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Hotlists 2008
Crime Fiction - embedded
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.
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A Year of Crime and Punishment:
Courtroom 302
Homicide Special
The Prosecutors
Vice Cop
The Corner
A Year of History
1968
The Year 1000
The Last Innocent Year
1759
1776
A Year in the Life of Wiliam Shakespeare
A Year of Sports
Next Man Up
A Civil War
Falling Hard
Crazy '08
Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies & Bull Riders
Senior Year
A Year of Education
Wonderland
Educating Esme
Ms. Moffett's First Year
Class Dismissed
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
What a difference a year makes . . .
Page Modified: April 5, 2008
Nonfiction chronicling a year.
Related List: Time Changes- fiction that plays with time
Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.
- Wonderland: A Year in the Life of an American High School
Author: Bamberger, Michael
Publisher: Atlantic $ 23 ISBN: 0871139170 Date: 2004
Booklist
Bamberger, a senior writer for "Sports Illustrated," introduces an extraordinary group of everyday kids whose stories are touching, odd and funny in this snapshot of America's youth reaching for ritual and meaning in these rapidly changing times.
Updated 8.20.07 - Courtroom 302: A Year in Felony Court
Author: Bogira, Steve
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0679432523 Date: 2005KirkusPW
Fast-paced and bursting with character and incident, this is a singularly illuminating exploration of America's criminal justice system from the inside out.
Suggested Reading: Legal Nonfiction
Updated 2.14.05 - The Stargazing Year: A Backyard Astronomer's Journey Through the Seasons of the Night Sky
Author: Calia, Charles Laird
Publisher: Tarcher $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781585423910 Date: 2005
Kirkus
Illustrated with 20 drawings, this is an amateur astronomer's beautifully written account of a year spent observing the cosmos and building an observatory in his New England backyard.
Updated 8.27.07 - Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year
by Carroll, David
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0-395-64725-8 $ 27
Booklist
Kirkus
LJ
"A genius, a madman, a national treasure" (Annie Dillard) takes readers on a miraculous year-long journey through the wetlands, revealing why they are so important to his life, to ours, to all life on Earth.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nature - Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year
Author: Codell, Esme Raji
Publisher: Algonguin $ 17.95 ISBN: 1565122259 Date: 1999
Kirkus
A real-life Up the Down Staircase, this uncensored diary of an unconventional teacher is a must read for those in this profession. In this diary, a record of Esme's frustrations, achievements, and struggles to maintain her individuality in the face of bureaucracy, she reveals what it takes to be a "genuine" teacher.
Updated 8.27.07 - Homicide Special: A Year in the Life of the LAPD's Elite Detective Unit
Author: Corwin, Miles
Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805067981 Date: 2004
Kirkus
Acclaimed writer Corwin uses his unprecedented access to the legendary Homicide Special, the LAPD's elite detective unit, to narrate six of its cases--and capture its newest generation at work.
Updated 8.27.07 - The Prosecutors: A Year in the Life of a District Attorney's Office
Author: Delsohn, Gary
Publisher: Dutton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0525947124 Date: 2003
LJ
Depicting American justice at its best and worst, Delsohn lifts the lid off today's legal system with details that are more shocking and graphic than any television show or bestselling novel.
Updated 8.20.07 - The Year of Magical Thinking
Author: Didion, Joan
Publisher: Knopf $ 23.95 ISBN: 140004314x Date: 2005PWBooklistLJ
"The author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem and 11 other works chronicles the year following the death of her husband, fellow writer John Gregory Dunne, while the couple's only daughter, Quintana, lay unconscious in a nearby hospital suffering from pneumonia and septic shock."--"Publishers Weekly."
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 9.17.05 - Caught Inside: A Surfer's Year on the California Coast
Author: Duane, Daniel
Publisher: North Point $ 21 ISBN: 086547494x Date: 1996
Kirkus
An inspired blend of natural and cultural history and outdoor life, Caught Inside is Duane's account of a year spent surfing in Santa Cruz, California. By turns celebratory, comic, and deeply insightful, the book intersperses entertaining narrative with good-humored explanations of the physics of wave dynamics, the intricate art of surfboard design, and lyrical, sharp-eyed descriptions of the flora and fauna that inhabit the Pacific wilderness.
Updated 8.27.07 - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in Boom-Time America
by Ehrenreich, Barbara
Publisher: Metropolitan $ 23 ISBN: 0805063889 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages. Social critic Barbara Ehrenreich joined them, moving into a trailer and working as a waitress, hotel maid, and Wal-Mart sales clerk. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and duality.
Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars | Adult Books for Teens - The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year
Author: Erdrich, Louise
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 21 ISBN: 006017324 Date: 1995
Kirkus
The acclaimed author of such bestselling works as Love Medicine and Tracks takes the mundane routines of everyday life and renders them marvelous in an intimate, honest, and generous collection of meditations on the delicate balance of mothering a baby and maintaining an artistic life.
Updated 8.27.07 - Indian Time: A Year of Discovery With the Native Americans of the Southwest
Author: Fein, Judith
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0671795767 Date: 1993
Booklist
Filled with fascinating characters, lore, and a sense of wonder at the richness of Indian life as a whole, these memoirs trace TV producer Fein's journey into an alien culture, from which she emerged more in tune with herself and nature.
Updated 8.20.07 - A Civil War: Army vs Navy: A Year Inside College Football's Purest Rivalry
Author: Feinstein, John
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316277363 Date: 2007
Booklist Kirkus
A Civil War is bestselling sportswriter John Feinstein's account of one extraordinary year in Army and Navy football, the breathtaking 1995 campaign. Feinstein followed both teams through the year, attending their practices and classes, relaxing with them in their limited free time, standing with them on the sideline at their games. For Navy, it was a must-win year. The Cadets had beaten the Midshipmen three years straight, each time in heartbreaking fashion, and for the entire senior class the Army game would be a last chance for redemption. Army had its own troubles: a beloved coach was in danger of losing his job and the team leaders were determined to finish their careers with a winning season and a bowl game invitation. A Civil War traces the ups and downs of both teams through the season, showing how these remarkable young men dealt with the rigors of football along with the constant pressure of academy life, while re-creating the intense weeks leading up to the showdown. The account here of the 1995 Army-Navy game is an unforgettable piece of sportswriting, an up-close retelling of a heart-stopping game from both sides of the field. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.20.07 - Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL
Author: Feinstein, John
Publisher: Little Brown $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780316009645 Date: 2007
Booklist
An up-close look at an NFL powerhouse is penned by the author of the #1 bestselling A Civil War, the only writer in America whom players and coaches would trust with their secrets.
Updated 8.20.07 - Dealing With the Dragon: A Year in the New Hong Kong
Author: Fenby, Jonathan
Publisher: Arcade $ 26.95 ISBN: 1599705590 Date: 2001
LJ
One of the most politically sensitive and highly charged events of the waning years of the 20th century was Britain's turnover of Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997. A fact-filled but always entertaining account of a year in the life of the new Hong Kong is now offered by the journalist who knows the metropolis best.
Updated 8.20.07 - My Life Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir
Author: Gartenstein-Ross, Daveed
Publisher: Tarcher $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781585425518 Date: 2007
Booklist
Raised by parents who were Jewish by birth but dismissive of strict dogma, the author reveals his experience of converting to Islam and recounts a story of how a good faith can be distorted and a decent soul can be seduced away from its principles.
Updated 8.20.07
- Living a Year of Kaddish
Author: Goldman, Ari L.
Publisher: Schoken $ 22 ISBN: 0805241841 Date: 2003
PW LJ
The day after Ari Goldman celebrated his 50th birthday his father died of a heart attack, and Goldman began the ritual year of mourning required by Jewish law. This is a deeply affecting journey through grief, loss, and acceptance--a book that will resonate within the hearts and minds of people of all faiths and cultures.
Updated 8.27.07
- Ms. Moffet's First Year: Becoming a Teacher in America
Author: Goodnough, Abby
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 25 ISBN: 9781586482596 Date: 2004
PW
Through the compelling, sometimes heartbreaking story of one new teacher's experience in a Brooklyn elementary school classroom, a "New York Times education reporter illuminates the complex dilemmas currently confounding American public education.
Updated 8.27.07
- A Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literarally As Possible
Author: Jacobs, A. J.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 9780743291477 Date: 2007
The author of The Know-It-All follows up his "New York Times" bestselling account of reading the entire "Encyclopedia Britannica" with another improbable adventure--a year spent living, as literally as possible, by the rules of the Bible.
Updated 8.27.07
- Falling Hard: A Rookie's Year in Boxing
Author: Jones, Chris
Publisher: Arcade $ 23.95 ISBN: 155970621x Date: 2002
Booklist
Rookie reporter Chris Jones had no idea what he was getting himself into when he decided boxing would be his sports beat. In his first year ringside, the sport crept inside him, setting his heart pumping one minute and breaking it the next, making him stare at the violence -- in himself and others-and daring him not to flinch. Jones gets dressed down by Don King, interviews the troubled guy who found Holyfield's ear, crashes Ali's birthday party, and watches Prince Naseem explode while Tyson implodes. Equal parts victory and defeat, Falling Hard is an intoxicating mix of boxing distilled to its essence.
-- Both moving and frightening, Falling Hard depicts the charlatans and petty heroes, the sad-sacks and con men of boxing's carnival. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.20.07
- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life
Author: Kingsolver, Barbara
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 9780060852559 Date: 2007
PW
In her first full-length nonfiction narrative, bestselling author Kingsolver opens readers' eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: you are what you eat. The bestselling author returns with a wise and compelling celebration of family, food, nature, and community.
Updated 8.27.07
- 1968: The Year That Rocked the World
Author: Kurlansky, Mark
Publisher: Ballantine $ 26.95 ISBN: 0345455819 Date: 2007
Kirkus
The "New York Times" bestselling author of Cod, Salt and The Basque History of the World looks at this pivotal moment in history.
Updated 8.27.07
- The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium: An Englishman's World
Author: Lacey, Robert
Publisher: Little Brown $ 23 ISBN: 0316558400 Date: 2007
PW
How did people make sense of the end of one era and the start of another? The Year 1000 plunges readers into the past in colorful detail and provides them with a historically accurate portrait of life on the cusp of the first millennium.
Updated 8.27.07
- Not Buying It
Author: Levine, Judith
Publisher: Free $ 25 ISBN: 0743269357 Date: 2006Kirkus
This cold-turkey confession by an award-winning journalist follows her progress--and inevitable relapses--over an entire year of not spending.
Suggested Reading: Shopping
Updated 12.7.05 - Class Dismissed: A Year in the Life of an American High School, a Glimpse into the Heart of a Nation
Author: Maran, Meredith
Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312265689 Date: 2007
PW
The kids of Berkeley High School's Class of 2000 in California come from a variety of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. This work offers an inside view into the nation's most diverse public high school through the eyes of three seniors: a biracial super achiever, a rich white boy, and a black football star
Updated 8.27.07
- The Last Innocent Year: American in 1964: The Beginning of the "Sixties"
Author: Margolis, Jon
Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0688153232 Date: 1999
LJ
A veteran "Chicago Tribune" reporter captures all the drama and pathos of the period in an unforgettable narrative that picks up the day after the Kennedy assassination and leads up to LBJ's defeat of Goldwater.
Updated 8.20.07 - A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler
Author: Mayes, Frances
Publisher: Broadway $ 26 ISBN: 0767910052 Date: 2006Kirkus
The author of the bestselling Under the Tuscan Sun expands her horizons to immerse herself--and her readers--in the sights, aromas, and treasures of 12 new special places, in this illuminating and passionate book that is also a celebration of the allure of travel.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 12.27.05 - A Year in Provence
Author: Mayle, Peter
Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0394572300 Date: 1990
PW
A funny--and often hilarious--month-by-month account of the charms and frustrations of moving into an old French farmhouse in Provence and adapting to a very different way of life.
Updated 8.27.07
- Vice Cop: My Twenty Year Battle With New York's Dark Side
Author: McCarthy, William
Publisher: Morrow $ 19.95 ISBN: 0688084516 Date:1991
Kirkus
NYPD insiders already know about Bill McCarthy. He was a crazy vice cop, the wild renegade who took crime personally. For five years, he pretended to be the worst kind of dirty cop in a relentless effort to clean up the vice beat. By the time his mission was completed, his target was One Police Plaza itself.
Updated 8.27.07
- 1776
Author: McCullough, David
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 32 ISBN: 0743226712 Date: 2005BooklistPWKirkusLJ
Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Truman and John Adams, McCullough returns with the story of the Revolutionary War--a book certain to be another landmark in the literature of American history.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | 1776 Stars
Updated 4.5.05 - 1759: The Year Britian Became Master of the World
Author: McLynn, Frank
Publisher: Atlantic $ 26 ISBN: 0871138816 Date: 2005
PW
If not for the events of 1759, the entire history of the world would have been different. In this brilliant chronicle of the "Year of Victories," McLynn controversially suggests that the birth of the great British Empire was more a result of luck than of rigorous planning.
Updated 8.27.07
- Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History
Author: Murphy, Cait
Publisher: Collins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780060889371 Date: 2007
PW
Simply put, 1908 is the year that baseball grew up. Oh, and it was the last time the Cubs won the World Series. Destined to be as memorable as the season it documents, Crazy '08 sets a new standard for what a book about baseball can be. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.27.07
- So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading
Author: Nelson, Sara
Publisher: Putnam $ 22.95 ISBN: 0399150838 Date: 2007
LJ
Nelson--editor, reporter, reviewer, mother, daughter, wife, and compulsive reader--set out to chronicle a year's worth of reading. Throughout, So Many Books, So Little Time is pure delight--a work at once funny, wise, and rueful: enough to make a passionate reader out of anybody.
Updated 8.20.07 - The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm
Author: Nicholson, Juliet
Publisher: Grove $ 25 ISBN: 9780802118462 Date: 2007
Booklist Kirkus PW
Topping the best-seller charts in Britain, The Perfect Summer chronicles a glorious English summer a century ago when the world was on the cusp of irrevocable change. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 3.5.07 - Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders: A Year Inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour
Author: Peter, Josh
Publisher: Rodale $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781594861192 Date: 2007
Booklist
An award-winning sports journalist takes readers along on the 2004 Professional Bull Riders (PBR) tour to witness the sport's exploding popularity--and discover why athletes in spurs, cowboy hats, and colorful chaps are hooking millions of fans across the country.
Updated 8.20.07
- Farm: A Year in the LIfe of an American Farmer
Author: Rhodes, Richard
Publisher: Touchstone $ 9.95 ISBN: 0671725076 Date: 1990
Kirkus
Rhodes, author of triple prize-winning The Making of an Atomic Bomb, has captured with warm intimacy Tom Bauer's daily life on his 1,000 acre Missouri farm, where his fierce self-reliance, devotion to family, and capacity for hard work reflect a life-style central to traditional American values.
Updated 8.27.07 - Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green: A Year in the Desert with Team America
Author: Rico, Johnny
Publisher: Presidio $ 14.95 ISBN: 9780891418979 Date: 2007
PW
In this fresh and funny Afghanistan War memoir, a highly liberal, highly educated army misfit chronicles his time in the war with a healthy dose of skepticism and razor sharp wit.
Updated 3.5.07 - Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year
Author: Sarton, May
Publisher: Norton $ 21.95 ISBN: 0393035298 Date: 1993
PW
In a sequel to her recent Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year, Sarton describes both hardships and joys in the daily round--physical struggles counterbalanced by the satisfactions of friendship, nature, growing fame, and a return to writing poetry.
Updated 8.27.07
- A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599
Author: Shapiro, James S.
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 27.95 ISBN: 0060088737 Date: 2005
Booklist LJ
One of the most admired lecturers at Columbia University looks at the year 1599 in William Shakespeare's life--one that was crucial in the Bard's artistic evolution as well as the historical upheavals he lived through--and interweaves history, biography, and literary criticism in a way that has never been done before.
Updated 8.20.07
- Senior Year: A Father, A Son, and High School Baseball
Author: Shaughnessy, Dan
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $24 ISBN: 9780618729050 Date: 2007
LJ
With gleaming insight, wicked humor, and, at times, the searching soul of an unsure father, Shaughnessy illuminates how sports connect generations and how they can help parents grow up--and let go.
Updated 8.20.07 - The Corner: A Year in the Life on an Inner-City Neighborhood
Author: Simon, David & Edward Burns
Publisher: Broadway $ 27.50 ISBN: 0767900308 Date: 2007
Kirkus
Through the prism of one broken family--two drug-addicted adults and their son, a smart, vulnerable 15-year-old whose life hangs in the balance--David Simon and Edward Burns tell a devastating story of shattered dreams and still-flickering hopes. "A journalistic masterpiece. . . . This is interior reporting at its finest".--"Associated Press".
Updated 8.27.07
- A Year at the
Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money & Luck
Author: Smiley, Jane
Publisher: Knopf $ 22 ISBN: 1400040582 Date: 2004Booklist
A Pulitzer-winning author presents a charming, funny, and a bit outrageous exploration of the abiding bond between humans and horses, told with panache, intelligence, and humor.
Suggested Reading: Horse Tales
Updated 3.22.04 - Prince of the Marshes: A Year of Governing in Iraq
Author: Stewart, Rory
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151012350 Date: 2006 Kirkus
In August 2003, Rory Stewart, a Farsi-speaking British diplomat, was appointed deputy governor of Amarah and then Nasiriyah, provinces in the remote, impoverished marsh regions of southern Iraq. This is the story of his eleven months of negotiating hostage releases, holding elections, and splicing together some semblance of an infrastructure.
Updated 6.9.06 - Not by a Longshot: A Season at a Hard Luck Horse Track
Author: Thornton, T.D.
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 26 ISBN: 9781586484491 Date: 2007
Kirkus PW
Updated 3.2.07 - The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team
Author: Weinreb, Michael
Publisher: Gotham $ 26 ISBN: 9781592402618 Date: 2007
PW
At Brooklyn's prestigious Edward R. Murrow High School, the closest thing to jocks are found on the powerhouse chess team. Weinreb follows the members of the team through an entire season, capturing their eclectic differences as they prepare for the national championship.
Updated 8.27.07
Hotlists
Crime Fiction - embedded
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Hotlists
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Genre Hotlists: Christian Fiction | African American Fiction
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Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec Crime Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec
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