Publishers Weekly articles from October 2010

Publishers Weekly archives from October 2010

The Bone Palace: The Necromancer Chronicles, Book 2.(Pick of the Week: Demons & Dungeons)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Bone Palace: The Necromancer Chronicles, Book 2 Amanda Downum. Orbit, $7.99 mass market (480p) ISBN 978-0-316-06900-7 In a spectacular freestanding sequel to 2009's The Drowning City, Downum jumps a few years...

Schivley to Merriam-Webster.(People)(Caryl Schivley as vice president)(Brief article)
October 25, 2010... Caryl Schivley has been named v-p and chief financial officer/chief administrative officer at Merriam-Webster. She will be responsible for all financial aspects of the company and will provide leadership and coordination in the business planning...

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.
October 25, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Flynn's 12th novel (the 11th to feature counter-terrorism operative Mitch Rapp) launched Oct. 12 with 570,000 copies in print--not bad for a guy who self-published his first book throughout his home state of Minnesota...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
October 25, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "She's hit a long home run," said PW's starred review of Jane Leavy's widely praised The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, which has 145,000 copies in print. After an extensive New York media...

Paperback bestsellers/mass market.
October 25, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Hardly anyone knows it but when I started the first Alex Cross novel, Alex was a woman named Alexis. After 100 pages or so, I changed the character to Alex. When I was a kid growing up, my grandparents had a small...

Paperback bestsellers/trade.
October 25, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "After eight months spent in the obscurity of our mother's womb, my brother, Shiva, and I came into the world in the late afternoon of the twentieth of September in the year of grace 1954. We took our first breaths at...

Audio bestsellers/fiction.
October 25, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For the audiobook of his latest stories (the collection seven years in the making!), Sedaris shared narration duties with a "dream list" of readers--Elaine Stritch, Sian Phillips, and Dylan Baker. In conversation with...

Audio bestsellers/nonfiction.
October 25, 2010... The Promise; Rhonda Byrne's sequel to the mega-selling (19 million copies to date) The Secret, is being met with strong sales and reviews that are troubled by these books' popularity. Kelefa Sanneh in the New Yorker writes: "Byrne's doctrine..,...

Miracles, Inc.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Miracles, Inc. T.J. Forrester. Simon & Schuster, $15 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-4391-7558-3 The rise and fall of a ne'er-do-well-turned--preacher fuels Forrester's promising debut. Waiting to be executed in a Florida prison, Vernon...

Panorama.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Panorama H.G. Adler, trans, from the German by Peter Filkins. Random, $26 (480p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6851-7 The first English-language translation of an opus by Adler (The Journey), Czech writer and Holocaust survivor, opens with the young...

Foreign Bodies.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Foreign Bodies Cynthia Ozick. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26 (272p) ISBN 978-0-547-43557-2 Ozick's somber latest (after Dictation) pursues the convergence of displaced persons in post-WWII Paris and New York. In the summer of 1952, Bea...

Canti.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Canti Giacomo Leopardi, trans, from the Italian by Jonathan Galassi. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $35 (496p) ISBN 978-0-374-23503-1 A towering figure among European Romantic poets and a national hero of Italian letters, the tormented, learned,...

The Poets Laureate Anthology.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... The Poets Laureate Anthology Edited by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt. Norton, $39.95 (818p) ISBN 978-0-393061-81-9 The United States has a long tradition of choosing a national poet, though the term poet laureate only came to be used here after...

Though Not Dead: A Kate Shugak Novel.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... * Though Not Dead: A Kate Shugak Novel Dana Stabenow. Minotaur, $25.99 (464p) ISBN 978-0-312-55911-3 The demise of 89-year-old Samuel "Old Sam" Dementieff, Kate Shugak's friend, relative, and mentor, triggers a deadly treasure hunt in...

I'm a Fool to Kill You: A Rat Pack Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... I'm a Fool to Kill You: A Rat Pack Mystery Robert J. Randisi. Severn, $28.95 (240p)ISBN 978-0-7278-6940-1 Celebrity gossip from the early '60s gives a nostalgic gloss to Randisi's slick, lightweight fifth Rat Pack mystery (after 2009's...

The Left-Handed Dollar: An Amos Walker Novel.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... * The Left-Handed Dollar: An Amos Walker Novel Loren D. Estleman. Forge, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1954-8 A challenging inquiry places Amos Walker at odds with his only real friend, investigative journalist Barry Stackpole, in...

The Bards of Bone Plain.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... * The Bards of Bone Plain Patricia McKillip. Ace, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-441-01957-1 World Fantasy Award--winner McKillip (The Bell at Sealey Head) offers a rich, resonant story of poetry, riddles, mystery, and magic. Phelan Cle never...

Black Wings.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Black Wings Christina Henry. Ace, $7.99 mass market (304p) ISBN 978-0-441-01963-2 Madeline Black is getting fed up. Her job is to coax newly dead Chicagoans to the Door to the afterlife. But what if they don't want to go? Her supervisor,...

Right Hand Magic.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Right Hand Magic Nancy Collins. Roe, $6.99 mass market (304p) ISBN 978-0-451-46366-1 Upper-class sculptor Tate flees a bad breakup and her SoHo loft for a cheap apartment in Golgotham, New York City's supernatural ghetto, in Collins's...

The Habitation of the Blessed: A Dirge for Prester John, Vol. 1.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... The Habitation of the Blessed: A Dirge for Prester John, Vol. 1 Catherynne M. Valente. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.99 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-59780-199-7 In 1165, a letter ostensibly written by the distant Christian...

Terrorist Cop: The NYPD Jewish Cop Who Traveled the World to Stop Terrorists.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Terror Cop: The NYPD Jewish Cop Who Traveled the World to Stop Terrorists Mordecai Dzikansky and Robert Slater. Barricade, $24.95 (322p) ISBN 978-1-56980- 445-2 A policeman from 1982, a time when "only two Orthodox Jews were members of...

Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court 1865- 1903.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court 1865-1903 Lawrence Goldstone. Walker, $26 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8027-1792-4 In this comprehensive and remarkably lucid study of post-Civil War Supreme Court decisions,...

From Dictatorship to Democracy: An Insider's Account of the Iraqi Opposition to Saddam.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... From Dictatorship to Democracy: An Insider's Account of the Iraqi Opposition to Saddam Hamid al-Bayati. Univ. of Pennsylvania, $34.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-8122-4288-1 Iraqi ambassador to the U.N., alBayati spent many years in the Iraqi...

Paris Between the Wars, 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Paris Between the Wars, 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture Vincent Bouvet and Gerard Durozoi. Vendome (Abrams, dist.), $50 (416p) ISBN 978- 0-86565-252-1 Teeming with nearly three million people from all walks of life, Paris between the...

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost Lan Samantha Chang, read by Ramon De Ocampo. HighBridge, unabridged, five CDs, 6 hrs., $26.95 ISBN 978-1-61573-560-0 Despite a fine performance by Ramon De Ocampo, Chang's novel makes a poor transition...

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary David Sedaris, read by the author, Elaine Stritch, Dylan Baker, and Sian Phillips. Hachette Audio, unabridged, three CDs, 3 hrs., $24.98 ISBN 978-1-60024-499-5 Like a modern-day Aesop or La Fontaine,...

The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay Beverly Jensen, read by Bernadette Dunne. Blackstone Audio, unabridged, 10 CDs, 11.5 hrs., $20.97 ISBN 978-1-4417-4788-4 Bernadette Dunne has a pleasantly hoarse, easygoing voice that seems to grows...

With Friends Like These.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... With Friends Like These Sally Koslow, read by Amanda Ronconi. Brilliance Audio, unabridged, nine CDs, 10 hrs., $29.99 ISBN 978-1-4233-8548-6 Koslow's novel--a pleasant if unremarkable story of four friends navigating marriage, careers,...

Hurtling Wings.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... Hurtling Wings L. Ron Hubbard, read by a full cast. Galaxy Audio, unabridged, two CDs, 2 hrs., $9.99 ISBN 978-1-59212-303-2 Death-defying aerial feats, prophetic dreams, and common thugs come together in this pulp tale by Hubbard. Cal...

More NPR Funniest Driveway Moments: Radio Stories That Won't Let You Go.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... More NPR Funniest Driveway Moments: Radio Stories That Won't Let You Go Various authors, read by various narrators. HighBridge Audio, two CDs, 2.25 hrs., $22.95 ISBN 978-1-61573-037-7 Perhaps NPR should have stopped after its first...

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight about Animals.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals Hal Herzog, read by Mel Foster. Tantor Media, unabridged, 10 CDs, 11.5 hrs., $34.99 ISBN 978-1-4001-1921-9 Mel Foster delivers a lively performance...

The Art Detective: Fakes, Frauds and Finds and the Search for Lost Treasures.(Brief article)(Audiobook review)
October 25, 2010... The Art Detective: Fakes, Frauds and Finds and the Search for Lost Treasures Philip Mould, read by James Langton. Tantor Media, unabridged, six CDs, 7 hrs., $29.99 ISBN 978-1-4001-1698-0 Art historian Mould provides an accessible...

Books without borders.(Children's review)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... With the current divisive national conversation about issues like globalization and immigration, bilingual books are more important than ever. Bravo! Ginger Foglesong Guy, illus, by Rene King Moreno. Greenwillow, $16.99 (32p) ISBN...

Zero Kisses for Me.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Zero Kisses for Me Manuela Monari, illus, by Virginie Soumagnac. Tundra, $12.95 (32p) ISBN 978-177049-208-0 An English translation of the Italian picture book Zero baciper me!, this sugarsweet story features a pint-size toddler bear who is...

Space Cadet Topo: The Day the Sun Turned Off .(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Space Cadet Topo: The Day the Sun Turned Off DGPH. Immedium (Consortium, dist.), $15.95 (36p) ISBN 978-1-59702-022-0 Topo the mole is the creation of DGPH, a Buenos Aires design firm inspired by anime, science fiction, graffiti, and other...

The Present.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... The Present Bob Gill. Chronicle, $15.99 (36p) ISBN 978-08118-7743-5 His birthday approaching, Arthur spies a beribboned present at the top of the closet: what can it be? His mind brims with possibilities: "If it were a tractor, he would...

Nightshade City.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Nightshade City Hilary Wagner. Holiday House, $17.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-8234-2285-2 Wagner's debut novel is a labyrinthine saga about warring factions of rats living beneath a human city. Residents of the grim Catacombs are ruled by High...

Hero.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Hero Mike Lupica. Philomel, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-25283-9 Sportswriter and novelist Lupica (Million-Dollar Throw) offers a change of pace from his previous sports stories for younger readers, deftly reworking the traditional...

American idols.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Beliebers and, um, Conradicals, your wait is over. Justin Bieber: First Step. 2 Forever: My Story Justin Bieber. Harper, $21.99 (240p)ISBN 978-0-06-203974-3 Bieber, the platinum-selling singer/ songwriter with the hair that launched a...

Death Benefits.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... Death Benefits Sarah N. Harvey. Orca, $12.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-55469-226-2 Forced to move from Nova Scotia to British Columbia and still recovering from mono, 16-year-old Royce Peterson is down in the dumps. In hopes of saving...

The Marbury Lens.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 25, 2010... * The Marbury Lens Andrew Smith. Feiwel and Friends, $17.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-312-61342-6 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this brutal but highly effective dark fantasy, Smith (In the Path of Falling Objects) tells the story of 16-year-old...

Crisis management.(Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America )(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America William R. Freudenburg and Robert Gramling. MIT, $18.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-262-01583-7 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this intelligent and refreshingly...

The NBA aftermath: what the publishers are doing with their National Book Award finalists.(News)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... The announcement last week of the National Book Award finalists brought a variety of responses. Many cheered that four of the five fiction nominees are women. Others cheered that Jonathan Franzen wasn't one of those fiction nominees. Some...

August store sales down.(bookstores)(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... Bookstore sales fell by their largest rate of 2010 in August, declining 6.5%, to $2.29 billion, according to preliminary estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Driven by sales through college bookstores, August is typically one of the...

E-reserve case to move forward.(Georgia State University )(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... A federal court in Atlanta has ruled that the contentious copyright case involving e-reserve practices at Georgia State University will go forward, but only on one narrowly drawn claim of contributory infringement. Judge Orinda Evans denied all...

Borders enters self-pub.(Borders--Get Published )(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... Borders is launching Borders--Get Published powered by Book-Brewer, a service that will allow writers with blogs, Web sites, or any written content to convert it into an e-book that can be sold through Borders.com or other online book retailers....

Kids, crime e-books from Open Road.(Albert Whitman & Co. and Open Road Integrated Media )(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... Albert Whitman & Co. will team with Open Road Integrated Media to publish the 150 titles of Whitman's Boxcar Children Mysteries series as e-books and some as "enriched" e-books with extra content. The first 19 e-titles in the series will be...

Why some e-books just don't look right.(Digital Maze)
October 18, 2010... Recently I wrote a post for the PWxyz blog about my dismay at the formatting of the e-book edition of Allen Ginsberg's Collected Poems. I read the e-book on the Kindle app on my iPad. In Ginsberg's famous poem "Howl," instead of Ginsberg's...

AAP August sales report.(News)(Association of American Publishers )(Financial report)(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... AAP August Sales Report % CHANGE % CHANGE CATEGORY August YTD Adult Hard (17) * -24.4% 5.2% Adult Paper (19) -18.3 4.1 Mass Market (9) ...

Ingram in warehouse deal with Springer.(Ingram Content Group)(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... Starting in the first quarter of 2011, Ingram Content Group will take over warehousing management, fulfillment, and print-on-demand in the U.S. for European-based Springer. Through the agreement, Ingram will hold Springer's entire U.S....

Foundry closes hat trick.(Deals)(Foundry Literary + Media)(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... Foundry Literary + Media closed three deals last week. Agent Mollie Glick sold North American rights to two books: a memoir by the star of The Blair Witch Project, Heather Donahue, and a debut novel by Ka Hancock. Rachel Holtzman at Gotham...

William Morrow goes Alt-Reality.(Deals)(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... Gabe Robinson at William Morrow bought North American rights to two books in a new series about a computer-generated world by Rod Rees. Emma Thawley at Quercus brokered the deal for the Demi-Monde; book one is called The Demi-Monde: Winter. In...

PublicAffairs considers 'Justice'.(Deals)(Justice for the Enemy )(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... Clive Priddle at PublicAffairs took world rights to a new book called Justice for the Enemy by William Shawcross, the son of the British lead prosecutor at Nuremberg. In the book, which Lynn Nesbit at Janklow & Nesbit sold, Shawcross...

Portfolio gets down to business.(News)(Portfolio Penguin)(Brief article)
October 18, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Tate Modern in London was the setting for the global launch of Portfolio Penguin, which the company is expanding beyond its U.S. base to all divisions. Marking the occasion were Adrian Zackheim, publisher and...

Funke in Germany, Houellebecq in France.(Selling Abroad)(List)
October 18, 2010... Lots of new titles hit international bestsellers' lists in September, especially in Germany and France. German author Cornelia Funke, whose Inkheart series was published in the U.S. by Scholastic, debuted at # 1 in September in Germany with her...

Martingale publishes Marie Osmond.(Crafts)(Martingale & Company to publish Heartfelt Giving: Sew and Quilt for Family and Friends )
October 18, 2010... Heartfelt Giving: Sew and Quilt for Family and Friends by Marie Osmond, actress, singer, and member of the famous showbiz family, comes out November 8. It is the latest in a long line of craft and hobby books from Bothell, Wash., publisher...

Frankfurt 2010.(International Publishing)
October 18, 2010... The 2010 Frankfurt Book Fair was an upbeat affair, thanks in part to a surging e-book market that now translates into a meaningful percentage of trade book revenue, the introduction of the iPad from Apple, the coming launch of Google Editions,...

Hardcover bestsellers/fiction.
October 18, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Michael Connelly: 22 novels and counting since 1992, including 15 Harry Bosch capers. In the author's latest--430,000 copies m print--L.A. defense attorney Mickey Hailer (from 2005's Lincoln Lawyer) finds himself on the...

Hardcover bestsellers/nonfiction.
October 18, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Zooming in. Bryson follows his bestselling A Short History of Nearly Everything with At Home: A Short History of Private Life (copies in print: 180,000), which launched with an Oct. 5 appearance on NPR's Morning...

Papercover bestsellers/mass market.
October 18, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dragon goes down. Since May 17, only one other mass market title has dethroned The Gig from #1--Debbie Macomber at 1022 Evergreen Place, on Sept. 13. For those keeping score, the top spot from Jan. 4 through Apr....

Papercover bestsellers/trade.
October 18, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Q. When is a book tour not a book tour? A. When it's not promoting a book. As reported Oct. 10 on CBS Sunday Morning, Millennium trilogy aficionados are flocking to Stockhohn in major numbers to explore the home town of...

Children's picture book bestsellers.(List)
October 18, 2010... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Knuffle Bunny's adventures wrap up in this final story, in which Trixie loses and finds, and then gives away her stuffed bunny during a trip to Holland. When asked why he's ending the books now, Mo Willems told...

California Lawyers, Wisconsin Booksellers: a high-powered couple starts Apostle Islands Booksellers.(RETAIL NATION)
October 18, 2010... It's been a hectic selling season for Theron O'Connor and Demaris Brinton, who've been working almost nonstop since mid-May, when the couple opened Apostle Islands Booksellers in Bayfield, Wis. The store is in a 19th-century building in the...

With a little Twitter help.(With a Little Help)
October 18, 2010... I'm back from my Australian, German, and Dutch tours, and though I've since given three talks, worked on a novel, and delivered two columns in a week, mostly what I've been noodling with is the With a Little Help launch. Surprisingly, I was...

The state of the word is good.(Bible Publishing)
October 18, 2010... If frontlist publishing is a hare dashing to bestsellerdom, then Bible publishing, in the words of one publishing executive, is the tortoise, steadily plugging away toward a better bottom line. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Every publisher would...

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore Benjamin Hale. Hachette/Twelve, $25.99 (578p) ISBN 978-0-446-57157-9 An enlightened chimp goes on the wildest adventure since Every Which Way but Loose in Hale's mischievous debut. Bruno Littlemore, the...

The Last Brother.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... * The Last Brother Nathacha Appanah, trans, from the French by Geoffrey Strachan. Graywolf, $15 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-55597-575-3 In Appanah's impressive novel, two young boys living in Mauritius during WWII secretly become...

The Sea Captain's Wife.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... The Sea Captain's Wife Beth Powning. Penguin, $15 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-452-29695-4 Powning's 19th-century tale of a young woman desperate to live at sea with her captain husband is a grim rather than swooning romance. When Azuba...

Damage.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Damage John Lescroart. Dutton, $26.95 (420p)ISBN 978-0-525-95176-6 San Francisco homicide chief Abe Glitsky takes on a particularly nasty villain in Lescroart's hair-raising 16th novel featuring Glitsky and lawyer Dismas Hardy (after A...

Strategic Moves.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Strategic Moves Stuart Woods. Putnam, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-399-15711-0 At the start of Woods's routine 19th novel featuring lawyer and man of action Stone Barrington (after Lucid Intervals), Barrington has a lot to celebrate: he's...

Being Polite to Hitler.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Being Polite to Hitler Robb Forman Dew. Little, Brown, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-316-88950-6 National Book Award-winner Dew wraps up the trilogy she began with The Evidence Against Her by considering, in ways both joyful and elegiac, the...

Soul Trapper.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Soul Trapper F.J. Lennon. Atria, $24.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4391-84444 Computer game designer Lennon's debut, the first novel to be adapted from an iPhone app, will disappoint those who expect some scares from a supernatural thriller...

Left Neglected.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Left Neglected Lisa Genova. S&S/Gallery, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-1-4391-6463-1 In neuroscientist Genova's second novel (after Still Alice), a car crash gives a successful younger woman an obscure neurological syndrome called Left Neglect....

Playdate.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Playdate Thelma Adams. St. Martin's/Dunne, $23.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-65666-9 Pity the 21st-century househusband. Although former weatherman Lance Ramsay enjoys staying at home in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, his 10-year-old...

Separate Beds.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Separate Beds Elizabeth Buchan. Viking, $26.95 (372p) ISBN 978-0-670-02236-6 The prolific Buchan (Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman) paints an achingly touching portrait of a marriage and family in crisis, hobbled by economic recession and...

Blind Your Ponies.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Blind Your Ponies Stanley Gordon West. Algonquin, $14.95 trade paper (560p) ISBN 978-1-56512-984-9 In this originally self-published hit, the small town of Willow Creek, Mont., is the place where dreams go to die. English teacher and...

Real Wifeys: On the Grind.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Real Wifeys: On the Grind Meesha Mink. Touchstone, $14.99 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-4391-7311-4 Raw sistah Kaeyla "Goldie" Dennis is only 16 when she becomes the kept plaything of the much older, married Damion "Dyme" Gunners after...

PW talks with Paula Bomer: poor babies: Paula Bomer's debut, Baby (Reviews, Sept. 27), is a collection of 10 ferocious stories about the pressures on married couples as they raise families.(Q&A)(Interview)
October 18, 2010... Where do the stories come from? There's a lot of social pressure on people to bask in the glory of parenthood, but it's not really glorious: we're not allowed to talk about how hard it is. Parenting is the death of marriage, the death of two...

Queen Hereafter.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Queen Hereafter Susan Fraser King. Crown, $25.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-307-45279-5 In King's follow-up to Lady Macbeth, Queen Margaret feeds the hungry and clothes the poor while war rages at home and abroad in 11th-century Scotland. Margaret...

The Diver.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... The Diver Alfred Neven DuMont, trans, from the German by David Dollenmayer. St. Martin's, $24.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-312-64798-8 DuMont, an icon in Germany, receives his first English translation with a novel laden with philosophy and...

Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... * Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories Patricia Highsmith. Norton, $29.95 (736p) ISBN 978-0-393-08013-1 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As Highsmith biographer Joan Schenkar notes in her introduction to this stellar compendium,...

The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense Edited by Otto Penzler. Pegasus (Norton, dist.), $25 (366p) ISBN 978-1-60598-135-2 Penzler's anthology of Russian crime stories doesn't quite live up to the billing of its title, given the...

Isle of Dreams.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Isle of Dreams Keizo Hino, trans, from the Japanese by Charles de Wolf. Dalkey Archive, $14.95 trade paper (168p) ISBN 978-1-56478-603-6 In Hino's acclaimed 1985 novel, translated into English for the first time, Tokyo is both a setting and a...

Island Girl.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 18, 2010... Island Girl. Lynda Simmons. Berkley, $15 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-0-425-23724-3 Canadian novelist Simmons (Getting Rid of Rosie) returns with a real weeper. At 55, Ward Island hair stylist Ruby Donaldson has enjoyed a bohemian life full...