Jid Lee discusses TO KILL A TIGER on New America Now

Jid Lee, the author of TO KILL A TIGER: A Memoir of Korea, spoke with New America Now about her new book and growing up in Korea.

Sandip Roy introduced her this way:

"Sandwiched between World War II and the Vietnam War, the Korean War is, for many Americans, the forgotten war. But for Koreans who grew up in the aftermath of that war, it changed their lives forever. Jid Lee's family lived in genteel poverty in a Korea that was under a ruthless Capitalist dictatorship, as a counterweight to the tyrannical Communist north. Her memoir, To Kill A Tiger, is both about the politics of that time, as well as growing up as a young woman in a Confucian country where her brothers were treated as Gods."

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW!

More Praise for Olga Slavnikova's Award-Wining Novel 2017

Olga Slavnikova's award-winning novel 2017 is reviewed by K.E. Semmel in Three Percent, a fine website devoted to international literature:

"It’s hard not to think of twentieth-century Russian history as you crack open 2017, Olga Slavnikova’s Russian Booker Prize winning novel. The year 2017 will mark, of course, the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, which culminated in the collapse of the Czarist autocracy and gave rise to the Soviet Union. It’s against this backdrop that readers enter this novel: a pot brimming with precious stones, a dash of spy novel intrigue, and a raw-to-the-bone social critique bubbling and boiling in a dense, evocative stew.

Excuse the metaphor. This is not a novel of food—far from it. But 2017 is a novel that asks you to savor it slowly, bite by bite. Translator Marian Schwartz, one of the most accomplished Russian translators working today—who has translated the works of Nina Berberova, Edvard Radzinsky, and Mikhail Bulgakov, among others—has recreated Slavnikova’s dense novel in a smooth, eminently enjoyable English text. Passages describing the craft of obscure trades like gemcutting or rock-hounding flow from sentence to sentence with ease, making the translation seem effortless.

At its core, 2017 is a deceptively simple novel that explores the notion of authenticity in a modern life. In the mythical region of the Riphean Mountains, a gifted gem cutter named Krylov meets a woman named Tanya who, unbeknownst to him, happens to be the wife of his rich but humorless mentor, the professor and gem trader Anfilogov. Krylov and Tanya begin a torrid affair that finds them in new beds each time they meet. Meanwhile Krylov’s ex-wife, Tamara, a wealthy and powerful funeral director who still has her eyes set on Krylov, enters the picture and thinks it’s about time she and Krylov get back together again. And what about that rotund spy trailing Tanya and Krylov’s every move? Well, he may or may not have been hired by Tamara to keep track of their affair.

2017 is, in short, a playfully fun novel that uses farcical elements and outlandish, oversized characters to beguile you into reading further. For instance, in one particularly fun sentence, Dickens-like in its wit, we get the following description of the spy: “His mustache looked like it had been drawn on by a graffiti artist provoked by all the blank space on his face.”

But behind the farce there’s some serious stuff going on. In a geographically isolated northern region of the country where some of the very best deposits of precious stones are found, people, animals, and vegetation are dying because of a cyanide leak. Just why this is so—and just who is to blame for the leak—is what ultimately propels the novel’s plot.

In the post-Soviet society Slavnikova envisions, it seems most everyone is out to make a quick buck. Take Professor Anfilogov, for example, who is driven to accumulate wealth despite the fact that, once he has it, he has no real use for it. Or Krylov’s ex-wife Tamara, whose funeral business rakes in the dough until an environmental scandal breaks, revealing just how she got her money in the first place. (And yes, the scandal’s got something to do with why everything’s dying up north.) Only Krylov the gem cutter—a man with some real inertia issues—seems immune to the pull of easy wealth.

But along with wealth comes power, and this is where the novel makes its deepest cut into post-Soviet (and potentially all) structures of power. Here is Tamara lecturing Krylov:

“You and I are having a material conversation now,” Tamara pulled him up sharp. “No matter how important what you’re not telling me is, what I’m going to tell you now is much more important. You and your Anfilogov have a special kind of business. The issue is not whether it’s legal or illegal. The problem is that you want to go it alone. I mean all your friends who used to come over when we were renting that little place on Kuznechnaya and then stopped coming over. I want you to be clear about one thing: today, everyone belongs to someone, and you’re doing everything in your power not to. All people and all businesses are part of a single world molecule. This molecule is a lot simpler than the most primitive human individuality. . . . Even inside the molecule the upper levels are much more primitive than the lower ones. You can’t even imagine how crude, coarse, and simple-minded the functions are at the highest stages of power, where I’ve only had a peek.”

Though it might be too tempting to see everything here through the lens of power (of the Soviet kind), particularly when the Red Cavalry and White Cossacks engage in deadly skirmishes on the 100th anniversary of the Revolution, it’s not at all a stretch to view the unfolding plot in post-Glasnost terms. The question of who is to blame for the mess up north becomes central. Was Tamara the one responsible for the environmental disaster? Or should blame be held against the authorities who, as Tamara claims, “knew about the cyanide leak . . . and did absolutely nothing!”?

But if you look closely for simple answers in 2017, you won’t find them. Throughout the novel the same question of authenticity is raised by various means and by various characters, ultimately pointing to what is really at stake in the year 2017. Whether it’s the transparency of rainbow quartz, or the authenticity of a well-lived human life, or even the authenticity of history itself, 2017 examines the difficult problem of achieving authenticity in a modern capitalist state. And by doing so, Slavnikova gives a dose of humanity to the characters who inhabit her fictional world. Though she can be a little heavy on description at times, Slavnikova is a gifted writer with a talent for weaving the disparate threads of her expansive narrative together, and with Schwartz’s able hand bringing this novel to life in English, readers should enjoy this book as they would enjoy a fine meal: slowly and thoughtfully."

New Biography of CONSTANTINE Reviewed in Publishers Weekly

An important new biography, Constantine: Roman Emperor, Christian Victor, by Paul Stephenson is previewed in Publishers Weekly: "Stephenson, a historian at the University of Durham, successfully combines historical documents, examples of Roman art, sculpture, and coinage with the lessons of geopolitics to produce a complex biography of the Emperor Constantine. Rather than the divinely guided hero of legend who singlehandedly brought pagan
Rome to Christian orthodoxy, Constantine is depicted as very much a product of his political environment. Recognizing the growing influence of the Christian Church, he adapted the generally pacifist faith to the Roman "theology of victory " and created a newly militant Christianity that would sustain his rule. Constantine wisely sought to impose religious toleration on the diverse Roman Empire while discouraging "trivial " disputes among the Christian faithful. Stephenson examines the variety of religious beliefs in the early fourth century with emphasis on Mithraism, a pagan mystery cult practiced by pre−Constantine soldiers, and on the bitter divisions within victorious Christianity that ultimately led to the Council of Nicaea. Constantine is revealed as a master politician who, while delaying his own baptism for reasons not fully explained in the text, became the ruler of both church and state."

Overlook Publisher Peter Mayer in The Bookseller Magazine

In a column appropriately named "Forever Young," John Blake writes about Peter Mayer in The Bookseller magazine: "Ask people to name a truly iconic publisher—and I think many would come up with the name of Peter Mayer.

His rise from runner at the New York Times, to two decades brilliantly creating the modern Penguin Group, to his fabulous career at Overlook Press in New York and Duckworth in London, is the stuff of ­legend. I was thrilled, honoured and (to be honest) slightly terrified, therefore, when he first bought US rights to our biography of Lady Gaga by Emily Herbert, then announced he was flying into London and would like to meet.

“He’s a genius, he speaks six languages, you won’t have a clue what he is talking about,” friends warned me. Thanks. Anyway, he shambled into Sheeky’s restaurant, looking a little like Keith Richards’ younger brother, then proceeded to charm and amaze me for a couple of hours.

Despite his own very considerable contribution to serious literature, Peter appeared fascinated by the success of our fast turnround books (he brought a copy of his edition of Lady Gaga with him, less than a month after buying rights, which is entirely unprecedented in the slow-motion world of US publishing). He talked about his success with a high-speed Susan Boyle book, of how he brought sudoku to the US, and of the new outlets and sales opportunities for selling books in the UK and the US.

While all of us who love books are saddened to see wonderful independent shops, and chains such as Borders, going under we have to deal with the new world order, or go out of business. And, though Peter has already chugged effortlessly past his 70th birthday, he is still exhilarated and excited by the challenges we now face.

Reflecting, afterwards, it came to me that book publishers, with a passion for what they do, seem to have discovered the secret of remaining forever young. In Fleet Street, where I worked in another lifetime, youth is every­thing. William Lewis, the editor of the Telegraph, is 39. Dominic Mohan, the latest editor of the Sun, is all of 40. Meanwhile, in the world of literature, Ernest Hecht at Souvenir Press continues to publish wonderful, original titles (and to tell very funny stories) even though he has swung effortlessly past his 80th birthday. Naim Atallah, at Quartet, is 78 but still has the enthusiasm of a teenager. Even Ed Victor, that doyen of agents has, unbelievably, reached 70.

Despite all the new challenges, the magic of constantly dealing with wonderful new stories and ideas seems to be the best tonic in the world. Aren’t we lucky?"

Lesley McDowell's BETWEEN THE SHEETS in New York Times Book Review

Lesley's McDowell's new study of the literary liaisons of nine influential 20th women writers, Between the Sheets, is reviewed in the April 4 issue of The New York Times Book Review: "McDowell, a literary journalist in Scotland, has culled incredibly juicy details. With so many affairs and broken hearts, the most suprising thing is that anything got written in the last 100 years."

Featured in Between the Sheets:

Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry
H.D. and Ezra Pound
Rebecca West and H.G. Wells
Jean Rhys and Ford Maddox Ford
Anais Nin and Henry Miller
Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
Martha Gelhorn and Ernest Hemingway
Elizabeth Smart and George Barker
Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

Lucy Moore's ANYTHING GOES Featured in Pop Matters

Lucy Moore's wonderful social history of America in the Roaring Twenties, Anything Goes, is featured on Pop Matters, the online magazine of cultural criticism.

Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties revives all of the big names and big events of our most compelling decade – a period that, she observes, in some ways is not unlike the present. It was the Jazz Age; a time of promiscuity and plenty, political corruption and complacency, technology, excess, consumerism and celebrity. This was an epoch of passion and transformation – and with its many social and technological changes, its fetishization of material goods, and its cult of youth and instant celebrity, 1920’s America resonates with today’s culture.
By looking in detail at individual events like Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, the scandal of Teapot Dome and the founding of the New Yorker magazine, this gripping, intimate portrait of the Jazz Age opens windows to many of this country’s most iconic moments.

Author Lucy Moore was born in the United States and moved to Britain to study history at Edinburgh University. Although an American, she was voted one of the “Top Twenty Young Writers in Britain” by the Independent on Sunday.

Katie Arnoldi's POINT DUME Reviewed in Booklist

Booklist previews the new novel from Katie Arnoldi, Point Dume: "Arnoldi revisits the themes of obsession and amorality that she so skillfully exposed in her previous works (Chemical Pink, 2001; The Wentworths, 2008), this time pitting iconic segments of Southern California’s counterculture against each other in an apocalyptic race for survival. Flinty surfer-chick Ellis’s on-again/ off-again affair with married vineyard owner Frank is complicated by a surprise pregnancy and her equally unsettled relationship with her childhood best friend, Pablo, now a drug dealer who supplies pot to disaffected housewives, like Frank’s wife, Janice. Stealing from the contraband pot farms operating deep in the canyons, Pablo is captured by Felix Duarte, an illegal immigrant smuggled into the country by the Mexican drug cartel to manage their operation located on the periphery of Frank’s estate. When the Santa Ana winds pick up and a single spark erupts into a conflagration, Mother Nature regains control of the land everyone, save Ellis, has been wantonly abusing. Crisp pacing, caustic characterizations, and acerbic satire inform this darkly comic fable." -— Carol Haggas

LADY GAGA: BEHIND THE FAME Featured in Life & Style Weekly

Emily Herbert's new biography Lady Gaga: Behind the Fame is featured in a full-color spread in Life & Style Weekly: "Sex, Drugs and Scandals: Two new books about Lady Gaga blow the door open on all her hidden secrets. Lady Gaga has never been the private type. In fact, there’s little the superstar, born Stefani Germanotta in 1986, wont discuss about herself. But even she may be shocked to see her biggest secrets splashed on the pages of two new tell-alls, Lady Gaga: Behind the Fame and Lady Gaga: Just Dance, both of which just hit stores. The juicy books claim some of Gaga’s darkest experiences included heavy drug use, raunchy sex and a night she partied so hard she thought she would die.

Her dad’s words cut like a knife: It took a long time for Lady Gaga’s father, Joe Germanotta, to get comfortable with his daughter’s edgy act. “I was performing in a leopard G-string and a black tank top,” Gaga recalls, according to Behind the Fame. “He thought I was crazy—that I was doing drugs and didn’t have any concept of reality anymore.” She also says, according to the book, “If someone walks up to me and says, ‘I hate your music, you’re talentless,’ it means nothing. But if my father says it, it means a lot.”

She’s had lesbian affairs: Lady Gaga dates men—but behind closed bedroom doors, she’s also had sex with women. “I have no question in my mind about being bisexual,” she has said, according to Lady Gaga: Behind the Fame. The book speculates that the star had an affair with one of her biggest influences, Lady Starlight. Early in Gaga’s career, according to Behind the Fame, part of the singer’s act involved fondling Lady Starlight onstage. Her skimpy outfits once got her arrested: Before Gaga shot to fame in 2009, her controversial fleshbaring outfits weren’t always appreciated. She was even arrested for revealing too much skin in Chicago."

Starred Review in Library Journal for Barnaby Rogerson's THE LAST CRUSADERS

Library Journal awards a star for The Last Crusaders: The Hundred-Year Battle for the Center of the World, by Barnaby Rogerson: "Author Rogerson (The Heirs of Muhammad) focuses not on the more famous Crusades from 1095 and 1291 but on a later series of clashes between various Christian and Muslim forces in and around the Mediterranean, beginning with Portugal's capture of the city of Ceuta in 1415 and ending with the battles at Lepanto in 1571 and Alcácer Quibir in 1578. The author imbues his text with an excellent sense of person and place, presenting not only the exploits of both Christians and Muslims on the battlefield but also their shifting alliances and internal struggles. He also explores how military technologies and the expansion of trade and exploration helped shape the conflicts. This thoroughly readable book provides a vibrant and well-organized account of this tumultuous, lesser-known period of history. Highly recommended for both students and general readers."

Irene Levine, author of BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, Interviewed in The Wall Street Journal

Irene S. Levine, author of Best Friends Forever, was recently interviewed by Elizabeth Bernstein in The Wall Street Journal on how to break up with a friend: "Friendships are such a nuanced and intriguing relationship that we even follow celebrity friend breakups, as we do their romances. Why else would we care about Mariana Pasternak but for her tell-all book about her former friendship with Martha Stewart, which ended after Ms. Pasternak testified at Ms. Stewart's 2004 trial.

"It's a myth that friendships last forever," says Irene S. Levine, a psychologist, professor of psychiatry at New York University's medical school and author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend. We are tied to our family by blood and our spouses by law, so we are often more attentive to those relationships. "Friendships are relationships of choice, so we tend to overlook them," she says.

As a result, many friendships die from neglect, Dr. Levine says. And this in itself poses a very sticky problem in friendship breakups: How do you know if you're being neglected—or dumped? What if your friend is always too busy to get together but always seems to have a good excuse? What if she never calls you, but seems happy enough to hear from you when you call?

And there's the rub. There are no rules or even societal norms for friendship breakups. Friends who want to split don't go to counseling or get a mediator or a lawyer, as divorcing couples do. And there typically aren't a bunch of nosy relatives willing to intervene and relay messages, as there are when a split is within a family."

Meet Ben Farmer, author of EVANGELINE, at the Virginia Festival of the Book on March 19

Ben Farmer, author of the forthcoming debut novel Evangeline, will appear on the Virginia Festival of Book in Charlotttesville on Friday, March 19. Ben will participate in a panel discussion ("True Stories of Fact and Fiction") at the Central JRML Library at 2pm.

Inspired by Longfellow's eponymously titled epic poem, Ben Farmer's Evangeline is both a sweeping love story and harrowing journey from Nova Scotia in Canada to New Orleans in pre-revolutionary America. As the British drove the French out of mid-eighteenth century Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia), the beautiful seventeen-year-old Evangeline Bellefontaine is torn by British soldiers from her fiancé, Gabriel Lajeunesse, on the eve of their wedding. Heartbroken but determined, Evangeline—along with illegal trapper Bernard Arseneau and priest Felician Abadie—sets out on an extraordinary ten-year journey to the French-Spanish colony of Louisiana to seek her long-lost love.

Evangeline’s epic quest to find Gabriel brings her and her companions across North America’s colonial wilderness, through the French and Indian War, and into New Orleans’ rebellion against
Spanish rule. As they travel from Grand Pre, Nova Scotia in 1755 through Maryland, South Carolina, and eventually down into and through the swamps of Louisiana in 1769, it is the strengths and failings of Ben Farmer’s marvelously drawn characters that drive this grand tale, as they face adversity in a world of exile and war.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie” in 1847 and it remains his most popular and enduring work. While author Ben Farmer faithfully incorporates the essential elements of the epic poem, Evangeline, the novel, emerges as magnificent work of narrative fiction - artfully blending history, romance, adventure with an unforgettable character portraits. It is truly a singular achievement - rich in detail and panoramic in scope.

New in Paperback: Gerard Donovan's YOUNG IRELANDERS

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day is a new paperback edition of Gerard Donovan's marvelous collection of short stories, Young Irelanders. These interrelated stories magnify the new Ireland and illuminate how the Irish are coping with its rewards and pressures: immigration from Eastern Europe and beyond, mid-life crisis, adultery and divorce, a lost sense of place and history.

Gerard Donovan is the author of three poetry collections and three novels: Schopenhauer’s Telescope (2003), nominated for the Man Booker Prize, Julius Winsome (2006) and Sunless (2008).

DOUBLE NEGATIVE and FROM AWAY: The Discreet and Dangerous Charms of David Carkeet

Crime fiction columnist, blogger, critic and journalist extraordinaire Sarah Weinman looks at two novels by David Carkeet: Double Negative and his new novel From Away: " One thing should be clear from the outset: David Carkeet is not a crime novelist, not in the way we think of the term now. He doesn't set out with a sense of righteous fury to chronicle society's ills, nor does he wish to document murder in all of its transfixing brutality. Instead his touch is lighter, more whimsical, featuring protagonists who, instead of being tortured, are mildly affronted at best. When they find themselves in the crosshairs of the law, they don't mount an outraged crusade, but conduct a parallel investigation of the real culprit of murder that carries a veneer of the absurd, as if they know how ridiculous it is to play amateur sleuth. And while a crime novel's devil should always be in the details, Carkeet's characters are more often bedevilled by linguistic anomalies, the taste of homemade pie, and the baffling habits of the women they want to woo. Put another way, crime fiction protagonists find murder, while murder finds Carkeet's reluctant sleuths. They aren't looking for trouble, or at least not according to their own occasionally convoluted logic. They want to be liked, but sometimes have a hard time expressing that to others, who misconstrue their habitual complaining as a manifestation of darker emotions. The net result for readers is a sense of being swayed off the expected narrative course into more intriguing, messier byways of human behavior, whose larger mysteries will always dwarf that of who killed whom." Read the full review here.

Dilip Hiro's INSIDE CENTRAL ASIA Reviewed in International Affairs

Dilip Hiro's Inside Central Asia is reviewed in the March issue of International Affairs: "Few people know Central Asia better than Dilip Hiro does. His Between Marx and Muhammad: The Changing Face of Central Asia represented one of the most accurate analyses of the region published in the early post-Soviet era and, at the beginning of 2010, remains an important source for scholars and the wider public interested in Central Asian affairs. In his new work, Inside Central Asia, Hiro widens his focus and his objectives become more ambitious. The specialized reader would be impressed by Hiro’s ability to enrich his account with hard-to-find elements….. In conclusion, Inside Central Asia is a major contribution to the study of post-Soviet Central Asia, interesting for both specialized and non-specialized readers for its solid analytical framework, the author’s engaging style and the remarkable amount of information provided in the volume."

Wodehouse for the Weekend: BARMY IN WONDERLAND

New in the beloved Collector's Wodehouse series is Barmy in Wonderland. This classic plot of 1920s musical comedy, so familiar to Wodehouse from his own stage works, becomes the basis for a brilliant satire on theatrical life. The book concerns the character Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps, who had previously appeared in Wodehouse's Drones Club and Jeeves stories, and his adventures in the theatrical world. Featuring monstrous producers, vain film stars, impossible critics, temperamental actresses and a whole chorus of sharply drawn minor parts, this 1952 novel is Wodehouse at the top of his form.

Mark Booth's SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD Now in Paperback

The Secret History of the World, Mark Booth's enthralling intellectual tour of secret societies, is now available in paperback. Starting from a dangerous premise—that everything we’ve been taught about our world’s past is corrupted, and that the stories put forward by the various cults and mystery schools throughout history are true—Booth produces nothing short of an alternate history of the past 3,000 years!

The Secret History of the World, an Overlook bestseller for over two years, charges through time and space and thought in interdisciplinary fashion; embracing cognitive science, religion, psychology, historiography, and philosophy, a new timeline is drawn, and a huge swath of our cultural heritage that has for long been hidden is restored. From Greek and Egyptian mythology to Jewish folklore, from Christian cults to Freemasons, from Charlemagne to Don Quixote, from George Washington to Hitler- author Mark Booth shows without a doubt that history as we know it needs a revolutionary rethink, and he has 3,000 years of hidden wisdom to back it up.

Praise for The Secret History of the World:

"Step right up, folks, and read the one true guide to Western and Eastern esoteric societies from the Freemasons to the Rosicrucians."-Salon.com

“An entire library’s worth of scholarship [in] a single volume.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Authentically mind-boggling.” —Kirkus

“Booth’s history incorporates so many disparate philosophies. . . His universe is full of bizarre theories, entertaining primarily for their weirdness.” —Publishers Weekly

“The Secret History of the World is one of those rare works. It's a mindboggling adventure that I recommend to anyone who has a thirst for knowledge and a desire for an alternate glimpse into the past.” – Midwest Book Review

“Booth’s luminous prose, his fast-paced storytelling, and his astonishing breadth and depth of knowledge about a multitude of secret societies provide breathtaking glimpses into worlds that heretofore have been little explored. . . A brilliant, exhaustive, ground-breaking study.” - ForeWord Magazine

Robert Coover on Tour for NOIR

Robert Coover, author of Noir, will appear at several East Coast readings and booksignings in March and April:

Thursday, March 11, 7pm
Brown Bookstore
244 Thayer Street, Providence, RI

Wednesday, March 31, 7pm
Labyrinth Books, 122 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ

Thursday, April 1, 7pm
Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine Street. Philadelphia, Pa

Wednesday, April 7, 4pm
The Mysterious Bookshop
55 Warren Street,New York

Wednesday, April 7, 7pm
Unnameable Books,600 Vanderbilt, Brooklyn, NY

Thursday, April 8, 8pm
Animal Farm/Happy Ending Reading Series, 302 Broome Street,New York, NY

Lucy Moore's ANYTHING GOES Chronicles America in the Roaring Twenties

Lucy Moore's dazzling new social history of the Roaring Twenties, Anything Goes, is drawing widespread attention:

"A gorgeous historical indulgence." - In Style

"Delightfully traces the personalities and events of Jazz Age America." - The Chronicle of Higher Education.

"The energy and dynamism that came to embody much of the Roaring Twenties are palpable in Lucy Moore's portrait of American society throughout the decade. . . This is clearly a book of timely relevance." - Times Literary Supplement

"Lucy Moore's enlightening, well-researched biography of the 1920s will appeal to scholars as well as a general audience. Filled with attention-grabbing details that many historians neglect and a wide range of subjects - from celebrities like Charlie Chaplin or Bessie Smith to political corruption and social upheaval - Anything Goes will not disappoint readers, no matter their educational background...Anyone interested in discovering Al Capone, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Charles Lindbergh in the pages of the same book will find this broad-based work a worthwhile pursuit." - -ForeWord

“Quickstepping over the surface of the 1920s, a high-octane and high-speed decade that F. Scott Fitzgerald christened the Jazz Age, U.K. writer Moore emphasizes that the 1920s was a time a lot like our recent past…This survey is best suited for readers not deeply familiar with this much revisited decade.” - Publishers Weekly

EXPLORATION FAWCETT Tells the Real Story of the Journey to the Lost City of Z

A new addition to the Spring 2010 list is Exploration Fawcett, by Col. Percy Fawcett, the true story behind David Grann's #1 bestseller The Lost City of Z. Now available for the first time in the US since 1953, this new paperback edition will go on sale on April 7.

Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett – the legendary British explorer – disappeared in Brazil’s unknown and unexplored territory in 1925. For ten years he had wandered through remote jungles and along death-filled rivers in search of lost cities. Convinced he knew the location of such a hidden place, The Lost City of Z, and longing to uncover the secrets of the Amazon, he headed off into the wild for the last time – never to be heard from again.

In Exploration Fawcett, the thrilling and astonishing story of what happened during that time is told - compiled by his son from the records his father left behind. including manuscripts, letters, logbooks and private papers. To this day, Colonel Fawcett’s disappearance remains a great mystery.

Robert Coover's NOIR: "Gritty, Compelling, and Filled with Danger, Death, and Dames"

A terrific review of Noir by Robert Coover in the current issue of ForeWord:

“Trouble with webs. When you’re in one, you can’t see past the next knot,” laments private investigator Philip Noir, the lead character in Robert Coover’s book, Noir: A Novel. Thus the sleuth perfectly summarizes this gritty and compelling story filled with danger, death, and dames. In Noir, Coover offers a classic hard-boiled detective novel with a literary twist. The tale certainly provides the genre’s required elements: a mysterious, classy, yet unapproachable woman in trouble; a dark plot filled with traps more and more impossible to escape; and a cast of crooked characters from the police and underworld. Yet the entire story unfolds in the second person (”You were in the alleyway…”), which proves as intriguing as it is challenging to read.

The story unfolds as a mysterious and beautiful widow hires Noir, that is, you, to investigate her husband’s murder. Then, she turns up dead. You feel compelled to solve her murder. So you slink through the city’s dark streets and wade through underground tunnels and sewers, digging up dirt from every contact you have. You interview prostitutes and torch singers, street rats and police insiders from the docks, diners, and bars. You’re a master at this shady underworld, but the widow’s story begins falling apart and few clues emerge. Then, as the bodies of those who help you start piling up, you are framed for murder. You get the idea. As the mystery unfolds, it leads the reader down a fascinating series of false paths and offers a slew of potential solutions. Each character, from the street rat to the secretary to the torch-song singer reveals clues and leads that keep the reader guessing.

Robert Coover, a professor at Brown University, has authored a number of plays, short stories, and novels. And his storytelling expertise is evident in this latest offering. He has created an intriguing plot with captivating twists. A word of warning must be offered to potential readers, however. This book, packed with raw language and sexual references, is intended for adults. Also, the second-person voice, especially when coupled with flashbacks that seem to come unexpectedly from nowhere, make this a challenging, even frustrating, read. But the final solution makes the trouble worthwhile. And the questions left unanswered at the end only make this mystery more fascinating. Mystery lovers who stick with it, adjust to the narrative voice, and are unafraid to tackle perplexing time jumps, will find this a satisfying read." - Diane Gardner

Lesley McDowell's BETWEEN THE SHEETS Reviewed in Kirkus

Critic, novelist, and literary journalist Lesley McDowell has written a fascinating new exploration of the literary liasions of nine 20th century woman writers, Between the Sheets. Here a preview in Kirkus Reviews: "Writers such as Anais Nin, Simone de Beauvoir, Katherine Mansfield, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Sylvia Plath, Rebecca West and Jean Rhys have long been considered essential to the development of modernist literature and the rise of feminism. In her nonfiction debut, McDowell (The Picnic, 2007) draws another connection—each was paired romantically, with varying degrees of success, to other significant writers of the time. Examples include H.D. and Ezra Pound, West and H.G. Wells, Nin and Ford Madox Ford, and Nin and Henry Miller. Certainly, this is a tradition not limited to the modernist movement. Writers and artists have long been drawn to one another, complicating the concept of the muse versus the creator. McDowell successfully pins down particular parallels in her chosen relationships that are especially significant to their artistic goals. It is notable, for example, that these women are largely known as the victims of their relationships. They were, for the most part, all deserted or rejected by their husbands and lovers, often in a particularly public manner, or forced to participate in humiliating or degrading relationships. Each reacted dramatically to their failed relationships—Plath taking the most drastic road by committing suicide after Ted Hughes' affair. McDowell questions the degree to which these women pined for their respective men, while also espousing the virtues of feminism and independence in their writing, hinting at what was often blatant hypocrisy. But she also speculates on the ways in which the men—ironically mostly less famous in death than their partners—were able to provide the women with professional inroads, and also served as inspiration for some of their most influential works. The information is hardly new, but McDowell contextualizes it well, giving solid insight into a dynamic and influential group."

Olga Slavinikova's 2017: "A Novel of Ideas in the Tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky"

Olga Slavinikova's award-winning novel 2017 is reviewed in the upcoming issue of Russian Life magazine: "Krylov is a young and extremely talented gem cutter who is obsessed by transparency, with the luminous quality of rubies and other precious stones. He is also obsessed by the mysterious Tanya, with whom he has a prolonged, bizarre affair founded on exceptional uncertainties, and who — he fantasizes — will help him (as soon as he has enough money) escape the prison that is his life. But this is the centenary of the October Revolution, and reality and fantasy, past and future, hopes and hazards, are getting hard to separate. This is a Russia of the future, where the country’s harsh realities, ecological disasters and criminality have become amplified with time. Krylov, who just wants to slough off his violent, criminal exoskeleton, finds instead that his life is getting increasingly complicated, that the noose is tightening and there may be no way out. 2017 is a novel of ideas in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, yet set in the mineral- and myth-rich Urals. Slavnikova’s prose is dauntingly dense in the first third of the novel, and it is difficult to slog through her layering of back stories, but the payoff is well worth it. Marian Schwartz’s translation is opulent and lucid, belying the countless linguistic knots she had to unravel in order to birth this dense Booker-winning novel into English. In short, a gem."

David Carkeet's FROM AWAY Featured in Vermont's Seven Days

Margot Harrison of Seven Days reviews David Carkeet's From Away in the current issue: " From Away is one of those books you’ll like a lot or not at all by the time you’ve finished the first paragraph. If you like it, as I did, Middlesex author David Carkeet's novel will make you laugh. Repeatedly. Not for nothing does it come with an approving blurb from quirky-mystery king Carl Hiaasen, or another — from Publishers Weekly — that likens it to the Coen brothers’ movie Fargo. It’s a good comparison, because From Away is a lumpy but well-spiced gumbo of local color, serious drama and silliness. Like the Coen brothers, Carkeet is less interested in plots than in people and the stupid things they do: His protagonist deserves to stand beside the Dude in The Big Lebowski as a fellow with a knack for changing the tone of every situation he lands in. While From Away isn’t flawless, it’s an original, unlike anything else in its genre."

American Book Review Calls THE VOYAGE OF THE SHORT SERPENT a "Prize-Winning Masterpiece"

The current issue of American Book Review features a glowing review of Bernard du Boucheron's The Voyage of the Short Serpent. Translated from the French by Hester Velmans, this powerful novel retells the adventures of a sea voyage in the fourteenth century that leads an evangelical group to a lost colony among floating ice and snow.

Critic Dinda Gorlee notes "Bernard du Boucheron should be lauded for his efforts to create this history-based chronicle, The Voyage of the Short Serpent, a prize-winning masterpiece. Hester Velmans, the literary translator, has moved her translation forward to the creative illumination of a kind of co-authorship, jointly with the author. Reading the English translation of the tale of the frozen wasteland of New Thule, with the French original book, Court Serpent, alongside, Velman's suggestive, often insightful, translation fills the readers (and this critic) with nothing less than a great awe of Velman's magical professionalism."

Milton Glaser Receives the National Medal of Arts

Milton Glaser, legendary designer and beloved Overlook author, was awarded the National Medal of Arts on February 25. The award was presented by President Obama in the East Room of The White House. Milton was the first designer to receive this honor. In addition to Milton, the recipients included Bob Dylan, Clint Eastwood, Maya Lin, Rita Moreno, Jessye Norman, Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Frank Stella, Michael Tilson Thomas, and John Williams.

To many, Milton Glaser is the embodiment of American graphic design during the latter half of this century. Born in 1929, Glaser was educated at the High School of Music and Art and the Cooper Union art school in New York and, via a Fulbright Scholarship, the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Italy. He co-founded the revolutionary Pushpin Studios in 1954, founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968, established Milton Glaser, Inc. in 1974, and teamed with Walter Bernard in 1983 to form the publication design firm WBMG. Throughout his career, Glaser has been a prolific creator of posters and prints. His artwork has been featured in exhibits worldwide, including one-man shows at both the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His work is in the permanent collections of many museums. Glaser also is a renowned graphic and architectural designer with a body of work ranging from the iconic logo to complete graphic and decorative programs for the restaurants in the World Trade Center in New York. Among many awards throughout the years, he received the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, for his profound and meaningful long-term contribution to the contemporary practice of design.

His three Overlook books include Graphic Design, Art is Work, and Drawing is Thinking.

KNIFE MUSIC Needs a Cover!

David Carnoy's "scalpel-sharp medical thriller" KNIFE MUSIC will be published by Overlook this July. We need your help choosing a cover! Which of these 5 options appeals to you the most? Which would you grab off of a bookshelf?

Leave us a comment or visit us on Facebook to let us know!

Billy Lombardo's New Novel THE MAN WITH TWO ARMS Reviewed in Chicago Tribune

Book critic and author Alan Cheuse takes a look at The Man With Two Arms in the Chicago Tribune: "The man of the title, really a young man from Chicagoland, has two golden arms. His name is Danny Granville and his baseball-crazed father Henry raises him from infancy to play ball—and specifically to pitch both left-handed and right-handed. With “coach’s thoughts” in his head and Astroturf in his basement, Henry cultivates a champion, a “switch-pitcher” who grows up to become a beautifully trained athlete with a great talent for baseball. Through high school and college we watch Denny grow, and when he hits the majors—playing for the Cubs—his first season looks as though it’s going to be a triumph.

Lombardo sets his sights on writing a lovely homage to the game, and to what is undoubtedly modern America’s finest literary tribute to the baseball since Bernard Malamud’s novel "The Natural." Danny himself is something like a natural himself, with his game-obsessed father doing everything he can to enhance his son’s natural abilities. From the boy’s first year on the father directs him “steadily and scientifically toward balance…” As Danny’s art student girl-friend Bridget discovers when she gets him to undress in preparation for posing for her that early propensity for balance has produced in the ball-player an anatomical symmetry close to perfection.

Because of this, it seems perfectly appropriate that Danny begins his major league career by pitching several games as close to perfect as it gets when the pitcher bows out in a late inning. Denny sets an eighty pitch limit for each of his performances, whether right-handed or left. If he has any flaw it isn’t as a player, but as the care-taker of a great talent who eventually wants to try and experiment with his gift.

Baseball is a difficult game to predict. Novels are easier to figure, because the enjoyment at the higher levels comes from being confronted by questions about why things happen in life rather than just the suspense of waiting for them to happen. You won’t want to second-guess the author of this delightful new work of fiction. Lombardo’s one of a kind novel about a one of a kind ball player becomes as engrossing as a perfect game going into the late innings. If you’re in the stands, you don’t want to look away from the field, let alone leave the stadium early. Those who love to read about this great pastime will have the same feeling when reading about Danny Granville, on and off the field."