Thanksgiving Weekend Sunday Smatterings

The G&M’s Margaret Cannon reviews new crime fiction by Reginald Hill, Nevada Barr, Kenneth Cameron, James W. Nichol, Jill Edmundson, Janet Kellough, and Mary Jane Maffini, among others, and also picks her top eleven books of 2009.

John O’Connell admires the talent on display in BLACK WATER RISING, Attica Locke’s debut novel.

David Ulin looks at the reissue of two novels by W.R. Burnett – one early, one mid-career – in the Los Angeles Times.

At the Times of London, the best crime novels and the best thrillers of 2009.

Michael Berry picks his top SF-ish books for holiday gift-giving in the SF Chronicle.

Motoko Rich catches up with Colum McCann a week after his National Book Award win.

Nicholson Baker is an inspired choice to review Ken Auletta’s GOOGLED, if only for the paragraph where he recounts all those search engines of old that, well, no longer exist (or barely do.)

John Banville writes about his dog, Ben the Labrador. Because he could. And because it is good.

Scott Martelle profiles Terry Teachout in the LA Times on the occasion of his new biography of Louis Armstrong, which has garnered all manner of rave reviews of late.

Celebrity memoirs: finally on the wane in the UK, it looks like.