Don't see your favorite literary, filmic, or musical love-in listed on this page?  We want to hear from you!  Please email us, so we can add your suggestions to our list. Better yet, tell us WHAT you love about your suggested sites, and we'll quote you. For that matter, we'd love your feedback about anything else on these pages, or any aspect whatsoever of your library experience.  (We'll make sure your comments get to the person who can best appreciate them.)

The sites below include a wide range of voices: formal and intimate, hilarious and thoughtful, canon and countercanon.  What they share is a fierce, thirsty, and inviting enthusiasm for culture (including, but not always limited to, books).

Autostraddle: Books - sharp-witted, woman-focused, and not always safe for work

AV Club - The Onion's (relatively) sincere forum for reviews, news, and discussion about books, movies, music, games, tv, etc.

Bookshelves of Doom - Leila Roy is a community college librarian, book reviewer, pop culture maven, and pendant-maker who lives in Maine. If you don't like young adult books, you probably won't find much here.  If you DO like YA books - you will probably end up visiting this site at least once a week.  

Brainpickings - You know that one friend you have? The one who is always super-excited about some random fascinating thing they just found? The one who wants to tell you ALL about it, at length, and you don't even mind because they are so happy, and the thing itself is so cool?  This site is the web equivalent. You never know what they'll be on about, but it'll almost always be exciting.  And more often than not, there will be a book involved.

The Browser - if you like weighty, provocative, and intellectually stimulating prose, you need this website. The editors select 5-6 favorites each day, "mostly from trawling RSS feeds and home pages and Twitter streams."

Catapult - This culture blog from a small press covers a wide variety of mainstream favorites and more arty stuff, mostly books and film, offering longer essays with a rich variety of viewpoints.  Smart, wide-ranging, compelling.  And the house editors encourage particularly clean, clear writing, or select writers who are particularly good at that style.  Probably both!

Kirkus Reviews - the archives go back to 1933, but there's nothing stodgy about this venerable magazine: its reviewers shoot from the hip. Come for the snark, stay for the starred reviews.

The Millions - the New York Times calls The Millions " indispensable." It's hip, self-consciously literate, and really hard to put down (especially if you're reading it on a tablet).  

Neglected Books - "where forgotten books are remembered". The anonymous author of this book blog is determined to resurrect the beautiful-but-ignored classics of the last couple of centuries (although there is also a "Justly Neglected?" category for the duds).  This site is perfect for days when everything new feels old and tired...

New York Review of Books - towers over most of its litmag peers.  The essays are often even better than the reviews.

NPR Books - come for the book concierge, stay for the author interviews.

Paste: Signs of Life in Music, Film, and Culture - the book section of this website is great (and refreshingly comics-heavy), but the best way to enjoy it is to start on the front page, where you can see the entire amazing panorama.

Powell’s Books: Staff Picks - One of the most eclectic congregations of reviewers on the Web.

Vulpes Libris - a pack of literate foxes who read and write voraciously. Or, perhaps, a pack of British litbloggers, who do the same.  Their newest reviews are available exclusively on Facebook (but you can read them without a Facebook account).