Table of Contents
Most Popular . . .
More . . .
Hotlists 2008
Crime Fiction - embedded
Ranganathan's Five Laws:
Books are for use.
Books are for all; or Every reader his book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
A library is a growing organism.
Spacing Out . . .
Overbooked is Myspacingout and Crimespacing out
Hang out with overbookers
on the overbooked ning
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.
Featured Titles 2003
Page Modified: April 2, 2008
New titles - selected on the basis of good reviews. Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on these lists. Books for kids and teens (fiction and nonfiction) are also listed.
October 2003
Nonfiction
- Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter
Author: Cahill, Thomas
Publisher: Doubleday/Talese $ 27.50 ISBN: 0385495536
KirkusPW
In the fourth volume of the acclaimed Hinges of History series, the author of How the Irish Saved Civilization brings his characteristic wit and style to a fascinating tour of ancient Greece.
Suggested Reading: Ancient Greece - Fiction
Updated 8.25.03 - An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland
Author: Dirda, Michael
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393057569KirkusLJ
A funny, wistful memoir by a Pulitzer Prize--winning critic that recalls the charm of growing up and the tenderness of one writer's beginnings.
Updated 8.14.03 - So Many Books, So Little
Time: A Year of Passionate Reading
Author: Nelson, Sara
Publisher: Putnam $ 22.95 ISBN: 0399150838LJ
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 9.2903 - Paradise of Cities: Venice in the 19th Century
Author: Norwich, John Julius
Publisher: Doubleday $ 32.50 ISBN: 0385509049KirkusBooklist
The greatest living chronicler of Venetian history brings to life the city's magical charm in a beautifully illustrated and captivating book. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Venice
Updated 7.28.03
Fiction
- My Life As a Fake
Author: Carey, Peter
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375414983KirkusPWLJ
Using as a springboard a real literary hoax that transfixed Australia in his boyhood, Peter Carey wickedly and ruefully explores how a phantom poet taunts, haunts and otherwise destroys his maker, pursuing him from Melbourne to a seedy, sweaty, bitter ending in the tropical chaos of Kuala Lumpur.
Updated 10.30.03 - Calligrapher
Author: Docx, Edward
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618343970KirkusLJ
This fresh, original, altogether winning first novel is centered on a young London calligrapher named Jasper--an engaging, intelligent serial seducer and a breaker of hearts.
Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts
Updated 9.08.03 - Great Fire
Author: Hazzard, Shirley
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374166447KirkusPWBooklist
This is Hazzard's first novel since The Transit of Venus, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The conflagration of her title is the Second World War. In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | World Wars
Updated 9.22.03 - The Way the Crow Flies
Author: MacDonald, Anne-Marie
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0060578955PWBooklist
From the acclaimed author of Fall on Your Knees--a New York Times bestseller and Oprah pick--comes a mesmerizing new novel, breathtaking in its storytelling power.
Reading Group Guide
Updated 9.22.03 - Mirror Mirror
Author: Maguire, Gregory
Publisher: Regan $ 24.95 ISBN: 006039384xKirkusPW
From the bestselling author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (debuting on Broadway this fall), Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Lost comes a master retelling of the Snow White story set in Renaissance Italy.
Updated 9.22.03 - Winner
of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad
Weather
Author: Willett, Jincy
Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312311818LJPW
The long-awaited novel from the author of the acclaimed collection Jenny and the Jaws of Life. In her darkly comic and unsettling first novel, Willett explores the darker side of human nature with the lightest of touches. She is a writer of astonishing power and talent.
Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts
Updated 9.08.03
Mystery & Suspense
- Eye of the Abyss
Author: Browne, Marshall
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312311567KirkusPWBooklist
The author of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize-nominated mystery, The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders, now delivers an atmospheric and powerful thriller set during the rise of the Nazi party.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | World War Fiction Stars
Updated 9.22.03 - Now May You Weep
Author: Crombie, Deborah
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060525231PW
The acclaimed mystery author of Dreaming of the Bones returns with this evocative thriller of marriage, betrayal, and murder set in the wilds of Scotland.
Updated 9.22.03 - Burning Garbo
Author: Eversz, Robert
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $23 ISBN: 0743250133
With the noir-inflected wit of a modern-day Chandler, Eversz returns with a harrowing thriller featuring his scathingly funny, whip-smart heroine Nina Zero. Fans of classic noir will love this stylish thriller and its vibrant, believable anti-heroine.
Updated 9.25.03 - Havana: An Earl Swagger Novel
Author: Hunter, Stephen
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0743238087KirkusPWBooklist
It is 1953 and Cuba is at its lush, tropical, and glamorous best. Only one small problem threatens this situation--the rise of a daring revolutionary named Fidel Castro. Now, legendary sniper Earl Swagger has been called in by the CIA to take him out.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 8.13.03 - Dead I Well May Be
Author: McKinty, Adrian
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 07743246993KirkusBooklist
This New York Irish bad-boy thriller--brimming with violence, greed, and sexual betrayal--brings a gripping new voice to the literary turf of Michael Connelly, Chuck Palahniuk, and Dennis Lehane.
Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts
Updated 9.22.03 - Blind Eye: Benjamin Justice
Author: Wilson, John Morgan
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312309198KirkusBooklist
When a Los Angeles Times columnist is killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident, Benjamin Justice soon finds himself in the midst of a complex case involving a decades-old child murder, a powerful Cardinal, and elements from his own dark past.
Updated 9.29.03
Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages
Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.- Inkheart
Author: Funke, Cornelia
Publisher: Chicken House $ 19.95 ISBN: 0439531640PWKirkus
Meggie lives a quiet life with her father, a bookbinder. But her father has a deep secret--he possesses an extraordinary magical power. When a mysterious stranger arrives, Meggie is plunged into intrigue as her father's life is put in danger.
Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction
Updated 9.29.03 - The She
Author: Plum-Ucci, Carol
Publisher: Harcourt $ 17 ISBN: 0151268192Booklist
It's been eight years since Evan's parents disappeared at sea. Searching for answers, Evan wonders if they were swallowed up by The She, the she-devil of legend that devours ships off the New Jersey coast.
Grades: 9-12 Category: Fiction|Mystery
Updated 9.29.03 The Amulet of Samarkand- Bartimaeus Triology #1
Author: Stroud, Jonathan
Publisher: Hyperion $ 17.95 ISBN: 078681859xBooklistPW
Set in modern-day London, this first book in a gripping new trilogy introduces young magician's apprentice Nathaniel. Humiliated by a hotshot wizard, Nathaniel summons the not-so-tame djinni, Bartimaeus, and sends him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand.
Grades: 5-9 Category: Fiction|Fantasy
Updated 9.29.03
Hotlists
Crime Fiction - embedded
Stars
Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec Crime Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec
Speculative Fiction Romance Historical Nonfiction | YA
Hotlists
Hotlists: Fiction | Crime Fiction
Genre Hotlists: Christian Fiction | African American Fiction
Stars
Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec Crime Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec
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.
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 - you know who you are....