Previews, Reviews, and Collection Development
Another year, another BookExpo America. This year’s festivities start on Wednesday, May 29, at the Jacob K. Javits Cemter in New York City, with conferences and special events that include Library Journal’s Day of Dialog. On May 30-June 1, doors are open to the exhibits, where you’ll be hunting for books and authors to love. [...]
Faulks, Sebastian. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2013. NAp. ISBN 9781250047595. $24.99. POP FICTION What a combination! Faulks, author of absorbingly well-rendered best sellers like Charlotte Gray, as well as the James Bond sequel Devil May Care, here takes on one of his favorite authors with the permission of the estate. Yes, [...]
Chang, Jung. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. Knopf. Nov. 2013. 352p. ISBN 9780307271600. $30. BIOGRAPHY First a Red Guard, then the recipient of a doctoral degree in linguistics from England’s Bristol University, then the hugely best-selling author of Wild Swans and Mao, Jung Chang has a remarkable life story. And the [...]
Bruen, Ken. Purgatory. Mysterious Pr: Grove/Atlantic. Nov. 2013. 272p. ISBN 9780802126078. $24. CD: Highbridge Audio. MYSTERY Nine previous titles, a Shamus Award, multiple award nominations, two feature films, and now this: even as he struggles to maintain his hard-won stability, former cop Jack Taylor must face a vigilante killer wiping out the bad guys of [...]
Davis, Wes. The Ariadne Objective: The Underground War To Rescue Crete from the Nazis. Crown. Nov. 2013. 304p. ISBN 9780307460134. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780307460158. HISTORY History both crucial and swashbuckling: an odd bunch of British intelligence officers (involved because they made “the obsolete choice of Greek at school”) joined with Cretan resistance fighters and an [...]
Established in 1935 by Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf to reflect her family’s commitment to social justice, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards are the only American awards honoring works that confront racism and celebrate diversity. Its winners include Nobel Laureates Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott, with all but Lifetime Achievement [...]
Never have we had such a strong lineup for Day of Dialog, and you can be part of it. We’re almost out of space; register today!
Tan, Amy. The Valley of Amazement. Ecco: HarperCollins. Nov. 2013. 608p. ISBN 9780062107312. $29.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062107336. LITERARY/HISTORICAL FICTION Since the 1989 publication of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, an international best seller that has been translated into 35 languages, her works have strolled between the Chinese and American cultures, gracefully inhabiting them both. [...]
While the Day of Dialog panel “Getting (Re)Acquainted with the Best Voices in Fiction Today” includes several top writers back in business after a few years’ absence, the reclusive Thomas Pynchon won’t be among them. Too bad. As you’ve likely heard, his new novel, Bleeding Edge (Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2013. 496p. ISBN [...]
Chen Guangcheng. Untitled Memoir. Times: Holt. Oct. 2013. 304p. ISBN 9780805098051. $28. MEMOIR Chen has been named a 2012 Brave Thinker, 2012 Rebel of the Year, and 2012 Global Thinker by the Atlantic, GQ, and Foreign Policy, respectively. And no wonder. Blinded by illness in infancy and illiterate until his teens, Chen taught himself law [...]
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