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 2004
Page Modified: August 19, 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.
March 2004
Nonfiction
- In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat in Iraq
Author: Atkinson, Rick
Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805075615
PWKirkus
In this extraordinary account of his odyssey with the 101st Airborne Division, Atkinson presents an intimate and revealing portrait of the soldiers who fight the expeditionary wars that have become the hallmark of our age.
Updated 2.10.04 - Rats: Observations on the History
and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
Author: Sullivan, Robert
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 23.95 ISBN: 1582343853KirkusPWLJ
Behold the rat, dirty and disgusting. The author of A Whale Hunt now turns the lowly rat into the star of the most perversely intriguing, remarkable, and unexpectedly elegant book of the season.
Updated 3.1.04 - Working Fire: A Memoir
Author: Unger, Zac
Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1594200017Kirkus
This remarkable memoir, by turns funny and deeply moving, explores one man's coming into his calling and his transformation from ambivalent Ivy League grad to skilled and dedicated firefighter.
Updated 12.29.03 - Confessions
of a Tax Collector: One Man's Tour of Duty Inside the IRS
Author: Yancey, Richard
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060555602BooklistLJ
A former IRS employee describes the bizarre inhabitants of a Byzantine kingdom whose bunker-mentality is largely responsible for the most efficient tax system in the world.
Updated 12.29.03
Fiction
- Bright
Starry Banner: A Novel of the Civil War
Author: Carter, Alden R.
Publisher: Soho $ 27 ISBN: 1569473552KirkusPW
December 1862, outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the 43,000 men of Gen. Rosencrans' Army of the Cumberland faced the 38,000 Confederate soldiers of Gen. Bragg's Army. In arenas dubbed "the Slaughter Pen" and "Hell's Half Acre," Blue and Gray collide.
Updated 2.16.04 - Dew Breaker
Author: Danticat, Edwidge
Publisher: Knopf $ 22 ISBN: 1400041147LJKirkusBooklist
From the acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory comes a powerful story of a man known as a "dew breaker," a Haitian torturer, whose past crimes lie beneath his new American reality.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.23.04 - Breaking
the Tongue
Author: Loh, Vyvyane
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393057925KirkusPW
This brilliant novel chronicles the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II. Central to the story is one Chinese family. Expatriates, spies, fifth columnists, and nationalists--including the elusive young woman Ling-Li--mingle in this exotic culture as the Japanese threat looms.
Updated 2.2.04 - Little Children
Author: Perrotta, Tom
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312315716KirkusLJ
"Tom Perrotta . . . is like an American Nick Hornby: companionable and humane, lighthearted and surprisingly touching."-- Newsweek. "An absorbing, fleshed-out portrait of an American male edging toward adulthood by crossing seemingly rigid social boundaries. . . An overwhelmingly pleasing book."-- The New York Times.
Updated 2.13.04 - The
Anxiety of Everyday Objects
Author: Sheehan, Aurelie
Publisher: Penguin $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 0142003700KirkusLJ
An original, witty, compulsively readable tale for any woman who has struggled with creative yearning and duty to the daily grind. In her absorbing debut novel, Sheehan's depiction of the working girl's life in the big city is as charming as it is inspiring.
Updated 2.13.04
Mystery & Suspense
- The Last Goodbye
Author: Arvin, Reed
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060555513PWBooklist
When a down-on-his-luck attorney gets mixed up with a gorgeous singer with a secret past, it results in an absorbing tale of love, betrayal, and murder.
Updated 1.10.04 - Don't Look Back: Inspector
Sejer
Author: Fossum, Karin
Publisher: Harcourt $ 23 ISBN: 0151010323Kirkus
Meet Inspector Sejer: smart and enigmatic, tough but fair. Critically acclaimed across Europe, Fossum's Inspector Sejer novels are masterfully constructed, psychologically convincing, and compulsively readable. They evoke a world that is at once profoundly disturbing and terrifyingly familiar.
Updated 12.29.03 - Scarecrow
Author: Reilly, Matthew
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312289588Kirkus
The newest action thriller from the author of the bestselling Ice Station and Area 7 marks the return of Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield in his fastest, most nail-biting challenge yet. "Matt Reilly, the pedal-to-the-metal action novelist . . . can inspire awe. Speed demons, take note."-- Publishers Weekly.
Updated 12.29.03 - The Confession
Author: Steinhauer, Olen
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312303289KirkusPWLJBooklist
Eastern Europe 1956: Comrade Inpector Ferenc Kolyeszar, homicide detective and aspiring writer, is watching his life unravel. Estranged from his wife, frustrated by writer's block and tracking a murderer through the shadowy capital. By the author of Bridge of Sighs.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 1.10.04
Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages
Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.- Al Capone Does My Shirts
Author: Gennifer Choldenko
Publisher: Putnam $ 15.99 ISBN: 0399238611PW
Moose Flannagan moves with his family to Alcatraz so his dad can work as a prison guard and his sister, Natalie, can attend a special school. But Natalie has autism, and when she's denied admittance to the school, the stark setting of Alcatraz begins to unravel the tenuous coping mechanisms Moose's family has used for dealing with her disorder. When Moose meets Piper, the cute daughter of the Warden, he knows right off she's trouble. But she's also strangely irresistible. All Moose wants to do is protect Natalie, live up to his parents' expectations, and stay out of trouble. But on Alcatraz, trouble is never very far away. Set in 1935, when guards actually lived on Alcatraz Island with their families, Choldenko's second novel brings humor to the complexities of family dynamics and illuminates the real struggle of a kid trying to free himself from the "good boy" stance he's taken his whole life. - Publisher Marketing.
Grades: 5+ Category: Fiction - Heartbeat
Author: Creech, Sharon
Publisher: Joanna Cotler $15.99 ISBN: 0060540222PWSLJ
Newbery Medalist Sharon Creech ( Walk Two Moons) masterfully weaves this story, told in free verse, about a young girl finding her identity and learning how it fits within the many rhythms of life.
Grades: 3-7 Category: Fiction - Princess Knight
Author: Funke, Cornelia
Publisher: Chicken House $ 15.95 ISBN: 0439536308PWBooklist
Violetta is a small and spirited young princess who wants to be treated like her big brothers, who are training to be knights. But Violetta's father, the King, insists that she act ladylike and get married! He even arranges a knights' jousting contest to find Violetta a suitor. The feisty princess will not stand for this! So Violetta decides to disguise herself as a boy and take part in that very contest. Every night, she secretly practices to become the most nimble knight in the land. But when the big day arrives, will Violetta be able to prove -- once and for all -- what she's truly made of?
Grades: k-3 Category: Fiction - Double Helix
Author: Werlin, Nancy
Publisher: Dial $ 15.99 ISBN: 0803726066BooklistPW
Rich and suspenseful, with a hair-raising conclusion, this is Nancy Werlin's most dynamic novel yet--one that explores the ethics and amazements of genetic engineering.
Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction | Suspense
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
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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....