GREAT DANES: Keld Zeruneith's THE WOODEN HORSE Launched in NYC

Danish literary critic and historian Keld Zeruneith, here with his wife, the distinguished writer Suzanne Brogger, was honored last night by The Overlook Press with a reception at the home of Publisher Peter Mayer. On hand for the festivities were our friends from the Danish Consulate, including Consul General Torben Getterman, Danish novelist Christian Jungersen, New Yorker writer and author Judith Thurman, Lewis Lapham of Lapham's Quarterly, and Overlook editor David Shoemaker. Over ten years in the making, The Wooden Horse: The Liberation of the Western Mind, from Odysseus to Socrates, is now available in bookstores and through online booksellers.

OVERLOOK LIVE: ANTONIA QUIRKE at the Telephone Bar

Here's Antonia Quirke reading from Choking on Marlon Brando during her multimedia show at the Telephone Bar in New York earlier this week. We saw clips of Christopher Walken, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, and Gerard Depardieu, while Ms. Quirke read excerpts from her memoir. We agree with Mick LaSalle, film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, that Antonia Quirke is "about three seconds away from being very famous."

Spend Halloween with TANITH LEE in the Secret City of Paradys!

What better way to spend Halloween than curled up with a good book! We highly recommend The Secret Book of Paradys from Tanith Lee, one of the world's top writers of gothic fantasy. Lee's Paradys Cycle is now available in a single-volume format from Overlook. Locus calls Tanith Lee "an elegant, ironic stylist . . . one of our very best authors." And Kirkus salutes "Lee' s talent for realizing an exquisite and appalling mingling of lust and horror, sexual pleasure and loathing, yearning and revulsion."

Katie Arnoldi's THE WENTWORTHS Praised in Publishers Weekly

Katie Arnoldi, author of Chemical Pink, is back with a new novel, The Wentworths, coming out from The Overlook Press in March 2008. This week's Publishers Weekly comments: "With a wry touch, Arnoldi draws a mocking portrait of a powerful Southern California family that, while not the worst family on record, is remarkably warped by weath and power. . . The Wentworths is a page-turner both for its well-paced intrigue and for its witty, sordid description of just how awful these people can get. The book's coup isn't the skewering Arnoldi gives her overprivileged clan; it's the redemption they find after they're served twisted justice."

Heath Robinson's CONTRAPTIONS

W. Heath Robinson, the English illustrator and master cartoonist, is celebrated in Contraptions, a lavish collection of his work now available from The Overlook Press. Publishers Weekly notes: "American readers will not recognize W. Heath Robinson’s name, but he can best be explained as the British version of American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, a specialist in visualizing absurdly complex combinations of low-tech devices arranged to perform simple tasks. This was also the specialty of cartoonist and illustrator Robinson, who was born a decade earlier, in 1872. It seems that in Britain “a Heath Robertson contraption” means the same thing that a “Rube Goldberg machine” does in the States. Editor Geoffrey Beare points to Robinson’s skills as both artist and satirist. Robinson often depicts scenes from a low angle and gives them an epic scale, endowing his nonsensical machines with an ironic grandeur while mocking the indolence of the modern man, who would rather rely on gadgetry than perform a simple task himself. Through his cartoons Robinson conveys his own sheer joy in his amazing visual imagination. These cartoons are not laugh-out-loud funny, but are consistently inventive and amusing. The reader may find himself in the position of the black cat who turns up in numerous Robinson cartoons, quietly observing the follies of humanity, fascinated by them. "

Sneak Preview: ENLIGHTENMENT on Critical Mass

Overlook is thrilled to unveil to American readers Maureen Freely's Enlightenment, which will be published in May 2008. Today a short excerpt appears on Critical Mass, the must-read blog of the National Book Critic's Circle.

Enlightenment is a story of first love and betrayal set against the tangled web of contemporary Turkey. Author Maureen Freely offers an arresting vision of Turkey, its people, and one American girl trapped in the fray. Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk called the novel a "dark Conradian drama set in a beautifully illustrated Istanbul, where the past is always with us."

WORLDS APART: New Anthology of Russian Fantasy and Science Fiction Makes Safe Landing

Worlds Apart, an extraordinary new collection of Russian fantasy and science fiction is now available in bookstores. Edited by Alexander Levitsky, this anthology includes selections that represent the works of Russia's best authors and the dominant themes of her history: Myth and the Fairy Tale, Utopianism and Dystopianism, Mechanization and Modernization, Space Flight, and more. The authors range from familiar figures - Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Bulgakov - to writers practically unknown outside the Slavic world such as Derzhavin, Bulgarin, Kuprin, and Pilniak. For the fantasy enthusiast and to anyone with an abiding interest in Russian history and culture, Worlds Apart is an indispensable volume.

AMERICAN FOOD: The Gastronomic Story Now Available in New Paperback Edition

Legendary cookbook editor and author Judith Jones is profiled in The New York Times Dining Section today. Judith's late husband and collaborator, Evan Jones, authored Overlook's seminal American Food, recently released in a revised and updated paperback edition. Ms. Jones graciously provided a new introduction to the book, which features more than 500 distinctive regional, traditional, and contemporary recipes. No less a figure than James Beard called American Food "a great addition to American gastronomic lore . . a true joy."

Eva Zeisel, Design Revolutionary, Profiled in New York Magazine

Eva Zeisel, author of Overlook's classic Eva Zeisel on Design, is profiled in this week's New York magazine feature story on Design Revolutionaries. One of the great designers of pottery and ceramics in the twentieth century and now only one hundred years young, Eva Zeisel is one of Overlook's most beloved revolutionaries. With a trailblazing career that spans more than seventy-five years and continues to this day, with recent creations that include a Martini glass featured in Bombay Sapphire ads and vases for Klein-Reid, Eva Zeisel stands at the forefront of twentieth-century designers. Her works are a reflection of a profoundly independent vision, unconstrained by design conventions, fads, or ideologies, and are featured in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

Hugh Pope on NPR's "Morning Edition"

Huge Pope, author of Sons of the Conquerors and Turkey Unveiled was featured on NPR's "Morning Edition" this morning discussing the current crisis along the Turkish/Iraq border.

Hugh Pope, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the Turkish government is under huge domestic pressure to invade.

"Their options are limited. They've painted themselves into something of a corner domestically because they've built up the impression that the PKK is an external problem based in Iraq — and that by trying to eliminate them in Iraq, they can solve the PKK problem in Turkey," Pope said.

The PKK's support among Turkish Kurds has dwindled in recent years. Pope said the Kurdish rebels are fighting to regain their relevance by trying to provoke a cross-border military operation.

"The PKK wants to internationalize the Kurdish problem. They want to pull Turkey into the trap. They want to drag Turkey into the morass of Iraq," Pope said.

Also check out Turks Today and Ataturk by Andrew Mango.

Robert Forbes at Davis Kidd in Memphis October 27

Robert Forbes will read and rhyme from his new book Beastly Feasts: A Mischievous Menagerie in Rhyme on Saturday, October 27, 11am, at Davis Kidd in Memphis, Tennessee. The playful poet will also appear on the Live at 9 television program, hosted by Marybeth Conley, on Friday, October 26 on WREG-TV in Memphis.

DESCENTS OF MEMORY: The Life of John Cowper Powys Reviewed in Philadelphia Inquirer

Patrick Kurp reviews Morine Krissdottir's extraordinary biography of John Cowper Powys, Descents of Memory, in today's Philadelphia Inquirer: "It's an odd thought, but I suspect readers of J.R.R. Tolkien, Mervyn Peake and J.K. Rowling might find something to their taste in Powys, particularly Porius.

Enter the Charlotte Bronte Trivia Contest Today!

Laura Joh Rowland, author of the acclaimed Sano Ichiro mystery series, has devised a cool trivia contest for Charlotte Bronte fans on her website, with the winners getting an advance reading copy (autographed by the author!) of The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte, coming from Overlook in April 2008. The contest deadline is October 31, so get those entries in now!

The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte is an epic, world-at-stake thriller starring the legendary 19th century author and her equally famous family. It’s a tour of Victorian England from gutter to palace, featuring a hero who combines Mr. Rochester with Agent 007 and a villain whose devious schemes threaten the very fabric of the British Empire. Charlotte Brontë is plunged headlong into the sort of thrilling adventures and passionate romance she never actually experienced, but secretly craved. Fans of Laura Joh Rowland and fans of Charlotte Bronte will be equally thrilled with this astonishing new novel, so why wait until next year - enter the trivia contest and win a copy now!

Classic McCarry: SECOND SIGHT Now Available in New Hardcover Edition

Charles McCarry's acclaimed novel Second Sight is finally available in a new hardcover edition from Overlook. This is the seventh in the series of Paul Christopher novels, a thrilling story that combines masterful flashbacks and memorable characters. Writing in USA Today, novelist Ross Thomas noted that "it may well be the best of the fictional spy dynasty, that remarkable Christopher clan . . . It is without a doubt, a special treat for those of us who dote on novels of espionage as it is practiced by our betters. To paraphrase another gifted novelist, McCarry has successfully taken spying out of the dark alleys of the world and dumped it back into Georgetown where it belongs."

Keld Zeruneith's THE WOODEN HORSE to be Published on October 30

In a powerful and provocative work of scholarship, The Wooden Horse: The Liberation of the Western Mind from Odysseus to Socrates, Danish literary critic Keld Zeruneith offers a magnificent new survey of Greek myth, religion, poetry, drama, and philosophy. When Odysseus conceived the so-called "Wooden Horse" to overcome the stalemate in the Trojan War, something more profound was being established: resolution through strategic thinking rather than brute physical conflict. Kirkus Reviews calls The Wooden Horse a "sweeping, accessible inquiry to what the makers of classical Greek literature were thinking about." Zeruneith, a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters and a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen for over thirty years, will be honored at a reception hosted by Overlook Publisher Peter Mayer on October 30 in New York.

Coming Soon: Susan Hill's THE PURE IN HEART On Sale November 1

Arriving in bookstores soon is the second installment of Susan Hill's trilogy of mystery novels set in the fictional cathedral town of Lafferton, England, The Pure in Heart. DCI Simon Serrailler is back, and Hill is at the top of her powers, picking up the story from The Various Haunts of Men. In a starred review, Booklist said "this is realistic, gritty, and gut-wrenching crime fiction, but it's also a poignant and thoughtful character study. Add to that Hill's mesmerizing storytelling ability and her gift for making characters and situations come alive, and the result is an outstanding read that will stay with readers long afterward."

Sweet Home Alabama: TITO PERDUE On Tour in the Heart of Dixie

Come meet novelist Tito Perdue at these upcoming events: Nov 2. Friday evening 6-8pm –Barnes & Noble – MONTGOMERY; Nov 10. Saturday noon –Waldenbooks- DOTHAN, AL ; Nov 17-18. Southern Writers Reading, FAIRHOPE; Dec 1. Saturday noon– Books-A-Million – ANNISTON.; Dec 7. Friday evening 5-7pm - Waldenbooks HUNTSVILLE.

Tito's new novel Fields of Asphodel continues the story of Lee Pefley, who was first introduced in the 1991 novel Lee. The Los Angeles Times called Lee a "compact, virtuoso performance, singular in its depiction of one of the more pretentious, grandiloquent protagonists gracing the pages of American fiction."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PLUM!

Today The Overlook Press salutes Pelham Grenville Wodehouse - "Plum" to friends and family - who was born on this day in 1881. That's reason enough to dive in to The Collector's Wodehouse, Overlook's elegant hardcover series of the works of P.G. Wodehouse. Two new volumes are arriving next month: Sam the Sudden, a classic early Wodehouse story, and Big Money, a hilarious tale featuring the misadventures of American millionaire T. Paterson Frisby.

Hugh Thomson in The Telegraph

Hugh Thomson was featured in yesterday's Telegraph illuminating the pleasures of Cusco, Peru:

Why Cusco?

I go back every year and it's been the launch pad for several of my research expeditions to look for Inca ruins. I often think that if Machu Picchu didn't exist, then Cusco, as the old Inca capital, would be far more of a destination in its own right.

	A pisco sour cocktail contains brandy, lemon, egg whites and bitters

The old centre is incredibly well-preserved and it's got a sense of history that, like the Inca stonework, has resisted both Spanish invasion and earthquakes.

More Praise for Penny Vincenzi's THE DILEMMA

Penny Vincenzi's The Dilemma has finally reached American shores (and bookstores), and it's currently on top of the Overlook bestseller list!

"Fans of contemporary family sagas rich with drama and intrigue will thoroughly enjoy Penny Vincenzi's fiction debut, first published in Britain and now brought to the American reading public through a concerted effort by Overlook Press to republish Vincenzi's entire backlist of eight novels. Recommended. " - Library Journal

"Whether she will or not is only one of the dilemmas at the heart of Vincenzi’s ambitious debut novel. Originally published in the UK in 1996, it is now being offered to her growing American fan base. Although it would have benefited from some judicious editing, it nonetheless categorically establishes Vincenzi’s mastery of intricate plots and large, if stereotypical, casts of characters. Readers who have recently discovered Vincenzi will delight at being able to go back to her beginnings, while those who have yet to read her will welcome getting in on the ground floor." - Booklist

"A robust, complex family drama—first published in the U.K. in 1996 by the bestselling author of Almost a Crime and No Angel. Fans of Penny Vincenzi, prepared to read at her demanding scale, will find all of her plotting and characterization skills serving a familiar but very satisfying story." - Publishers Weekly

An Appreciation of John Cowper Powys

Dr. Morine Krissdottir, author of Overlook's Descents of Memory: A Life of John Cowper Powys, blogs about acquiring a taste for the great writer in The Guardian this week. One of the great masterpieces of John Cowper Powys is his last novel Porius, which he considered "the chief work of my lifetime," and now available in a restored edition from Overlook under the careful direction of Dr. Krissdottir and co-editor Judith Bond. "Into it," writes Krissdottir, "he put a lifetime of reading and experience, of suffering and hope, then let it go free to be interpreted as it would."

Meet ANTONIA QUIRKE, author of Choking on Marlon Brando, in NYC on October 29!

Here's your chance to meet London film critic Antonia Quirke, author of Choking on Marlon Brando, the widely acclaimed and sensationally funny memoir of life, love and the movies. She'll be at the Telephone Bar and Grill in New York City on Monday, October 29, from 7-9pm - talking about the movies and reading from her book. Don't miss this rare U.S. appearance!

THE VOYAGE OF THE SHORT SERPENT in KIRKUS

Check out what Publishers Weekly has to say about The Voyage of the Short Serpent by Bernard du Bucheron, due out in January 2oo8.

"A spare, cunningly ironic novel set in the wilds of medieval Iceland.

While Iceland has been nominally Christianized, hibernal adversity and distance from the mainland have conspired to turn the native population toward a more primitive, primeval (read "debauched, pagan") existence. The novel begins with an archbishop's official directive to Bishop Insulomontanus in which he lays out what the bishop must do: to "investigate the Christian folk…and to offer them the comfort of the Word, while not neglecting to castigate sin, if need be, by sword or by fire." The bishop takes this advice literally, and much of the rest of the novel consists of his report back to the archbishop about what he has done to reassert Christian order and hegemony. After an arduous journey through ice and snow, the bishop arrives at Gardar in New Thule to discover ten recently slaughtered corpses. The local chieftain, Einar Sokkason, is of no help, nor is the one remaining priest, a "porcine monster" living openly with a "scarce-pubescent female." The bishop wastes no time with his first decision: to have the priest burned at the stake for "heresy, apostasy, sacrilege and sodomy." In his continual struggle against heresy amongst these primordial people, the bishop resorts to increasingly desperate and even sadistic strategies to maintain his ecclesiastical authority, including having ears torn off and eyes gouged out as punishment for apostates. (He also resorts to beheading, which, considering the alternatives, is something of a blessing.) Eventually the bishop develops a sexual relationship with a local woman, Avarana, although he disingenuously hints in his report to the archbishop that she is a liar and thus not to be trusted. The occasional intervention of a third-person narrative puts the bishop's growing derangement and hypocrisy into perspective.

Sparse, rawboned and fascinating."

JOHN CROWLEY Featured in Los Angeles Times and Philadelphia Inquirer

Check out the glowing review by Ed Park of John Crowley's The Solitudes in The Los Angeles Times: "The Solitudes is about finding the story you have been waiting for without even knowing it, discovering that a book glimpsed long ago and almost completely forgotten not only exists but also is present, in your hands. My admiration for The Solitudes is so fervid that I wonder whether I can trust myself." The book, just out in paperback, is also praised in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer.

Look Inside THE CITY OF DREAMING BOOKS!

A new tale from the land of Zamonia is currently Overlook's hottest seller, and it appears that a whole lot of people are headed for fun and adventure in The City of Dreaming Books. Written and illustrated by Walter Moers, this is a treat for readers, writers and even a few publishing types. Rave reviews have been seen everywhere on the web, in cool blogs and 'zines all over the world. It's a worldwide phenomenon! Don't forget that Rumo is finally available in paperback!

John Cowper Powys: The Glastonbury Romanticist

The long awaited biography of John Cowper Powys, Descents of Memory by Morine Krissdottir, has just been released by The Overlook Press. This landmark work provides fascinating new details of the life of Powys, including his relationship with Phyllis Planter, the daughter of a Missouri businessman who was the writer's companion from 1923 until his death. The book also explores the life of Powys as an itinerant lecturer - he spent 25 years in America, touring the country, drawing enormous crowds to his public speeches. In today's review of the new biography in the New York Sun, Oxford Professor Paul Dean writes: "Powys was a spellbinding platform orator - at the end of one two-hour discourse on Hardy, a crowd of two thousand people rose to its feet, roaring for more . . ."

TITO PERDUE To Appear at The Southern Festival of Books on October 14

Tito Perdue, author of The Fields of Asphodel and Lee, will speak at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on Sunday, October 14. Tito will address "Myth, Fairy Tale, and Fable in Southern Fiction," at a panel held at The Old Supreme Court Room at 2pm. Anyone remotely near Music City next weekend should not miss this grand celebration of Southern history and literature. Mr. Perdue, raised and still living in the great state of Alabama, will sign copies of his new book immediately after the panel.

Overlook Thriller: Charles McCarry's THE MIERNIK DOSSIER

Now in paperback for the first time in many, many years is Charles McCarry's legendary debut novel The Miernik Dossier. This is Mac's introduction to that eminent spy of all spies, Paul Christopher, who is an American agent in deep cover in the twilight world of international intrigue. Originally published in 1973, The Miernik Dossier is one of the great spy novels of our generation and the perfect companion to The Tears of Autumn, also new in the trade paperback format.

Starred PW: Jem Poster's COURTING SHADOWS

Check out the starred PW review of Jem Poster's Courting Shadows, due out in early 2008.

"In Poster’s dazzling debut, set amid the Victorian gloom of 1881, snobbish John Stannard leads the restoration of a small,architecturally undistinguished church in a remote British village. It’s unglamorous work that the young architect thinks beneath him, what with having to disinter corpses, fend off enraged townsfolk and dole out 19th-century workers comp to injured laborers. Further complicating Stannard’s effort is the church’s curate, Mr. Banks, who seeks to preserve all of what Stannard aims to modernize and improve, no matter how rotten or broken. The debate between the two men escalates when, stripping plaster from a wall, one of Stannard’s employees uncovers a Doom Painting—a folk mural blending Christian and pagan influences dating from medieval times. At the same time, the buttoned-up Stannard begins to experience previously unknown passion, falling for the beautiful 19-year-old Ann Rosewell, an enigmatic local woman. The variously grotesque characters are spot-on, as is the static, lugubrious setting. Poster, who has worked as an archeologist, is formidable in his command of Victorian architecture and restoration, and uses his skills to construct an unlikely, subtext-ridden conflict—over the possibility of restoration to some original state of grace—that is wholly involving from start to finish. (Feb.)"