tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-364288232010-04-30T01:56:27.365-07:00Book reviews, book-related news and author interviewsLinda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.comBlogger1674125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-36590145300433263312010-04-30T01:56:00.001-07:002010-04-30T01:56:27.386-07:00

This blog is now located at http://januarymagazine.blogspot.com/. You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://januarymagazine.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-87041560488009930942010-04-30T01:00:00.000-07:002010-04-30T01:00:04.014-07:00

What should you do with that horrible book you just tried to slog through? Mobylives says, “Decorate!” The link is here.

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-9842639713406898772010-04-29T16:32:00.000-07:002010-04-29T16:37:40.113-07:00

In my lifetime, I have seen diets come and go. You have too. Some of them, when they went, were unlamented. In the 1990s, for example, there was a time when certain diet gurus recommended the avoidance of carbohydrates to such an extreme extent, the health of his followers was at risk. (Bacon? Sure: eat bacon. But go easy on the whole wheat bread.)The constant to many of these diets is simple:

Monica Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13139525425995764883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-65061381911171832102010-04-29T07:48:00.000-07:002010-04-29T07:49:20.941-07:00

There are a couple of newly reissued novels that crime-fiction fans really ought to lay their hands on soon.The first is Picador’s 40th anniversary edition of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a work that Dennis Lehane, in his new introduction, calls “the game-changing crime novel of the last fifty years” and “quite possibly one of the four or five best crime novels ever written.” Part of what

J. Kingston Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17073921191624535912jpwrites@wordcuts.org0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-32383915839991274542010-04-23T00:05:00.000-07:002010-04-23T00:05:01.020-07:00

Internationally known nature photographer Mitsuaki Iwago casts his lens on the common cat with surprising results. Curious Cats (Chronicle Books) is like a love letter to family pets everywhere from someone whose usual oeuvre is somewhat more exotic.In a way, it seems as though Iwago has photographed these common household kitties like wild animals. We see them comfortable in their own elements:

David Middletonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10281181661341523981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-4976386300736431882010-04-22T11:00:00.000-07:002010-04-22T11:00:01.569-07:00

After his takes on the apocalypse (Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, 2008) and medieval alchemy (Vampire a Go-Go, 2009), Victor Gischler returns to crime fiction with his latest novel, The Deputy (Tyrus Books). Toby Sawyer is an ex-musician who returned home to Coyote Crossing, Oklahoma, when his mother died, and ended up staying. The town’s sheriff gave him a job as a part-time deputy, even though

Jim Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06122822825357026014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-19394838814325196262010-04-22T08:45:00.000-07:002010-04-22T09:12:37.178-07:00

As a strong advocate of literacy and bibliotherapy, even I have to admit to having limits as this story from the BBC indicates:A bus driver has been suspended after a passenger filmed him apparently reading while driving along a dual carriageway in Birmingham.The passenger, who wishes to remain anonymous, filmed the National Express West Midlands driver steering with his elbows while holding a

Ali Karimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00640079406581573368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-68701676448014156302010-04-21T12:02:00.000-07:002010-04-21T12:05:42.805-07:00

It was 100 years ago today that writer, humorist and social commentator Mark Twain (né Samuel Clemens) died of a heart attack in Redding, Connecticut, at age 74. He’d supposedly predicted his demise a year earlier, linking it to the reappearance of Halley’s Comet: “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest

J. Kingston Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17073921191624535912jpwrites@wordcuts.org0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-90744119561121996942010-04-20T05:00:00.000-07:002010-04-20T05:00:07.336-07:00

In the world of crime fiction, sometimes it seems as if the only thing anyone’s talking about is Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy.” Those three novels -- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (due out in the States next month) -- comprise one of the finest series of crime thrillers ever written.

Tony Buchsbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254707449683889078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-15112312071980763462010-04-20T00:45:00.000-07:002010-04-20T00:51:27.641-07:00

If the concepts of recovery and fitting in and being normal do not resonate for you, chances are Becoming Normal (Central Recovery Press) is not a book that needs to be added to your shelves. The audience for this book is quite specific, but it’s also large and mostly under-serviced. The central theme in this personal memoir is learning how to regain your life and re-find your way after addiction

Aaron Blantonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-70821842136159279432010-04-19T09:00:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:00:04.931-07:00

The London Book Fair gets underway at Earl’s Court today. This is an event I enjoy attending annually to gauge the state of publishing which has been suffering from the twin-pronged approach of economic and technological challenges.This year the Fair faces another problem: the ash falling over Europe from the Icelandic volcano that has cleared the skies of aircraft. Many people will be unable to

Ali Karimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00640079406581573368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-75452971555725889632010-04-19T08:30:00.000-07:002010-04-20T02:06:27.521-07:00

Last week, via the American Copy Editors Society conference and Twitter, AP announced that, effective immediately, the correct way to describe a “computer connected to the Internet that maintains a series of web pages on the World Wide Web” is “website” rather than “Web site,” which is what has been correct until the announcement of the change.This might not be the only change. AP is considering

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-25064319884195263562010-04-17T00:05:00.000-07:002010-04-17T00:05:00.564-07:00

You are what you eat. If we take this saying literally, it would appear that Western culture is lost. Mountains of fast food hamburgers, masses of brown food deep-fried beyond recognition. If we are what we eat, we’re in trouble.In Ancient Wisdom, Modern Kitchen (Da Capo) this old phrase might take on a whole new meaning. The book is predicated on the idea that not only are we what we eat, we can

Aaron Blantonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-86774779953661113412010-04-16T13:30:00.000-07:002010-04-16T13:30:00.518-07:00

Rat (Knopf) is a new millennium coming-of-age story told in a frankly lyrical and literary voice. Fifteen-year-old Celia -- nicknamed Rat -- lives in rural Spain with her mother, a self-involved free spirit. When the little family adopts the nine-year-old son of a dead friend, Celia is at first resentful, but she comes to love Morgan and feel protective of him. So much so that when her mother’s

Sienna Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00066864126359185592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-7915529766778619922010-04-16T09:55:00.000-07:002010-04-16T09:53:35.591-07:00

No matter what you make of Andrew Potter’s path to bring us back to reality, it’s an interesting journey. A philosophical one, in many ways. On a par with the paths of thought taken by the (thus far) better known Alain de Botton, who is, after all, one of our best known contemporary philosophers. Though he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, that isn’t what Potter calls

David Middletonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10281181661341523981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-87672931198828069892010-04-15T00:25:00.000-07:002010-04-15T00:37:52.304-07:00

After about a decade of electronic see sawing on the future of the book, a handful of very successful electronic reading devices are leading the way. It no longer seems like a question of whether electronic books will ever own a significant portion of the reading market. These days, the questions are focused around how quickly it will happen in a deep and meaningful way.Now Penguin CEO, John

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-57292182266714500742010-04-14T08:25:00.000-07:002010-04-16T14:16:10.649-07:00

The competition is based in the United Kingdom, but it could have reading reverberations all over the world. After all, no one doubts the power of a teenager and heaven help the poor sod who gets between a girl and her reading material. From Book Trade:The Queen of Teen award was founded in 2008 to celebrate the feistiest, frothiest and most fantastic writers for the tween and teen market, and

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-18717509551150550062010-04-13T00:15:00.000-07:002010-04-13T00:15:00.829-07:00

I love the line in the publicity material where potential reviewers are informed that The Los Angeles Times compared Japanese author Yoko Ogawa to Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro and Kenzaburō Ōe. And while, yes, all of those author have Japanese names with loads of syllables, their work is not comparable. Well, it’s all writing. And it’s all very good. But that’s not the basis for drawing this

Sienna Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00066864126359185592noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-17644986506656986662010-04-12T08:43:00.000-07:002010-04-12T08:43:00.979-07:00

I am always looking out for the unusual in my reading -- the unique, the different, the exciting -- all with a view to try and piece together the meaning of the reality I see around me. It is thanks to the viewpoint of others, through from their fiction, that sometimes I get to see beyond my own vista, and occasionally what appears as a parallax view, challenges my own world-view of reality.

Ali Karimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00640079406581573368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-5729223995136822942010-04-10T00:08:00.000-07:002010-04-10T00:10:44.646-07:00

According to The Writer’s Almanac, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published to mixed reviews on this day in 1925:Fitzgerald knew there was something missing in his novel. He wrote in a letter: “The worst fault in it I think is a BIG FAULT: I gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relations between Gatsby and Daisy from the time of their reunion to

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-34024231250510924542010-04-09T14:32:00.000-07:002010-04-09T14:33:45.877-07:00

A book about television host, producer and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey is drawing a sickening amount of attention for “poison pen” biographer Kitty Kelley.The book, Oprah: A Biography (Crown) will be published on Tuesday. Earlier this week, The New York Times rolled out a spread worthy of a socialite or a rock star in an “interview” by Deborah Solomon called “The Secret Sharer.” With an opening

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-22487342120268075952010-04-09T13:51:00.000-07:002010-04-09T13:53:02.047-07:00

According to Lapham’s Quarterly, “A Magazine of History and Ideas,” Raymond Chandler’s drugs of choice while he worked on The Blue Dahlia were gimlets and vitamin shots and while working on 1954’s Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley tried to enhance his own with mescaline.It is unsurprising to read that, while tapping away at In Cold Blood, Truman Capote tiffled double martinis while both Samuel

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-53547085183428406792010-04-06T06:03:00.000-07:002010-04-06T06:03:00.423-07:00

Dexter Palmer’s debut novel is, in all ways, a beautiful book. The cover evokes a steampunk version of Metropolis. The pages are beautifully designed and deckled-edged.Palmer’s writing, too, is beautiful. From the first, The Dream of Perpetual Motion (St. Martin’s Press) is lyrical, even haunting. It may be Palmer’s first novel but you know right away that you’re in the hands of a master

Lincoln Chohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14928697448708430161noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-86441939486441918622010-04-06T03:19:00.000-07:002010-04-06T03:19:00.619-07:00

Presumably, when Louise Shaffer’s first book was published -- 1994’s All My Suspects -- the new author had a built-in audience. After all, by that point, Shaffer’s face and voice were familiar to millions of television viewers because, as an actress, she’d been appearing in popular soap operas since the 1960s.Reportedly, when Shaffer got to an age when available roles started thinning, she picked

Monica Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13139525425995764883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36428823.post-23128126511830427592010-04-06T01:05:00.000-07:002010-04-06T01:16:08.842-07:00

This year in young adult fiction, supernatural is leading the way. We already knew about vampires -- how could anyone not? -- but the latest trend flips the coin in a surprising way. From The Guardian:“Angels are all around us,” reads the publisher’s blurb for Angel, the first of a British trilogy of books for teenagers. “Their beauty is intoxicating, their presence awe-inspiring, their energy

Linda L. Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05868426000807302834noreply@blogger.com0