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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...
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 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 1998-2000 - Nonfiction
October 28, 2008
Nonfiction
titles which received three or more starred reviews (indicating
a work of unusual merit) from the
following review sources: Booklist
(BL), Publisher's
Weekly (PW), Kirkus,
and Library Journal (LJ).
- Woman: An Intimate Geography
by Angier, Natalie
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 0395691303 $ 25 Date: 1999
Booklist
PW
Kirkus
With the clarity, insight, and sheer exuberance of language that make her one of the "New York Times's" premier stylists, Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier takes on everything from organs to orgasm in this scientific fantasia of womanhood. "Lush, lyrical, important . . . a 747 landing in the desert of post-feminism."--"Mirabella." - Bellow: A Biography
by Atlas, James
Publisher: Random $ 35 ISBN: 0394585011 Date: 2000
Kirkus
PW LJ
In this brilliant and long-awaited biography of Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow, Atlas tells the story of a great writer's turbulent life against the backdrop of American 20th-century intellectual history. - In A Sunburned Country
by Bryson, Bill
Publisher: Broadway $ 25 ISBN: 0767903854 Date: 2000
PW
Booklist Kirkus
The bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods now takes a truly outrageous tour Down Under, revealing hundreds of entertaining eccentricities about the world's largest island--and about himself. Leaving no Vegemite unsavored, readers will accompany Bryson as he dodges jellyfish while learning to surf at Bondi Beach, discovers a fish that can climb trees, dehydrates in sweltering deserts, and tells the true story of the rejected Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales - Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year
by Carroll, David
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0-395-64725-8 $ 27 Date: 1999
Booklist
Kirkus
LJ
"A genius, a madman, a national treasure" (Annie Dillard) takes readers on a miraculous year-long journey through the wetlands, revealing why they are so important to his life, to ours, to all life on Earth.
Suggested Reading: Nature - For the Time Being
by Dillard, Annie
Publisher: Knopf ISBN: 0375403809 $ 22 Date: 1999
Booklist
LJ
PW
On the 25th anniversary of her acclaimed Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Dillard presents a compassionate, informative, enthralling, and always surprising personal narrative that surveys the panorama of our world, past and present. - Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad
by Evanzz, Karl
Publisher: Pantheon ISBN: 067944260x $ 28.50 Date: 1999
Booklist
PW
Kirkus
The definitive biography of one of the most controversial Americans of the 20th century - Elijah Muhammad, the founder and "Prophet" of the Nation of Islam. - On the Rez
by Frazier, Ian
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 25 ISBN: 0374226385 Date: 2000
Booklist
Kirkus Library
Journal
In this exploration of an American place that is both strange and deeply familiar, Frazier discusses the oppression of history on Indian reservations, where the per capita income is the nation's lowest. As it examines the Oglala idea of heroism - its suffering and pulse-quickening, public-spirited glory - On the Rez portrays the survival, through toughness and humor, of a great people whose culture has shaped the American identity. - Cap: The Price of a Life
by Frister, Roman
Publisher: Grove $ 25 ISBN: 0802116590 Date: 2000
Booklist
PW Library Journal
Uncompromisingly frank and unsparing, The Cap is an unconventional Holocaust memoir that defies all moral judgment and ventures into the darkest terrain imaginable, that of a soul blackened by the unforgiving cruelty of its surroundings. - River Horse: A Voyage Across America
by Heat-Moon, William Least
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0-395-63626-4 $ 26 Date: 1999
Booklist
PW
Kirkus
The acclaimed, bestselling author of Blue Highways and PrairyErth chronicles his unique journey through America's waterways, from Atlantic to Pacific. Brimming with history, drama, hilarity, and wisdom, River Horse is a Blue Highways on water and ranks among the greatest American travelogues.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales - The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death
and America's Dilemma
by Kotlowitz, Alex
Publisher: Doubleday ISBN: 0385477201 $24.95 Date: 1998
BL
PW Kirkus
In The Other Side of the River, Kotlowitz brings readers to two Michigan towns, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Separated by the St. Joseph River, they are geographically close, yet worlds apart: St. Joseph is a 95 percent white, prosperous lakeshore community, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and 92 percent black. When the body of a black teenage boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions surface . . . Beautifully written and painstakingly reported. The Other Side of the River sensitively portrays the lives and hopes of the towns' citizens as they wrestle with this mystery and others - and reveals attitudes and misperceptions that undermine race relations throughout America. - My War Gone By, I Miss It So
by Lloyd, Anthony
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly $ 25 ISBN: 0871137690 Date: 2000
Booklist
PW Kirkus
Library Journal
An extraordinary, personal look at modern war by a young correspondent who saw its horrors firsthand in Bosnia. - Wainewright the Poisoner: The Memoir of Thomas Griffiths
Wainewright - Regency Author, Painter, Swindler, and Probable
Murderer - Brilliantly Woven from Historical Fragments
by Motion, Andrew
Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0375402098 Date: 2000
Kirkus
Booklist LJ
A celebrated British biographer has researched letters, journals, newspaper dispatches, and other historical sources to illuminate the life of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, a Regency author and painter who fell into debt, attempted a number of scams, and allegedly committed at least one murder. - In the Heart of the Sea: The
Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
by Philbrick, Nat
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670891576 Date: 2000
Kirkus
Booklist PW
This true-life adventure tells the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship "Essex"--an event that served as the inspiration for Melville's Moby-Dick.
Suggested Reading: Sea Stories - Rembrandt's Eyes
by Schama, Simon
Publisher: A. A. Knopf ISBN: 0-679-40256-X $50 Date: 1999
Booklist
Kirkus
LJ
A magnificent rendering of the genius of Rembrandt--both a biography and an exploration of the art itself - that makes it clear why, even after 350 years, he remains among the greatest of painters. 359 illustrations, many in color. - The Immaculate Invasion
by Shacochis, Bob
Publisher: Viking ISBN: 0670863041 $ 27.95 Date: 1999
Booklist
Kirkus
LJ
From the Pentagon's war room to the bitter infighting in the dangerously divided U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince and its on- again/off-again relationship with terrorists, Shacochis chronicles what the military calls OTW (other than war) Operations. - Wanderlust: A History of Walking
by Solnit, Rebecca
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670882097 Date: 2000
Booklist
PW Library Journal
Arguing that walking as history means walking to enjoy nature as well as for political and social meaning, Solnit profiles the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture. - In Siberia
by Thurbron, Colin
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0060195436 Date: 2000
PW
Kirkus Library
Journal
An evocative portrait of one of the most breathtaking yet little-known places on earth, written by England's #1 bestselling, award-winning author -"one of the two or three best living travel writers, in some ways probably "the" best" (Jan Morris).
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales - Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War
by Welsom, Eileen
Publisher: Dellacorte ISBN: 0385314027 $ 26.95 Date: 1999
Booklist
PW
Kirkus
This critically acclaimed, groundbreaking book tells of the secret radiation experiments performed over five decades by United States government doctors on unsuspecting patients. "YWelsome? brings to life, and recreates the settings, dialogue and events that ruined the health of countless trusting Americans".--"The San Diego Union Tribune".
- A Necessary Evil
by Willis, Garry
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books ISBN: 0-684-84489-3 $ 25 Date: 1999
Booklist
PW
Kirkus
LJ
In his first major historical work since his Pulitzer prize-winning Lincoln in Gettysburg, Wills examines anti-government attitudes--from the revolt of the colonies against King and parliament to the present justifications for gun owning, term limits, even private militias--and debunks some of our fondest myths regarding American history.
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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