Publishers Weekly articles from August 2009

Publishers Weekly archives from August 2009

Hold Still.(Pick of the Week: A Powerful 'Hold')(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * Hold Still Nina LaCour. Dutton, $17.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-525-42155-9 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LaCour makes an impressive debut with an emotionally charged young adult novel about friendship and loss. Caitlin begins her junior year in...

Borders leads chains downward: the #2 bookstore retailer counting on better second half.(Foreword)
August 31, 2009... After falling 6.7% in the first quarter, total sales at the nation's three largest bookstore chains fell 7.5% in the second period and were down 7.3% for the first six months of 2009 ended August 1. The decline was driven primarily by the weak...

Friedman raises $3 million.(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... In documents filed with the SEC, former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman disclosed that she has raised $3 million to fund her new startup, Open Road Integrated Media LLC. Funding came from Kohlberg Ventures. Listed along with Friedman as...

Amazon bid to dismiss BookLocker suit denied.(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... A court has denied a motion by Amazon to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit filed against the e-tailer by print-on-demand publisher and bookseller BookLocker. The case stems from Amazon's decision last year to require POD publishers to use its...

Kindle market share on the rise.(Tracked)
August 31, 2009... Desktop and laptop computers were the preferred way for the public to read e-books through the first seven months of 2009, but their market share has been giving way to a host of new devices, according to the latest research from Bowker's...

Bloomsbury USA up.(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Sales at Blooms bury USA rose nearly 36% in the first half of 2009, to 8.7 million [pounds sterling] ($14 million at current exchange rates), and the company managed to eke out an operating profit of 30,000 [pounds sterling], compared to a loss...

Mixed results at Quarto.(Quarto Publishing)(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Quarto reported that total revenue for the first six months of 2009 fell 5%,to 41.8 million [pounds sterling] ($67.6 million at current exchange rates), although the net loss for the period was cut to 891,000 [pounds sterling] from 2.4 million...

Sony ups the e-book ante.(Wireless and More)(Sony Daily Edition)
August 31, 2009... Sony stepped up its efforts to compete with the Amazon Kindle, unveiling its long-awaited wireless e-reader, the Daily Edition, to a room packed with media at the New York Public Library last week. The Daily Edition, priced at $399, is part of a...

Joseph rises as Globe downsizes.(Globe Pequot Press COO Jim Joseph)(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Globe Pequot Press CO0 Jim Joseph, who assumed Scott Watrous's duties after his departure last month as president and publisher, has been officially named president. The 11-year company veteran will concentrate on GPP's core strengths, which...

Mother and child reunion.(Deals)(Deanna Adler and Steven Adler )(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... In a unique deal inspired by the fatherson addiction memoirs separately written (and published) by Nic Sheff (Beautiful Boy) and his son David (Tweak), Adam Chromy of Artists and Artisans closed a two-book deal with HarperCollins's It Books...

Wiley takes 'Big Daddy' & 'Dani'.(Deals)(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Two deals from Wiley this week--one for a Food Network newbie and the other for resilient parents. Justin Schwartz has taken world rights (excluding audio) to Aaron McCargo Jr.'s cookbook, Simply to Well Done. McCargo won last year's season of...

Da Capo licks 'Chops'.(Deals)('Licking Your Chops' by Kim O'Donnel)(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Renee Sedliar, senior editor at Da Capo's Lifelong Books, took world rights to Kim O'Donnel's Licking Your Chops. The deal was closed by agents Sally Ekus and Lisa Ekus-Saffer. O'Donnel, a food blogger who oversaw the long-running weekly live...

Haights Cross tries again.(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Haights Cross has ended its attempt to reorganize its finances through a private offering in which qualified investors would have exchanged discount notes for stock in the company. Haights terminated that offering because it failed to received...

Thinking outside the bookstore box.(Hybrid Booksellers)
August 31, 2009... A new breed of booksellers, many of whom got their start in the B2B world, are finding success by altering the traditional independent bookselling model. They retain a commitment to independent bookselling and frequently belong to both their...

Scholastic closer to paper goals.(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Just under 20% of all paper purchased by Scholastic in 2008 was certified by FSC (Forest Stewardship Council), up from 4% in 2007. Scholastic's goal is to have FSC-certified paper account for 30% of purchases by 2012. The company also increased...

BBC Audiobooks for sale.(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... The BBC is looking to sell a majority stake in BBC Audiobooks, sources familiar with the company confirm. Based in the U.K., BBC Audiobooks includes the American division BBC Audiobooks America. The organization hopes to sell BBC Audio to a...

Doggin' it.(Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days)(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Amulet Books staff (from left) executive editor Charlie Kochman, publicist Mary Ann Zissimos, marketing director Jason Wells, marketing coordinator Laura Mihalick and art director Chad Beckerman posed behind the Diary...

Time nears to opt out of Google deal.(Countdown)
August 31, 2009... With the September 4 deadline to opt out of or object to the Google Book Search settlement just days away, the deal's critics and supporters have, as expected, ramped up the volume, giving Judge Denny Chin more briefs and comments to digest--and...

Fogarty to BookstoFilm.tv.(People)(Teresa Fogarty)(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Teresa Fogarty has been named partner of the Los Angeles-based company BookstoFilm.tv. Fogarty was most recently marketing and publicity manager for IBPA.

Murphy to Santa Monica.(People)(Breanna Murphy)(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Breanna Murphy has been named assistant to the publisher at Santa Monica Press, replacing Brittany Yudkowsky, who's relocating to New York. Murphy was most recently a copyeditor, researcher and writer for Filter magazine.

Minahan up at Cadence Group.(People)(Susan Minahan )(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Susan Minahan has been promoted from marketing assistant to marketing manager at the Cadence Group, a design, editorial, sales, and project management provider for publishers.

Jennifer Laughran, bookseller, Books Inc., San Francisco.(Galley Talk)(Sara Zarr's Once Was Lost)(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... With a morn in rehab, and a pastor dad who knows a lot more about shepherding his congregation than taking care of his own family, Samara feels like her whole world is falling apart. When a girl in her town is kidnapped, Sam latches onto the...

Barlow to Merriam-Webster.(People)(Gregory Barlow )(Brief article)
August 31, 2009... Gregory Barlow has been named v-p of online advertising at Merriam-Webster Inc. Barlow will head the advertising sales group for all Merriam-Webster and Britannica Web sites. Barlow was multimedia sales director for the WSJ.

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.(List)
August 31, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] S&S is pulling out all the stops for Gregory's latest bestseller (copies in print: 230,000), including a European tour that concluded on August 25 and a nine-city U.S. and Canadian tour launching September 14. Most...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
August 31, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Clearly, Steve Harvey needs more projects. In addition to his daily radio show (syndicated in more than 60 markets), the comedian/author/TV personality recently joined the Good Morning America family, where he'll be...

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.
August 31, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Bestseller Connelly delivers one of his most intricate plots to date in his 20th book, a beautifully executed crime thriller.... When [L.A. lawyer Mickey] Haller realizes that the Elliot affair is bigger than simply a...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.(List)
August 31, 2009... "After putting down the telephone the eighty-two-year-old birthday boy sat... looking at the pretty but meaningless flower whose name he did not yet know. Then he looked up at the wall above his desk. There hung forty-three pressed flowers in...

A new perspective.(Digital Publishing)
August 31, 2009... In an interview held as his company prepares to enter a U.S. e-book market becoming crowded with devices (see the chart above), Hans Brons, CEO of Netherlands-based IREX Technologies, outlined his views on the need for open technologies over...

Carol Fitzgerald: the Book Report Network founder sees her job as getting readers to buy books.(CHANGE MAKERS)
August 31, 2009... Thirteen years ago, Carol Fitzgerald decided she was tired of reading a book, loving it, getting to the back flap and learning where the author lived and how many children or pets she had--but not why she wrote the book. Fitzgerald could go...

Web to print and back again: young cartoonists flock to the Web to create comics, sell T-shirts and maybe sell a few books, too.(Web Comics)
August 31, 2009... Web comics are quickly becoming a reliable and flexible publishing strategy both for creators and publishers. As more traditional book publishers look to pick up Web comics for print publication, a burgeoning group of young creators have taken...

Why I write ...(Cartoon)
August 31, 2009... WHEN I BEGAN DRAWING MY MEMOIR I FELT LIKE RILKE'S ANGELS WHO DO NOT KNOW WHETHER IT IS THE LIVING THEY ARE MOVING AMONG, OR THE DEAD. MY MOTHER WAS THE FIRST ONE WHO, WITH MY BRUSH, I BROUGHT BACK FROM THE ASHES, AND, WITH HER, CAME ALL MY...

An Indie Top 20: twenty fall titles from independent presses that show big promise.(Indie/UP Sleepers)(Recommended readings)
August 31, 2009... This fall's lists from larger, more commercial houses have been characterized as an embarrassment of riches. The same holds true for books coming out from independent and university presses. From short story collections to novels, memoirs and...

Muller and McCone: parboiled tough.(Author Profile)(Marcia Muller)(Sharon McCone)
August 31, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Everything I wrote from age 12 on had a criminal element to it," says Marcia Muller, 64, during a midday interview in her living room in a suburb north of San Francisco. "When I was in my late 20s, I started reading...

Typhoon.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * Typhoon Charles Cumming. St. Martin's, $25.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-312-55852-9 In the tradition of old-school espionage fiction, Cumming (The Spanish Game) lets character rather than plot carry this compelling thriller. William Lasker, a...

Haiku.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Haiku Andrew Vachss. Pantheon, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-307-37849-1 Vachss, author of the long-running Burke series that concluded with 2008's Another Life, introduces an engaging if damaged new hero in this soulful thriller. Ho, an...

The Financial Lives of the Poets.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * The Financial Lives of the Poets Jess Walter. Harper, $25.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-191604-5 National Book Award-finalist Walter does for the nation's bleak financial landscape what he did for 9/11 in The Zero: whip-smart satire with...

The Rags of Time.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... The Rags of Time Maureen Howard. Viking, $26.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-670-02132-1 Central Park features prominently in this rambling final installment of Howard's "Novels of the Seasons" quartet. Plagued by heart trouble, an aging novelist...

Breaking the Rules.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Breaking the Rules Barbara Taylor Bradford. St. Martin's, $27.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-312-57806-0 For the 30th anniversary of her first novel, A Woman of Substance, Bradford delivers her 25th book. The riches-to-more-riches tale features...

PW talks with Nevada Barr: suffer the little children.(Q&A)(Interview)
August 31, 2009... In 13 1/2, Barr's stand-alone thriller (Reviews, Aug. 24), two formerly abused children meet and fall in love 40 years later, only to discover that "[t]he things that terrorize you are those you don't see coming." What was the biggest...

Mama Dearest.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Mama Dearest E. Lynn Harris. Simon and Schuster/Hunter, $25 (438p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5890-6 Yancey Harrington Braxton returns in bestseller E. Lynn Harris's (A Love of My Own) sadly last novel (the author died in July) for another sex and...

Americans in Space.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Americans in Space Mary E. Mitchell. St. Martin's/Dunne, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-37245-3 A guidance counselor is at a loss in her personal life in Mitchell's mediocre debut. Young widow Kate Cavanaugh has been going through the...

The Gates.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... The Gates John Connolly. Atria, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4391-7263-6 In this frothy fantasy thriller from bestseller Connolly (The Book of Lost Things), 11-year-old Samuel Johnson witnesses an inadvertent intersection of science and the...

The Ghosts of Belfast.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * The Ghosts of Belfast Stuart Neville. Soho Crime, $24 (336p) ISBN 978-1-56947-600-0 With this stunning debut, Neville joins a select group of Irish writers, including Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes and Adrian McKinty, who have reinvigorated...

Snow Job.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Snow Job William Deverell. McClelland & Stewart, $25.95 (424p) ISBN 978-0-7710-2722-2 In Arthur Ellis Award--winner Devereli's rambling third novel to feature crafty lawyer Arthur Beauchamp (after 2008's Kill All the Judges), Igor...

Season of Ash.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Season of Ash Jorge Volpi, trans, from the Spanish by Alfred Mac Adam. Open Letter, $15.95 paper (413p) ISBN 978-1-934824-10-8 At the heart of this wide-ranging epic is a murder, though it's not initially clear who the victim is, and...

Sand Daughter.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Sand Daughter Sarah Bryant. Berkley, $15 paper (496p) ISBN 978-0-425-22980-4 In this Crusades-era historical, Bryant (The Other Eden) follows the journey of an ordinary Bedouin woman, Kalidah, who escapes her arranged marriage to run...

Black Friday.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * Black Friday Alex Kava. Mira, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2651-9 Bestseller Kava's superb Maggie O'Dell thriller (after Exposed) features a particularly memorable villain, the Project Manager (aka Robert Asante), the third party behind...

Angel Lane.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Angel Lane Sheila Roberts. St. Martin's Griffin, $13.99 paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-38482-1 Roberts returns to Heart Lake, Wash., for a second beguiling visit (after Spring in Bloom). Chocolatier Jamie Moore, her bakery-owner aunt Sarah...

Once in a Blue Moon.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Once in a Blue Moon Eileen Goudge. Perseus/Vanguard, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-59315-534-6 As children, sisters Lindsay and Kerri Ann are shunted into the foster care system after their mother is arrested for selling drugs in Goudge's...

PW talks with Jess Walter: poetry, pot and money.(Q&A)(The Financial Lives of Poets)(Interview)
August 31, 2009... National Book Award--finalist Walter (for The Zero) takes on the financial meltdown in his blazing new satire, The Financial Lives of Poets (Reviews, p. 30), about an out-of-work journalist's illegal plan to get out of debt. Our financial...

Poisonville.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * Poisonville Massimo Carlotto and Marco Videtta, trans. from the Italian by Antony Shugaar. Europa (Penguin, dist.), $15 paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-933372-91-4 Northeast Italy's industrial pollution provides the backdrop for Carlotto (The...

One Week in December.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... One Week in December Holly Chamberlin. Kensington, $14 paper (332p) ISBN 978-0-7582-1405-8 Chamberlin (Tuscan Holiday) misses the mark with this repetitive chronicle of driven career-gal Becca Rowan's quest to tell her 16-year-old...

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us Laura van den Berg. Dzanc (Consortium, dist.), $16.95 paper (200p) ISBN 978-0-9767177-7-5 In her affecting debut collection, van den Berg taps into her characters' losses with an...

Shut Up, Ugly.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Shut Up, Ugly Jack Pendarvis. MacAdam/Cage, $14 paper (254p) ISBN 978-1-59692-332-4 The meat of Pendarvis's fourth book (after Awesome) hangs on the skeleton of a hard-boiled detective novel, but instead of a stoic flatfoot with an eye...

Thirsty.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Thirsty Kristin Bair O'Keeffe. Ohio Univ./Swallow, $22.95 (216p) ISBN 978-0-8040-1123-5 O'Keeffe chronicles the troubling story of a late 19th-century Croatian emigree whose expectations that life in a Pittsburgh steel town will brighten...

Giving Up on Ordinary.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Giving Up on Ordinary Isla Dewar. St. Martin's Griffin, $14.99 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-56161-1 Megs Williams, the single mother heroine of Brit author Dewar's pleasant latest, is in a miserable spot: she's wracked with grief over...

A Change Had to Come.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... A Change Had to Come Gwynne Forster. Kensington/Dafina, $14 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2562-7 Popular author Forster (A Different Kind of Blues) charts the course of a young African-American journalist, her love life and her eye-opening...

Christmas in August.(Book review)
August 31, 2009... At PW, we know it's summertime when the Christmas books start showing up. The Gift Cecelia Ahem. Harper, $19.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-170626-4 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ahern wades into the Christmas fiction fray with a winning tale of...

The Bigness of the World: Stories.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * The Bigness of the World: Stories Lori Ostlund. Univ. of Georgia, $24.95 (220p) ISBN 978-0-8203-3409-7 Ostlund's remarkable debut collection deftly navigates the treacherous shoals of decaying relationships in which the protagonists...

The Last Reader.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... The Last Reader David Toscana, trans, from the Spanish by Asa Zatz. Texas Tech Univ., $26.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-89672-664-2 In his third novel translated into English, Mexican writer Toscana (Tula Station) dissolves the line between...

Holding Out for a Hero.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Holding Out for a Hero HelenKay Dimon. Kensington/Brava, $14 paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2905-2 Dimon (It's Hotter in Hawaii) brings back one of her hunkiest heroes, DEA agent Josh Windsor, with tepid results. Retiring to avoid being let...

Tell Me Something True.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Tell Me Something True Leila Cobo. Grand Central, $13.99 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-446-51936-6 Cobo's sweet debut novel is the story of two women--a mother and daughter--and the love affairs that irrevocably changed their lives....

Yom Kippur in Amsterdam: Stories.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Yom Kippur in Amsterdam: Stories Maxim D. Shrayer. Syracuse Univ., $24.95 (152p) ISBN 978-0-8156-0918-6 Professor and memoirist Shrayer (Waiting for America) delivers eight deliberate stories about educated, accomplished Russians who...

Good for the Jews.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Good for the Jews Debra Spark. Univ. of Michigan, $24 (264p) ISBN 978-0-472-11711-6 In her third novel, Spark (Coconuts for the Saint) holds a modern mirror to the book of Esther with a cast of characters from mid-2000 Wisconsin....

No Tomorrow.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... No Tomorrow Vivant Denon, trans, from the French by Lydia Davis. New York Review Books, $12.95 paper (96p) ISSN 978-1-59017-326-8 This slender tale of adultery written in 1777 has been rendered into graceful English by Proust translator...

Throw Your Heart Over.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Throw Your Heart Over Linda Ingmanson. Five Star, $25.95 (254p) ISBN 978-1-59414-817-0 The new contemporary romance from Ingmanson (Promise Me Tomorrow) has the feel of a standard category romance involving second chances at love for...

Though Waters Roar.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Though Waters Roar Lynn Austin. Bethany House, $19.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-7642-0728-0; $13.99 paper ISBN 978-0-7642-0496-8 Austin can't seem to write a bad novel, and this one is no exception. She is winner of five Christy Awards and...

The Ideal Wife.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... The Ideal Wife Jacquelin Thomas. Pocket, $14 paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9963-0 Thomas (The Prodigal Husband) offers her female fan base a titillating story that will likely have women outraged and up in arms. She writes for Christian...

Grace Hammer.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Grace Hammer Sara Stockbridge. Norton, $23.95 (284p) ISBN 978-0-393-06718-7 An engaging prose style lifts Stockbridge's debut, a Dickensian thriller set in London in 1888. A menace from the past threatens Whitechapel pickpocket Grace...

Bryant & May on the Loose: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * Bryant & May on the Loose: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery Christopher Fowler. Bantam, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-0-553-80719-6 Fowler's unique blend of the comic and the grotesque is on full display in his excellent seventh Peculiar Crimes...

Frag Box.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Frag Box Richard A. Thompson. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (234p) ISBN 978-1-59058-678-5 In Thompson's compelling second mystery to feature St. Paul, Minn., bail bondsman Herman Jackson (after 2008's The Fiddle Game), Jackson investigates the...

Plum Pudding Murder.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Plum Pudding Murder Joanne Fluke. Kensington, $24 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7582-1024-1 The Christmas season provides the backdrop for bestseller Fluke's sprightly 12th Hannah Swenson holiday mystery (after Mar. 2009's Cream Puff Murder). When...

The Best American Mystery Stories 2009.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * The Best American Mystery Stories 2009 Edited by Jeffery Dearer. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Mariner, $14 paper (400p) ISBN 978-0-547-23750-3 Like previous anthologies in this "best of" series, the impressive 13th volume favors crime...

Dead Man's Share.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Dead Man's Share Yasmina Khadra, trans, from the French by Aubrey Botsford. Toby Crime, $14.95 paper (370p) ISBN 978-1-59264-269-4 Khadra again proves to be Camus's heir apparent in this searing prequel to his Algerian trilogy featuring...

A Killing in Retrospect: A Sister Agnes Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... A Killing in Retrospect: A Sister Agnes Mystery Barbara Cummings. Five Star, $25.95 (238p) ISBN 978-1-59414-784-5 A gangland war threatens to break out in Depression-era Providence, R.I., in Cummings's gripping second Sister Agnes...

Tommy Gun Tango.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Tommy Gun Tango Bruce Randall and Bruce Cook. Capital Crime (SCB, dist.), $14.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-9799960-3-0 This tease of a mystery by Cook, who pretends that "Bruce Randall" is not the pseudonym he used for 2008's Blood Harvest,...

Unseen Academicals.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Unseen Academicals Terry Pratchett. Harper, $25.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-116170-4 Football, food, fashion and wizards collide in Pratchett's 37th Discworld novel (after 2007's Making Money), an affectionate satire on the foibles of sports...

This Crooked Way.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... This Crooked Way James Enge. Pyr, $16 paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-59102-784-3 Legends spar in Enge's episodic fantasy, narrated by an ensemble cast in achingly precise prose. Immediately following the events of Blood of Ambrose (2009), the...

Boneshaker.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * Boneshaker Cherie Priest. Tor, $15.99 paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1841-1 Maternal love faces formidable challenges in this stellar steampunk tale. In an alternate 1880s America, mad inventor Leviticus Blue is blamed for destroying Civil...

My Dead Body.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... My Dead Body Charlie Huston. Del Rey, $14 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-345-49589-1 In Huston's intense, frenetic and brutal conclusion to the pulp-inspired Joe Pitt Casebooks (after 2008's Every Last Drop), Pitt wants to hide in the sewers...

Are You There and Other Stories.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... Are You There and Other Stories Jack Skillingstead. Golden Gryphon, $24.95 (330p) ISBN 978-1-930846-61-6 This edgy and dark collection revels in sorrow and loss. Alien invasions (of Earth in "Life on the Preservation" and one human at a...

The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology Edited by Gordon Van Gelder. Tachyon (IPG, dist.), $15.95 paper (476p) ISBN 978-1-892391-91-9 F&SF editor Van Gelder has assessed, culled and organized the...

The Tuloriad.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... The Tuloriad John Ringo and Tom Kratman. Baen, $26 (400p) ISBN 978-1-4391-6278-1 As its Homeric-sounding name suggests, the latest Posleen War novel (after 2007's Yellow Eyes) tells of a defeated people fleeing annihilation in search of...

Lovecraft Unbound.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 31, 2009... * Lovecraft Unbound Edited by Ellen Datlow. Dark Horse, $19.95 paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-59582-146-1 The 16 new and four reprint stories Datlow (Poe) assembles for this outstanding tribute anthology all capture what Dale Bailey praises as...