The Weekend Update with Extra Flurries

NYTBR: Marilyn Stasio reviews the latest crime offerings from Sara Paretsky, Frank Tallis, James Sallis and Andrew Martin; Not that I needed another reason to read DARKMANS (someday, at least) but Sylvia Brownrigg’s comments push me towards the brink;  Liesl Schillinger looks at two novels translated from the German; and Sophie Gee argues that abridging classics isn’t such a bad thing.

WaPo Book World: Jim Lehrer is rapturous for Sara Paretsky’s new standalone; Amanda Schaeffer is intrigued with a new book arguing against too much health care, not too little; and Michael Dirda revisits the music of Rostropovich.

LA Times: Laila Lalami gets the cover in reviewing three works by Elias Khoury; a new book stipulates that Melville was no accidental poet, Robert Faggen discovers; and Eloise Klein Healy remembers Jane Rule.

G&M: Keith Garebian and Claire Berlinski face off over Orhan Pamuk’s merit; Nicholas Pashley enjoys the letters of Noel Coward; and Margaret Cannon reviews many a mystery novel in her latest column.

Guardian Book Review: Joanna Carey profiles Brian Selznick; John Grieve evaluates the current state of British policing; and Jason Cowley argues that Cormac McCarthy is one of America’s greatest living novelists.

Observer: Robert McCrum is fascinated with John Mullan’s account of anonymity through the ages (and now I have to track a copy down); Lee Rourke is impressed with Lydie Salvayre’s novel of ideas; and surprise, Tim Adams takes issue with Martin Amis’s essay collection, since many of the essays have had Amis’s detractors calling for his head.

The Times: Peter Kemp, too, is impressed with John Mullan’s ANONYMITY; Misha Glenny is caught up with a tale of mafioso history; and Andrew Holgate wonders if Richard Kelly’s new novel heralds a comeback of “state of the nation” fiction works.

The Scotsman: Miles Fielder has his say on Jodi Picoult’s turn with Wonder Woman; the paper rounds up new crime novels by Catherine Sampson, Jeffery Deaver, Anne Holt & Theresa Schwegel; and Stuart Kelly reads Pierre Bayard so you don’t have to.

The Rest:

In her otherwise positive review of BLEEDING KANSAS for the Chicago Tribune, Amy Gutman focuses some attention on Sara Paretsky’s big weakness: her villains’ lack of three dimensions.

At the Seattle Times, Adam Woog has his say on new mysteries by Laurie King, Linda L. Richards, James Sallis and Joseph Weisberg.

Ray Banks is interviewed about SATURDAY’S CHILD by the Boston Globe’s Anna Mundow.

Jack Batten amusingly compares Jason Goodwin’s Turkish sleuth to Robert B. Parker’s Spenser.

Lisa Gorton wishes a new Percy Bysshe Shelley bio would lay off on outlandish conclusions.

Lizzie Skurnick liveblogged the NBCC nominations last night. And it seems someone on the board has a serious authorcrush on Joyce Carol Oates. The rest of my reaction can be summed up as: “Boring. Eh? Fucked up. Eh? Well, let me give this some thought…“

And finally, I didn’t realize the death of Christopher Bowman would have me thinking so much about figure skating’s heyday.