Then We Came to the End

People magazine says this fiction book about office shenanigans in a Chicago ad agency should be called The Office: Hardcover Edition. I am prepared to be amused.

The Year of Fog

According to LJ, a possible Jodi Picoult readalike...

Photographer Abby Mason's life is changed forever by the disappearance of the young girl with whom she had been walking on a cold and foggy beach, and her desperate search for the truth behind the child's vanishing.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

New book out in May from The Kite Runner author! (Yes, there's now an order record to place holds.)

The Spellman Files

This fiction debut has a 150,000 first printing with film rights already sold to Spider Man's producer and reviews and annotations referencing Nancy Drew, Bridget Jones, Stephanie Plum, Veronica Mars, and Buffy. I'm excited about this one.

You Slay Me

Feeling the urge to read about sexy dragons or laugh at a hilarious talking demon dog? Oh, do I have the book for you! I recently had to read You Slay Me by Katie MacAlister for a workshop, and I loved it! I'm now on book 3 in the series. I think fans of Charlaine Harris' southern vampire mysteries would also like this series. (And book 2 has a Buffy reference.)

While conjuring up a demon in the form of a shaggy Newfoundland, Aisling Grey, the Keeper of the Gates to Hell, in an attempt to prove her innocence, searches for the elusive and sexy Drake Vireo, a wyvern and head dragon, who is responsible for a series of murders in Paris's immortal underworld.

Jane Austen--Teenage Sensation!

Unfortunately, end of the year and beginning of the year ordering left me with no time to blog. However, things have calmed down a little, so hopefully I'll be able to blog again on a regular basis.

For my first post in a long time I just had to share an article that I read this morning from the UK's Telegraph about several new film, TV, and book editions of Jane Austen's works:

Jane Austen to be the latest teenage sensation
Step aside Britney Spears. Movie moguls, television producers and publishers believe this year's teen hit will be the 19th-century "lit girl" Jane Austen....













Read the article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/04/nausten04.xml

Best line: "A spokesman for Waterstone's, Britain's biggest bookseller, predicted it would sell more copies of Austen's works than at any time since Colin Firth emerged from a lake during the BBC's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in 1995..."

Ah Colin Firth. Not sure how I feel about Anne Hathway as Jane Austen, though...

John Lange = Michael Crichton

According to PW, John Lange, author of the soon to be reissued Hard Case Crime edition of Grave Descend, is actually a pseudonym for Michael Crichton. Read the article here:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6374596.html?text=john+lange

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Whenever I see a commercial on TV for a show or a trailer for a movie that's based on a book I feel compelled to yell loudly, "It's based on a book!" My latest proclamation of this was in response to Darkly Dreaming Dexter, which I would watch if I had Showtime. Sigh.

The Prestige

The movie tie-in edition of The Prestige by Christopher Priest has arrived. While I haven't read the book yet, I am looking forward to seeing the movie.

After clashing in the dark during a fraudulent seance in 1878, two young stage magicians find their lives deteriorating into webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another. (A Newmarket Films movie, directed by Christopher Nolan, releasing October 2006, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, David Bowie, & Michael Caine) !!!

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