Genre Fiction

Readers interested in discovering new authors - listen up! Borders has announced the nominees for their 2008 Original Voices Awards. Regardless of which first-time author wins the honor, all of these are worth checking out, according Borders employees.

In the fiction category:
* Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
* The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
* The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
* The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
* The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes
* The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

For the young adult reader:

* Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go by Dale Basye
* I Am Apache by Tanya Landman
* The Patron Saint of Butterflies by Cecilia Galante
* Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams
* Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff
* Wake by Lisa McMann

The other two categories are non-fiction and children’s picture books. The winner of each category, which will be announced in January, 2009, will receive $5,000 and will be featured in Borders stores nationwide.

Discover the non-fiction and children’s nominees by clicking … (more…)

Lots of promising fiction books have been released recently, just in time for Christmas shopping.

In addition to Wally Lamb’s The Hour I First Believed, which I think everyone knows I am super psyched about, I am also excited and intrigued by these new releases:

1. Knit Two by Kate Jacobs: I haven’t even had a chance to read Jacobs’s second book - Comfort Foods - yet and now she’s written a sequel to her first novel, Friday Night Knitting Club.

2. Disquiet by Julia Leigh: Between being mentored by Toni Morrison and having a tragic story line, Leigh is easily Oprah’s Book Club Potential … and I love me a good Oprah pick!

3. Speaking of Toni Morrison … A Mercy by Toni Morrison. Her ninth novel hit stores on November 11 and follows suit as a deeply tragic, albeit incredibly empowering, look at civil rights, specifically slavery.

All of those shown in this picture are new releases, too. Click on the picture to read more about them at the NY Times online.

The further into Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos, the more I want to compare it to Dear Catastrophe Waitress by Brendan Halpin. I enjoyed Waitress, and am equally enjoying Love. Both are grand stories of personal strength and new relationships.

The similarities between these two books has inspired me to compare other books that I have read and enjoyed.

If you like this … you’ll also like this

1. Augusten Burroughs … David Sedaris

2. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen … Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Read more about these two)

3. Tracy Chevalier … Sarah Dunant

4. Dry by Augusten Burroughs … A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Read more)

5. A Red Dress Ink book … any other Red Dress Ink book (Read more)

6. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold … The Bright Forever by Lee Martin (Read more)

7. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb … White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Every time I peruse my favorite small, used bookstore, the same book catches my eye. It has been on the shelf for over a year, and I pick it up every time.

The book is David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl (2000). Being of Danish heritage, the title interests me, but the story never does … no matter how many times I pick it up and read the description.

Danish Girl is not about any of my international relatives (that I know of). It is a “fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe (shown in photo), the first person to undergo sex reassignment surgery,” according to Wikipedia. And now it’s making headlines.

Ebershoff’s debut, acclaimed novel is being turned into a big budget movie. Nicole Kidman will star as post-op Lili Elbe (who was Einar Wegener pre-op), and Charlize Theron will play Einar’s wife Greta Wegener.

The Wegners are a happily married couple who are both painters. Greta implores her husband’s help when a model bails on her mid-painting. Einar dresses up in the silk dress, stockings, and high heels that the model had donned. From there, the couple’s love is tested in unprecedented ways. Einar falls in love with feminine attire and Greta plays along, calling her husband “Lili” as a joke. But can their marriage - and Greta’s love - continue when Einar physically becomes Lili?

So if you are intrigued by the previews, and want to snag a paperback copy of The Danish Girl sans Kidman on the cover, I know a little used bookstore in Delaware that probably still has a copy.

David Ebershoff has also written a short story collection - The Rose City (2001) - and two other novels: The 19th Wife (2008) and Pasadena (2002).

Still eight weeks away, 2009 is already looking to be a very good year for author Nora Roberts.

In 2007, Lifetime Television Network produced and played four original movies based on four novel by Roberts. These films were met with such enthusiasm and success, that Lifetime has ordered four more films based on four more of Roberts’ novels, to be aired in 2009.

Nora Roberts’ High Noon is the first to begin production, with stars including Emilie de Ravi, Ivan Sergei, and Golden Globe winner Cybill Shepherd. The other three films will include Nora Roberts’ Midnight Bayou, Nora Roberts’ Tribute and Nora Roberts’ Northern Lights. True Betrayals and Carnal Innocence were also considered.

High Noon follows Phoebe, a hostage negotiator, as she juggles her working, family, and love lives, all while receiving threats from a psychopathic killer.

Northern Lights is third in line for filming with announced cast members including Grammy Award winner LeAnn Rimes, Eddie Cibrian, and Rosanna Arquette. Jerry O’Connell, Lauren Stamile, and Faye Dunaway lead the cast of Midnight Bayou. The cast of Tribute is yet to be announced.

“I’m delighted,” said Roberts. “The care and attention to detail they gave the four movies that aired in 2007 made for wonderful entertainment. … I’m anticipating another four exciting adaptations to air in 2009.”

The four 2007 Lifetime movies were Angels Fall, Montana Sky, Blue Smoke, and Carolina Moon. Previously, two other Roberts books were adapted into TV movies: Sanctuary in 2001, and Magic Moments in 1989.

Nora Roberts is a New York Times bestselling author who has written more than 150 romance novels, plus an additional collection - the In Death series - under the pen name J. D. Robb.

Tonight I’m going to go back in time. The ’50s have always fascinated me. I like the idea of wholesome courtship. I love the dresses from the time. The cars, music, and hang outs seem so fun. And I am old-fashioned in my desires to be a housewife that takes care of the kids, cooks, knits, and makes the family’s clothes.

But I know nothing about the books that were popular in the decade. Here are the top ten best-selling books from the year 1958, the year my mother was born:

1. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
2. Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver
3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
4. Around the World with Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
5. From the Terrace by John O’Hara
6. Eloise at Christmastime by Kay Thompson
7. Ice Palace by Edna Ferber
8. The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton
9. The Enemy Camp by Jerome Weidman
10. Victorine by Frances Parkinson Keyes

Cader Books provides a year by year run down of best-selling fiction and non-fiction books. Visit Cader to check out the rest of the top books from the ’50s and other decades.

Yesterday, November 4, after a private battle with cancer, famed author Michael Crichton passed away unexpectedly.

The 66-year-old man of many hats was a medical doctor, wrote best-selling novels such as the Jurassic Park series, helped to create popular TV shows including ER, and warned the public about consensus science, urging them to be skeptic. His cautionary scientific beliefs often played out in his works, which told worst case scenarios of scientific advancements.

Crichton won an Emmy, a Peabody, a Writer’s Guild of America Award, and many other awards. He stood tall at 6′9″ and graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School.

Other written works by Michael Crichton include: The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Timeline, State of Fear, and Prey. Odds On (1966), written under the pen name John Lange, was Crichton’s first published work of fiction; Next (2006) was his most recent. One unnamed novel was completed before his death and is set to be released December 2.

Just one week (six days if you want to get technical) until Wally Lamb’s new book The Hour I First Believed comes out!

Get a sneak peak at the cover, inside blurb, and first few pages here:

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

Many books have been written by, for, and about presidents, presidential candidates and their family members. With tomorrow’s important U.S. election, many such books have recently been published. Biographies - both unofficial and official - of Barack Obama and John McCain have popped up on shelves. John’s daughter, Meghan McCain, wrote a children’s book. There have been political commentaries, criticisms, and spoofs.

And now there is a time-appropriate fiction novel that is also seemingly riding the 2008 election wave.

Promoted as a what-if political novel, David L. Dukes’s The First Black President Blues goes there. Yes, there. As in speculating that America is not ready for a African-American president because there would be an assassination attempt.

Here is President Blues synopsis: “Re-elected to a second term, Louis Hayes, America’s first black president, finds himself lying speechless and paralyzed after having been shot at his inaugural party. During the ensuing struggle to survive, Louis retraces his life’s path - from a childhood in Baltimore’s projects to leader of the free world - and comes to grips with his own true American identity”

I’m not sure what Dukes was thinking.

This is Dukes’s third alternate history fiction book where he speculates on possible future scenarios surrounding current sociopolitical conditions. His first two such novels are The Zebra Confessions, about America’s second civil war, and The Last White Soldier, about World War III. All three novels were self published through leading independent book publisher Author House.

Want to know who I’m voting for tomorrow? Read about my struggle to find a candidate that I like.