a good idea.

For more adventurous and possibly romantic holiday horrors, try the new short story collection Wolfsbane and Mistletoe with tales by Charlaine Harris, Keri Arthur, Simon R. Green, Patricia Briggs, Carrie Vaughn and other dark fantasy authors.