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Featured Titles
Page Modified: May 1, 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.
September 2006
Nonfiction
- Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China
Author: Delisle, Guy
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly $ 19.95 ISBN: 1894937791 Date: 2006
Kirkus
The follow-up graphic novel to the acclaimed Pyongyang: A Journey to North Korea, Shenzhen is entertainingly compact, with Guy Delisle's observations of life in a cold urban city in southern China that is sealed off from the rest of the country by electric fences and armed guards.
Suggested Reading: Graphic Works Stars
Updated 7.11.06 - A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII
Author: Helms, Sarah
Publisher: Nan Talese $ 27.50 ISBN: 038550845x Date: 2006PWLJ
Once rumored to have been the inspiration for Ian Fleming's Miss Moneypenny, Vera Atkins climbed her way to the top in Special Operations Executive, or SOE, Britain's secret service created to help the resistance efforts in Nazi-occupied countries. Drawing on recently released government files and unprecedented access to family papers, Helm vividly reconstructs a complex and extraordinary life.
Suggested Reading: Spy vs Spy - Nonfiction
Updated 7.11.06 - The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
Author: Mendelsohn, Daniel
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 27.95 ISBN: 0060542977 Date: 2006PW Booklist
Mendelsohn grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust--an unmentionable subject during his childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939, he embarked on a hunt for the remaining eyewitnesses of his relatives' fates. This is their story.
Updated 8.7.066
Fiction
- Beautiful Dreamer
Author: Bigsby, C.W.E.
Publisher: Thomas Dunne $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312355831 Date: 2006LJBooklistPWKirkus
"Christopher Bigsby's Beautiful Dreamer is a tautly written and almost unbearably suspenseful parable of the tragedy of race relations in a backcountry Tennessee setting of some decades ago. It's a powerful Faulknerian vision made stark and compelling by its spare and pitiless language." - --Joyce Carol Oates
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 7.27.06 - World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Author: Brooks, Max
Publisher: Crown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0307346609 Date: 2006Kirkus
The Studs Terkel of the Zombie War, Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide, puts a human face on the suffering that occurred during the horrible hostilities, interviewing civilians, soldiers, politicians, and others, in this stunning book compiled shortly after the conclusion of the epic ten-year conflict.
Suggested Reading: Zombies
Updated 6.28.06 - The Meaning of Night: A Confession
Author: Cox, Michael
Publisher: Norton $ 25.95 ISBN: 0393062031 Date: 2006LJPW
The atmosphere of Bleak House, the sensuous thrill of Perfume, and the mystery of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell all combine in a story of murder, deceit, love, and revenge in Victorian England. Cox gives readers an enthralling novel that will captivate right up to its final thrilling revelation.
Updated 7.17.06 - All For Love
Author: Jacobson, Dan
Publisher: Metropolitan $ 24 ISBN: 0805081038 Date: 2006Kirkus
With sparkling, satirical prose, All for Love moves from one end of pre-World War I Europe to the other. Shuttling between historical fact and fiction, between their time and ours, it evokes a world in which propriety conceals what is predatory, greedy, and corrupt. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 6.28.06 - Magic Time
Author: Marlett, Doug
Publisher: FSG $ 24.95 ISBN: 0374200017 Date: 2006 KirkusBooklistLJ
Carter Ransom, a son of Mississippi, had the great fortune and terrible luck of falling in love in '64 with a New York-born civil rights worker who was killed. Carter's father presided over the first trial of the murders, but now the question, among many others, is whether the good judge was knowingly involved in a cover-up.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 8.10.06 - The Emperor's Children
Author: Messud, Claire
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 030726419x Date: 2006PWKirkusLJ
A magnificent novel of fate and fortune--of love and friendship, family and secrets, of striving and glamour, disaster and promise--this is a tour de force that brings to life a city, a generation, and living in the moment.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 6.20.06 - The Thirteenth Tale
Author: Setterfield, Diane
Publisher: Atria $ 26 ISBN: 0743298020 Date: 2006Kirkus
Amateur biographer Margaret Lea receives a letter from reclusive author Vida Winter, summoning her to write Vida's life story. As Margaret pieces together Vida's story on her own, what she discovers is a chilling and transforming experience.
Updated 7.11.06
Crime Fiction
- Stamping Butterflies
Author: Grimwood, Jon Courtnenay
Publisher: Spectra $ 12 ISBN: 0553383779 Date: 2006Kirkus
From acclaimed author Jon Courtenay Grimwood comes an exotic new novel that defies expectation at every turn. A mystery, a thriller, and a cutting-edge sci-fi adventure all in one, Stamping Butterflies bends time, genre, and consciousness itself to tell the spellbinding story of two worlds, three lives, one future-and the question upon which everything depends: who is dreaming whom.... - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Cross Genres
Updated 6.28.06 - Kill All the Lawyers
Author: Levine, Paul
Publisher: Bantam $ 6.99 ISBN: 0440242754 Date: 2006PW
The courtroom will never be the same when the legal world's oddest couple team up in their third mystery. "Levine writes some of the funniest--and most wickedly accurate--courthouse dramas you'll ever read."--Carl Hiassen
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 7.24.06 - Alibi Club
Author: Mathews, Francine
Publisher: Bantam $ 24 ISBN: 055380331x Date: 2006PW
Mathews weaves a web of betrayal, passion, espionage, and the foundations of atomic fusion against the backdrop of a stunning, little-known episode of early World War II. Four women, thrown together by chance, make a perilous attempt to smuggle a brilliant scientist and his lethal secrets away from Nazi control.
Suggested Reading: Espionage | Spy Girls
Updated 6.28.06 - The Interpretation of Murder
Author: Rubenfeld, Jed
Publisher: Holt $ 26 ISBN: 0805080988 Date: 2006Booklist
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 - The Harrowing
Author: Sokoloff, Alexandra
Publisher: St Martins $ 21.95ISBN: 0312357486 Date: 2006
"The Harrowing is a real page-turner, a first novel of unusual promise."---Ira Levin, author of Rosemary's Baby. The Harrowing is a find: fast, original, and genuinely creepy."---F. Paul Wilson, author of Midnight Mass - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.29.06 - Lights Out
Author: Starr, Jason
Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312359721 Date: 2006LJ
This razor-sharp crime novel combines biting social satire, explosive suspense, and revealing human drama. Both Ryan and Jake were Major League-bound til an injury sidelined Ryan. Returning home, Jake discovers Ryan's having an affair with his fiance, and none of the players in the triangle have any idea what's about to play out.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled | Noir
Updated 7.11.06 - The Zero
Author: Walter, Jess
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060898658 Date: 2006Kirkus
In the tradition of Franz Kafka, Joseph Heller, and Don DeLillo, comes this extraordinary story of searing humor and sublime horror, of blindness, bewilderment, and that achingly familiar feeling that the world has suddenly stopped making sense.
Updated 7.11.06 - The Devil's Feather
Author: Walters, Minette
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0307264629 Date: 2006 Kirkus PW
When five woman are brutally murdered in Sierra Leone, Reuters correspondent Connie Burns suspects a British mercenary who seems to be using the chaos of war to act out sadistic, misogynist fantasies. Connie's suspicions fall on deaf ears, but she's determined to expose the man and his secret--a choice that causes devastating consequences.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense
Updated 6.28 .06
Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages
Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.
- Framed
Author: Cotrell, Boyce Frank
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 16.99 ISBN: 0060734027 Date: 2006KirkusSLJ
With the same easy mix of wit, warmth, and wonder that made his debut novel, Millions, an award-winning international bestseller, Frank Cottrell Boyce tells the story of a boy who reminds an entire town of the power of art.
Ages: 8-12 Category: Fiction | Humorous
Updated 8.16.06 - Fairest
Author: Levine, Gail Carson
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 16.99 ISBN: 0060734086 Date: 2006BooklistPW
From critically acclaimed author Levine comes Fairest, a spellbinding retelling of "Snow White" set in the same magical world as Newbery Honor Book Ella Enchanted.
Ages: 8-12 Category: Fiction | Fantasy - Bread and Roses, Too
Author: Patterson, Katherine
Publisher: Clarion $ 16.00 ISBN: 0618654798 Date: 2006KirkusPW
From a beloved, award-winning author, here is a moving story based on real events surrounding an infamous 1912 strike. - Publisher Marketing
Ages: 10-14 Category: Fiction | Historical
Hotlists
Crime Fiction - embedded
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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
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Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec Crime Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec
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