L.A.Weekly Shines a Light on NEW YORK IN THE 70s

Libby Molyneaux of L.A. Weekly looks at New York in the 1970s, Alan Tannenbaum's magnificent new book of photographs: "New York in the '70s was like a jolt to the veins, har, har. Now it's a coffee-table book called New York City in the '70s. Allan Tannenbaum's photographs capture the glitz as well as the scum of the era. As photo editor of SoHo Weekly News , he covered the club scene and much more, and the book should satisfy your curiosity about what went on in those VIP lounges at the Mudd Club and Studio 54. John Lennon, Mick, Bianca, Debbie and Chris, the Ramones, Mayor Koch, Patti Smith, Kurt Russell (huh?) all show up."

On April 2, Art in Tune in Los Angeles will launch a photography exhibition, Bright Lights Big City: New York in the 70s, featuring Alan Tannenbaum's personal collection of photographs from that decade.

Starred Review for Rachel DeWoskin's REPEAT AFTER ME in Booklist

Rachel DeWoskin's first novel, Repeat After Me, earns a starred review in the April 1 issue of Booklist: "Cultures don’t so much collide as coalesce in DeWoskin’s sparkling debut novel, which follows the relationship of two people with more in common than their backgrounds would suggest. Aysha Silvermintz is a marginally neurotic, sublimely needy young instructor of English to immigrants in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Her student Da Ge is an intriguingly taciturn, softly menacing Chinese national who came to the U.S. in the wake of the Tiananmen Square uprisings. What they lack in fluid communication skills they more than make up for in shared emotional fragility, born of family tragedies and personal failures. Aysha falls instantly and secretly in love with Da Ge, lomg before he bluntly asks her to marry him so he can become a U.S. citizen. Aysha becomes pregnant, but before she can tell him, Da Ge commits suicide just days before his citizenship is finalized. Determined to understand what plagued this tortured, enigmatic man, Aysha moves to China where she’ll raise the daughter he never knew. Infusing her multicultural narrative with vibrant observations that glitter with laser-intense acuity, DeWoskin demonstrates a smart, sophisticated literary agility."

Kris Saknussemm's PRIVATE MIDNIGHT On the Road

Kris Saknussemm takes the Private Midnight show on the road this week with three big events:

Powell's Books - Portland, OR, April 2, 7:30pm

Cherry Bleeds Happy Hour at The Knockout - San Francisco, CA, April 3 from 6:30

Borderlands Books - San Francisco, CA, April 4, 3pm

Here's a new blog review on Private Midnight: "This is one of those books that no matter how many times you read it, something new will pop out at you. What you think is going to be a detective story quickly turns into a soul searching experience when Det. Ritter meets Genevieve. Past experiences, sexuality and the supernatural all come into play. This book made me ask myself how much would you be willing to go outside of society's norms to be your true inner self? What would you be willing to give up and change? Could you stay sane in the process or would you become another statistic? Could you let go of not only your mistakes, but your entire life to be reborn? If you want to be freaked out and take a trip into your soul you should read this book."

THE BALLAD OF BLIND TOM Reviewed in The Guardian

Deirdre O'Connell's The Ballad of Blind Tom, Slave Pianist is reviewed in The Guardian: "The musical genius of Thomas Wiggins was feted by Mark Twain and Willa Cather during his lifetime, by Dizzy Gillespie after his death, and mimicked by countless impersonators. He was the first African-American ever to perform at the White House. Yet he has since faded into obscurity. A footnote in the 1920 edition of The Encyclopedia of Aberrations ambivalently remembers him as "moronic genius". Tom was somewhere between the 12th and 21st child born to Charity Wiggins on a Georgia plantation in 1849. Although he was blind and his behaviour wildly erratic (bearing many signals of early infant autism), his talent for memorising and reproducing sounds was soon discovered by his owner's family, and before long he had become the "eighth wonder of the plantation". For the rest of his life, he would be bought and sold by different masters and toured around concert venues and freak shows. Tom's extraordinary ability to mimic noise, be it thunderstorms, trains or, to great comic effect, the posturing of the country's leading politicians, was the key to his formidable skill as a pianist and singer. But his talent also isolated him. Utterly lacking in empathy, unable to understand anything but sound, he took what his masters told him at face value. In turn, he fed the white myth of the Negro as a "natural musician", possessing an innate connection to nature's rhythms, "untrammelled by art or any degree of affectation." It's a story full of contradictions and confusion. According to 19th-century white planter ideology, Tom was "sub-human"; according to African-American folklore, he was a "spirit child" blessed with the gift of "second sight"; according to more recent interpretations, he was an autistic savant. The greatest strength of this book is that it sides with none of these views. Instead, O'Connell embraces all "the holes, contradictions, outright lies and distortions and the tiny nuggets of truth" and reimagines the cacophony Tom might have heard in the turbulent world that surrounded him."

This Was NEW YORK IN THE 70s

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. New York in the 70s, Allan Tannenbaum's exhilarating look at this memorable chapter in the history of New York City goes on sale next week. Pictured above: actress Valerie Perrine dancing with the Village People (1979).

R. Scott Bakker's THE JUDGING EYE Tops Overlook Bestseller List

R. Scott Bakker's new novel The Judging Eye sits atop the Overlook Bestseller list for the third straight week! This long awaited new work is the first in a new triology, The Aspect-Emperor, and to the delight of many fans, picks up from The Prince of Nothing series. In a recent review in Strange Horizons, reviewer Peter Whitfield notes: "Back in 2003, when the world was young and we didn't have to worry about the economy and recycling and stuff, there came an author called R. Scott Bakker. The Darkness that Comes Before was quite hefty, and some of the character's names could give you a stroke if you tried to say them out loud, but other than that it was a bloody good read. It took the face of traditional epic fantasy and gave it a makeover. No longer did the reader have to suffer page after page of depthless D&D drivel. Now their fantasy came wrapped up in a nice little plastic bag called philosophy. Flawless world-building, striking events, and intelligent subject matter even led some fantasy purists to regard Bakker as one of the greatest living authors of the genre. Six years later and Bakker is still going, his latest book The Judging Eye forming the fourth instalment of the series he terms The Second Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, it is also the beginning of a new trilogy, following on from The Prince of Nothing. It aims to reintroduce (or introduce, depending on what you've read) the reader to the world of Eärwa, a place that Bakker himself claims "kicks some major ass." At the same time, it picks up on the events of previous books, twenty years later. As is tradition with his series, Bakker provides a short summary of "What has come before" at the end of the book. It's an accurate and extensive synopsis, but if you're new to the books it might be a good idea to just dive in and piece the bits together as you go."

Overlook Preview: Daniel Kalder's STRANGE TELESCOPES

Coming in May is one of the most unusual and arresting books ever published by Overlook, Daniel Kalder's Strange Telescopes: Following the Apocalypse from Moscow to Siberia. Booklist gives us a sneak preview: "In unusual travels in Russia, Kalder, who spent a decade in the country, explored four worlds decidedly beyond the normal. Each is defined by its character, two of them religious in nature, the other two resembling hobbies taken a little too far. In Arkhangelsk, Kalder pursued the builder of what reputedly is the world’s tallest wooden house; in Moscow, he cajoled a tagalong episode with a man obsessed by the city’s tunnels; in Ukraine, he attended an exorcism; and in Siberia immersed himself in a community of believers centered on a traffic-cop-turned-self-proclaimed-Son-of-God, with whom he eventually secured an audience. Declining to default to cynicism toward these people, Kalder ruminates on their self-willed separation from mainstream Russian life and is impressed by their determination to define their own realities, temporal or transcendent. Without surrendering observational acuity about the oddities of the four realms he visits, and including bemusing commentary about Russian travel per se, Kalder’s venture into the eccentric extends the boundaries of ordinary travelogue, surely much to many readers’ satisfaction."

Charles Freeman's A.D. 381 Reviewed in ForeWord Magazine

ForeWord magazine offers a review of A.D. 381: "In A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State, the historian Charles Freeman pitches us into a world in which a magnificent diversity of opinion and extensive intellectual networking were quashed in 381, when Emperor Theodosius superseded Constantines Edict of Toleration. It stated, no one shall be denied freedom to believe as he deems best suited to himself. But after defeat at Adrianople in 378, when Emperor Valens died on the battlefield fighting the Goths, the Empire desperately needed a single supportive Church, not a divisive set of quarreling Christian communitiesand Theodosius was determined to create it. He decreed, all peoples shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans And he required acceptance of the single deity of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as promulgated in the Nicene Creed. Demented and insane non-acceptors would be smitten by Divine Vengeanceand imperial hostility. American presidential debates pale beside the intensity of the early Churchs theological set-tos in which victory brought power and political prestige. Typically, Theodosius Council of Constantinople failed to promote doctrinal peace: the bishops screeched on every sidea mob of wild young menlike a swarm of wasps. Freeman brilliantly recreates the late-Roman, early medieval world: Origen, Eusebius, Augustine, Ambrose, and other theo-politicos are active players, not textbook figures, while tolerance has a moving voice in Themistius and Symmachus. All is set against an evocative presentation of power, politics, war, and Church-building in the late Roman world, often of surprising modernity."

Novelist and Translator Maureen Freely on The Writing Life in Washington Post

Maureen Freely, author of Enlightenment, talks about the writing life in a recent essay in The Washington Post. Freely, widely known as the translator of Orhan Pamuk's "Snow," "Istanbul" and "Other Colours," is also a novelist, journalist, lecturer, and human rights advocate. Listen to Marie Arana's accompanying podcast interview with Freely on The Washington Post Bookworld website. Enlightenment will be published in paperback in June 2009.

The Amazing Story of Blind Tom Wiggins, Slave Pianist

Ina Hughs takes note of Deirdre O'Connell's fascinating biography The Ballad of Blind Tom, Slave Pianist in the Knoxville News Sentinel: "One of the amazing stories of the 19th century, somewhat lost to time, is of a pianist and composer named Tom Wiggins, born blind, born a slave and born with the mysterious magic of a musical savant. "Blind Tom," as he came to be known, is one of the most fascinating chapters in America's bygone days. The Ballad of Blind Tom by Deirdre O'Connell (The Overlook Press) is the biography of a musical genius born into slavery, but at his death, an international celebrity who'd played for presidents and queens."

TRUE GRIT Film Remake Next Up for the Coen Brothers

Joel and Ethan Coen are working on an adaptation of the classic western True Grit by Charles Portis for their next project. According to Variety, their adaptation of the 1969 picture will hew more closely to the Charles Portis book on which it is based. In the book, a 14-year-old girl, an aging US marshal, and another lawman track her father’s killer through Indian country. While the 1969 version focused on Wayne, the Coens’ version will highlight the girl’s point of view.

More Praise for Jem Poster's RIFLING PARADISE

Jem Poster's new novel Rifling Paradise continues to draw wonderful attention, most recently from the popular Curled Up with a Good Book blog: "Peopled with unlikable, morally bankrupt and desperate characters, Redbourne’s journey, rifling paradise along with his own broken psyche, is a disturbing rout of Victorian mores and pretensions, the past once more imprisoned in a foolish union that bodes ill for the future."

Jem Poster is currently Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University and the author of Courting Shadows, now available in paperback.

P.G. Wodehouse's DOCTOR SALLY and AUNTS AREN'T GENTLEMEN On Sale Now

Two new editions to Overlook's Collector's Wodehouse are now available in fine bookstores and through online booksellers: Doctor Sally and Aunts Aren't Gentlemen. Inexplicably out-of-print for decades, Overlook is proud to bring Dr. Sally back into print. The tale of golf expert Dr. Sally Smith, and of golf addict Bill Bannister, who loves her. In Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen Bertie Wooster withdraws to the village of Maiden Eggesford on doctor's orders to “sleep the sleep of the just and lead the quiet Martini-less life.” Only the presence of the irrepressible Aunt Dahlia shatters the rustic peace. A classic—the last book written by Wodehouse featuring Bertie and Jeeves.

With each volume edited and reset and printed on Scottish cream-wove, acid-free paper, sewn and bound in cloth, Doctor Sally, Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen and the rest of the Wodehouse novels published by the Overlook Press are elegant additions to any Wodehouse fan's library.

Charles McCarry: The Best Political Novelist America Has Ever Produced?

Literary critic D.G. Myers takes a long look at the work of Charles McCarry on his A Commonplace Blog: "Shelley’s Heart, is the seventh of Charles McCarry’s novels to be reissued by the Overlook Press. (It is due out next month.) Originally published in 1995, it is one of the best novels ever written about the American left. His next novel was Lucky Bastard (1998), the account of a charismatic and winning young American, a sociopath, liar, and rapist, who is groomed for the presidency by Soviet agents. And together these two novels place McCarry in the small group of Americans who have written with distinction about what Irving Howe called “politics as a milieu or mode of life" . . . Charles McCarry may be the best political novelist that the United States has ever produced."

Michael Greenburg's PEACHES & DADDY in ForeWord Magazine

ForeWord Magazine takes notice of Michael Greenburg's Peaches and Daddy: A Story of the Roaring 20’s, The Birth of Tabloid Media, & The Courtship that Captured the Heart and Imagination of the America: "Attorney Michael M. Greenburg, a former editor of the Pepperdine Law Review, unfolds a story told with the panache of a true crime writer. Greenberg divulges snaring court room details in the context of Peaches’ assertions of Daddy’s excessive eccentricity, including contact with the “Love Cult” High Priestess of Oom, sandpapering shoetrees at night, prowling and barking on all fours, and placing at the end of his lit cigar a white tablet that produced a large snowflake. This is a story worthy of inclusion in Ripley’s Believe it or Not."

Andrew Hudgins Interview in Columbus Dispatch

Books Editor Bill Eichenberger interviewed Andrew Hudgins, the poet behind Shut Up You're Fine, Poems for Very Very Bad Children for The Columbus Dispatch this week, saying "It takes a special kind of mind to get excited by the fact that mommy and salami are a perfect double rhyme." Here is an excerpt from the piece:

Q: My Bed Is Not a Boat is, superficially, funny. But like most of the poems, including I Love Ruby, there is an underlying trauma beneath the veneer of laughter, isn't there?

A: Mel Brooks once said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall in an open sewer and die." Comedy is all about perspective. What I like in the poems you mention is that the kids don't even know what they are telling us. Say you got drunk at the junior prom and your date walked out on you. You'd be, I hope, ashamed and miserable for awhile, but after 30 years you can decide if you want to make the story funny when you tell it or, if you are so inclined, you can enjoy your misery all over again. That's also true about being a bed wetter.

Q: You write about a "flawless slice of bread." Is there too insignificant a topic for your poetry?

A: I've never seen a poem about trimming toenails, but I can imagine one. And then it might really have to be about something else, like the importance of insignificant things. In the bread poem, I was trying to capture the way a kid's mind works. I remember being so young I didn't know if there were principles involved in eating a sandwich. Which side should I choose to be the top of the sandwich, and wouldn't that make the bottom side feel rejected? And potato chips. You could spread them out across the plate and eat from large to small. Or, more likely, small to large. But you could also eat from most symmetrical to least. Or ugliest to prettiest. Even though I knew I was being silly, I couldn't stop my mind from wanting to organize the food. Which in retrospect is pretty funny.

Here's a thought about poetic subjects. Just today I saw an article about a group of gastroenterologists offering a prize for the best poem about colonoscopies. I'm guessing they aren't expecting humorous poems. And I'm also guessing that's exactly what they'll get.

Read the entire interview with Barry Moser's illustrations here!

Starred Review in Library Journal for THE RISK OF DARKNESS by Susan Hill

“A gritty case of child abduction and serial murder and the obsessive grief of a widowed husband are at the heart of Hill's latest Simon Serailler mystery (after Various Haunts of Men and Pure in Heart).

While preparing for a posh London exhibit of his drawings, Simon is called to join a team searching for a number of children who have been abducted near his village of Lafferton. A suspect is quickly detained, but the evidence is scant. As Simon mentors the team through the investigation, violence rattles the village further as a young widower, crazy with grief, takes the new Anglican priest hostage. The handsome and enigmatic detective is instantly attracted to this feisty lady cleric, who ruffles his reserve and just might break his heart. Hill blends just the right measures of darkness, tension, and human interest. Her consistently well-crafted plot and believable characters make this a welcome addition to the series. Highly recommended.”

— Library Journal (STARRED)LIBRARY JOURNAL

SHUT UP YOU'RE FINE in The Baltimore Sun

Andrew Hudgins's riotously naughty new collection of mischievous poems about the dark side of childhood is now on sale. Illustrated by Barry Moser, Shut Up You're Fine: Poems for Very, Very Bad Children has been called by January Magazine a "compelling and hilariously offensive little book." Bill Eichenberger of The Columbus Dispatch described it as "snort out loud and choke on your coffee funny," and we will post the link to his wonderful interview with Hudgins soon.

Meanwhile, John McIntyre weighed in at The Baltimore Sun:

“Andrew Hudgins, whom I had the good fortune to meet in graduate school in Syracuse, has just brought out another in a distinguished line of collections of poetry: Shut Up, You’re Fine: Poems for Very, Very Bad Children (Overlook Press, 118 pages, $14.95).

Your initial reaction might run along the lines of oh good, something to put on the shelf next to Edward Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies. Well, yes and no. Mr. Hudgins has a distinct taste for the macabre, but these poems explore more deeply the double nature of childhood.

“Bad” children are those who do not meet adults’ expectations. They wet the bed, break things they weren’t supposed to handle, shy away from Grandma’s hugs. These are the children whose parents yell at them and smack them in the supermarket, neglect them, demean them, complain about them and warp. Here’s the voice of one of them:

I’ve got my eye on wedding bands / so Dad can marry Mom / or at least not take another date / to Mom’s third junior prom.

But bad children are also those bad in the bone, harboring little hatreds and destructive impulses, only a step or two removed from Lord of the Flies, ready to grow up into monsters like their parents. Here’s one of them, in “Our Neighbor’s Little Yappy Dog”:

But in the end we all agree / my plan will leave it deader. / I want to feed it—tail-first, slowly / into the chipper-shredder.

I think these verses may not be to everyone’s taste; I’ve been discouraged from reading them aloud at home. They are at once so clear-sighted about how horrible childhood — and children — can be, and yet, undeniably, terribly, funny.

They might move you to recall the work of another poet, Philip Larkin, who wrote: Man hands on misery to man. / It deepens like a coastal shelf. / Get out as early as you can, / And don’t have any kids yourself.”

RIFLING PARADISE by Jem Poster Receives Rave Kirkus Review

Rifling Paradise, the new historical fiction novel by master storyteller and author of Courting Shadows Jem Poster, just received a lovely review from Kirkus:

A dubious character experiences a shattering change of heart during his specimen-collecting expedition to Australia, in a vivid historical novel by a renowned British poet.

Blamed for the suicide of a young boy and hounded out of his home by a mob, Charles Redbourne, the well-born but spendthrift hero of Poster's second work of fiction (Courting Shadows, 2008), is something of a lost soul in search of redemption. And he will find it at the end of the nightmarish trip he makes to the Antipodes, escaping his past while pursuing his inclination to become a naturalist. Although his host in Sydney, Edward Vane, offers hospitality, he too is a questionable figure, whose relationship with his headstrong, artistic daughter Eleanor seems violent, possibly abusive. Despite his earlier interest in boys, Redbourne is drawn to Eleanor, whose attunement to the land, its spirit and wildlife argues for a sustainable, noninterventionist relationship, unlike Redbourne's, whose specimen-hunting is done with a gun. Matters become more polarized when Redbourne leaves on his expedition into the hinterland, in the company of brutal Bullen and a half-aboriginal boy, Billy. Trapped between Bullen's cruelty and Billy's ancestral sensitivity, Redbourne barely survives and returns a different man. Poster's storytelling is notably fresh and pacey, and his characters have definition, even if they are often emblematic. Redbourne and Eleanor will leave Australia together, but their future is far from certain. Edgy, intense and engrossing work that delivers lessons astutely."

The Buzz Builds for Kris Saknussemm's PRIVATE MIDNIGHT

The buzz for cult-novelist Kris Saknussemm's Private Midnight is starting to snowball – it’s so strange that everyone wants a chance to weigh in – and it’s sure to generate all the controversy deserved by a psychoerotic noir thriller that Kirkus calls “off-the-wall strange and surreal—and definitely not recommended as a Mother's Day gift.”

Leland Cheuk of MostlyFiction.com just reviewed the novel, saying “his trademark capriciousness restrained and his imagination disciplined and purposeful, Saknussemm has delivered his most mature work of fiction to date.”

In addition, a fascinating piece by Saknussemm called "It's All in Your Head," in which he tells the back story of this mind-bending novel, was published on About.com.

Largehearted Boy also posted a Book Notes feature on the book, saying “part erotic thriller, part speculative fiction, Private Midnight is a showcase for Kris Saknussemm's talents for crafting a well-told tale with surprising twists and turns.”

Saknussemm will be kicking off his 9 city tour in Seattle on March 24th, and additional dates can be found here. He can be followed via his website, Facebook, twitter, or right here on the Overlook Blog.

Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE Looks at the Tragedy of Rampage Shootings

Yesterday's tragic news in Geneva County, Alabama and today's shocking school shooting in Winnenden, Germany raises many questions about rampage shootings, which are becoming an all too familiar news headline. Jonathan Fast, Associate Professor of Research at the Wurzwelier School of Social Work, Yeshivia University, addressed many of these complex issues in his groundbreaking study of school rampage shooting, Ceremonial Violence.

Naughty But Nice: Andrew Hudgins' SHUT UP YOU'RE FINE Reviewed in City Paper

Andrew Hudgins’ new book of children’s poetry, Shut Up, You’re Fine: Poems for Very, Very Bad Children, is reviewed in the Washington City Paper: "Not as grim as many of his previous works, but it’s hardly Goodnight Moon. Hudgins has written about the psychology of his hard-knock Southern upbringing for nearly 20 years. Until now, his poems have been free-verse catalogues of hard times: By comparison, Shut Up is playful. The childhood stories are less autobiographical and, thankfully, the young speakers aren’t as in need of saving—though they still serve as Hudgins’ vehicle for his ongoing demythification of the archetypal Southern family. As with all of Hudgins’ work, the enthralling narratives and simple verse transcend class and geography, but Shut Up’s best feature is the combined didactic value of its title and its speakers’ perspectives. One can imagine someone breaking out Hudgins’ book when his child complains about limited TV time. You think you’ve got it hard? the parent might ask, before flipping open to “When I Grow Up,” narrated by a child whose parents steal from their jobs to support him. “Daddy brings home legal pads/but mommy brings home gauze/used needles, and heart monitors/like toys from Santa Claus…I can’t wait to land a job/at Kleinman’s jewelry store/I’ve got my eye on wedding bands/so Dad can marry Mom/or at least not take another date/to Mom’s third junior prom,” Hudgins writes. Although there are more than a few genuinely childlike pieces in the anthology, the best poems are about subjects that will fly over most kids’ heads. But even when Hudgins conjures scenes that would give most kids nightmares—noisy headboards, preachers with “secret beliefs,” a dad who turns into the “Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull” after knocking back a few too many—the humor is more gray than black."

Susan Hill's THE RISK OF DARKNESS is "Original, Wrenching and Unforgettable"

Eleanor Bukowsky offers glowing praise of Susan Hill's new mysery The Risk of Darkness on the terrific Mostly Fiction website: "Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler series is one of the most original, wrenching, and unforgettable of all the police procedurals to come out of England. In The Risk of Darkness, the writing and dialogue are as sharp as ever, and the fast-paced narrative is absolutely mesmerizing. All of the characters are superbly delineated, from the main character to those who make only brief appearances. Simon has many admirable qualities: He is devoted to his sister and mother; he is a dedicated office of the law; and he is an extremely gifted artist. Unfortunately, he is also self-centered, reclusive, and cold towards those women unlucky enough to fall in love with him. . . .In The Risk of Darkness, Susan Hill explores many thought-provoking themes that she introduced in her earlier works: What is the nature of evil? How can the loss of a loved one bring a person to the brink of despair? What price do homicide detectives pay for their exposure, day after day, to the worst offenses that human beings can commit? Is there any way that true justice can be meted out to child murderers? How do members of families and communities support and, in some cases, undermine one another? The author challenges us to shake off our complacency and take a hard look at the harsh realities of our contemporary world. One may quibble that The Risk of Darkness has too much heartbreak and too little joy. That may be true, but the book's strengths compensate for the sadness that the story generates. Fans of Simon Serrailler will eagerly await the release of the next installment, The Vows of Silence."

Lydia Raurell's YEAR OF DANCING DANGEROUSLY

The new season of "Dancing With the Stars" is upon us. On Monday, the popular ABC show will spotlight the ups and down of amateur dancers from all walks of life. For a more realistic look at what it takes to learn how to dance and win, check out The Year of Dancing of Dancing Dangerously by Lydia Raurell.

Boomer Cafe has an excerpt from The Year of Dancing Dangerously, Lydia Raurell's inspiring story of her journey in to the world of competitive ballroom dancing.

John Crowley's ENDLESS THINGS Now Available in Paperback

New in paperback is Endless Things, the fourth novel—the much anticipated conclusion—in John Crowley’s astonishing and lauded Ægypt cycle: a dense, lyrical meditation on history, alchemy, and memory. Spanning three centuries, and weaving together the stories of Renaissance magician John Dee, philosopher Giordano Bruno, and present-day itinerant historian and writer Pierce Moffitt, the Ægypt sequence is an epic, distinctly American novel where the past, present, and future reflect each other.

“A work of great erudition and deep humanity that is as beautifully composed as any novel in my experience.”— The Washington Post Book World

"With Endless Things and the completion of the Ægypt cycle, Crowley has constructed one of the finest, most welcoming tales contemporary fiction has to offer us.” —Bookforum

Remembering Horton Foote

We mourn the loss of the great playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote, who died yesterday in Hartford, Connecticut. He was 92. Overlook is the proud publisher of two volumes by Foote: The Last of the Thorntons from 2000, and Carpetbagger's Children and The Actor from 2003.

In a series of haunting dramatic monologues, The Carpetbagger's Children tells the story of the three daughters of Joseph Thompson, who struggle against the pressures of modern life to uphold their father's dying wish-that the estate he built in the years following the Civil War never be divided among his heirs. It is a timeless and elegiac portrayal of a once-vibrant family slowly disintegrating over time. The Actor tells the hilarious and moving story of a young man, bitten by the acting bug, who'll make any sacrifice to keep his dream of a theatrical career from being crushed under the weight of his parents' expectations for him. It is a charming exploration of artistic ambition from one of modern theater's greatest artists. The Last of the Thorntons tells the story of Alberta Thornton, the last surviving member of the powerful Thornton clan of Harrison, Texas. As she confronts the end of her life, Alberta shares an entertaining and touching lifetime of memories, including both pride and misgivings about her family’s legacy, as she struggles to let go of unrealized dreams and a lost way of life.

On the Road with Ilana Stanger-Ross, author of SIMA'S UNDERGARMENTS FOR WOMEN

Ilana Stanger-Ross, author of the already beloved Sima's Undergarments for Women, has just completed a whirlwind tour of book promotion - from the great north of British Columbia to Toronto, and on to the great American cities of New York, Philadelphia and Washington. For a witty and entertaining look at her adventures on the road, check out her fabulous blog.

Early Praise for Daniel Kalder's STRANGE TELESCOPES

Kirkus Reviews gives us a sneak peek at Daniel Kalder's Strange Telescopes: Following the Apocolypse from Moscow to Siberia: "Scottish writer Kalder (Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist) offers tales of weird, occult doings in the land of Rasputin. Unless you're a longtime reader of Outside—in which Erin Arvedlund did a more economical job of telling the same story—you might not know that the sewers of Moscow, Russia, are home to an odd tribe of postmodern bohemian intellectuals who, tired of the impossibility of utopias aboveground, are trying their hands at creating a paradise below. Some of the subterraneans are more normal than others, relatively speaking, but it's no easy matter to distinguish those who have lost their marbles and claim to work directly for Vladimir Putin via secret telephone from those who truly do work for Putin via secret telephone ("That connects me directly to the Ministry of Emergency Situations!"). Whatever their motivations and connections, the Diggers, as they're known, have made a wondrous city beneath the city, a world into which Kalder guides readers. Meanwhile, aboveground, he writes, psychics and clergy are doing a land-office business conducting exorcisms "with the same frequency that plumbers patched up the pipes in the crumbling tower blocks of the former Soviet Union." One such exorcist divides his time between the underground and the surface world, and Kalder accompanies him on his chases after Satan, "catastrophe surfing" in the quieter corners of the erstwhile Evil Empire. In Siberia, a former traffic cop has concocted a millenarian sci-fi cult that makes cousins such as Scientology look rational. According to them, God is "a light that doesn't burn, which is cold and white and tender and gentle." Naturally enough, subterraneans and exorcists figure in it. . . A hoot to read."

Kris Saknussemm's PRIVATE MIDNIGHT On Sale Tomorrow

On sale tomorrow, from the twisted, brilliant pen of Kris Saknussemm, is Private Midnight, a novel truly beyond compare.
Saknussemm, author of Zanesville, is one of the most promising and edgy writers around, will be off on a 9-city author tour beginning at Elliot Bay Book Co. in Seattle on March 24.

The novel received a Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly, which described it as, "James Ellroy meets David Lynch in this addictive mix of noir and supernatural horror." Harriet Klausner, one of the internet's most prolific and respected reviewers, has given it a 5-star rating, saying, Private Midnight is an exciting Noir with an exotic paranormal spin." Kirkus Reviews warns "the word freakish doesn't even begin to describe the events of the novel . . . Private Midnight is off-the-wall strange and surreal—and definitely not recommended as a Mother's Day gift."

Overlook Preview: NEW YORK IN THE 70s

Coming in April, New York in the 70s is a personal collection of photographs documenting an exciting chapter in New York’s history—and a remarkable body of work produced by photographer Allan Tannenbaum while he was a photo editor of the SoHo Weekly News in Manhattan. The photographs encompass many aspects of New York life while capturing the heady exuberanceof the era—from SoHo and the art world to the city’s politics and society. By photographing everything from street gangs to disco divas, from homeless to Hollywood stars, Tannenbaum had assembled a personal diary of his journey as a photojournalist and raconteur through a strange and exotic era of New York life. New York in the 70s includes a Preface by Yoko Ono and Foreword by P.J. O'Rourke. On sale April 2!

SMOGTOWN Excerpt on the Mother Nature Network

The brilliant environmental website Mother Nature Network is now featuring an excerpt from Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, by journalist Chip Jacobs and environmental spokesman William J. Kelly. This critically acclaimed book chronicles the history and impact of smog in LA, exposing the dirty facts behind the unparalleled crises and the ways in which the city tried to combat it. For more information about Smogtown, check out this blog about air pollution, the environment and more by authors Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly.

Charles McCarry's SHELLEY'S HEART in Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews takes a look at Charles McCarry's Shelley's Heart, coming next month in a new hardcover edition: "There's skullduggery afoot, and plenty of political intrigue, in this latest by accomplished mysterian McCarry (Christopher's Ghosts, 2007, etc.), whose overarching message might be that one has no friends in Washington, those who call you friend are likely to do you harm, and when Republicans call you friend—well, schedule an appointment with the undertaker. McCarry's setup is out of the headlines: A conservative presidential candidate wins office via electoral fraud. This time, however, his opponent has evidence. Enter the FIS—the heir to the CIA, replacing it "after it collapsed under the weight of the failures and scandals resulting from its misuse by twentieth-century Presidents." Enter spooks, defense contractors, lobbyists and assorted other denizens of the District of Columbia—and, to boot, a few deranged assassins and Yale graduates up to no good. The plot thickens and thickens—it has to, after all, since, among other things, part of it turns on a presumptive president's debating "the advantages and disadvantages of appointing a man he believed to be an enemy of democracy as Chief Justice of the United States." There's more than one clef in this roman, which has all the requisites of a Frederick Forsyth–style thriller but adds a few modern twists, some the product of a supersecret Moroccan-born agent whose stiletto heels are the real deal. She's not the only hotty, and there's the requisite steamy sex, too, told in requisite steamy language: "His great ursine weight fell upon her with a brutality that made her gasp with pleasure." Other gasps await good guys and bad guys alike, especially when drilled by tiny bullets to the thorax and other unpleasant means of dispatch.Will democracy survive? Readers will be left guessing until the last minute. A pleasing 21st-century rejoinder to the 1962 novel Seven Days in May, and a capable whodunit."

Jem Poster's RIFLING SHADOWS is "Pitch Perfect"

January Magazine has kind words for Jem Poster's Rifling Shadows, now on sale in bookstores everywhere: "It sounds like hyperbole but I don’t care: Jem Poster’s sophomore effort, Rifling Paradise (Overlook) is as near perfect a book as I have encountered in a very long time. It is a work of historical fiction and the history here -- Australia in the Victorian era -- is pitch perfect. Rifling Paradise looks like a book, but it is not: it’s really a time machine.The story finds minor English landowner, Charles Redbourne, heading to Australia to make an impression as a naturalist, at a time when that was a weirdly competitive field. If Rifling Paradise was just Redbourne’s story, it would be interesting enough: it would be a good book. But when Redbourne’s specimen collecting takes a terrifying turn, we find ourselves with a page turner on our hands.So what is Rifling Paradise? Is it historical fiction? Literary fiction? Is it a psychological thriller? Or the portrait of an age? Well, actually, it’s all of those things. And more. A wonderful book."