The Autumn-Flavored Weekend Update

Brief BSP to start, as my review of Joe Hill’s wonderful short story collection 20th CENTURY GHOSTS appears in this week’s Time Out New York.

NYTBR: Marilyn Stasio makes some interesting choices for her new crime column what with reviewing recent offerings from Patricia Cornwell, Stephen Gallagher, Henning Mankell & Jon Loomis; Liesl Schillinger discovers the true protagonist of Tom Perrotta’s THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER; Maud Newton has a mixed take on Ellen Litman’s novel-in-stories;Tom Carson gets caught up in the seamy world of Harold Robbins; and as for that now-infamous Lee Siegel review of Alice Sebold’s new novel – so how many more chances will this critic get, anyway?

WaPo Book World: Obligatory Anne Enright review, this from Peter Behrens; obligatory Tom Perrotta review, this from Ron Charles; and Kevin Allman reviews first crime novels by Jon Loomis, Chelsea Cain, Jesse Ball, Charles Finch & Ron Liebman.

LA Times: Rich Cohen dives into the meaty Michaelis biography of Charles Schulz; Gavin Grant is charmed by Iain Banks’ latest effort; Carolyn Kellogg has some issues with THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER by Tom Perrotta; and getting Heather Byer to review Jon Wertheim’s account of Kid Delicious is pretty damn genius.

G&M: Margaret Cannon has her say on crime efforts by Jesse Ball, Jeff Lindsay, Jennifer Lee Carrell, Minette Walters & Achy Obejas; Peter Robinson remembers Michael Dibdin and Aurelio Zen; and of course Peter C. Newman would review Jean Chretien’s memoir. Is anyone else more qualified?

Guardian Review: Alasdair Gray talks to James Campbell about his life of writing; the timing of Anne Enright’s exclusive short story is rather fortuitous what with the recent Booker Prize win; and the latest thrillers by Michael Dobbs, Michael Harvey, Jeff Lindsay and James Cobb get reviewed by Matthew Lewin.

Observer: Robert McCrum is enthralled with an account of the Decline and Fall of the British Empire; McCrum also gets cranky about all things Booker-related; and Peter Guttridge reviews new crime novels from Elmore Leonard, Matthew Klein, Joseph Finder, Thomas Perry and John Hart.

The Times: Kate Mosse discusses SEPULCHRE, the follow-up to the massively successful LABYRINTH; Erica Wagner ponders the many species of literary brows; and Peter Millar has some fun with Matthew Klein’s new thriller (which, for some bizarre reason, is called CONNED in the UK, not CON ED. I guess utility jokes don’t go over the same way?)

The Scotsman: Norman Lebrecht considers FIRE IN THE BLOOD as the slight though wonderful novel that it is; Mark Fisher pays tribute to Oscar Wilde; and the new George MacDonald Fraser novel should be skipped, according to Alistair Moffat.

The Rest:

Though Oline Cogdill doesn’t have a crime column this week, she did announce a few days ago she’ll be blogging regularly about the Akashic Noir anthologies, which is nothing short of awesome.

David Montgomery reviews the audiobook-only CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT for the Chicago Sun-Times, and comes away somewhat disappointed with the result.

Eddie Muller has some post-BCon fun with his column, having his say on recent books by Laura Lippman and Sean Doolittle and an old gem by film noir great Samuel Fuller.

Anthony Rainone’s review of Stella Rimington’s SECRET ASSET runs in today’s Lincoln Journal-Star.

Speaking again of Toronto, Stephen Marche may have moved there from Brooklyn last month but he’s no fan of its writers – and of the current state of CanLit. (via)

Susanna Yager is caught up in the worlds of Minette Walters and Louise Penny for her latest Telegraph crime column.

From last week’s Independent on Sunday is Mark Timlin’s compendium of recent crime novels by a number of notable writers.

Seattle Times mystery columnist Adam Woog shifts gears with a Q&A of Nick Hornby, now the author of the young-adult novel SLAM.

And finally, Dumbledore is gay. Let the fanfic pile-on begin…