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Featured
Titles 2003
Page Modified:
August 19, 2008
New titles - selected on the basis of good reviews.
Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on the lists
May 2003
- Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club
Culture

Author: Owen, Frank
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312287666
Library Journal
In this striking debut, a journalist explores the nightclubs of the 1990s
and the rise and fall of a decadent nocturnal empire that stretched over several
American cities and spawned its own subculture of celebrities and wannabes.
Updated 4.29.03
- Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg

Author: McPherson, James M.
Publisher: $ ISBN:
Booklist
Kirkus
LJ
McPherson takes us on one of his Gettysburg tours, with stops at important
spots. He reflects on the meaning of the battle in the hearts and minds of
Americans, describes the key events of those terrible three days in July 1863,
and places the struggle in the greater contexts of American and world history.
Gettysburg site | National
Park | Gettysburg Address
Updated 3.13.03
- Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home

Author: Ray, Janisse
Publisher: Milkweed $ 22 ISBN: 1571312722
Booklist
By the author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood comes the story of
a woman's return to her childhood home in Baxley, Georgia.
Updated 4.28.03
- Nature Via Nurture:
Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human

Author: Ridley, Matt
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060006781
Library Journal
Booklist
PW
Armed with extraordinary new discoveries about genes, acclaimed science writer
Matt Ridley turns his attention to the nature versus nurture debate to bring
readers a stunning book about the roots of human behavior.
Updated 4.29.03
- How to Build a Tin Canoe: Confessions of an Old Salt

Author: White,
Robb
Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 1401300278
From a renowned boat builder and Southern raconteur comes a wryly humorous
journey through a life lived on the water and the lessons learned along the
way.
Updated 4.28.03
- Oryx and Crake

Author: Atwood, Margaret
Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 03885503857
Kirkus
Booklist
PW
LJ
With command of her material and with her sharp wit and dark humor, Atwood
projects a conceivable future of the world, a place left devastated in the
wake of ecological and scientific disaster, and populated by a cast of characters
who will continue to inhabit dreams long after the book is closed.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 4.29.03
- Hell at the Breech

Author: Franklin, Tom
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0688167411
Kirkus
The award-winning author of Poachers weaves together historical fact,
dark lyrical prose, and blistering action in this stunning first novel of
hooded vigilantes in 1897 Alabama.
Suggested Reading: First Fiction &
Mystery Debuts | Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 3.27.03
- Signal & Noise

Author: Griesemer, John
Publisher: Picador $ 26 ISBN: 0312300824
Kirkus
Booklist
Signal & Noise is the epic page-turning story of the laying of
the trans-Atlantic cable, and the men and women who are caught in its monumental
tide.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 2.28.03
- Star of the Sea

Author: O'Connor, Joseph
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151009082
Kirkus
LJ
In this spellbinding tale of tragedy and mercy, love and healing, the farther
the Star of the Sea sails toward the Promised Land, the more her passengers
seem moored to a past that will never let them go. As urgently contemporary
as it is historical, this gripping and compassionate novel builds with the
pace of a thriller to a stunning conclusion.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 4.29.03
- Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just
May Not

Author: Sedaris, Amy, Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert, photos by Todd Oldham
Publisher: Hyperion $ 22.95 ISBN: 0786868120
PW
A hilarious illustrated satire of a Lake Wobegon gone hideously wrong and
the earnest reporter who hopes to save it from extinction. Wigfield is a town
in danger, and its only hope lies in the self-righteous "journalist"
Russell Hokes, who arrives hoping to capture the quiet dignity of the disappearing
American Small Town.
Wigfield site
Updated 4.28.03
- The Song Reader

Author: Tucker, Lisa
Publisher: Pocket/Downtown $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 0743464451
PW
When two sisters are left alone after the death of their mother and the disappearance
of their father, Mary Beth becomes the hero of both her younger sister and
their entire town. She is a "song reader." She doesn't read palms
or tarot cards; she reads people's secrets and desires from the songs they
can't get out of their minds.
Suggested Reading: Music & Fiction and
First Fiction & Mystery Debuts
Updated 3.17.03
- Easter Island

Author: Vanderbes, Jennifer
Publisher: Dial $ 22.95 ISBN: 038533673x
Kirkus
It is 1913. Elsa Pendleton travels from England to Easter Island with her
husband and her sister. What begins as familial duty becomes a grand adventure
as she discovers her true calling. Easter Island is a tour-de-force
of storytelling that will establish Vanderbes as a most gifted writer.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 4.7.03
- The Light Ages

Author: MacLeod, Ian R.
Publisher: Ace $ 23.95 ISBN: 0441010555
PW
In this moody work set in a fantastical Age of Industry, Robert Borrows runs
away from Bracebridge, West Yorkshire, only to find that he cannot escape
from the magical secrets of his past.
Updated 4.14.03
- Haunted Ground: A Crime
Novel

Author: Hart, Erin
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743235053
Library Journal
This dazzling crime novel debut--already an international sensation--is from
a gifted author who combines rich atmosphere with archeology, history, and
extraordinary forensic detail.
Updated 3.31.03
- The Night of the Dance

Author: Hime, James
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312313225
PW
A retired Texas Ranger, a good ol' boy sheriff and a hotheaded deputy team
up to solve a Texas county's most notorious missing persons case in this jaunty
debut crime novel.
Updated 4.23.03
- Shutter Island

Author: Lehane, Dennis
Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 0688163173
Kirkus
PW
Booklist
LJ
The New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and
master of the new noir returns with a scorching psychological thriller set
in 1954 at Ashcliffe Hospital--a federal institution for the criminally insane.
As a storm threatens to strand U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner
Chuck Aule, they stumble into an evil darker than any nightmare.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 4.29.03
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