MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
July 3 – July 10, 2008 Edition
NPR Expands
Book Reviews
and Book Coverage
NEW YORK, NY/7/1/08–National Public Radio (NPR) has hired a new staff of book reviewers and is expanding coverage of literary works using Internet tools such as feeds and blogs. Jessa Crispin, who founded the literary blog Bookslut.com ; Laurel Maury, freelance graphic novel reviewer, and John Freeman, former president of the National Book Critics Circle, are now reviewing for NPR.
According to an item in Publishers Weekly, books are among the top three traffic generators on the NPR site. NPR is striving to adapt material specifically to the web, and to generate original online content. .The new features on the book page are part of its efforts. The site offers short reviews under the heading Books We Like, and the site also features podcasts recorded from authors reading while on tour. Books on other NPR stations and radio interviews are part of the growing package for book lovers.
Joe Matazzoni, senior producer for NPR, told PW that the company's aim is to point NPR audiences to good books. He said NPR listeners identify with the station's sensibility and look to NPR as a filter for judgment and taste.
NPR produces and distributes noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming. A privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization, NPR serves 26 million Americans each week in partnership with more than 860 independently operated, noncommercial public radio stations.
(Editor's Note: Authorlink continues to expand its Authorlink Book Review section, too. In addition to visitors to the site, Authorlink has more than 1100 registered libraries and publishing professionals who regularly read our reviews. Some 300 or more reviews of current releases are available and new reviews are added every week.)
