Bookwire

Although it can't claim much original content, Bookwire is no doubt the mother lode of cyberspace-based book info. Its no-frills interface cleanly links to or hosts a dizzying array of locales: libraries; author websites (from Anne Rice to Shakespeare); quality, review-oriented journals; ''Authors on the Highway,'' the last word on promotional tours; publisher and bookstore sites; and ''the Reading Room,'' where several hundred books in the public domain can be downloaded free. All of this proves the Web a natural habitat for the literary life. A