Join us for MinnPost's third annual Book Club Blast on Sunday, Feb. 12, featuring keynote speaker Kate DiCamillo — along with authors Matthew Batt, David Cass, Jack El-Hai, Paul Metsa, Sarah Stonich and local publishing industry experts. Bring along your friends, colleagues, and fellow book lovers and writers!

Last week, Apple announced the release of iBooks 2, the second generation iPad ebook reader. What interests me more is a new tool called iBooks Author.

Lovers of fiction will want to be sure to check out these 10 novels, which include some of the most interesting titles of early 2012.

Registration is now open for the third annual MinnPost Book Club Blast featuring Kate DiCamillo, the award-winning author of "Blink and Gollie," "The Magician's Elephant," "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane," "The Tale of Despereaux," "Because of Winn-Dixie" and many other beloved and unforgettable tales.

Talk of the Stacks will host three authors this spring, each presenting a new work of nonfiction. The season opens on Tuesday, Jan. 31, with Gabrielle Hamilton, owner of Prune restaurant in New York's East Village and author of "Blood, Bones and Butter," an unflinching and lyrical memoir about a chef's unconventional journey over the past 20 years.

Who reads more books than the review staff at Publishers Weekly? Hardly anyone, and that's why their year-end "ten best list" always attracts attention. With five fiction titles and five nonfiction, here are the 10 books that most impressed the PW readers in 2011.

A look at the year's most popular books-to-movies to enjoy over winter vacation — on DVD or on the big screen.

Plenty of bookstores vanished this year, but books sure didn't. More readers discovered the joys of reading them on screens, leaning in to peruse everything from blockbuster bios and zombie adventures to the latest hot novels from the chilly confines of Scandinavia.

Gems that have arrived in the children's section of bookstores this season include a couple of classic winter tales, a retold Aesop's fable, poetry about dogs, a baby penguin, and a chicken awash in blue ink.

If their parents weren't at war, would Romeo and Juliet have noticed each another? A good tempest now and then, particularly one thrown up by a family member, has the power to turn what could have been a perfectly nice but short-lived love affair into a commitment capped with vows.

Longtime Rolling Stone critic and NPR contributor Will Hermes will present his new book, "Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York City That Changed Music Forever," an inspirational story about a city that's changed renarkably in 30-plus years, but in some ways hasn't changed at all.

"You're not a real candidate, Pinocchio, if you haven't written your own book," Mark Halperin, political director of ABC News, once said. Indeed, these days the one — perhaps only — condition all serious presidential candidates seem to satisfy is publishing their own book, whether it's a rags-to-riches memoir, a political manifesto or a motivational manual. While plenty of political lit is ghost-written pabulum, some titles pop with personality, authenticity or just plain good writing.

For over 40 years the St. Paul Jewish Community Center (JCC) has been spearheading a power-packed literary festival which has brought in scores of nationally known, popular writers. The 2011 Twin Cities Jewish Book Fair continues the tradition and celebrates the significant contributions of today's finest authors: seasoned writers, well known among scholarly or literary circles, and newly emerging voices.

College seniors struggling with life and love, a newly freed sex offender and four women living through the Roman conquests are only a few of the colorful characters scattered through the 10 October books that Amazon's editors picked as their favorites. Here are the books the Amazon editors read and loved.

Writing a novel is a ridiculous task. If we can stop and recognize that fact every once in a while, we can ease our burden.