Twitter serves as a great resource for bookworms. It’s full of book critics and enthusiasts who offer recommendations.
Among the best resources is Nancy Pearl, a librarian and best-selling author.
Ms. Pearl has worked as a librarian and bookseller in Detroit, Seattle, and Tulsa, Okla. She gained popularity after her best-selling book “Lust” was released in 2003. (Fun fact: there is a Librarian Action Figure modeleted after her.)
On Twitter, Pearl often gives recommendations for mystery novels, memoirs, essays, and other genres.
“In the case of Nancy Pearl, I love her book recommendations, especially the less familiar ones,” says Books editor Marjorie Kehe (@marjoriekehe).
For more critical reviews, two useful resources are Dwight Garne of the New York Times and Ron Charles of The Washington Post.
If you’re a reader of the Monitor’s Book section, chances are you’re also familiar with New York Times book critic Mr. Garner. He tweets out his book reviews regularly, as well as the occasional Harry Potter reference and personal recommendation.
Mr. Charles, the fiction editor at The Post, tweets throughout the day, from articles to interacting with other readers.
However, he is also conscious of his use of Twitter as a book critic. In The Post’s TheStyle blog, Charles responds to an essay by Jacob Silverman that claims Twitter has made book critics too soft.
Charles agreed with Mr. Silverman’s concerns about an “epidemic of niceness” in book reviews, but he also attributes this trend to consumer interests and the shrinking news industry: “…only the most oblivious — or principled — freelance critics could fail to notice the relative popularity of their own positive reviews. When you really, really like a book, your review appears on the front of the Arts section and high on the Arts homepage, and a link to it gets tweeted around the world…”
Yet he also tells Silverman that if he wants to read honest book reviews that they’re still “just a click away.”
