Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews (or Kirkus Media) is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine has its headquarters in New York City.

Overview

Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month, giving a preview of books prior to their publication. Kirkus reviews over 7,000 titles per year.

In 2014, Kirkus Reviews started the Kirkus Prize. It is one of the richest literary awards in the world, bestowing $50,000 prizes annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature.

Kirkus operates a number of additional services including Kirkus Editorial, Kirkus Indie and Kirkus Marketing.

History

Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economy measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100.