Carlin Romano

Carlin Romano is a books columnist and critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Email Carlin at cromano@phillynews.com

Noelle Skodzinski is the editor in chief of Book Business. The publishing trade magazine is headquartered in Philadelphia - a rarity in a business with a strong base in New York. "But it doesn't cause a problem, and we certainly don't get any flak from it," she says.

Book-business bible is a Phila. story

By Carlin Romano, Inquirer Book Critic

Posted 07/08/2008

Back in the 18th century, America's book business called Philadelphia home. Mathew Carey invented the American publishing house. Benjamin Franklin towered as America's printer. Charles Brockden Brown started the American novel on its way.

The AIDS-research merry-go-round

By Carlin Romano, Inquirer Book Critic

Posted 06/27/2008

Why don't we know more about the world? Here's a simple answer: Wonderful writers aren't where they should be. That is, in banks, hospitals, factories, amusement parks, hair salons, racetracks, car washes, delicatessens - explaining their peculiar institutions to the rest of us.

The Philly books, popping out in L.A. 06/25/2008: By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

Judy Blume. Dean Koontz. Jon Krakauer. Ted Turner. Big names that get big attention. Especially when book people get together.
The trip is as lively as the destination 06/20/2008: By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

What does a thoroughly modern, Manhattan-based novelist - not commonly associated with historical novels set centuries ago - know about Mughal India and Renaissance Florence?
An eloquent lament for a lost child 06/13/2008: By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

Among the curses our random world imposes, few can equal watching one's young, healthy child die within 36 hours from an illness that sounds inconsequential, a minor irritant seemingly zappable by antibiotics.
Step right up! Pick a winner! 06/03/2008: LOS ANGELES - For Philadelphians who attend Book Expo America (BEA), the yearly meeting of the nation's publishing business that ended here Sunday, you judge a bookfest by the amount of preplanned agenda you cover.
Happy birthday, Bond's daddy 05/28/2008: What do we spy? A new caper of agent 007, commissioned by the estate of the long-dead creator, arriving for his centenary.

By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

Ian Fleming (1908-64), creator of James Bond, just couldn't live and let die. He'd have been 100 today. It's an occasion the debonair spy novelist, were he still with us, might have celebrated with a shaken-but-not-stirred dry martini, perhaps administered by slow drip at his luxurious Goldeneye estate in Jamaica.
Author Appearance 05/23/2008: By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

James Frey, author of "Bright Shiny Morning," is to appear at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St.
Book festival reaching for a 'new crowd' 05/15/2008: By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

For Andy Kahan and Sara Goddard, director and associate director of author events at the Free Library's Central Branch, the second annual Philadelphia Book Festival this weekend will be an upbeat work in progress.
Poet-turned-novelist settles into spotlight 05/09/2008: By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

WILMINGTON - Unlike J.K. Rowling, she's not richer than the Queen of England. Unlike Lisa Scottoline, she doesn't own a farm with horses (yet).
Untethered imagination looses tales 05/02/2008: Etgar Keret's stories have a witty originality at odds with seemingly endless conflict in Israel.

By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

Intifadas, targeted killings, checkpoints, kidnappings, Qassam rockets, the occasional suicide bombing or massacre. If you follow the news in American media about Israel, you might wonder what's worth celebrating in 10 days, when that harried nation turns 60.
You'll never look at a travel book the same again 04/25/2008: By Carlin Romano , Inquirer Book Critic

Thomas Kohnstamm is nobody's model travel journalist, except maybe Hunter Thompson's (if the latter is watching from beyond the grave - or the cannon Johnny Depp used to distribute his gonzo ashes).