Recordpub.com - One for the Books: Lady Sleuths

You know by now that I love a good mystery, but there are only a handful of authors for whom I'd drop whatever else I'm reading when a new book of theirs comes into my hands. Grafton, Scottoline and Evanovich are among them.

With "T Is for Trespass," author Sue Grafton has finished the 20th in her alphabetical series of mysteries featuring investigator Kinsey Millhone. And with this one, she has surpassed the "mystery" genre in an edge-of-your-seat thriller with great social significance.

A worker in a home for senior citizens takes on the identity of a licensed vocational nurse named Solana Rojas and then goes into private practice for herself. We are observers as she steals Solana's driver's license and copies her personnel file, then goes on a job hunt. We are also privy to her background and watch as she becomes a sociopath. I dare say, this is one of the most thorough character profiles of a villain I've ever encountered.

Kinsey is brought into the case when her neighbor Gus, a crotchety, thoroughly loathsome octogenarian, falls and can't take care of himself any longer. After Kinsey has checked out the references for "Solana," all the neighbors gladly leave him to the "nurse," and his world proceeds to cave in.

The identity theft and elderly abuse are timely topics and make for fascinating reading. (In regard to Medicare, Grafton writes, "The guidelines were diabolically cunning, designed to confuse the very patients they were meant to educate.") But there's even more going on, involving a pedophile, a hypochondriac and a would-be real-estate mogul. We are even treated to a good deal of Kinsey's own background, including her childhood.

Once "Solana" got her hands on Gus, I could not put this book down. The plot points are tense, scary and even distasteful. Grafton has gone way beyond the typical mystery here, taking on several topics in a format we aren't used to, and she does it all brilliantly. She even shows us how very different aging can be for several characters.

Grafton's been at this series for 25 years now, and with every book I say that she just keeps getting better. You don't need to have read any others in the series to enjoy this one. Surprisingly, I didn't really like the ending. But even if you don't go in for mysteries, I enthusiastically suggest this outstanding book.

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For her 15th book, Lisa Scottoline brings back Mary DiNunzio, a character popularized in the author's earlier books. "Lady Killer" is a thrill ride through a dark and stormy night as Mary solves one mystery, gets slapped in the face with another, and manages to find herself true love. Quite a read!

Mary DiNunzio is a widow who works in a South Philadelphia law firm. An old high school nemesis seeks Mary's legal help and then abruptly disappears, and it turns out that she's been the victim of domestic violence and may have been killed by her boyfriend. When Mary sets out to find her in time to save her life, secrets come out, including some of Mary's, and Mary puts her own job -- not to mention her own life -- in jeopardy.

There are nice, warm, humorous passages when well-meaning friends and family members try to fix Mary up with men and otherwise run her life. The neighborhood characters are fun, with names like Cousin-Pete-With-The-Nose. Scottoline's dialogue is so good, I swear I can hear the Philly neighbors talking.

I could not put this one down. I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, woke up and kept on reading. I guessed part of the mystery, but not all, and at the end, I kept waiting for another shoe to drop. But otherwise, this is a very satisfying read.

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Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, along comes Janet Evanovich's "Plum Lucky." This is the third "Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers Novel" featuring the good-looking Diesel. These books are about half the size of her "numbers" novels and aren't as involved, but they provide great "literary snack food." All the familiar characters are here, and the wonderful, lovable, hilarious Grandma Mazur plays a major role.

Let's see: We have a duffel bag full of money, a kidnapping, a scam, a gunfight, Atlantic City gamblers, mobsters, a leprechaun, a magic man, a talking horse, bombs, fires and oodles of mangled cars.

It's a fun, fast, sexy read with plenty of laughs that will truly entertain Plum fans.

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What's Happening: The Mantua-Shalersville-Hiram One Book/One Community event will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Crestwood Middle School. Fifth-graders through adults may participate. For $5, each participant will receive a book and a T-shirt.

Auctioneer Mike Tontimonia will preside over the sale of 25,000 used books at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday when The Book Corner, a familiar downtown Ravenna store, is closing after 14 years at 264 W. Main St. According to owner Keith Williams, romance novels provide the lion's share of the paperbacks, but there also will be a few hundred collectible comics and some unique oddities. Tontimonia says it will be a BYOB auction -- buyers should bring their own boxes, because most books will be sold by the shelf full. He added that even if a person could read one book every day, it would take a lifetime to read this store full of goodies.

Are you participating in Oprah's Book Club's free online class with "A New Earth" author Eckhart Tolle? For information, visit www.oprah.com.

For a list of best-sellers and other book news, go to www.recordpub.com, click on "Lifetimes," and check out "One for the Books" online.
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BOOK NOTES,
One for the Books Extra Online Exclusives:
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I know Janet Evanovich fans are looking forward to "Fearless Fourteen," due out in June.
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French author Alain Robbe-Grillet died Feb. 18 at age 85.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2257844,00.html

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PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST-SELLERS
HARDCOVER FICTION
1. "The Appeal" by John Grisham (Doubleday)
2. "7th Heaven" by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown and Company)
3. "Duma Key" by Stephen King (Scribner)
4. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Hardcover)
5. "World Without End" by Ken Follett (Dutton)
6. "Stranger In Paradise" by Robert B. Parker (Putnam)
7. "Plum Lucky" by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's Press)
8. "The Killing Ground" by Jack Higgins (Putnam Adult)
9. "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks (Viking Adult)
10. "The Senator's Wife" by Sue Miller (Knopf)
11. "Sizzle and Burn" by Jayne Ann Krentz (Putnam)
12. "The Ghost War" by Alex Berenson (Putnam)
13. "Charm!" by Kendall Hart (Hyperion)
14. "Celebutantes" by Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper (St.Martin's)
15. "Where the Heart Leads: From the Casebook of Barnaby Adair" by Stephanie Laurens (William Morrow)

NONFICTION/GENERAL
1. "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne (Atria Books/Beyond Words
2. "Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny" by Suze Orman, (Spiegel & Grau)
3. "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan (Penguin)
4. "You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty" by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz (Free Press)
5. "Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day" by Joel Osteen (Free Press)
6. "Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?: An Easy Plan for Losing Weight and Living More" by Peter Walsh (Free Press)
7. "I Am America (And So Can You!)" by Stephen Colbert (Grand Central Publishing)
8. "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West" by Benazir Bhutto (Harper)
9. "Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works" by Newt Gingrich (Regnery)
10. "How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter, 10 Times Better" by Charla Krupp (Springboard Press)
11. "An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems" by Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions)
12. "The Dangerous Book for Boys" by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden (Collins)
13. "Age of American Unreason" by Susan Jacoby (Pantheon)
14. "The Daring Book for Girls" by Andrea J. Buchanan, Miriam Peskowitz (Collins)
15. "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld (HarperCollins)
MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS
1. "The Faithful Spy" by Alex Berenson (Jove)
2. "Tom Clancy's EndWar" by David Michaels (Penguin)
3. "Sisters" by Danielle Steel (Dell)
4. "The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town" by John Grisham, (Dell)
5. "Dream Chaser" by Sherrilyn Kenyon (St. Martin's Paperbacks)
6. "Snowfall At Willow Lake" by Susan Wiggs (Mira Books)
7. "White Lies" by Jayne Ann Krentz (Jove)
8. "The Quest" by Wilbur Smith (St. Martins)
9. "Hard To Handle" by Lori Foster (Penguin)
10. "White Night" by Jim Butcher (Roc)
11. "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett (NAL Trade)
12. "Three In Death" by J.D. Robb (Berkley)
13. "Atonement" by Ian McEwan (Anchor)
14. "Whitethorn Woods" by Maeve Binchy (Knopf)
15. "Dawn's Awakening: The Breeds Book 4" by Lora Leigh (Penguin)

TRADE PAPERBACKS
1. "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" by Eckhart Tolle (Plume)
2. "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin)
3. "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin)
4. "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" by Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press)
5. "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett (NAL Trade)
6. "Atonement" by Ian McEwan (Anchor)
7. "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square Press)
8. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
9. "Eat This Not That!" by David Zinczenko, Matt Goulding (Rodale)
10. "Skinny B----" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin (Running Press)
11. "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press)
12. "The Friday Night Knitting Club" by Kate Jacobs (Berkley)
13. "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen (Algonquin)
14. "FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics" by Neal Boortz, John Linder, (Harper Paperbacks)
15. "You Can Heal Your Life" Louise L. Hay, (Hay House)
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USA TODAY BEST-SELLERS
Key: F-Fiction; NF-Nonfiction; H-Hardcover; P-Paperback
1. "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" by Eckhart Tolle (Plume) (NF-P)
2. "The Appeal" by John Grisham (Doubleday) (F-H)
3. "7th Heaven" by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown and Company) (F-H)
4. "Bratfest At Tiffanys" by Lisi Harrison (Poppy) (F-P)
5. "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne (Atria Books/Beyond Words) (NF-H)
6. "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin) (NF-P)
7. "Three Cups Of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin) (NF-P)
8. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules" by Jeff Kinney (Amulet) (F-H)
9. "FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics" by Neal Boortz, John Linder, (Harper Paperbacks) (NF-P)
10. "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett (NAL Trade) (F-P)
11. "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" by Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press) (NF-P)
12. "Duma Key" by Stephen King (Scribner) (F-H)
13. "Atonement" by Ian McEwan (Anchor) (F-H)
14. "Nineteen Minutes: A Novel" by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square Press) (NF-P)
15. "Eat This Not That!" by David Zinczenko, Matt Goulding (Rodale) (NF-H)
16. "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone) (F-P)
17. "90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life" by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey (Revell) (NF-P)
18. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) (F-P)
19. "The Friday Night Knitting Club" by Kate Jacobs (Berkley) (F-P)
20. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney (Abrams Books for Young Readers) (F-H)
21. "Skinny B----" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin (Running Press) (NF-P)
22. "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) (F-P)
23. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Hardcover) (F-H)
24. "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen (Algonquin) (F-P)
25. "The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town" by John Grisham, (Dell) (NF-P)
26. "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press) (NF-P)
27. "Sisters" by Danielle Steel (Dell)(F-P)
28. "Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny" by Suze Orman, (Spiegel & Grau) (NF-H)
29. "New Moon" by Stephenie Meyer (Little Brown for Young Readers) (F-H)
30. "Fancy Nancy: Bonjour Butterfly" by Jane O'Connor (HarperCollins) (F-H)
31. "You Can Heal Your Life" Louise L. Hay, (Hay House) (NF-P)
32. "The 6th Target" by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Grand Central Publishing) (F-P)
33. "World Without End" by Ken Follett (Dutton) (F-H)
34. "The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide" by Holly Black, Tony DiTerlizzi (Simon & Schuster) (F-H)
35. "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) (F-H)
36. "Stranger In Paradise" by Robert B. Parker (Putnam) (F-H)
37. "Into the Wild" by John Krakauer (Anchor) (NF-P)
38. "Tom Clancy's EndWar" by David Michaels (Penguin) (F-P)
39. "Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine" by Barbara Park, art by Denise Brunkus (Random House) (F-P)
40. "You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty" by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz (Free Press)
41. "Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day" by Joel Osteen (Free Press) (NF-H)
42. "Plum Lucky" by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's Press) (F-H)
43. "Dream Chaser" by Sherrilyn Kenyon (St. Martin's Paperbacks) (F-P)
44. "The Faithful Spy" by Alex Berenson (Jove) (F-P)
45. "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan (Penguin) (NF-H)
46. "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library) (NF-P)
47. "Hard To Handle" by Lori Foster (Penguin) (F-P)
48. "The Calorie King Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter 2008" by Allan Borushek (Family Health Publications) (NF-P)
49. "Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?: An Easy Plan for Losing Weight and Living More" by Peter Walsh (Free Press)
50. "The Killing Ground" by Jack Higgins (Putnam Adult) (NF-H)
Reporting stores include: Amazon.com, B. Dalton Bookseller, Barnes & Noble.com, Barnes & Noble Inc., Books-A-Million and Bookland, Booksamillion.com, Borders Books & Music, Bookstar, Bookstop, Brentano's, Davis Kidd Booksellers in Nashville, Jackson, Memphis, Tenn., Doubleday Book Shops, Hudson Booksellers, Joseph-Beth Booksellers (Lexington, Ky.; Cincinnati, Cleveland), Powell's Books (Portland, Ore.), Powells.com, R.J. Julia Booksellers (Madison, Conn.), Schuler.
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WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST-SELLERS
FICTION
1. "The Appeal" by John Grisham (Doubleday)
2. "7th Heaven" by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown and Company)
3. "Duma Key" by Stephen King (Scribner)
4. "Stranger in Paradise: A Jesse Stone Novel" by Robert B. Parker (Putnam)
5. "New Moon" by Stephenie Meyer (Little Brown for Young Readers)
6. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Hardcover)
7. "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)
8. "The Killing Ground" by Jack Higgins (Putnam Adult)
9. "Plum Lucky" by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's Press)
10. "World Without End" by Ken Follett (Dutton)
11. "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks (Viking Adult)
12. "The Ghost War" by Alex Berenson (Putnam)
13. "The Senator's Wife" by Sue Miller (Knopf)
14. "Sizzle and Burn" by Jayne Ann Krentz (Putnam)
15. "Charm!" by Kendall Hart (Hyperion)
NONFICTION
1. "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne (Atria Books/Beyond Words)
2. "One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life" by Kerry Shook, Chris Shook (WaterBrook Press)
3. "Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny" by Suze Orman, (Spiegel & Grau)
4. "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan (Penguin)
5. "Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day" by Joel Osteen (Free Press)
6. "You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty" by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz (Free Press)
7. "StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Tom Rath (Gallup Press)
8. "Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?: An Easy Plan for Losing Weight and Living More" by Peter Walsh (Free Press)
9. "Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works" by Newt Gingrich (Regnery)
10. "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West" by Benazir Bhutto (Harper)
11. "An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems" by Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions)
12. "How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter, 10 Times Better" by Charla Krupp (Springboard Press)
13. "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Other's Don't" by Jim Collins (Collins)
14. "I Am America (And So Can You!)" by Stephen Colbert (Grand Central Publishing)
15. "Age of American Unreason" by Susan Jacoby (Pantheon)
The Wall Street Journal's list reflects nationwide sales of hardcover books during the week ended last Saturday at more than 2,500 Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton, Bookland, Books-a-Million, Books & Co., Bookstar, Bookstop, Borders, Brentano's, Coles, Coopersmith, Doubleday, Scribners and Waldenbooks stores, as well as sales from online retailers Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
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Free Business Book Is Web Sensation - Feb. 17
By HILLEL ITALIE
NEW YORK (AP) " The Oprah touch doesn't just work for traditional books. More than 1 million copies of Suze Orman's "Women & Money" were downloaded after the announcement last week on Winfrey's television show that the e-book edition would be available for free on her Web site -- www.oprah.com -- for a period of 33 hours.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hqKypOzefDSbgn18C-NpsSLtw1yAD8URKC781

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from USA TODAY -- Martha Stewart has bought the Emeril Lagasse franchise of cookbooks, TV shows and kitchen products for $45 million in cash and $5 in stock.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-02-19-martha-stewart-emeril_N.htm
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Here's a link to the February picks from BookSense.com:

http://www.booksense.com/bspicks/Feb08.jsp

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HarperCollins is planning to make select books available online for free on a temporary basis. The first authors include Paulo Coelho, Neil Gaiman and Erin Hunter.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080211/20080211005495.html?.v=1

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In response to the new book "Not Quite What I Was Planning," in which writers were asked to boil down their lives to six words for their memoirs, Henry Alford of Publishers Weekly has printed some of his own. Example: Charles Dickens -- "Rich people: Bad. Poor people: Good."

I don't know if non-subscribers can access this link, but it's really funny.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6530572.html

The paperback book is published by Harper Perennial.
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from Shelf Awareness --
February Children's Picture Book Best-Sellers:

1 Gallop! by Rufus Butler Seder
2 Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You by Toni DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
3. Fancy Nancy: Bonjour butterfly by Jane O'Connor, illus. by Robin Preiss Glasser.
4. Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane deGroat
5. My Fuzzy Valentine by Naomi Kleinberg, illus. by Louis Womble
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http://www.jacketflap.com

is a social networking community where you can connect with more than 1,600 published authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults.
The site launched two years ago.
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According to Publishers Weekly:

Nelson Unearths Story by Goodnight Moon Author
by Lynn Garrett
Thomas Nelson has acquired an unpublished manuscript by renowned children's book author Margaret Wise Brown. After Brown's death in 1952, a sheaf of yellowed pages held together by paper clips had languished for 30 years in a cedar chest in her sister's attic. Among these undiscovered stories was The Moon Shines Down"based on the classic New England Sampler prayer God Bless the Moon and God Bless Me"which Nelson will publish this November.

Laura Minchew, children's publisher for Thomas Nelson, said, "I had known for a long time there were stories out there that Brown had not published or finished in her lifetime. Last year I was talking to Amy Gary of Watermark about our favorite authors, and I mentioned I didn't think a children's book got any better than Goodnight Moon." It happened that Gary held the rights to license The Moon Shines Down, and Minchew acquired the book this past fall.

The Moon Shines Down will be illustrated by Linda Bleck in a style similar to that of Clement Hurd, who illustrated some of Brown's best-known works. "It's a little more colorful and detailed, but it will look and feel familiar to Brown's readers," Minchew said.
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Publishers Weekly Religion Best-Sellers for February:

1. Become a Better You, Joel Osteen.
2. 3:16: The Numbers of Hope, Max Lucado.
3. Fasting, Jentezen Franklin.
4. Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires, the Respect He Desperately Needs, Emerson Eggerichs.
5. 8 Steps to Create the Life You Want: The Anatomy of a Successful Life, Creflo A. Dollar.
6. Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, Mother Teresa and Brian Kolodiejchuk.
7. Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life, Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker.
8. The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, Andre Comte-Sponville.
9. Between Sundays, Karen Kingsbury.
10. Reposition Yourself, T.D. Jakes.

Paperback
1. 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life, Don Piper with Cecil Murphey.
2. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins.
3. Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen.
4. The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman.
5. The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren.
6. The Portable Atheist, ed. by Christopher Hitchens.
7. Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul, John and Stasi Eldredge.
8. Battlefield of the Mind, Joyce Meyer.
9. On Her Own, Wanda E. Brunstetter.
10. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis.
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HarperCollins Mystery Bestsellers
1. Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
2. Run, Ann Patchett
3. The Burnt House, Faye Kellerman
4. Sweet Revenge, Diane Mott Davidson
5. The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
6. The Judas Strain, James Rollins
7. Dirty Blonde, Lisa Scottoline
8. Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill
9. The Wrong Hostage, Elizabth Lowell
10. The Blue Zone, Andrew Gross
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Here's a link to the The New York Times story about the winners of the 2008 Lincoln Prize for American History:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/arts/11arts-FOOTNOTES_BRF.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Lincoln&st=nyt&oref=slogin

In case you're not a subscriber (sign up -- I think it's free!), they are "The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics" by James Oakes, and "Readaing the Man: A Portage of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters" by Elizabeth Brown Pryor.
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From Shelf Awareness -- new books out Feb. 19

The First Patient by Michael Palmer follows a doctor's attempt to cure the president's sudden mental illness.
Lady Killer by Lisa Scottoline chronicles a young woman's efforts to find the murderer of her high school friend.
Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb is the next installment in the futuristic In Death series. Lieutenant Eve Dallas investigates the death of an important businessman.
Miraculous Health: How to Heal Your Body by Unleashing the Hidden Power of Your Mind by Rick Levy and Lou Aronica explores the possibility of healing with the mind.
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from Shelf Awareness -- new books out Feb. 26:

Carrot Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke is the 10th Hannah Swensen Mystery. This installment includes 21 dessert recipes.
Fast Track by Fern Michaels.
Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews follows a young Southern chef whose public access cooking show is canceled.
The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison is the sixth entry in the Rachel Morgan fantasy series.
Betrayal by John Lescroart is the 10th Dismas Hardy novel. This time he investigates a crime with origins in Iraq.
Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella follows a woman who suffers amnesia after a head injury.
Honor Thyself by Danielle Steel examines the effect of a terrorist attack on a successful actress's life.
Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time by Valerie Bertinelli are the memoirs of Eddie Van Halen's wife.

Out in paperback:

Absolute Fear by Lisa Jackson.
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott.
I Heard That Song Before: A Novel by Mary Higgins Clark.
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from Shelf Awareness:

Lucette Lagnado, a senior special writer and investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has won the $100,000 2008 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for her memoir, The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (Ecco).

The Jewish Book Council, which administers the award, noted: "In the memoir, Lagnado chronicles her family's heartbreaking tale of their exodus from Egypt and eventual resettling in Brooklyn. Through The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, Lagnado has shed light on the untold stories of the nearly one million Jewish refugees across the Middle East, cast out from homelands they cherished and longed to return to until their deaths."

The winners of the 2008 $7,500 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Choice Awards are:
Ilana M. Blumberg for Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman Among Books (University of Nebraska Press)
Eric L. Goldstein for The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity (Princeton University Press)

AND

Tom Sleigh, who teaches in the creative writing program at Hunter College, has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for Space Walk (Houghton Mifflin), the New York Times reported. The award recognizes "a work by an emerging poet, one who is past the very beginning but has not yet reached the acknowledged pinnacle of his or her career."
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Check out the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association best-sellers for January:

http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/bestsellers.html

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The National Catholic Reporter is starting a book club. Sign up and get more information here.

http://ncrcafe.org/blog/6722

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The Los Angeles Times takes a look at Fidel Castro's just-published 600-page autobiography.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-fidel20feb20,0,4522265.story

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Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston are slated to star in the movie version of "Marley and Me."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080220/ap_en_ce/people_owen_wilson

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How do you feel about product placement in books? The New York Times weighs in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/books/19cathy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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from Publishers Weekly
Comics and Graphic Novels On-Sale Feb. 20:

Catwoman: Catwoman's Dead (DC)
Loners: Secret Lives of Super Heroes (Marvel)
Fear Agent Vol. 3: Last Goodbye (Dark Horse)
Order Vol. 1: Next Right Thing (Marvel)
Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees (Fantagraphics)
Lions, Tigers & Bears Vol. 2 (Image)
Boneyard Vol. 3 (NBM)
Alive: The Final Evolution Vol.3 (Del Ray)
Be With You (Viz Media)
Everlasting Love (Digital Manga Publishing)
Mushishi Vol. 3 (Del Ray)
Drifting Classroom Vol. 10 (Viz Media)
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Much memory loss is normal: book explains the problem amusingly and describes ways around it
By CARL HARTMAN
Associated Press Writer
"Where Did I Leave My Glasses? The What, When and Why of /Normal /Memory Loss" (Wellness Central. 245 pages. $22.99), by Martha Weinman Lear: The place where you left your glasses or the car keys ought to be anchored in your brain, thinks author Martha Weinman Lear. No need to wonder about it, or fret that you've lost your memory.
"Consecrate a place," she writes. "Put a hook in the wall right by the door, and that hook is the holy place for the keys. Fix the hook in plaster or wood; fix the association in cement."
By association she means a trick that goes back to the ancient Romans: Link the memory you want to keep with something that looks or sounds like it. If you have a globe in the living room, for example, or a vase for gladioli, you might consecrate the place for your glasses next to the globe or the gladioli.
Then you cement the association by going around saying "glasses-globe" or "glasses-gladioli" at 10-second intervals for several minutes " or until someone threatens to call 911.
More pervasive than misplacing glasses, she says, is the embarrassment caused by running into an old friend and forgetting his name. Remembering a name will take an effort. Repetition is one way. But it requires a bit of time and attention. Saying it over and over in quick succession wont help much.
"Far better to repeat it silently when you first hear it, wait 10 seconds, silently say it again, wait 20 seconds, bring it back up, wait 30 seconds, repeat," she suggests.
Lear sees forgetting a name as a small deal. It's in there somewhere, it just has to be retrieved, she says. She quotes Dr. Norman Relkin, head of a memory disorders program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, as blaming such slips largely on normal shrinkage of the human brain. Average rate, he estimates, about half of 1 percent a year, beginning in your 30s.
She considers it more serious that in recalling a minor memory disaster some people worry seriously that they must be getting Alzheimer's. She compares such worry with what she calls the Med Student's Syndrome: First year medical students often think they have symptoms of whatever disease they happen to be studying.
Lear, a former articles editor at The New York Times, strews her chatty and informative book with anecdotes and quotations from scientists. She seems to have met as many neurologists as there are kinds of dementia (about 70, including Alzheimer's).
There's what the experts call procedural memory, such as tying shoelaces or riding a bike " the things you learn once and for all. She quotes Helen Singer Kaplan, a psychiatrist and sex therapist, who says the last memory to go is knowledge about making love.
"As long as you're physically healthy, you can be doing it when you no longer remember who you're doing it with," Kaplan says.
The author looks forward to the possibility of a memory chip in the brain.
"Now we go to the computer and Google for the information we want," she hears from Rodney Brooks, former director of the computer science lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "But let's imagine we may just think it in the future. Lets imagine that by having connections in our language centers and a virtual Web browser in our visual cortex, we may just think what we want to search and have the results appear in our minds."

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Barack Obama Becomes a Red Room Author
Senator Obama Joins New Social Networking Site for Writers and Readers

San Francisco, CA " February 12, 2008 " Today, U.S. Senator, presidential candidate, and author Barack Obama joins a group of many of the world's most successful and interesting writers at redroom.com, dubbed "a literary MySpace" by the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Serious candidates on the national stage are usually authors as well as politicians," said Ivory Madison, CEO and founder of redroom.com. The audiobook editions of Senator Obama's published works Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Crown) and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Crown) earned the 2006 and 2008 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, respectively.

"Throughout history, politicians have published books of collected speeches and prescriptions for their societies"and many of those books have transformed societies," said Madison. Redroom.com was actually named in part after the literary tradition of the "Red Room" of the White House. When Franklin Roosevelt wouldn't allow female reporters at his press conferences, Eleanor Roosevelt held her own press conferences at the same time for the women. The conferences were so popular, that the male reporters starting attending, and the President had no choice but to integrate his press conferences in order to get any attention. A tradition of civilized revolution on behalf of disenfranchised writers is carried on in the modern-day redroom.com.

"Our community is lucky to be hosting some of the most entertaining and interesting blog entries I've seen about the presidential race in general, and they are from a variety of perspectives, but we noticed that a remarkable number of authors on our site are supporting Senator Obama," said Madison.

So, Madison asked Red Room author Ayelet Waldman, who is married to novelist Michael Chabon, to write an exclusive account of why she supports Obama. Waldman and Chabon joined other redroom.com authors including Tobias Wolff, Daniel Handler, Andrew Sean Greer, and Lisa Brown at a recent fundraising event where the literary icons discussed why Obama inspires them. "Barack Obama is not only our future president, but he's also one of the finest writers I've had the pleasure of reading," said Waldman. "His prose style is as accomplished as his grasp of policy, and as inspiring as his vision. It's only right that he should be included in Red Room's virtual community."

Of the current candidates, Senator Barack Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton, Mike Gravel, Senator John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Alan Keyes are all published authors (as well as those who have dropped out, including Rudolph Giuliani and John Edwards). Obama is the first of the candidates to join redroom.com, and it remains to be seen when the other political candidates will.
"We welcome polite, intelligent debate from all perspectives," said Madison. "Authors from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and professions are encouraged to join our community." Redroom.com does not endorse, promote or oppose political parties, candidates or platforms. For more information about Senator Obama and other Red Room authors, visit www.redroom.com.

ABOUT THE RED ROOM " Red Room is the online home of many of the world's greatest writers . Through original, author-generated content, redroom.com offers a trustworthy and creative social network unlike any other. In the Red Room, you can connect with your favorite authors, access current news, and comment on features and blogs. By showcasing writers, redroom.com fosters true community between authors and readers and inspires the next generation.
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a fun blog from MSN, "10 Ways to Save Money on Books" --

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/smartspending/archive/2008/02/18/10-ways-to-save-money-on-books.aspx

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