The Weekend Update, Lost and Found

NYTBR: Hmm, for some reason Marilyn Stasio’s crammed in more books than usual in her column this weekend. She looks at the latest by Peter Abrahams, Elizabeth Peters, James Sallis, Loren Estleman, Boris Akunin and Alexander McCall Smith. Otherwise in the TBR, Rachel Donadio wonders “whither the book party?”; David Kamp traces food in all its wacky origins; and Caryn James finds eerie parallels between Wendy Wasserstein’s only novel and her recent tragic death.

WaPo Book World: Roberto Clemente’s life and baseball pursuits get their due in a new biography; more baseball-themed reviews from Allen Barra, Jonathan Yardley and Frank Deford; Mark Felt finally tells his side of the Watergate story; and Boris Akunin tries to convey why his novels are such phenomenal successes in his native Russia.

G&M: Margaret Cannon’s crime column focuses on new releases by Lyn Hamilton, Javier Sierra, T. Jefferson Parker, Graham Hurley, Bill Pronzini and Anne Perry; Speaking of Hamilton, she admires Val McDermid’s new standalone, THE GRAVE TATTOO, and Natasha Cooper does the same with Martyn Burke’s newest novel; Jeffrey Miller equates Alexander McCall Smith’s work to a “well-crafted pop song”; Christine Welldon goes to Oxford, looking for Inspector Morse, and finds Colin Dexter instead; and Mel Bradshaw declares Maureen Jennings to be unequalled in mystery-themed historical fiction.

Guardian Review: Imre Kertesz talks to Julian Evans about his life, his work and the Nobel Prize win; James Wood pays tribute to Muriel Spark;  Toby Litt goes to a literary festival in Slovenia; and Matthew Lewin reviews new crime novels by Daniel Chavarria, Sophie Hannah and Yves Bonavero.

Observer: Faiza Guene explains how navigating two wholly different cultures resulted in a bestselling novel in France; Alan Warner tells Hepzibah Anderson why he prefers going to the bar to, well, almost anything; and Peter Guttridge rounds up new crime fiction by Michael Symmons Roberts, Mo Hayder, Patrick Quinlan and Leonardo Padura Fuentes.

The Times: Douglas Kennedy is duly impressed with Philip Roth’s newest novel, EVERYMAN, as is Peter Kemp; Philip Pullman celebrates classics of old on the occasion of Penguin Classics’ 60th Anniversary; and Marcel Berlins reviews new crime offerings from Al Guthrie, Leonardo Padura Fuentes and John Harvey.

The Scotsman: More on Muriel Spark from Alan Massie and Ian Campbell; David Robinson previews the Melrose Literary Festival; Alan Warner may be an expat, but his is a truly Scottish voice, according to Aidan Smith; and be careful when you interview Denise Mina, because she’s liable to start asking you questions! 

The Rest:

Oline Cogdill looks at two highly-anticipated thrillers by Harlan Coben and Lisa Unger, delivering very different verdicts for each book.

Susan Kandel gives Denise Hamilton’s A PRISONER OF MEMORY a nice write-up in the LA Times.

Mark Timlin reviews two very different crime novels by Thomas Cook and Jason Starr but gives each a very favorable verdict.

Les Roberts takes on the latest mysteries by James Sallis, Peter Abrahams and Mary Higgins Clark.

Jack Batten’s Whodunnit column in the Toronto Star focuses on Robert Crais’s THE TWO MINUTE RULE, which he digs very much.

The Boston Phoenix has a great overview of Mediterranean Noir as practiced by Jean-Claude Izzo, Massimo Carlotto & Leonardo Scascia.

George Shuman’s path to writing was most unusual, going from college dropout to narcotics detective to a failed book auction, then success, as he tells Regis Behe of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Harlan Coben owes much of his success to the power of dreams, according to this new interview in the Denver Post.

Rochester native Charles Benoit chats with the Corning Star-Gazette about his newest crime novel, OUT OF ORDER.

The Sydney Morning Herald talks to Ros Reines, whose dishy first novel probes the gossip world in a way that non-fiction couldn’t. Meanwhile, “queen of chick lit” Kathy Lette talks to the Age about domestic workload imbalance, among other things.

Also in the Age, Ken Stott tells Bryan Courtis why it took so long for him to accept the role he was seemingly born to play: Rebus.

Junot Diaz feels great fear when it comes to Latin American immigrant, and as he says to the SF Chronicle, he’s trying to do something about it.

And finally, this song is playing in the iPod in my brain.