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• Hotlists & Notable Books
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• Interactive Stuff
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Hotlists 2008

Fiction | Zoho DB

Crime Fiction | Zoho DB

Crime Fiction - embedded

 

Seeing Stars

Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).

The review journal assigns the star.

Out and About. . .

I'm playing around at Shelfari, LibraryThing, and Good Reads. I've set up links to my pages on these sites. And, yes, I have a hard time keeping up-to-date on these sites...

LibraryThing

GoodReads

Shelfari

I've set up "shelves" from these sites on Overbooked - here

Overbooked is spacing out: Myspace: Overbooked and Crime Space - and, facing out: Facebook profile.

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Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .

Overbooked is the winner of the 2008 Louis Shores - Greenwood Publishing Award: to recognize excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries. The award recipient is selected for significant achievement related to a reviewing process that helps librarians make selection decisions.

Starred Reviews

All Stars 2007

August 19, 2008

Fiction titles which received three or more starred reviews from major review sources.

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• Lost City Radio
  Author: Alacron, Daniel
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780060594794 Date: 2007
  Kirkus LJ Booklist
  Alarcon's highly anticipated new novel is the story of three people searching for answers in a country ravaged by war. War by Candlelight, the author's debut story collection, was a finalist for the 2006 PEN Hemingway Award.
  Updated 12.28.06
• The Yiddish Policeman's Union
  Author: Chabon, Michael
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 9780007149827 Date: 2007
  Kirkus Booklist LJ
  The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay pens an homage to the stylish menace of 1940s noir, in a novel that imagines if Alaska, not Israel, had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II.
  Updated 3.2.07
• Finn
  Author: Cinch, Jon
  Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781400065912 Date: 2007
  Kirkus PW LJ
  In this masterful debut novel, Clinch takes readers on a journey into the history and heart of one of American literature's most brutal and mysterious figures: Huckleberry Finn's father. The result is a deeply original tour de force that springs from Twain's classic novel but takes on a fully realized life of its own.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts | Twain
  Updated 1.17.06
• Medicus
  Author: Downie, Ruth
  Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781596912311 Date: 2007
  Kirkus Booklist LJ
  Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on-his luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. When he rescues an injured slave girl, she drags trouble in her wake.
  Updated 11.1.06
• Measuring Time
  Author: Habila, Helon
  Publisher: Norton $ 13.95 ISBN: 9780393052510 Date: 2007
  PW Kirkus LJ
  A thrilling, epic story from a major new international talent. A novel of ardent loyalty, encroaching modernity, political desire, and personal liberation, Measuring Time is a heart-wrenching history of Nigeria, portrayed through the eyes of a single family. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 12.28.06
• The Dead Fathers Club
  Author: Haig, Matt
  Publisher: Viking $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780670038336 Date: 2007
  PW Kirkus Booklist
  Eleven-year-old Philip Noble has a big problem. It all begins when his dad appears as a ghost at his own funeral and introduces Philip to the Dead Fathers Club. Philip learns the truth about ghosts: the only people who end up ghosts are MURDERED. So begins Philip's quest to avenge his dad. Hilariously funny, it is full of poignant insights into the strange workings of the world seen through the eyes of a child.
  Suggested Reading: Ghosts | Shakespeare
  Updated 12.1.06
• Tree of Smoke
  Author: Johnson, Denis
  Publisher: FSG $ 27.50 ISBN: 9780374279127 Date: 2007
  PW Booklist LJ
  This book chronicles the story of Skip Sands--spy-in-training, whos engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong--and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel.
  8.20.07
• In the Country of Men
  Author: Matar, Hisham
  Publisher: Dial $ 22 ISBN: 9780385340427 Date: 2007
  Kirkus PW LJ
  In 1979 Libya, nine-year-old Suleiman endures his mother's increasingly disturbing bedside stories full of old family bitterness. His father is away on business (again), and Suleiman is soon caught up in a world he cannot hope to understand in this novel that offers a stunning depiction of a child confronted with the private fallout of a public nightmare.
  Updated 10.25.06
• Consumption
  Author: Patterson, Kevin
  Publisher: Talese $ 25 ISBN: 9780385520744 Date: 2007
  PWLJ Kirkus
  A penetrating portrait of generational divisions and cultural dissonance, this novel illuminates how the tenuous bonds of friendship, love, and family fly apart--and the unexpectedly tender ways in which survivors carry on.
  Updated 6.27.07
• The Bastard of Istanbul
  Author: Shakfa, Elif
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780670038343 Date: 2007
  Kirkus LJ Booklist
  Updated 11.1.06
• Ten Days in the Hills
  Author: Smiley, Jane
  Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 9781400040612 Date: 2007
  PW Booklist LJ
  This glorious new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner is a big, smart, bawdy tale of love and war, sex and politics, friendship and betrayal--and the allure of the movies.
  Updated 2.19.07
• Mothers and Sons
  Author: Toibin, Colm
  Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 9781416534655 Date: 2007
  Kirkus LJ Booklist
  Following his "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize winner The Master, Toibin has written a resonant, heartbreaking collection of stories.
  Updated 12.28.06
• Cheating at Canasta
  Author: Trevor, William
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780670018376 Date: 2007
  PW Booklist LJ Kirkus
  The publication of a new book by William Trevor is a great literary event. Trevor's precise and unflinching insights into the hearts and lives of ordinary people are evidenced once again in this stunning new collection. From a chance encounter between two childhood friends to the memories of a newly widowed man to a family grappling with the sale of their ancestral land, Trevor examines with grace and skill the tenuous bonds of our relationships, the strengths that hold us together, and the truths that threaten to separate us. Subtle yet powerful, his stories linger with the reader long after the words have been put away. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 8.27.07

Overbooked is a volunteer project undertaken by Ann Chambers Theis: Collection Management Administrator, Chesterfield County (VA) Public Library. 9501 Lori Rd. or P.O. Box 297, Chesterfield, VA, 23832. Phone: 804.748.1760.

Overbooked is not an official Chesterfield County Public Library service. Overbooked.org is a nonprofit web site hosted by CVCO - Central Virginia's Community Online. Overbooked.com is a nonprofit web site in experimental mode. Overbooked does not endorse any commercial providers (or their products and services) linked to from this web site.

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I really appreciate all the e-mail I receive from avid readers and writers and regret that I am not able to respond to all correspondents. Special thanks to those folks who regularly help keep me on track - you know who you are....

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