Amazon has launched The Back Story, a page promising “author interviews, essays, guest reviews, recipes, and much, much more.”

Amazon has uploaded five videos featuring author interviews with celebrity chef Tom Douglas, bestselling author Joshua Foer, teen fiction writer Holly Black, young-adult novelist Cassandra Clare, and Gossip Girl producer John Stephens. Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell revealed Carrie Bradshaw’s 1980s playlist in honor of her new title Summer and the City.

What do you think? Managing editor Mari Malcolm explained: ”We love these conversations so much that we wanted to share them with our customers. We hope that customers will take the opportunity to submit questions on our Amazon Books Facebook page or through our blog, Omnivoracious. They can also contact us at authorinterviews@amazon.com.”

Algonquin Books has launched the Algonquin Books Club. The publisher has chosen twenty-five paperback titles from its list, building a readers guide for each book.

Here’s more from the site: “We’ll be featuring four Algonquin Book Club selections a year for dynamic literary events held around the country and simultaneously webcast on our site. For each event, an Algonquin author will be interviewed by a notable writer.”

The first event (March 21st) will be held in Miami at Books & Books. Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I’m Dying, will interview Julia Alvarez on her masterpiece, In the Time of the Butterflies. Below we’ve listed the rest of Algonquin Book Club’s 2011 event offerings.

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