Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I just finished Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl last night. (Despite what the title sounds like, it is fiction.) High school student Blue Van Meer narrates her life story, which since her mom died when she was little, consists of moving every semester as her college professor dad takes a new lecturing job. (Her parents shared an enchanted love that "caused birds and other furry creatures to congregate on a windowsill.") However, for her senior year her dad has decided they should stay in one place for the entire year, and Blue will attend St. Gallway, where she meets the Bluebloods and teacher Hannah Schneider, who will die that year (first sentence of Part 1--I'm not giving anything away). The majority of the book is spent chronicling Blue's senior year, but the end takes a wild turn as Blue tries to solve the mystery of Hannah's death. The clique of students enamored of teacher plot and slightly dark tone is a bit reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, but what I really love about this book are Pessl's clever descriptions and phrases. To read her description of someone as a Goodnight Moon or a walking wedge of Camembert are just so enjoyable. Her constant bibliographic references and tendencies to capitalize words for emphasis could almost be too clever, but it's part of what makes the book so good. The website is also entertaining:

http://www.calamityphysics.com/main.htm

Reading Roundup

DVD watching is seriously cutting into my reading time lately, but here are a few quick comments on the adult fiction books I've read in the last month or so:

You're Not You by Michelle Wildgen
My favorite paragaph: "There must be a better way to cook them--with some tart fruit, or a thick glaze of cooked-down wine and smoky bacon. The duck looked at me with one shining eye and took a wide-legged step away. After a moment it occurred to me that I was pondering eating random animals on my way home from school. Maybe the whole cooking thing was getting out of hand."

If that's not enough to entice you to read the book, then let me also say that this is a well written debut novel about college student Bec and Kate, a middle aged woman with ALS, who hires Bec as a caregiver. This could have easily been a sappy, overwrought story, but Wildgen writes about Bec's growth and Kate's illness in a witty, realistic way.

Orchid Shroud: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne by Michelle Wan
In the sequel to Deadly Slipper, Mara encounters murder and danger (again), and Julian continues his search for a rare orchid. Read it if you enjoy France and/or orchids.




The Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey
The book has a great title going for it, but I had a hard time enjoying this story about a bumbling private eye who gets into more than he bargained for when he takes on a case involving a hit-and-run of a family of geese. Kirkus, LJ, PW, SLJ, and VOYA all gave this book great reviews, so take my lack of enthusiasm with a grain of salt.

Greywalker

Greywalker by Kat Richardson
PW says, "Fast-paced fun, this first novel will captivate fans of Charmed, Buffy, and Charlaine Harris." So of course I'm interested.

Jailed Joshilyn Jackson

You have to read this blog post from author Joshilyn Jackson about her recent stint in jail for the most ridiculous reason ever:

http://www.joshilynjackson.com/mt/archives/000561.html

Here new book is Between, Georgia.
LJ's review: After a great debut with Gods in Alabama , Jackson's follow-up poses the same dilemma for readers: you can't wait to finish it but don't want it to end. Between, GA, is a real place--it lies between Athens and Atlanta--but Jackson's little town is fictional. Thirty-year-old Nonny exemplifies “between”: she works as an interpreter for the deaf in Athens, yet the folks she loves are in Between; her erstwhile husband is in Athens, but a little girl in Between owns her heart. Plus, two local feuding clans make Nonny a Frett by name but a Crabtree by birth. Jackson gives us Southern chick lit with a twist while she explores, mostly through spunky female characters, the themes of family obligations, nature vs. nurture, the mysteries of love, and the gods at work. While the subplot with Nonny's husband stretches credulity at times, the characters, especially Nonny's deaf-blind mother and her two polar opposite aunts, are spot on. Jackson's got a winner, and public libraries will definitely need multiple copies.

Chick Lit vs. Not Chick Lit

vs.

Model Student

I will never look at the cover of a fashion magazine in the same way after reading Robin Hazelwood's semi-autobiographical debut novel Model Student: A Tale of Co-eds and Cover Girls. It's the mid-eighties and Wisconson native, Emily Woods, is pursuing her modeling career while trying not to flunk out of Columbia University--because jetting around the world for photo shoots doesn't leave much time for studying. There's a happy ending, but the book definitely shows the seedy side of the modeling business. I was completely sucked into the story, though. Even more entertaining is the slide show of bad eighties fashion on Hazelwood's website:

http://www.robinhazelwoodbooks.com/index.html

Hear her interview with Diane Rehm:

http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/08/15.php#10661

Battlestar Galactica

I recently checked out the first Battlestar Galactica DVD (season 1, disc 1 of the new version) and am now addicted to this TV show. If you have fans of Battlestar Galactica looking for books to read, this one might appeal to them:

Crossover: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel by Joel Shepherd
From PW: Set in the far future, Australian author Shepherd's energetic debut introduces Cassandra Kresnov, an experimental killer android-with-a-heart who has defected from her League Dark Star special ops assignment. Graced with a yen for human art almost as insatiable as her libido, Kresnov first tries to melt anonymously into Tanusha, the sybaritic capital of Callay, a planet of the League's galactic archenemy, the Federation. But Cassandra can't leave her martial past behind when she's caught up in a heroic struggle to protect the Callayan president from assassination by Federal forces. Shepherd's intriguing heroine and strong female characters bode well for this projected series. Lacing Cassandra's search for identity and acceptance with plenty of hand-to-hand combat and racy sexual exploits, Shepherd also convincingly presents vividly realized ethical dilemmas: what happens to soldiers when the war is over? can a culture that opposes the artificial manufacture of life accept its creations? Shephard grapples with some genuinely thought-provoking questions on the nature of humanity.

Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom has a new fiction book coming out in September, which Starbucks is also going to sell:

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?

The End of Mr. Y

The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas (author of Popco)
I am intrigued by this book due to the following words used by PW's reviewer: renegade academic, troposphere, askew, shenanigans, Back to the Future, and gooey love story. Plus I like the cover.

Nora Roberts writes about vampires!!!

Read the Sara Gruen Interview

Because her book Water for Elephants is really good, and she's interesting:

http://www.powells.com/interviews/gruen.html

Mysteries

I just finished Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs. I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed in this one and was also disappointed in the last one. (She seemed to try to be cashing in on the Da Vinci Code thing with Cross Bones.) I wasn't super into the case in Break No Bones, and Pete vs. Ryan--really!? I just don't think there's much comparison between the philandering lawyer and the hunky Montreal detective. Despite my lackluster feelings about the new book, I do now have a serious urge to visit the Lowcountry.

Sadly, I am now without a new forensic mystery for awhile. Terrible. Patricia Cornwell's new book isn't out until October, and I'm waiting for a new book from Erin Hart, who writes about a forensic pathologist. Come on Erin--I am in serious suspense! If you're into forensic mysteries, all things Irish, or bogmen and haven't read her books, check them out:

Haunted Ground by Erin Hart
The Irish landscape holds secrets past and present as archaeologist Cormac O'Callaghan and pathologist Nora Gavin encounter a mystery when a decapitated woman is found in the bogs who may be related to a recent mother/child disappearance.



Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart
In a follow-up to Haunted Ground, pathologist Nora Gavin investigates two bodies discovered at the site of an Irish midland industrial site--one ancient, the other recent--and teams up with archaeologist Cormac Maguire, with whom she has fallen in love, for an unexpectedly dangerous case.

Collage Fiction

Okay I haven't actually seen or read this book yet (released next month), but so far, I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF THIS! I love collage. Really it's the only kind of art I'm good at, and I love putting odd bits of things together on a page. Plus I love mysteries, so putting collage and mystery together? Genius. Anyway, I am very excited by this book and hope it does not disappoint:

Journal: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason by Joyce and Kristine Atkinson
A page-by-page series of clues and revelations documenting an artist's mysterious fate, presented in a format reminiscent of the Griffin and Sabine series and comprised of collage-style newspaper clippings, e-mails, and private writings, invites readers to search its pages for visual and verbal clues. 100,000 first printing.

(I also greatly enjoy the Griffin and Sabine books. Kind of an odd story and gorgeous to look at.)

Sun Storm

Yes, I am still on my Nordic Noir kick (and eventually I think I'll make a pretty bookmark about it). I recently finished Sun Storm by Asa Larsson, which I quite enjoyed. It's a debut novel that won Sweden's Best First Crime Novel Award.

Save Karyn

I have to grudgingly admire Karyn Bosnak. She's the one who ran up $20,000 in credit card debt (Starbucks lattes, designer clothes, Gucci purses, etc.) and then made a website asking people to send her money to pay the bill. And they did. Seriously. This week she makes her fiction debut with 20 Times a Lady. You can check out her website at:

http://www.savekaryn.com/index.html

The Orchid Shroud

Last year I enjoyed Michelle Wan's Deadly Slipper: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne about a woman's search to find her sister, who went missing in France while on the hunt for rare orchids. The sequel is out next month:

The Orchid Shroud: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne by Michelle Wan
Stumbling upon the body of a murdered infant, dead for more than a century, while restoring the home of wealthy Christophe de Bonnefon, designer Mara Dunn teams up once again with orchidologist Julian Wood to investigate the case, which may be linked to the modern-day killing of genealogist Jean-Paul Fournier, in the sequel to Deadly Slipper.

Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
I recently finished this one and highly recommend it! The story alternates between a cranky but witty 90 something year old man's days in a nursing home and his younger life spent as a vet in a traveling circus. It's a harrowing life made even more so when he falls in love with Marlena, the star of the show and wife of a violent schizophrenic. And yes there is an elephant involved. (Just to forewarn (or entice) there are a few sex scenes that some readers might not appreciate.)

The Ruins

Stephen King called this the book of the year in EW, and it's featured in the summer reading section of the July issue of O, Oprah's magazine. Both say it does for the jungle what Jaws did for the beach.

The Ruins by Scott Smith
In Cancun, Mexico, for a peaceful vacation, a group of tourists sets off in search of one of their group who disappeared during an excursion to some nearby Mayan ruins, only to come face to face with an insidious evil that threatens their very lives. By the author of A Simple Plan. 100,000 first printing.

More Da Vinci Code Readalikes

Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar by Robyn Young
After joining the Order of the Knights Templar, young Will Campbell is assigned to recover a heretical text stolen from the group's vaults, unaware that the book, a Grail romance, hides clues to a covert plot by the Anima Templi, the Soul of the Temple, a secret group within the order. A first novel. 100,000 first printing. Due out July 20.


The Expected One by Kathleen McGowen
When journalist Maureen Paschal begins to research her new book, she discovers that she is destined to play a key role in an epic international quest to gain control of a priceless series of scrolls, written in the first century by Mary Magdalene and hidden in the wilds of the French Pyrenees, that can only be uncovered by a special seeker known as the Expected One. A first novel. 350,000 first printing. Due out July 25.

The Resurrection by Tucker Malarkey
A tale inspired by the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels in 1940s Egypt finds Gemma Bastian, the daughter of a renowned late archaeologist, raising troubling questions about her father's death, which occurred during his attempt to recover and make public the lost Gnostic Gospels. 75,000 first printing. Due out August 3.

Eye Contact

Due out in a couple of weeks, this one's been optioned by Julia Roberts:

Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern
In the aftermath of a child's shocking murder, the mother of the only witness, an autistic boy, struggles to work through her son's trauma and his communication disabilities in order to help the police to solve the case.