Table of Contents

Most Popular . . .

• Main Page
• Hotlists & Notable Books
• Starred Review Lists
• Featured Titles

More . . .

• Booklists
• Author Connections
• Interactive Stuff
• Readers Advisory
• Genres

Hotlists @ Google Docs

Booklists

Lists of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on the lists. Titles are generally listed alphabetically by author.

 

 

Spacing Out . . .

Overbooked is Myspacingout and Crimespacing out

New! Overbooked social site

Overbooked is an affiliate of Book Sense. Support your local book store and help support Overbooked. Overbooked is nonprofit, but would prefer not to be in the red - only widely read. Just click on the Booksense link to order books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .

Booklists and Suggested Reading

If You Like . . . Zuzwang Booklist

 

Page Modified: February 11, 2008

Zugzwang
Author: Bennett, Ronan
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781596912533 Date: 2007
Kirkus Booklist
Taking its title from a chess term used to describe a position in which a player is reduced to utter helplessness, this compelling, literary thriller is set in St. Petersburg in 1914 amidst an international chess tournament and a series of mysterious murders.

---

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

• Pelagia and the White Bulldog
  Author: Akunin, Boris
  Publisher: Random $ 9.95 ISBN: 9780812975130 Date: 2007
  PW
  In a remote Russian province in the late nineteenth century, Bishop Mitrofanii must deal with a family crisis. After learning that one of his great aunt's beloved and rare white bulldogs has been poisoned, the Orthodox bishop knows there is only one detective clever enough to investigate the murder: Sister Pelagia. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 11.27.06
• The Turkish Gambit
  Author: Akunin, Boris
  Publisher: Random $ 22.95 ISBN: 400060508 Date: 2005
  Fans of mystery and historical thrillers, now hooked on Boris Akunin's Fandorin series--including Murder on the Leviathan and The Winter Queen--will love this third installment--which plunges readers into a dangerous spy game inside the Russian army.
  Updated 10.26.07
  
• Ghost Road
  Author: Barker, Pat
  Publisher: Penguin $ 21.95 ISBN: 0525941916 Date: 1995
  PW
  The Ghost Road is the shattering conclusion of Pat barker's brilliant World War I trilogy. Set in the final months of the war, The Ghost Road focuses on Dr. William Rovers, the compassionate psychiatrist of Regeneration and Lt. Billy Prior, last seen as a domestic intelligence agent in The Eye in the Door. "A triumph of imagination".--Publisher's Weekly.
  Updated 10.31.07
• The Alienist
  Author: Carr, Caleb
  Publisher: Random $ 29.95 ISBN: Date: 1994
  This fast-paced, convincing thriller by the author of The Devil Soldier is set in New York City in 1896, where two men and a brave, determined woman embark on a quest that takes them into the tortured mind of a barbaric serial killer.
  Updated 10.31.07
  
• The Immortal Game
  Author: Coggins, Mark
  Publisher: Bleak House $ 16.95 ISBN: 1932557156 Date: 2006
  When the world's most innovative computer chess software is stolen, wisecracking, jazz bass-playing PI August Riordan is hired to find it. Sifting through a San Francisco peopled with bruising, ex-NFL henchmen, transvestite techno geeks, and alluring, drug-addicted dominatrices, Riordan has got his work cut out for him...surely a computer game can't be that hard to find? But with a smart-ass attitude like Riordan's, nothing is easy...
  Updated 10.31.07
  
• White Blood
  Author: Fleming, James
  Publisher: Atria $ 25 ISBN: 9780743299381 Date: 2007
  PW
  An epic novel of Russia on the eve of revolution. Beautifully written, richly imagined, by turns savage and tender, this exhilarating novel confirms James Fleming as one of the very best novelists at work today. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 10.16.06
• The Man From St Petersburg
  Author: Follett, Ken
  Publisher: Morrow $ 19.95 ISBN: 0688011500 Date: 1982
  1914: the world hangs on the brink of catastrophe--the eve of the war to end all wars. Feliks, a man consumed with a mission, comes to London to commit a murder that could change history. Against him are the whole of the English police, a powerful and brilliant lord--and the young Winston Churchill.
  Updated 10.26.07
  
• The Chess Machine
  Author: Lorh, Robert
  Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781594201264 Date: 2007
  Kirkus
  Based on a true story, this breathtaking historical adventure describes a legendary invention that astounded all who crossed its path. In 1770 Vienna, an unbeatable chess-playing automaton is unveiled. Hailed as a great invention, it is really nothing more than a brilliant illusion.
  Updated 5.21.07
• The Luneberg Variation
  Author: Maurensig, Paolo
  Publisher: FSG $ ISBN: Date: 1997
  The the body of an impeccable businessman from Vienna is discovered in an elaborate garden where topiary shrubs delineate a hidden chessboard behind the hedges. Apparently the death is a suicide without plausible motivation, but as the plot of this passionately colored, coolly controlled thriller unfolds, readers see that its apparently random moves are "variations" on an opening gambit, which can only end in a checkmate that annihilates the possibility of a rematch.
  Updated 10.31.07
  
• People's Act of Love
  Author: Meek, James
  Publisher: Cannongate $ 24 ISBN: 1841957305 Date: 2006
  PWBooklistKirkus
  In the outer reaches of a country recently torn apart by civil war lives a small Christian sect and its enigmatic leader, Balashov. Anna Petrovna, a beautiful, restless photographer, is raising her young son by herself amid this brutal landscape. Stationed nearby is a company of Czech soldiers, desperate to get home but on the losing side of the recent conflict. Each soldier lives in a fragile co-existence and a troubling uncertainty prevails. Into this isolated community trudges Samarin, an escapee from Russia's northernmost prison camp. Immediately apprehended, he is brought before Captain Matula, the Czech company's megalomaniac commander. But the stranger's appearance has caught the attention of others, including that of Anna Petrovna. And when a local shaman is found murdered, suspicion and terror engulf this village. To be published in twenty countries, The People's Act of Love is quite simply magnificent storytelling and it promises to be an auspicious literary event. - Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 12.27.05
• The Eight
  Author: Neville, Katherine
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 18.95 ISBN: 0345351371 Date: 1998
  When two young women in France of 1790 discover the Montglane Chess Service in Montglane Abbey, they recognize its mystic ability to provide anyone playing it with unlimited power and desperately scatter its pieces around the world. But in 1972, computer expert Catherine "Cat" Velis is hired to recover the chess pieces--and is caught up in a nefarious, globe-spanning conspiracy.
  Updated 10.31.07
  
• The Flanders Panel
  Author: Perez-Reverte, Arturo
  Date: 1994
  While restoring a 15th-centuty painting which depicts a chess game between the Duke of Flanders and his knight, Julia, a young art expert, discovers a hidden inscription in the corner: Quis Necavit Equitem. Translation: Who killed the knight? Breaking the silence of five centuries, Julia's hunt for a Renaissance murderer leads her into a modern-day game of sin, betrayal, and death.
  Updated 10.31.07
  
• The Interpretation of Murder
  Author: Rubenfeld, Jed
  Publisher: Holt $ 26 ISBN: 0805080988 Date: 2006
  Booklist
  In this ingenious, suspenseful historical thriller, Sigmund Freud is drawn into the mind of a sadistic killer who is savagely attacking Manhattan's wealthiest heiresses.
  Updated 6.28.06
• Death in Vienna
  Author: Tallis, Frank
  Publisher: Grove $ 22 ISBN: 0802118151 Date: 2006
  Kirkus
  In 1902, elegant Vienna is the city of the new century, the center of discoveries in everything from the writing of music to the workings of the human mind. But now a brutal homicide has stunned its citizens and appears to have bridged the gap between science and the supernatural. Two very different sleuths from opposite ends of the spectrum will need to combine their talents to solve the boggling crime: Detective Oskar Rheinhardt, who is on the cutting edge of modern police work, and his friend Dr. Max Liebermann, a follower of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer on new frontiers of psychology. As a team they must use both hard evidence and intuitive analysis to solve a medium' s mysterious murder- one that couldn' t have been committed by anyone alive. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 12.7.05
• Queen's Gambit
  Author: Tevis, Walter S.
  Publisher: Random $ 13.95 ISBN: 5550213990  Date:1983
  In this cult classic, Tevis does for chess what he did for pool in his bestselling novel The Hustler--he turns it into the most exciting game in the world. Engaging and fast-paced, The Queen's Gambit speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four.
  Updated 10.31.07
  
• Dr Neruda's Cure for Evil
  Author: Yglesias, Rafael
  Publisher: Grand Central $ 24.95 ISBN: 0446520055 Date:1996
  Kirkus LJ PW
  Going beyond the classic Lord of the Flies and the riveting bestseller The Alienist, the acclaimed author of Fearless and The Murderer Next Door has conceived his most ambitious work yet. When one of his patients kills his wife and himself, after apparently successful treatment, a prominent physician embarks on an obsessive quest that will bring him face to face with evil itself.
  Updated 10.26.07
  

 

Overbooked is a volunteer project undertaken by Ann Chambers Theis: Collection Management Administrator, Chesterfield County (VA) Public Library. 9501 Lori Rd. or P.O. Box 297, Chesterfield, VA, 23832. Phone: 804.748.1760.

Overbooked is not an official Chesterfield County Public Library service. Overbooked.org is a nonprofit web site hosted by CVCO - Central Virginia's Community Online. Overbooked.com is a nonprofit web site in experimental mode. Overbooked does not endorse any commercial providers (or their products and services) linked to from this web site.

Please join the conversation(s) at Overbookers - a rather quiet social space for the chronically overbooked.

Join the Overbooked List - A quiet list for readers to share recent reads, keep up to date with details about new books, discuss favorite authors/titles, etc.

Comments, suggestions, corrections: Ann Chambers Theis (AKA Ann/ACT): ann_overbooked@earthlink.net or ann@overbooked.com

I really appreciate all the e-mail I receive from avid readers and writers and regret that I am not able to respond to all correspondents. Special thanks to those folks who regularly help keep me on track...

---

---