The Too Darn Hot Weekend Update

Of course, now I have that damn song in my head, but if you’re going to torture your brain, why not with Cole Porter?

Anyway. Damn heat. Let’s move to the links, shall we?

NYTBR: So Marilyn Stasio’s review of Laura Lippman’s TO THE POWER OF THREE is sort of a good news/bad news thing. Good: it’s the lead review (with raves for Christopher Fowler and Julia Spencer-Fleming to follow) her picture (weirdly cropped, granted) is included, and people will still file into bookstores all over the country — or at least, New York — to look for the book. Bad: I think La Stasio expected it to be a different book than it actually is, and when it didn’t turn out to be, out came the biases. “…the folks in Glendale would never make it on the streets of Baltimore.” Eh? Is this a city mouse/country mouse kind of thing? I am so confused…

Otherwise in the Book Review, I must, must, must get John Emsley’s book about the Elements of Murder; Allison Pearson wishes that Charles Chadwick had been as brief as his obvious idol, Philip Larkin; another curious rave for THE WASHINGTONIENNE, which might, you know, encourage her to write more stuff in the future; and Rachel Donadio wonders if appearances really are everything in the publishing world.

WaPo Book World: Judy Fong Bates raves at Lisa See’s ability to take the reader to foreign and familiar places; Michael Oren looks at a moving memoir of an American’s odyssey through the Israeli army;  Susan Adams rounds up new fiction by Robert James Waller, Eric Bogosian, Katherine Mosby and the gobsmackingly phenomenal Janni Visman (whose YELLOW I finished a couple of days ago – wow) and Richard Lipez focuses on new mysteries by Reggie Nadelson, Margaret Leroy, Marcos Villatoro, Kathy Reichs and Peter Lovesey.

G&M: Margaret Cannon returns with her crime column, examining the latest by Janet Evanovich, Mark Billingham, Linwood Barclay, Rick Blechta, John Connolly, John Burdett and Jose Latour (which is confusing the hell out of me — why is she reviewing a book that won’t be available in Canada until November? Did someone screw up the publicity materials?); so Karla’s getting out, and if you need some contextual reading about Canada’s favorite hot chick psychopath, Lynn Crosbie has the answers; and Martin Levin looks at the nasty underbelly of Anti-Semitism.

Guardian Review: Salman Rushdie looks at all things factual; James Meek’s move to Kiev made him love Mikhail Bulgakov’s work even more; and JG Ballard reveals himself to be a closet CSI fan.   

Observer: Julian Barnes provides his own Holmesian twist with a new novel about Conan Doyle’s exploits; Melissa Bank has no desire whatsoever to grow up, as she tells Gaby Wood; Henry Porter talks to Max Hastings about his latest WWII-based thriller; and Stephanie Merritt wonders about this whole Google Print thing.

The Times: Michael Fishwick examines the curiously British phenomenon of uber-biographies; Joyce Carol Oates is interviewed at length for a book she wrote a zillion years ago (well, it sure seems that way considering how damn prolific she is) and Bernadine Evaristo’s novel contemplates what it would be like to hang out with ghosts.   

The Scotsman: David Robinson celebrates Edinburgh’s City of Literature status; Blah blah blah summer reading picks by luminaries blah blah blah; Jennie Erdal reveals the appeal of Ismael Kadare; and Charles Darwin’s great-granddaughter reveals what’s on her nightstand.

The Rest:

Oline Cogdill rides to the rescue with her more positive viewpoint on TO THE POWER OF THREE, along with raves for Barry Eisler and Michael Baron.

Hallie Ephron looks at three new legally tinged thrillers by women: Lisa Scottoline, Perri O’Shaugnessy and Louise Ure.

Amy Gutman reads the latest Sara Paretsky novel for the Chicago Tribune and finds that V.I.’s still got it — still angry, still crusading. The Sun-Times’s Mary Houlihan thinks along similar lines as well.

Also in the Trib is Dick Adler’s crime column, leading off with a great review of Olen Steinhauer’s THE CONFESSION 36 YALTA BOULEVARD while also looking at new books by Holly Baxter, Laurie King, Peter Quinn, Ake Edwardson, Tom Harper, Yolanda Joe, David Bowker, I.J Parker and David Hammer.

Granted, my feelings about the marketing hype of THE TRAVELER are very well known, but how’s the actual book? The NY Daily News’s Rebecca Louie really digs it.

The annual Evanovich festival in Trenton has come to a close, and naturally, the Trentonian is on the case, interviewing rabid fans (from Ottawa?!) about why they loooooove all things Plum.
What’s a beach book supposed to do: tax the brain or simply entertain? The Baltimore Sun’s John Woestendiek ponders the eternal question. The same paper also interviews #1 NYT bestselling author Elizabeth Kostova, who grapples with the success of THE HISTORIAN even as she longs to get back to novel #2.

How made-up can fiction really be? The Age’s Hugh McKay wonders whether authors can’t write novels without plumbing the depths of their innermost selves.

Regis Behe chats with Charles Chadwick, whose debut novel about an ordinary man led to extraordinary hype and publicity.

Sex, drugs and…classical music? According to a new tell-all by oboist Blair Tindall, it was a really good time to be orchestra-hopping in the 80s.

What makes a good read, the kind that allows you to simply surrender and enjoy it for what it’s worth without nitpicking? The Boston Globe’s Katherine Powers attempts to find out.

Lesbian pulp novels are experiencing something of a revival, and the SF Chronicle’s Joy Parks looks at a new book that analyzes the important of such works written in the 50s and 60s.

And finally, like I said over here, this story got me like a punch in the gut.