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

Featured
Titles 2004
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.
February 2004
- Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness: A Reluctant Memoir

Author: Cohen, Richard
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060014091
LJ
This is a hopeful memoir of coping with serious chronic illness by an accomplished
journalist and once senior producer of the CBS Evening News.
Updated 1.15.04
- Skeletons
on the Sahara
Author: King, Dean
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316835145
Kirkus
PW
While there have been numerous historical adventure narratives published,
this is the first major work to take place in the greatest desert of all.
King retraced parts of Captain James Riley's three-month trek through the
desert, going for days consuming only camel urine and locusts. The book is
rich with the sort of detail one could only get from being on the scene, in
the heart of the desert.
Updated 11.17.03
- Goat: A Memoir

Author: Land, Brad
Publisher: Random $ 22.95 ISBN: 1400060931
PW
LJ
A searing memoir of masculinity, violence, and brotherhood which chronicles
a young man's painful recovery from a terrifying assault that leads him, ironically,
to undergo the brutalizing initiation rites of a southern university fraternity.
Updated 11.18.03
- Name All
the Animals: A Memoir

Author: Smith, Alison
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743255224
Kirkus
LJ
A story of grief and secret love, of a family holding on to the memory of
a lost child, Name all the Animals is an extraordinary memoir about
a girl who learns to define herself beyond the death of her brother.
Updated 3.1.04
- Love
in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir

Author: Tucker, Neely
Publisher: Crown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0609609769
PW
Booklist
LJ
In the heart of conflict-torn Zimbabwe, an American couple fights to save
the life of--and ultimately adopt--an infant girl who had been abandoned beneath
an acacia tree on the day she was born.
Updated 1.15.04
- The Cloud Atlas

Author: Callahan, Liam
Publisher: Delacorte $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385336942
Kirkus
LJ
In a richly inspired debut reminiscent of Snow Falling on Cedars and
The English Patient, this stirring novel, set against a magnificent
Alaskan backdrop, reveals one of the most closely guarded secrets of World
War II in a tale that is both a heart-quickening mystery and a unique love
story.
Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery
Debuts
Updated 3.1.04
- Bet Me

Author: Crusie, Jennifer
Publisher: St Martins $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312303467
Kirkus
The biggest gamble of all is true love in this story about long shots, risk
management, and great shoes--the best novel yet from the author of Faking
It.
Updated 12.10.03
- Anything You Say
Can and Will Be Used Against You
Author: Drummond, Laurie Lynn
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060561629
Kirkus
LJ
Women cops are the focus of this riveting debut collection of short fiction
by a former policewoman.
Suggested Reading: Fiction &
Mystery Debuts
Updated 11.18.03
- Confessions
of Max Tivoli
Author: Greer, Andrew Sean
Publisher: FSG $ 23 ISBN: 0374128715
PW
A beautiful and daring feat of the imagination, The Confessions of Max
Tivoli reveals the world through the eyes of "monster," a being
who confounds the very certainties by which people live and in doing so embodies
in extremis what it means to be human.
Updated 12.8.03
- The Song of Names

Author: Lemprecht, Norman
Publisher: Anchor $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 1400034892
Booklist
A man searches for his friend who has been missing for 40 years.
Updated 11.25.03
- Cottonwood

Author: Phillips, Scott
Publisher: Ballantine $ 23.95 ISBN: 0345461002
Kirkus
The author of The Ice Harvest and The Walkaway returns with
a novel set in 1870s and 1880s Kansas and California.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 11.24.03
- The
Hound in the Left-Hand Corner

Author: Waterfield, Giles
Publisher: Washington Square $ 13 (paper) ISBN: 0743475534
Kirkus
Think that a day in the life of a London museum director is cold, quiet, and
austere? Think again. Giles Waterfield now brings a combination of intellectual
comedy and knockabout farce to the subject, in the story of one long day in
a museum full of scandals, screw-ups . . . and more than a few scalawags.
Updated 12.29.03
- Shades of Black:
Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors
Author: Bland, Eleanor Taylor
(ed)
Publisher: Berkley $ 23.95 ISBN: 0425194027
PW
Suggested Reading: African
American Stars
Updated 1.21.04
-

Author: Daniel, David
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312323492
PW
In Goofy Foot, private investigator Alex Rasmussen, embarking on
a rather routine search for a missing teenager, finds himself in cold water
that couldn't be hotter, as the simple task balloons into murderous surfers
and a heart-stopping search for a killer.
Updated 1.5.04
- Cutting Room

Author: Klavan, Laurence
Publisher: Ballantine $ 23.95 ISBN: 0345462742
PW
This tale of the long-lost complete version of Orson Welles' The Magnificent
Ambersons launches a mystery series about cinemaniacs--people who literally
would kill to see, or own, a movie.
Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery
Debuts
Updated 12.29.03
- Playing With
Fire

Author: Robinson, Peter
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 006019877x
Booklist
Multiple-prize-winning and international bestselling author Robinson returns
with a new novel of burning suspense, as a deadly case of arson leads Inspector
Banks into his most dangerous case yet.
Updated 11.25.03
Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.
- The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

Author: Konigsburg, E.L.
Publisher: Atheneum $ 16.95 ISBN: 0689866364
Booklist
Kirkus
PW
SLJ
The long-awaited new novel by the two-time Newbery Medalist stars Margaret
Rose Kane, Connor Kane's older half-sister in Silent to the Bone, who
tells the story of the summer she was 12 years old.
Suggested Reading: All Stars - Children and Teens
Grades: 4-6 Category: Fiction
- Seadogs: An Epic Ocean Operetta
Author: Wheeler, Lisa
Publisher: Atheneum $ 16.95 ISBN: 068985689x
Kirkus
Inspired by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and by classic comic books,
this story is told in a series of witty song lyrics, performed by a canine
cast of characters shown in a series of dramatic spreads.
Grades: 2-5 Category: Fiction
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