CVCO - Overbooked: Fiction All Stars 1999

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 . . .

Starred Reviews

All Stars 1999

March 12, 2008

Fiction titles which received three or more starred reviews from major review sources: Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

Dreamland
Author: Baker, Kevin
Publisher: Harpercollins List Price: $ 26 ISBN: 0060193093
Publishers Weekly Booklist Library Journal
A literary tour de force in the tradition of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime that delivers both a masterful, sweeping chronicle of an era of American history and an intimate portrait of a city, depicting it in all its garish, squalid, exuberant, frightening magnificence.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Big Trouble
Author: Barry, Dave
Publisher: Putnam List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399145672
Publishers Weekly Kirkus Library Journal
The humorous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist makes his fiction debut with a ferociously funny novel about love and mayhem in south Florida, and the the life-changing events that rumble through a odd-ball family after two hit men pull up to their door.
The Return of Little Big Man
Author: Berger, Thomas
Publisher: Little Brown List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0316098442
Publishers Weekly Booklist Library Journal
In the long-awaited sequel to the bestselling classic Little Big Man, the foremost chronicler of the American West, Jack Crabb, continues his fabulous adventures.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
At the Full and Change of the Moon
Author: Brand, Dionne
Publisher: Grove List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0802116493
Booklist Library Journal Publishers Weekly
From acclaimed and award-winning poet and novelist Dionne Brand comes a saga of magnificent scope, spanning six generations of Africans in the Americas and beyond. Starting with a mass suicide of slaves on Trinidad in 1824, the epic follows a family over the years into the confusion, estrangement and violence of the late 20th century.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
The Country Life
Author: Cusk, Rachel
Publisher: St Martins List Price: $ ? ISBN: 0312198485
Library Journal Publishers Weekly Kirkus
"Clamamity Jane Eyre" arrives at Cold Comfort Farm in this brilliant comedy of manners and identity by a Whitbread-winning young author. "A novel that makes you laugh out loud and that you put down with regret." - London Literary Review.
Feeding the Ghosts
Author: D'Aguiar, Fred
Publisher: Ecco List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 088001623x
Publishers Weekly Library Journal Kirkus
A suspenseful, poetic novel, based on an actual incident about a disease-ridden slave ship, a female captive, and a shocking court case.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
A Star Called Henry
Author: Doyle, Roddy
Publisher: Viking List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670887579
Booklist Publishers Weekly Kirkus
Doyle's new novel introduces Henry Smart, adventurer, IRA assassin, and lover, as he tells the story of his life and of the part he played in Irish history.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
House of Sand and Fog
Author: Dubus, Andre
Publisher: W.W. Norton List Price: $ 25.95 ISBN: 0393046974
Publishers Weekly Kirkus Booklist
House of Sand and Fog is a narrative triumph in which a traditional immigrant success story and a modern love story are turned upside down with brutal, heartrending consequences. It is an American tragedy, and a shockingly true picture of the county we live in today.
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories
Author: Englander, Nathan
Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0375404929
Publishers Weekly Library Journal Kirkus Booklist
A work of stunning authority and imagination, Englander's debut contains ten energized, irreverent stories rooted in the weight of Jewish history and the customs of Orthodox life.
Carter Clay
Author: Evans, Elizabeth
Publisher: Harpercollins List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0060192658
Publishers Weekly Kirkus Library Journal
Acclaimed for her stunning debut, The Blue Hour, Elizabeth Evans returns with an explosive tale of a drunken driver's quest for salvation . . . and the family whose lives he has irrevocably changed.
Evensong
Author: Godwin, Gail
Publisher: Ballantine List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0345372441
Kirkus Library Journal Publishers Weekly
Into the well-ordered life of a young female pastor come three strangers, whose explosive personalities will ignite a conflagration in her marriage . . . and in the depths of her very soul.
East of the Mountains
Author: Guterson, David
Publisher: Harcourt Brace List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0151002290
Publishers Weekly Booklist Library Journal
From the author of the prize-winning Snow Falling on Cedars comes a novel of America. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, a recently widowed, retired heart surgeon, accompanied by his two dogs, sets out on a journey through the West - sage deserts, yawning canyons, dusty ranches, and vast orchards - on his last hunt.
Remember Me
Author: Hendrie, Laura
Publisher: Henry Holt List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0805062181
Publishers Weekly Library Journal Booklist Kirkus
Rose, who lives in the tiny town of Queduro, New Mexico, where she makes her living by selling embroidery, must face down her ghosts - and her hometown - to find belonging, identity, and love.
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
Author: Johnston, Wayne
Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385495420
Publishers Weekly Library Journal Kirkus
Newfoundland is the setting for this story of how fate brings together a witty school boy who pursues socialist dreams and a popular newspaper columnist who writes about the history of the continent.
Mosquito
Author: Jones, Gayl
Publisher: Beacon List Price: $ 29 ISBN: 0807083461
Publishers Weekly Library Journal Kirkus
In Gayl Jones' new novel, once again "the command of language is spectacular, as is the breadth of knowledge and allusions" (Jill Nelson, The Nation), but the territory is brand new - the U.S. - Mexican border, along with a new cast of Chicano characters.
A Dangerous Friend
Author: Just, Ward
Publisher: Houghton List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0395856981
Publishers Weekly Library Journal Booklist
A major novel by the author of Echo House, set in Indochina is 1965. Sydney Parade, a trained political scientist, runs away to Saigon in an effort to become something larger than himself - and begins - but only begins - to understand something of the complexities of Western survival in the Third World.
Read-alike suggestions: Historical Fiction Stars reading list
Hearts in Atlantis
Author: King, Stephen
Publisher: Scribner List Price: $ 28 ISBN: 0684853515
Kirkus Booklist Library Journal
In his strongest collection since Different Seasons, Stephen King confirms the power of his storytelling with four brilliant, disturbing tales of an America shadowed by Vietnam: "Low Men in Yellow Coats, " "Hearts in Atlantis, " "Blind Willie, " and "Why We're in Vietnam."
A Gesture Life
Author: Lee, Chang-Rae
Publisher: Riverhead List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 1573221465
Booklist Library Journal Publishers Weekly Kirkus
From the acclaimed author of Native Speaker comes his second novel about a Japanese World War II veteran who becomes a proper man and upstanding citizen in New York.
Read-alike suggestions: Historical Fiction Stars reading list.
Breath and Shadows
Author: Leffland, Ella
Publisher: Morrow List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0688142710
Publishers Weekly Kirkus Booklist
Ella Leffland brilliantly explores the perils of ordinary life that threaten the well-being, even the sanity, of one member of each of three generations of a Danish family in Europe and America -- people who are daring enough to believe that goodness and truth are possible in worlds they cannot control.
Shadow-Box
Author: Logue, Antonia
Publisher: Grove List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0802116477
Kirkus Publishers Weekly Booklist
Based on one of the greatest and most unusual love stories of the 20th century, this literary novel explores the life of Arthur Cravan - semi-professional boxer, influential art critic, legendary bon vivant, and nephew of Oscar Wilde.
Read-alike suggestions: Historical Fiction Stars reading list.
Bone by Bone
Author: Matthiessen, Peter
Publisher: Random House List Price: $ 26.95 ISBN: 0375501029
Booklist Kirkus Library Journal Publishers Weekly
Although it stands alone, Bone by Bone is the conclusion and capstone of the Watson trilogy as well as a true tour de force. Matthiessen brings his anti-hero to life with a complexity of character and profound humanity that establishes the novel as a modern classic.
Read-alike suggestions: Historical Fiction Stars reading list.
Ahab's Wife or the Star-Gazer
Author: Naslund, Sena Jeter
Publisher: William Morrow List Price: $ 28 ISBN: 0688171877
Publishers Weekly Booklist Library Journal Kirkus
"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." An epic-scale, brilliant and compelling saga, inspired by a brief passage in Moby Dick, chronicles the life of Capt. Ahab's wife.
Read-alike suggestions: Historical Fiction Stars reading list.
The River Midnight
Author: Nattel, Lilian
Publisher: Scribner List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684853035
Publishers Weekly Kirkus Booklist
In a novel that explores the tensions between men and women, and celebrates the wordless and kinetic bond of friendship, Nattel, whose family came from Poland, weaves a story that brings to mind such diverse writers as Isabel Allende, E.L. Doctorow, and Isaac Singer.
Broke Heart Blues
Author: Oates, Joyce Carol
Publisher: Dutton List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0525944516
Kirkus Booklist Publishers Weekly
A Prayer for the Dying
Author: O'Nan, Stewart
Publisher: Henry Holt List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0805061479
Publishers Weekly Booklist Library Journal
Dark, poetic, and chilling, A Prayer for the Dying asks if it is possible to be a good man in a time of madness as members of the town succumb to a fatal epidemic.
Read-alike suggestions: Historical Fiction Stars reading list.
Thunder on the Mountain
Author: Poyer, David
Publisher: Forge List Price: $ 25.95 ISBN: 0312864949
Publishers Weekly Library Journal Booklist
An ambitious novel of heroism and violence in the western Pennsylvania oil country at the nadir of the great Depression, in the tradition of Jack London and John Steinbeck.
Read-alike suggestions: Historical Fiction Stars reading list.
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Author: Proulx, Annie
Publisher: Scribner List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684852217
Kirkus Publishers Weekly Library Journal
From one of the great writers of our time comes a collection of award-winning stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. Accompanied by watercolor illustrations by William Matthews, the pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and Harper's - work by an author writing at the peak of her craft.
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Author: Rushdie, Salman
Publisher: Henry Holt List Price: $ 27.50 ISBN: 0805053085
Booklist Library Journal Kirkus
Suggested Reading: Music & Fiction
Amy and Isabelle
Author: Strout, Elizabeth
Publisher: Random House List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0375501347
Publishers Weekly Booklist Kirkus
In a novel about emotional exile, Elizabeth Strout explores the secrets of sexuality that jeopardize the love between a mother and her daughter.
Losing Nelson
Author: Unsworth, Barry
Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385486529
Publishers Weekly Kirkus Library Journal
A novel of obsession, this is the story of a man unable to see himself separately from the hero he mistakenly idolizes - Lord Horatio Nelson, Britain's greatest admiral.
Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Author: Vreeland, Susan
Publisher: McMurray & Beck List Price: $ 17.50 ISBN: 1878448900
Publishers Weekly Kirkus Booklist
Suggested Reading: Vermeer Fiction Reading List
The Emperor's General
Author: Webb, James H.
Publisher: Broadway List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0767900766
Library Journal Publishers Weekly Kirkus
Did the Japanese really lose World War II? The bestselling author of Fields of Fire brilliantly portrays the epic battle of wills between MacArthur, America's greatest general, and a country with a genius for self-preservation. In the superbly imagined portrait of the days just following World War II, Webb has crafted an extraordinary saga from a spellbinding chapter in American history.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | World Wars Fiction reading list.

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