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.
Out and About. . .
I'm playing around at Shelfari, LibraryThing, and Good Reads. I've set up links to my pages on these sites. And, yes, I have a hard time keeping up-to-date on these sites...
I've set up "shelves" from these sites on Overbooked - here
Overbooked is spacing out: Myspace: Overbooked and Crime Space - and, facing out: Facebook profile.
Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994.
Overbooked is the winner of the 2008 Louis Shores - Greenwood Publishing Award: to recognize excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries. The award recipient is selected for significant achievement related to a reviewing process that helps librarians make selection decisions.
Featured Titles 2002
Page Modified: August 19, 2008
New titles - selected on the basis of good reviews. Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on the lists.
June 2002
Nonfiction
- Back Then: Two Lives in 1950's New York
Author: Bernays, Anne & Justin Kaplan
Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060198559
KirkusPWLJ
This dual memoir by two prominent figures in American arts provides a candid, anecdotal account of two children of privilege who came of age in the transformative 1950s and faced the challenges of new careers, married life and parenting against growing sexual and social freedoms, and the shadows of McCarthyism and the Cold War.
Newsday article - Nothing Remains the
Same: Rereading and Remembering
Author: Lesser, Wendy
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 061808293xLibrary Journal
From classic novels to poetry, Lessing covers the whole literary spectrum in this witty and humane exploration of what books can mean to our lives, and vice versa.
Updated 4.1.02 - Hamlet's Dresser: A Memoir
Author: Smith, Bob
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0684852691PWLJ
In gorgeous and tender prose, Smith weaves together the story of his difficult childhood and his encounters with "the old people" to tell the story of a life shaped by poetry. Hamlet's Dresser is both a redemptive memoir of a man made whole by art, and an intimate encounter with the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare.
Updated 5.3.02
Fiction
- Angels
Author: Keyes, Marion
Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060008024
Margaret Walsh, the "good girl" sister to Rachel and Claire Walsh, subjects of Watermelon and Rachel's Holiday, has a good career and solid marriage. As her perfectly organized world unravels, she runs away. When her plane touches down in Los Angeles--the city of Angels--nothing will ever be the same. - Five Boys
Author: Jackson, Mick
Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 00601394xKirkus
Evacuated from London during World War II to a remote English village filled with eccentrics, young Bobby is the victim of horrible mistreatment by five boys who accuse him of being a Nazi spy. At the center of these villagers is the enigmatic Bee King, a mysterious figure who exercises a powerful, hypnotic influence on the village and especially the boys.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars & World Wars - Life of Pi
Author: Martel, Yann
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151008116PW
This brilliant fabulist novel combines the delight of Kipling's Just So Stories with the metaphysical adventure of Jonah and the Whale, as Pi, the son of a zookeeper, is marooned aboard a lifeboat with a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan, and a tiger. - Martin Sloane
Author: Redhill, Michael
Publisher: Little Brown $ 13.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 0316739367BooklistPW
The story of a relationship across two decades, of Jolene's search for Martin Sloane when one day he disappears from their home without warning or explanation, is told in a novel that brilliantly and movingly explores the vagaries of love and friendship, the burdens of personal history, and the enigmatic power of art. - Angel Rock
Author: Williams, Darren
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375414517PW
From a young Australian writer whose first novel received the Australian/ Vogel Literary Award comes a new story about the disappearance of a four-year-old boy in the Australian Outback. Menacing and mesmerizing, dazzling in its evocation of terrain--both physical and psychological-- Angel Rock is a brilliant combination of the literary and the entertaining.
Mystery & Suspense
- The Tutor
Author: Abrahams, Peter
Publisher: Ballantine $ 25.95 ISBN: 0345439384LJ
Master of psychological suspense Peter Abrahams returns with an ingenious tale of an ordinary family that unknowingly invites the agent of their destruction into their own home. - Savage Run: Joe Pickett
Author: Box, C.J.
Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399148876BooklistPW
C.J. Box's debut novel, Open Season, hit the mystery-book world with the force of a speeding rifle bullet. Now Box returns with a gripping and suspenseful new novel, as dramatic and brutal as its Wyoming wilderness setting. - The Emperor of Ocean Park
Author: Carter, Stephen L.
Publisher: Knopf $ 26.95 ISBN: 0375413634KirkusBooklistPW
The Emperor of Ocean Park is as brilliant in its suspense as in its acute social observation. Set in the privileged world of New York-Washington-Martha's Vineyard upper-crust African-American society and the inner circle of an Ivy League law school, it tells the story of a complex family with a single seductive and dangerous link to the shadowlands of crime.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars & African American Stars - Hard Eight
Author: Evanovich, Janet
Publisher: St Martins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0312265859BooklistPW
In Hard Eight, Stephanie, Morelli, Ranger, Lula, Valerie, and Grandma Mazur are strapped in for the ride of their lives. This time, Stephanie is hired to find a missing child. But things aren't always as they seem and Stephanie must determine if she's working for the right side of the law. - Seventh Inning Stretch
Author: Gunn, Elizabeth
Publisher: Walker $ 23.95 ISBN: 0802733743BooklistPW
Someone's cheating the citizens of Rutherford: a gang of scam artists has hit town and has Jake Hines and his team spinning, trying to follow a trail of dodging and deceit. When the grifters' leader turns up dead, the stakes start to rise. - The Wailing Wind
Author: Hillerman, Tony
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060194448KirkusBooklistPW
Bestselling author Hillerman brings back Chee and Leaphorn in a twisting tale of murder, past and present. Legends of the Navajo Reservation's lost gold mines are an important part of the plot, but the tale also turns on obsessive love and memories of a missing woman's voice wailing in the darkness. - Resolution
Author: Mina, Denise
Publisher: Carrol & Graf $ 25 ISBN: 0786710101PWBooklist
Blending suspense, compassion, raw instinct, and grim wit, this powerful conclusion to the Garnethill trilogy returns to the seamy side of downtown Glasgow and the untidy world of Maureen O'Donnell. - The Dream of Scipio
Author: Pears, Iain
Publisher: Riverhead $ 27.95 ISBN: 157322202xBooklistPWKirkus
From the author of An Instance of the Fingerpost comes this anticipated novel that is constructed around Provence in three different centuries, and each has at its heart a love story. Expertly imagined and perfectly realized, The Dream of Scipio is a feat of storytelling. - Funny Money: Tony Valentine
Author: Swain, James
Publisher: Pocket $ 24 ISBN: 0743436865PW
After making the mystery scene in a big way with the acclaimed Grift Sense, the author serves up a crackling new Tony Valentine caper. This time around, it's personal: Valentine's ex-partner Doyle Flanagan has been blown to pieces by a car bomb and Tony is on the case.
Updated 3/28/02
Hotlists
African American Fiction | Christian Fiction
2008 Excel Files: (download - print, sort, etc.)
Crime Fiction | Fiction | African American Fiction | Christian Fiction | Nonfiction Notables
Stars
Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec Crime Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec
Speculative Fiction Romance Historical Nonfiction | YA
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):
overbooked1@verizon.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....