Japanese Puzzles of the Future: Nurikabe Solution!

See? That wasn't so hard!--Jim

Japanese Puzzles of the Future!: Hitori [The Solution]

The elephant takes a break...

I'm out... headed to Arkansas, thankfully not via bicycle. Have a safe and happy holiday everyone. We're back Thursday and Friday for some...uh, hmmm... filing? blogging? writing angry letters to the editor? Something like that. Until then, we've got another press clip cover page from the past to make up for the pre-holiday malaise that has kept us out of the copy room for yet another week.
--John Mark

Sudoku Solution

We posted a Sudoku puzzle last week. Here's the official solution. Thanks for playing! Keep your eyes peeled for more puzzles and an exciting new installment to the blog entitled *PUZZLES OF THE FUTURE!!* This guy is ready! Are you?--Jim

Two Starred Publishers Weekly reviews and a Partridge in a Pair Tree

The Thousandfold Thought: The Prince of Nothing, Book Three
Bakker, R. Scott

In the shattering climax to Canadian author Bakker's magnificent fantasy saga (after 2005's The Warrior-Prophet ), the Holy War army has finally reached the gates of the holy city of Shimeh. The warrior-prophet, Anasrimbor Kellhus, learns that the Thousandfold Thought, a great "transition rule" that promises to transform the two warring faiths of Inrithism and Fanimry, offers the only way to bring peace to the world of Erwa and avoid a Second Apocalypse. Amid all the bloodshed and battle, Kellhus continues to respect his friend, the sorcerer Drusas Achamian, despite the conflict that arises when Kellhus takes "the whore Esmenet," hitherto Achamian's woman, as his consort. Esmenet's wavering love between the two men lends poignancy and personal depth to an epic story notable for its lack of melodrama. A large and varied supporting cast of heroes and scoundrels add further emotional realism. The Prince of Nothing trilogy is a work of unforgettable power. (Jan.)

* * * * *

On Seeing: Things Seen, Unseen, and Obscene
Gonzalez-Crussi, F.

What Oliver Sacks does for the mind, Gonzlez-Crussi (On Being Born and Other Difficulties ) does for the eye in this captivating set of philosophical meditations on the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. The author, amused and amazed by our desire to see what is forbidden, draws on historical and cultural examples, from Actaeon spying on the goddess Diana to a pair of voyeurs in revolutionary France who unwittingly incite a massacre. Mixed in with such accounts are personal reflections drawn from medicine (Gonzlez-Crussi is professor emeritus of pathology at Northwestern's medical school). He is astounded, for example, at how many people have pestered him for access to an autopsy, just to say they'd seen one. The ornate sentences are filled with stunning images, like his description of an infant just emerged from the womb, bloody, "weakly flailing his arms" and crying, appearing to the author not as a symbol of life but as resembling "a foot-soldier in a defeated army, a pitiful survivor in a catastrophic retreat," and his prose never loses its elegance, even when the stories he tells veer into the bawdy. Not every anecdote resonates perfectly, but Gonzlez-Crussi is a charming raconteur who will win over readers with his thoughts on our visual connection to the world around us. 10 b&w illus. (Feb.)

Kakuro: Transit Strike Edition

Here's a free Kakuro puzzle to take your mind off the hideous gridlock!

Remember these simple rules:

* The clue represents the sum of the numbers in the adjacent block of empty cells.

* The numbers 1 through 9 are used to fill the grid.

* Each block can contain only one occurance of a digit.

* More info can be found here.

Enjoy! E-mail us for hints, solutions or strike moaning.--Jim, puzzle guy

STEEEeeeeeeee-RIKE!

Like a snow day without snow, or a blackout with electricity...

or a day off that you spend in the office.

Oh well.








--John Mark

Free Sudoku Puzzle For You

Greetings from your puzzle maestro. Here's a free puzzle from our best-selling Sudoku books you can print out and solve this weekend.

Click on the image to enlarge and print it out (more than once if you're using a pen). This one shouldn't be too tough--if you've never tried one take a shot at it.

Stay tuned to the Elephant Walk for frequent puzzles! Sudoku! Kakuro! And be the first to get wise to the new puzzle crazes of the future: Nurikabe! Masyu! Hitori!

Have a great weekend. E-mail me for hints or the solution to this weekend's puzzle!--Jim

More elephants...

Alas, no transit strike and no time to compile the press kits this Friday, but here's one from two weeks ago. An oldie but a goodie.

Training for the transit strike

Sooooooo...there might be a transit strike...

During the summer I ride my bike into work most every day, and through the winter I ride when it’s above 30 degrees and the streets are clear. I'm lucky enough to work at a place that lets me bring my bike inside, it takes me the same amount of time as the subway (5-10 minutes quicker if I push it), there’s time to think, I don't have anyone grinding up against me for half an hour every morning and afternoon, and in the winter it’s my one chance at seeing daylight. Also makes me feel kind of tough.

I recently pulled FULL TILT: From Ireland to India With a Bicycle off the shelf and started flipping through it. The subtitle pretty much explains it, but the journal entries start in Yugoslavia and take her through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally India. So yeah, an Irish woman riding her bike BY HERSELF across Europe and a good part of Asia, over snow and ice on mountain passes and through 110+ degree deserts…pretty tough. It’s also an interesting look into Afghanistan and that whole area before the war with Russia really heated up and, well, ruined it.

Richard’s 21st Century Bicycle Book, which Overlook also publishes, has the most reasonable chapter on riding in city traffic I’ve ever read, including what to do when someone is trying to kill you with their car (seriously).

And speaking of riding in traffic, here’s a video of bike messengers racing through NYC set to Guns 'n' Roses' 'Welcome to the Jungle. It's 50M, but worth every bit of it...

--John Mark

Why didn't I think of that?

The Overlook Press Psy-Ops Support Element (formerly known as the publicity department) plans to place pro-Overlook messages in media outlets in a campaign designed to sway audiences to support our books. No t-shirts and bumperstickers yet, but we'll keep you posted...

--John Mark

Yet another "Best of 2005" list, not that we're complaining...

Hugh Pope's Sons of the Conquerors has been chosen as a Best Book of 2005 by The Economist.

"In a quest that takes him from the grim battlefronts of Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan to secret encounters with Turkic-speaking Uighur nationalists in China, Hugh Pope seeks to unearth the common strands that link the 140m Turkic speakers across the globe. An ambitious book, and a highly accomplished one."

To hear Hugh's interview with Robert Siegel on NPR's "All Things Considered," click here.

--John Mark

Kirkus Best Books of 2005

Congratulations to Jules Watson, whose novel The White Mare was named one of the best SciFi & Fantasy books of 2005 by Kirkus. Per Olov Enquist's Lewi's Journey is also one of the best of 2005 and got a little write up. You can see the entire Best of 2005 special issue in dazzling Kirkus color as a pdf here.

Jules has the second book of her trilogy, The Dawn Stag, out in mid/late January, and Enquist's The Book About Blanche and Marie is due in March. Both books are already getting great early reviews and they'll probably be picking up an armful of awards again around this time in 2006.

To read a 4-part Author2Author conversation between Jules Watson and Juliet Marillier from Beatrice.com last year, click here.

For an interview with Enquist about Lewi's Journey from Transcript, click here.

--John Mark

Jim in the NY POST

A little off-topic, but...vote for me! Can love blossom in the pages of the New York Post? We're going to find out very soon. --Jim

"When we see the ocean, we figure we're home, we're safe."

It seems like every time someone mentions The Warriors, the 1979 movie about a NYC gang that has to fight their way from the Bronx back to their home turf in Coney Island, I end up going on and on about the fact that the book (which became the movie, which became the video game, which will become the remake of the movie next summer) is a retelling of Xenophon’s Anabasis. The Anabasis tells the story of 10,000 Greek mercenaries fighting their way back home from what is now Iraq and Turkey. They know they are near the end of the ordeal when they top a hill and see the Aegean Sea and shout “Thalatta, Thalatta!” (The sea, the sea!)

Where did I learn all this? This book, the perfect gift for anyone planning on spending their whole Christmas vacation on the couch playing the video game. Okay, maybe not the perfect gift... the perfect antidote?

On one of the last summer Fridays of 2005, a band of Overlookers battled their way from Soho to Brighton Beach for an afternoon of laying around on the sand, playing games of catch, and finally eating entirely too much Russian food on the boardwalk.

Photos:
(above) Peter doing his best Baseball Furies impersonation.

(below) Alex, Katy, John Mark, Peter, Liese and Josh at Tatiana on the boardwalk.

--John Mark

Elephants!

Every week when we distribute copies of all the press our books have received around the office, we have a different elephant picture on the cover page. So here's our elephant picture of the week, commemorating our intern Molly's last day with us.
Enjoy the weekend...and good luck, Molly.

BEMELMANS in DAILY CANDY

The Daily Candy e-mail newsletter featured WHEN YOU LUNCH WITH THE EMPEROR today...bet you didn't know that the author of the Madeline children's books shot at a waiter when he was 14 and working in a restaurant.

Do you Kakuro?

There's a front page USA TODAY Arts article about Overlook's The Book of Kakuro by Michael Mepham! Check it out! How prepared are you for the coming Kakuro rage?

A taste of Honey...

Gloria Fickling is one half of the husband-and-wife team that wrote the Honey West detective novels of the 1950s & 60s that became the Aaron Spelling-produced TV show in the 60s. Gloria—and Honey—are mounting a comeback with the reissue of the first of the pulp paperback series THIS GIRL FOR HIRE. Check out recent profiles from the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register (reg required) for more. The next book, KISS FOR A KILLER, is due in April.

WASHINGTON POST Best Books of 2005

Today at The Overlook Press we've got some exciting news:

THE CARDINAL'S HAT by Overlook author Mary Hollingsowrth is one of Jonathan Yardley's Critic’s Choices for 2005: "Hollingsworth's research is meticulous, and her book is as entertaining as it is informative."

And LEGENDS by Robert Littell is noted in the Book World Raves: The best books of 2005: "A spy novel that portrays today's Russia as a kleptocracy--a gangster state for which the United States is largely responsible."

Congratulations to these terrific authors and welcome to The Overlook Press' weblog!