Sunday, July 01, 2007
Current Crime Novel Reviews
New crime novels by Edna Buchanan, Marcia Muller, David Ellis, PJ Parrish, and Ridley Pearson are reviewed by Sarah Weinman in the Baltimore Sun; Peter Guttridge in The Observer reviews mysteries and thrillers by Philip Kerr, Paul Johnston, Jack Henderson, and debuts by Caro Ramsey and Elena Forbes; The Times Online offers a list of best summer crime reads -- including books by Mayra Montero, Peter Temple, Peter Robinson, John Harvey, Donna Leon, Brian McGilloway -- and best summer thriller reads, with titles by Martin Cruz Smith, Philip Kerr, Deon Meyer, Scott Smith, John le Carré, Simon Kernick, and Andrew Wilson (debut).
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
What Thriving Libraries Do Right
Check out the notes from Marylaine Block's latest presentation, titled What Thriving Libraries Do Right: Help Their Communities Achieve Their Aspirations. She says that public libraries need to address the issues the public cares most about -- public safety/crime, employment, housing, and education -- and they need to help the community articulate its values and tell its story, promote citizenship, and be a connector. Lotsa links.Labels: community, how-to, librarianship, library, local, marylaine, public library
Forthcoming Books
Some of the books due out next Tuesday, June 26, per Shelf Awareness:- Bungalow 2 by Danielle Steel: A suburban wife and mother makes it big as a Hollywood screenwriter.
- The Double Agents by W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV: Sixth installment of the Men at War series.
- New England White by Stephen L. Carter: New novel from the author of The Emperor of Ocean Park
- Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm by Jon Katz: Memoir about the adventures of farm life from the host of the Northeast Public Radio show 'Dog Talk.'
Labels: forthcoming, new books, publishing, shelf awareness, to be published
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Top 12 Books For Kids Under 12
UK School Librarian of the Year Ingrid Hopson selects twelve books that she thinks all kids should read by the time they are 12 years old. Among them are Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick; Dream On by Bali Rai (particularly good for struggling or reluctant readers); I, Coriander by Sally Gardner Coriander (set in 1650s London and in a fairy world); Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson; and Saffy's Angel by Hilary McKay.Labels: children's books
Readers Love Misery Lit
The Guardian on the popularity of misery lit, aka 'Inspirational Memoirs' or 'Painful Lives,' those books filled with 'neglect, violence, and sexual abuse. ... These are not, one might say, tales to be read with pleasure. And yet a quite astonishing number of people want to read them all the same. ... Reproducing like bacteria, a new literary genre has wholly infected the bestseller charts. As much as 30% of the non-fiction paperback chart on any given week is made up of accounts of similarly grinding childhood misery.' Most of the readers (85%) are estimated to be women.Books mentioned are Please, Daddy, No by Stuart Howarth; Damaged and (forthcoming) Hidden: Betrayed, Forgotten and Abandoned, both by Cathy Glass; Kathy O'Beirne's autobiography Don't Ever Tell; Abandoned by Anya Peters; Wasted by Mark Johnson; Dave Pelzer's memoir, A Child Called It (2000), the forerunner of the genre.
Labels: autobiography, memoirs, misery lit
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Interview with Linda Greenlaw
Maine writer and fishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw (The Hungry Ocean and The Lobster Chronicles) has published a crime novel, in stores now, titled Slipknot, the first in a mystery series featuring marine investigator Jane Bunker. Ray Routhier at Maine Today interviews her.Labels: crime fiction, interview, linda greenlaw, maine books, maine writer
Stephen King Novella in ESQUIRE
Stephen King's novella THE GINGERBREAD GIRL appears in the current (July) issue of Esquire magazine, on newsstands today. His forthcoming (January) book Duma Key apparently grew out of the novella. More at examiner.com.Forthcoming Books
Some of the books due out next Tuesday, June 19, per Shelf Awareness:- Innocent as Sin by Elizabeth Lowell. Romantic suspense.
- The Lady in Blue by Javier Sierra. Story set in U.S. and Spain about centuries-old enigma.
- Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich, in the Stephanie Plum mystery series; she's the prime suspect in her ex-husband's alleged murder.
- Secret Asset by Stella Rimington, follow-up to her debut thriller, with MI5 intelligence officer Liz Carlyle.
- The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen.
Labels: forthcoming, new books, publishing, shelf awareness
Monday, June 11, 2007
Books on China
Library Journal reviews about 20 books on China: 'The first group of books below imparts China's history and culture, sometimes through biography. The second group looks at the country as a business and economic phenomenon, especially in relation to its twin star, India.' All are published, or will be published, in the U.S. this year.Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Book Buzz
Oprah has chosen Jeffrey Eugenides' controversial book about a hermaphrodite, Middlesex (2003), for her new book club read. Multiple reviews at Complete Review.
And the publishing industry's BookExpo America is over; here are some highlights reported by USA Today:
- Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!), is due out in October and is predicted to be "just as big as Jon Stewart's' America:The Book.
- It will be a big fall for history titles, including Rick Atkinson's The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (October) and The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 (September) by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns.
- Most-talked-about fall fiction: Alice Sebold's The Almost Moon and Ann Packer's Songs Without Words.
Labels: bestsellers, bookexpo, colbert, eugenides, fall fiction, history, middlesex, oprah, sebold
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Research Source: Free Full Text
For those journal articles you can't find through MARVEL (or if you don't have access to another periodicals database), try Free Full Text: "FreeFullText.com provides direct links to over 7000 scholarly periodicals which allow some or all of their online content to be viewed by ANYONE with Internet access for free (though some may require free registration). The issue(s) which are available for free are indicated for each title on the alphabetical periodical lists. The design of this site is optimized for users seeking specific articles for which they already have the citation."Labels: free full text, journals, periodical search, research tool
Monday, May 28, 2007
Book Burning: Monthly Bonfires Until They're Gone
A bookstore owner in Kansas City, MO, who is seeking to weed out his inventory, has found that he can't give away about 20,000 titles, not even to libraries or thrift shops, so he's burning the books "in protest of what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word. 'This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today,' [bookstore owner Tom] Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books." More at CNN.Sunday, May 27, 2007
BOOK REVIEWS: Fiction with Crime Bent
In the Boston Globe today:
"As the bestseller lists become increasingly saturated with crime fiction, it seems that more writers are putting a crime spin on their literary fiction."
Books reviewed by Hallie Ephron are: Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand; The Big Girls by Susanna Moore; and What's So Funny? by Donald E. Westlake.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
An Appreciation of Crime Novelist Patricia Highsmith
By Maria Alvarez in the Telegraph:
"Highsmith's understanding of the unconscious and the irrational, coupled with her lucid prose and sophisticated mastery of suspense, are the reasons why many see her as having elevated crime fiction to an art form." ...
"She created unsympathetic protagonists: the seriously unhinged or the dully melancholic. Her endings are rarely predictable; the action is often a demented loop. Victims turn into stalkers, stalkers turn into victims, murders are botched, the eccentric can be harmless or insane. We are anxious because we have no way of knowing: the world is out of control."
Labels: crime fiction, fiction, highsmith, novelist, patricia highsmith
