Publishers Weekly articles from February 2006

Publishers Weekly archives from February 2006

Are there more James Freys? The media goes hunting for faulty memoirists.(Foreword)
February 6, 2006... If there's one name everyone in the publishing industry seems weary of hearing, it's James Frey's. Despite an internal note of exhaustion about all things related to A Million Little Pieces, the public and the media are still as interested as...

Strong gains at Indigo.(Indigo Books and Music)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Indigo Books & Music had net earnings of C$39.8 million ($34.6 million) for the third quarter ended December 31, a 16% increase over the same period last year. Total revenue increased 8%, to C$309.5 million ($269 million). Superstore sales rose...

Lampoon in Holtzbrinck pact.(National Lampoon signs distribution deal with Holtzbrinck)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... National Lampoon is starting a publishing division, National Lampoon Press, and has signed a distribution deal with Holtzbrinck. N-LP plans to do 10 to 12 titles annually, with its first six books ready to ship this fall.

RD inks Marvel deal.(Reader's Digest Children's Publishing and Marvel Comics sign deal with each other)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Reader's Digest Children's Publishing and Marvel Comics reached a deal to publish and distribute interactive books based on Marvel's popular comic book heroes. The books will be aimed at children aged four through 11 and will be released in the...

The big think.(publishing industry)
February 6, 2006... In the midst (still!) of what looks to be the longest-running story in the book business in some time (Clifford Irving, anyone?), many issues seldom raised outside of publishing circles are suddenly under solemn review. Publishers are not only...

Dutton absorbs Pi Press.(books)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Pi Press, launched by Pearson Education in 2003 to focus on popular science, has been taken over by Penguin; its hardcover list will become part of Dutton and its trade paperbacks will be released by Plume. Founding Pi editor Stephen Morrow has...

S&S Audio starts kids' unit.(Simon and Schuster Audio)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Simon & Schuster Audio will launch a children's division this summer and plans to release five or six titles by the end of the year, according to Chris Lynch, executive v-p and publisher of S&S Audio. The first three titles are print...

Scholastic sued.(Nick Styant-Browne files lawsuit against the publisher)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Nick Styant-Browne, an attorney in Washington State, has filed a lawsuit against Scholastic, charging that the publisher's negative option programs mislead consumers into buying books and educational items. The suit was filed on behalf of Carly...

Germans push U.S. as '08 Frankfurt guest of honor.(Dreaming?)(Frankfurt Book Fair honors Angela Merkel )
February 6, 2006... Discussions to have the U.S. serve as the guest country at the 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair were given a push forward last month when new German chancellor Angela Merkel formally invited the U.S. during her meeting with President Bush. "We are...

Market watch.(Foreword)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
February 6, 2006... Market Watch Industry Stocks: January Performances Winners Company Dec. 30 Jan.31 % CHANGE Books-A-Million 9.69 11.45 18.2% Borders Group 21.67 ...

Sendak pops at scholastic.(Maurice Sendak to publish his book for Scholastic)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... This fall, Maurice Sendak will publish his first popup book, for the new Michael di Capua Books imprint at Scholastic. Mommy? has a September pub date and will get a 500,000-copy first printing.

Changes at 'PW, 'LJ'.(Cevin Bryerman appointed by Publishers Weekly and John Berry retires from Library Journal)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Cevin Bryerman has been appointed associate publisher of PW. Previously general manager for Reed Business Information's publishing group, of which PW is a part, Bryerman will oversee the magazine's business development and sales operations. ...

Big week for Morrow.(Deals)(William Morrow and Company Inc. acquires Tyler Knox's and Jeff Henderson's novel)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... William Morrow added two books to its list via preempt and auction this week. First, Carolyn Marino and David Roth-Ey preemptively acquired a first novel by Tyler Knox titled Kockroach in a joint acquisition for Morrow and Harper Perennial,...

Hurricanes Rising.(Deals)(Chris Mooney sells his book on environmental factors to Harcourt's Tim Bent)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Journalist and author of The Republican War on Science Chris Mooney has sold a new book focusing on the connection between global warming and stronger hurricanes, which Harcourt's Tim Bent acquired in a preempt from Sydelle Kramer at Susan...

Another look at 9/11.(Deals)(Touchstone's Amanda Patten acquires rights to Lt. William Keegan's book)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Lt. William Keegan, a highly decorated 20-year veteran officer of the Port Authority Police Department and night commander of the WTC Rescue and Recovery Operation, will recount the nine months he and his men grappled with shattered concrete,...

Agent Andrew Blauner has sold a memoir by Meredith Hall titled Without a Map to Beacon Press's Helene Atwan.(The Briefing)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Agent Andrew Blauner has sold a memoir by Meredith Hall titled Without a Map to Beacon Press's Helene Atwan. Hall's book describes her estrangement from her family as a pregnant teen and her ultimate reconciliation with her son and her mother;...

Grove's Morgan Entrekin has signed The Geography of Nowhere author James Howard Kunstler to two more books, including a follow-up to his bestselling The Long Emergency and an eco-novel titled The World Made by Hand.(Grove Press Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Grove's Morgan Entrekin has signed The Geography of Nowhere author James Howard Kunstler to two more books, including a follow-up to his bestselling The Long Emergency and an eco-novel titled The World Made by Hand. The world rights deal was...

Tricia Boczkowski at Simon Spotlight Entertainment preempted former New York Observer reporter Jess Bruder's Burning Book: Celebrating Twenty Years of Burning Man.(The Briefing)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Tricia Boczkowski at Simon Spotlight Entertainment preempted former New York Observer reporter Jess Bruder's Burning Book: Celebrating Twenty Years of Burning Man, to be a lavishly illustrated account of America's desert art party; agent Paul...

Before departing for Scholastic, David Allender teamed with Susie Bolotin to buy Barbara Stewart's The Complete How to Kazoo for Workman, from agent Lynn Johnston.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Before departing for Scholastic, David Allender teamed with Susie Bolotin to buy Barbara Stewart's The Complete How to Kazoo for Workman, from agent Lynn Johnston. A follow-up to Stewart's successful How to Kazoo, the book will be out this...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
February 6, 2006... Last week's Deals column erroneously reported that Carroll & Graf acquired world rights to An Alphabetical Life; it acquired North American rights.

Cross joins Ingram.(Karen Cross, Ingram Publishers Services)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Karen Cross has joined Ingram Publishers Services as vp, publisher relations. Cross, who will be based in the San Francisco area, most recently served as executive v-p of marketing at Publishers Group West. IPS now handles. distribution for 18...

'Snake' gets pulled.('A Snake is Totally Tail')(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... After questions were raised about the striking similarities between Harriet Ziefert's April picture book A Snake Is Totally Tail and a same-titled children's book from 1983, Ziefert's Snake has been canceled. Ziefert was publishing the book...

Amazon vaguely bullish on digital.(Amazon.com Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said he is confident that as more media products are sold in digital formats, etailers that offer a positive consumer experience will continue to be profitable. Amazon, Bezos said, is "well positioned" to capture a bigger...

Obituary: Pauline de Margerie.(Univers Poche)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
February 6, 2006... Pauline de Margerie, director of international rights for French publisher Univers Poche, died in Paris last week at age 51. De Margerie was responsible for the French paperback publication of a great many American titles, working with American...

Beth Reynolds, children's bookseller, Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, Vt.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... I've told anyone who will listen about Markus Zusak's The Book Thief [Knopf, Mar.]. Yes, it's about World War II, but it's told from a German girl's perspective. And Death, who narrates the book, has these little bursts of narrative set aside...

Cold War Nailbiter.(Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... A new Tom Clancy thriller? Try real life. The account of how a Soviet K-129 ballistic missile sub was almost able to attack Hawaii while disguised as a Chinese vessel during the Cold War, Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond's Red Star Rogue: The...

Izzy Spellman, PI.(Isabel Spellman)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Move over, Nancy Drew? There's an older, wiser and more rebellious sleuth on the block: Isabel "Izzy" Spellman. The 28-year-old heroine of Lisa Lutz's first novel, The Spellman Files (S&S), won't make her official debut until spring 2007, but...

Sang the blues.(Sangeet Jumnal)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Surviving adolescence is hard enough; throw in a biracial heritage, and the potential for chaos escalates. Sangeet Jumnal, the 15-year-old heroine of Marie Lamba's debut YA novel What I Meant (due from Random House in summer 2007), is forbidden...

Calendar Feb. 12-18.(Foreword)
February 6, 2006... 2/12 Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Our 16th president is hotter than ever, with Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals; Joshua Wolf Shenk's Lincoln's Melancholy and Richard Carwardine's Lincoln. 2/14 Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous...

Advancing or retreating? CBA in Nashville.(Christian Booksellers Association)
February 6, 2006... Christian retailers met January 23-28 in Nashville for CBA Advance, the association's midwinter show, which grows smaller each year amid continuing questions about the need for two annual conventions. In a business hit hard by expanded retail...

Modest gains in 2005.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Results from the AAP's monthly sales report shows that total book sales rose 6.5% in 2005. Sales are based on reports from 74 publishers, and adjusted figures encompassing the entire industry will be released later this year. As expected,...

The Strand sells $100,000 book.(Strand Bookstore, 'William Shakespeare Second Folio')(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... On January 28, New York City's Strand Bookstore sold the most expensive book it had in its by-appointment-only Rare Book Room. After 18 years in the store's possession, a William Shakespeare Second Folio, published in 1632 and containing all of...

Indie press book nabs Langum Prize.(Hawthorne Books)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... As editor Kate Sage remembers it, she knew immediately that Peter Donahue's novel, Madison House, was something special when it landed on her desk. Sage, an editor and cofounder of the Portland, Ore.-based Hawthorne Books (editorial staff:...

Ready for my close-up.(The Regulator Bookshop hosts tv film crew)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Last week, The Regulator Bookshop in Raleigh, N.C., hosted a TV film crew for six hours as two scenes were filmed inside the store for the Spanish-language soap opera Nuestro Barrio (Our Neighborhood), which runs Sunday afternoons on the WB...

Corley to Clarkson Potter.(Amy Corley joins Clarkson Potter)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Amy Corley has joined Clarkson Potter as publicity director. Most recently at Workman Publishing's Artisan division, where she was publicity manager, Corley has held posts at Abbeville Press and Simon & Schuster.

Saletan, Tibbott up at Harcourt.(Harcourt Children's Books promotes Becky Saletan, Julie Tibbott)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Becky Saletan has added the title of associate publisher to her current one of editor-in-chief at Harcourt. She joined Harcourt in 2004. At Harcourt Children's Books, Julie Tibbott has also been promoted, from associate paperback editor to...

Braum to Regan Books.(Jennifer Braum promoted)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Jennifer Braum has been named publicity manager at Regan Books. Braum, who leaves Bullfrog & Baum Public Relations for the job, where she was an account director, has worked in book publicity for 12 years.

POD.(Letter to the Editor)
February 6, 2006... When I read the article "The Problem with POD" by Rudy Shur of Square One Publishers [Soapbox, Jan. 16], I was very disappointed. When he says that "POD is just the latest vehicle for vanity publishing by authors who are able to pay," he is...

Giving credit.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 6, 2006... Ellen Garrison gets an important fact wrong in her Soapbox piece "Give Me Some Credit" [Jan. 30]. Maxwell Perkins deserves credit for a great many things, but editing William Faulkner wasn't one of them. He never laid a pencil on him....

Kudos.(Letter to the Editor)
February 6, 2006... Jill Kramer's Soapbox ("Dear Doofus") in the January 9 PW is perfectly true, hilarious and hopefully educational to the job-search population at large. From one who knows, this article should have ultra-wide circulation. Thanks so much for...

Promos at Little, Brown.(Judy Clain, Reagan Arthur promoted at Little, Brown and Company Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Judy Clain and Reagan Arthur have both been promoted from senior editors to executive editors at Little, Brown.

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
February 6, 2006... P W's review was full of accolades, ending with "Fans will be satisfied and will look forward to the next King release, Lisey's Story, slated for October." Scribner has gone back to press on Cell three times and notes that there are 1,180,000...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.(My Friend Leonard, Self- Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back and Marley and Me)
February 6, 2006... Opening sentence in James Frey's My Friend Leonard: "On my first day in jail, a three hundred pound man named Porterhouse hit me in the back of the head with a metal tray." Opening sentences in the second paragraph: "I have been here for...

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.
February 6, 2006... According to Variety, Memoirs of a Geisha and Brokeback Mountain will not be shown in mainland China after high-ranking officials deemed both unfit for consumption. With homosexuality still largely taboo in China, the gay cowboys of Brokeback...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.
February 6, 2006... "Three days after the liberation of Buchenwald, I became very ill: some form of poisoning. I was transferred to a hospital and spent two weeks between life and death. One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror...

Audio bestsellers/fiction.
February 6, 2006... "I'm at my desk every day. I'm currently noodling around with ideas for 'T.' The hook has no title, no storyline, and no characters so far, but otherwise it's great," Grafton writes on her Web site. Her fan forum has offered plenty of...

Audio bestsellers/fiction.
February 6, 2006... New Year, new you. Osteen's inspirational/ motivational recording shoots back to the top slot, likely because so many people resolved to listen to this title in 2006. Laughter may be the best medicine--and it's probably a good holiday...

T. Jefferson Parker: the dark side of the California dream.(Author Profile)
February 6, 2006... It's mid-December in Southern California, and the weather is exactly what you'd envision--sunny, warm, perfect. The sky is suffused with the hazy sunshine that filmmakers prize, light that casts a glow of warmth and generosity over everything....

Happy birthday Beckett.(Samuel Beckett)(Cover Story)
February 6, 2006... April 13 of this year will mark the 100th birthday of Samuel Beckett, the great Irish playwright, poet and novelist whose work, according to his 1969 Nobel Prize citation, brought "new elevation... to the destitution of modern man." His...

Spring audio blooms.(audiobooks)(Buyers Guide)
February 6, 2006... Spring may not be in the air yet, but it's Already hitting store shelves and car stereos in the form of a fresh batch of Audiobooks. Perennially popular audio genres of mystery, suspense, general nonfiction, memoir, self-help, romance and...

In the studio with Augusten Burroughs: running with headphones.(Interview)
February 6, 2006... PW snuck into the Manhattan recording studio to listen to Augusten Burroughs record his forthcoming book, Possible Side Effects (Audio Renaissance, May). We were able to chat with him during a brief break. Possible Side Effects is your...

Children's spring audio & DVD.(Spring Children's Audio Listings)(Buyers Guide)
February 6, 2006... BERLITZ KIDS Adventures with Nicholas: The Five Crayons Book & Plush Toy Set by various artists. Paperback book with one CD, one plush toy, $16.95, ages 4-9, Feb. BRILLIANCE The Land of Elyon Book 3: The Tenth City by Patrick...

54.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... 54 Wu MING, TRANS. FROM THE ITALIAN BY SHAUN WHITESIDE. Harcourt, $25 (560p) ISBN 0-15-101380-2 The midlife crisis of Cary Grant, the founding of the KGB and the Neapolitan years of mafioso Lucky Luciano are just three of the plot lines...

Drowning in Gruel.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Drowning in Gruel GEORGE SINGLETON. Harvest, $14 paper (320p) ISBN 0-15-603061-6 Singleton returns to the small South Carolina town where he set his acclaimed first novel, Novel, for this delightfully obsessive collection of stories, which...

Which Brings Me to You.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Which Brings Me to You JULIANNA BAGGOTT AND STEVE ALMOND. Algonquin, $22.95 (320p) ISBN 1-56512-443-X This witty but self-conscious epistolary novel starts with strangers groping each other in a coat closet and ends with the beginning of a...

Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes CATHY HOLTON. Ballantine, $23.95 (288p) ISBN 1-4000-6367-1 Three 40-something women married to partners at an Ithaca, Ga., law firm form a First Wives Club south of the Mason-Dixon line in Holton's slapstick...

High Lonesome: Stories 1966-2006.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... * High Lonesome: Stories 1966-2006 JOYCE CAROL OATES. HarperCollins/Ecco, $34.95 (688p) ISBN 0-06-050119-7 This hefty collection, featuring 10 new pieces along with stories culled from four decades, further establishes the prolific and...

PW talks with Sarah Waters: the blitz by night.(Interview)
February 6, 2006... Your three novels are all set in late 19th-century Victorian England and have been praised for their historical accuracy. What motivated you to write about WWII? Each of my previous novels grew out of the one before. I had a particular...

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo PETER ORNER. Little, Brown, $23.95 (320p) ISBN 0-316-73580-9 Orner's poetic, episodic examination of the varieties of life at an isolated Catholic primary school deep in the veld of Namibia coheres...

Fireworks.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Fireworks ELIZABETH HARTLEY WINTHROP. Knopf, $23.95 (304p) ISBN 0-307-26295-2 A modest story arc and a sure-handed Execution make for a promising debut from Winthrop, even though the plot--child's death rocks marriage--is grave, familiar...

Between the Bridge and the River.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Between the Bridge and the River CRAIG FERGUSON. Chronicle, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 0-8118-5375-6 A gallery of grotesques slogs through the sewers of the entertainment industry toward redemption in this exhilarating debut novel from the host of...

When All is Said and Done.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... When All Is Said and Done ROBERT HILL. Graywolf, $20 (230p) ISBN 1-55597-442-2 A tightly crafted, emotionally resonant debut novel set in the 1950s and '60s skims the upwardly mobile lives of an unconventional Jewish family on the far...

Cinderella Lopez.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Cinderella Lopez BERTA PLATAS. St. Martin's/Griffin, $11.95 paper (288p) ISBN 0-31234172-5 Cynthia "Cyn" Lopez sweeps up after TV star stepsisters and attends the ball wearing glass Manolos in the latest Chiquita lit offering from Platas...

Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife SAM SAVAGE, ILLUS. BY MICHAEL MIKOLOWSKI. Coffee House, $14.95 paper (162p) ISBN 1-56689-181-7 Savage's sentimental debut concerns the coming-of-age of a well-read rat in 1960s Boston. In the...

Torpor.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Torpor CHRIS KRAUS. Semiotext(e) (MIT, dist.), $14.95 paper (296p) ISBN 1-58435027-X While it's being billed as a novel--almost certainly for legal reasons--this is actually the third installment in Kraus's series of memoirs, begun...

Gus Openshaw's Whale-Killing Journal.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Gus Openshaw's Whale-Killing Journal KEITH THOMPSON. MacAdam/Cage, $23 (260p) ISBN 1-59692-172-2 As screenwriter Thompson's fiction debut opens, cat-food cannery worker Gus Openshaw has just set off in hot pursuit of the white whale who...

The Link.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... The Link RICHARD MATHESON. Gauntlet (www.gauntletpress.com), $55 (350p) ISBN 1-887368-83-3 Matheson's lifelong interest in the paranormal (Come Fygures, Come Shadowes) shapes every element of this massive unproduced screen treatment, whose...

Sleepwalking Land.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... * Sleepwalking Land MIA COUTO; TRANS. FROM THE PORTUGUESE BY DAVID BROOKSHAW. Serpent's Tail, $14.95 paper (256p) ISBN 1-85242-897-X Heralded as one of the 12 best African books of the 20th century by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair,...

The Mercy Room.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... The Mercy Room GILLES ROZIER, TRANS. FROM THE FRENCH BY ANTHEA BELL. Little, Brown, $22.95 (192p) ISBN 0-31615973-5 Thought provoking but ultimately disappointing, this novel by the director of the Center for Yiddish Culture in Paris...

Pretty Little Dirty.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Pretty Little Dirty AMANDA BOYDEN. Vintage, $13.95 paper (384p) ISBN 1-4000-9682-0 Girlhood friends bolt from their innocence with a mixture of eagerness, ignorance and regret in this winning coming-of-age saga, told with candor and...

Dutchess of Nothing.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... * Dutchess of Nothing HEATHER McGowAN. Bloomsbury, $22.95 (224p) ISBN 1-59691-066-6 McGowan's maverick follow-up to her debut, Schooling (2001), stars a 30-ish divorced American woman who, it is implied, has the lithe frame, iconic...

Dark Light.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Dark Light RANDY WAYNE WHITE. Putnam, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 0-399-15336-5 The 13th installment of bestseller White's aging but still solid series featuring Doc Ford (after 2005's Dead of Night) finds the retired CIA operative picking up in...

What Price Love?: A Cynster Novel.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... What Price Love?: A Cynster Novel STEPHANIE LAURENS. Morrow, $22.95 (400p) ISBN 0-06-084084-6 Set in 1831, bestseller Laurens's crowd-pleasing hot-blooded romance reintroduces Dillon Caxton, a young rake now reformed, who first appeared in...

Sointula.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Sointula BILL GASTON. Raincoast (PGW, dist.), $15.95 paper (453p) ISBN 1-55192-843-4 A search for the remote island village of Sointula, a "place of harmony" on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, drives Canadian novelist Gaston's...

Nietzsche's Kisses.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Nietzsche's Kisses LANES OLSEN. Florida State Univ./FC2, $15.95 paper (248p) ISBN 1-57366127-9 Olsen (Tonguing the Zeitgeist) delves into the fractured mind of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) hours before his death in a...

Skin.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Skin KELLIE WELLS. Nebraska, $27.95 (176p) ISBN 0-8032-4824-5 Wells extracts marvelous absurdity from a mundane landscape, the Kansas town of What Cheer, where obscure physical afflictions and deep existential questions weigh on a cast of...

The Taos Truth Game.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... The Taos Truth Game EARL GANZ. Univ. of New Mexico, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 0-8263-3771-6 A historically intriguing, fancifully packed debut by writing professor Ganz imagines the largely forgotten life and work of gay Jewish novelist Myron...

The Janissary Tree.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... The Janissary Tree JASON GOODWIN. Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (320p) ISBN 0-374-17860-7 Goodwin, the author of a well-received history of the Ottoman Empire, Lords of the Horizons (1999), makes a welcome shift to fiction...

High Priestess.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... High Priestess DAVID SKIBBINS. St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $23.95 (320p) ISBN 0-312-35233-6 The great strength of Skibbins's second mystery, as in his first novel, Eight of Swords (2005), is his unusual narrator, a '60s radical who's been...

The Debt.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... The Debt ROBERTA KRAY. Carroll & Graf, $25 (288p) ISBN 0-7867-1699-1 Fans of Dick Francis and Simon Kernick will relish British author Kray's fiction debut, a cynical, hard-edged suspense novel told in alternating chapters from the...

Dead Man Running: A Torie O'Shea Mystery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Dead Man Running: A Torie O'Shea Mystery RETT MACPHERSON. St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95 (240p) ISBN 0-312-33410-9 At the start of MacPherson's middling ninth cozy to feature genealogist Torie O'Shea (after 2005's Thicker than Water), the...

Moving is Murder: A Mom Zone Mystery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Moving Is Murder: A Mom Zone Mystery SARA ROSETT. Kensington, $22 (304p) ISBN 0-7582-1336-0 Packed with helpful moving tips, Rosett's cute cozy debut introduces perky Ellie Avery, who prides herself on knowing her way around crying babies,...

Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well: A Lady Appleton Mystery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well: A Lady Appleton Mystery KATHY LYNN EMERSON. Perseverance, $13.95 paper (240p) ISBN 1-880284-82-0 Set in Buxton, Derbyshire, in 1575, the 10th entry in Emerson's Elizabethan historical series (Face Down...

March publications.(Mystery Notes)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... The growing American audience for Kerry Greenwood's independent 1920s female sleuth will be delighted that Cocaine Blues: A Phryne Fisher Mystery, the Australian author's diverting first mystery, is finally available in the U.S. Fisher's quick,...