Review of Book Videos

Get up close and personal with some of the world’s best authors on Book Videos, which features interviews with renowned writers who provide intimate insights into the secrets of their wondrous creative genius.

The site, which promises to “tell the story behind the story,” is a collaboration between CBS‘s publishing giant Simon & Schuster and digital video production company, TurnHere, Inc

of video travel guide site Turn Here (Tilzy.TV Page).  It is intended both as a marketing vehicle to increase book sales, as well as an initiative to allow readers a fresh way to engage with the literary community beyond the New York Times’ best seller list.

Launched in June 2007, the site offers a unique addition to other online literary forums like

GoodReads, Safari, LibraryThing, and Shelfari. Videos are hosted on the home site as well as on SimonSays.com and its YouTube distribution channel.

On Book Videos, weekly interviews are not presented in traditional talk show format. Instead they are set in places that are important to the authors and reveal their inclinations and eccentricities.
Take a drive through the country with Susan Isaacs, award-winning author of “Past Perfect,” who admits the question that habitually plagued her prior to her success was: “Who am I to write a novel?” Or hang out with scientist and author Kathy Reichs in a forensic laboratory where both she and Temperance Brennan, the main character of her book “Bones to Ashes,” toil over unsolved mysteries. On a beach in California, Marianne Wiggins explains–with wind blustered hair–her fascination with iconic photographer, Edward S. Curtis, the subject of her novel, “The Shadow Catcher.”

Roughly two to three minutes in length, the videos are top quality, and top content for bibliophiles. Featured authors are listed by name, but users can also access interviews with authors associated with particular genres such as: Memoir, Mystery, or Spirituality.  Additionally, users can exchange opinions and insights on each video in a comments section which is spewing with literary banter. In short, book worms can bask in the sites consistently rich content and literary revelations.

On her quiet Virginia ranch, Jeannette Walls gives a candid interview about her autobiographical novel, “The Glass Castle”, in which she describes a childhood of living in boxes and back seats with her family.