The Book Beast
Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown’s new online venture, The Daily Beast, is an amazing sensory overload of hard news, pop culture fluff, and opinion pieces from across the political spectrum. The site takes its name from the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scoop, and it shows off its literary bent in its impressive Book Beast section.
On first glance the crazy conglomeration of dozens of reviews, interviews, celebrity recommendations, and links seems exactly the kind of venture that is killing off print newspaper book sections. While we read by the glow of their funeral pyres, it is hard to deny the addictive qualities of the Book Beast’s approach.
Its reviews range from best-selling novels to serious political and historical tomes, and a handy “Literary Round-Up” sidebar collects hot news items from the publishing world. The “Book Buzz” section throws out recommendations from a passel of celebs as diverse as My Name Is Earl’s Jaime Pressly and iconic playwright Edward Albee.
The site’s ever-expanding video library features interviews with authors like Michael Connelly and Jodi Picoult, while its “Book Bag” features a four-pack of blurbed “must-read” tips from prominent writers. The Daily Beast has also lined up an impressive collection of writers to provide content throughout the site, including Christopher Buckley, Michael Kinsley, and Scott Turow.
The Daily Beast appears locked in a steel-cage deathmatch with the more established Huffington Post to combine news analysis and tabloid cheap thrills in a multi-layered web platform. When it comes to book coverage, its Book Beast is leaving them in the shade.
