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Hotlists 2008
Crime Fiction - embedded
Seeing Stars
Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).
The review journal assigns the star.
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...
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Stellar All Stars
The Fault Tree by Louise Ure
Judas Horse by April Smith
The Importance of Music to Girls by Lavinia Greenlaw
Bonk by Mary Roach
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
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 . . .
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.
Starred Reviews
All Stars 2005
August 19, 2008
Fiction titles which received three or more starred reviews from major review sources.
- Epileptic
Author: B., David
Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 0375423184 Date: 2005
PW Kirkus Booklist
With stunning black-and-white illustrations, a noted cartoonist chronicles growing up with an epileptic older brother. The author charts his complicated relationship with his brother from childhood to adulthood, and the effects of the illness on the entire family.
Updated 12.27.04 - Adored
Author: Bagshawe, Tilly
Publisher: Warner $ 23.95 ISBN: 0446576883 Date: 2005
Kirkus PW LJ
In the grand tradition of Sidney Sheldon and other masters of epic women's fiction comes a larger-than-life tale of a Hollywood dynasty, written by Tilly Bagshawe, a 31-year-old Cambridge graduate who has brilliantly revived the genre.
Updated 4.19.05 - Black Hole
Author: Burns, Charles
Publisher: Pantheon $ 24.95 ISBN: 037542380x Date: 2005
PW Booklist SLJ
From one of the most fiercely admired graphic artists at work today comes a gothic masterpiece of existential fear and loathing, more than a decade in the making and already being hailed as a classic. Set in suburban Seattle in the mid-1970s, it is a horror tale unlike any other.
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novels/Nonfiction and Comics Stars
Updated 8.8.05 - 72 Hour Hold
Author: Campbell, Bebe Moore
Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400040744 Date: 2005
Kirkus LJ PW
In this novel of family and redemption, Campbell draws on the powerful emotions of her own experience and African-American roots in this story of a mother who struggles to save her 18-year-old daughter from the devastating consequences of mental illness by forcing her to deal with her bipolar disorder.
Suggested Reading: African American Stars
Updated 5.23.05 - The March
Author: Doctorow, E.L.
Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375506713 Date: 2005
Kirkus PW Booklist
In the last years of the Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, cutting a 60-mile wide swath of pillage and destruction. That event comes back to life in this magisterial novel.
Suggested Reading: Civil War Stars | Sherman Stars
Updated 8.15.05 - The Painted Drum
Author: Erdrich, Louise
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060515104 Date: 2005
Kirkus Booklist PW
Faye Travers discovers a rare Native American drum while appraising an estate in New Hampshire. The drum's passage is traced both forward and backward in time, revealing how it changed the lives of those whose paths it crossed.
Updated 6.29.05 - A Sudden Country
Author: Fisher, Karen
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400063221 Date: 2005
PW Kirkus LJ
A vivid and revelatory novel based on actual events of the 1847 Oregon migration, A Sudden Country follows two characters of remarkable complexity and strength in a journey of survival and redemption. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Western Stars | Debuts | Oregon Trail
Updated 7.12.05 - Beasts of No Nation
Author: Iweala, Uzodinma
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 16.95 ISBN: 006079867x Date: 2005
Kirkus Booklist LJ
A harrowing, utterly original debut novel about the life of Agu, a child soldier in a war town African country. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals and violence that mark Agu's new community. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Child Soldiers | Debuts
Updated 9.17.05 - The Historian
Author: Kostova, Elizabeth
Publisher: Little Brown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0316011770 Date: 2005
PW Kirkus Booklist
In this riveting debut novel, a young girl discovers her father's darkest secret and embarks on a harrowing journey across Europe to complete the quest he never could--the quest to find history's most legendary fiend: Dracula.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 4.25.05 - Sightseeing: Stories
Author: Lapcharoensap, Rattawut
Publisher: Grove $ 22 ISBN: 0802117880 Date: 2005
Kirkus PW Booklist
Set in contemporary Thailand and written with a grace and sophistication that belie the age of its young author, this masterful new collection contains generous, tender tales of family bonds, youthful romance, generational conflicts, and cultural shifts beneath the glossy surface of a warm setting.
Updated 12.27.04 - The Pride of Carthage: A Novel of Hanibal's War
Author: Durham, David Anthony
Publisher: Doubleday $ 26.95 ISBN: 0385506031 Date: 2005
PW LJ Booklist
Featuring a vast cast of characters and nationalities, twists of fate, and tales of inspired leadership, this epic work of literary fiction chronicles the superb military leader of Carthage, Hannibal Barca, and his struggle against the mighty Roman Republic.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | African American Stars
Updated 1.18.05 - Veronica
Author: Gaitskill, Mary
Publisher: Pantheon $ 23 ISBN: 0375421459 Date: 2005
Kirkus PW Booklist LJ
The long-awaited novel from the acclaimed author of Bad Behavior is a dark fairy tale set in Paris and Manhattan in the 1980s--a story about beauty, narcissism and appetite, transience, aging and mortality.
Suggested Reading: AIDS
Updated 10.24.05 - Making It Up
Author: Lively, Penelope
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670034479 Date: 2005
Booklist Kirkus LJ
New from the award-winning author of Moon Tiger comes a masterly crafted exploration of the myriad answers to the question, "What if . . ."
Updated 10.11.05 - Dancing in the Dark
Author: Phillips, Caryl
Publisher: Knopf $ 23.95 ISBN: 1400043964 Date: 2005
Booklist PW LJ
This novel reimagines the remarkable, tragic, little-known life of Bert Williams, the first black entertainer in the U.S. to reach the highest levels of fame and fortune. W.C. Fields called him "the funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew."
Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Biographical Fiction | Historical Fiction
Updated 7.11.05 - Changed Man
Author: Prose, Francine
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060196742 Date: 2005
Booklist PW Kirkus
Masterfully plotted, darkly comic, A Changed Man illuminates the everyday transactions in lives, exposing what remains invisible in plain sight in America's drug-addicted and media-driven culture.
Updated 1.5.05 - On Beauty
Author: Smith, Zadie
Publisher: Penguin $ 25.95 ISBN: 1594200637 Date: 2005
Kirkus PW LJ
Smith's third novel is an analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, and an honest look at people's deceptions. An infidelity, a death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that forces everyone to examine the assumptions which underpin their lives.
Updated 8.24.05
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
2009 Hotlists
Fiction - excel file more coming soon...
Crime Fiction - excel file more coming soon...
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