La Vie En Weekend Update

And first, a reminder: hope you all pushed your clocks an hour forward. Daylight Saving Time comes a month early now...

Also, various awards were given out at Left Coast Crime over the weekend, including:

Dilys: William Kent Kreuger, THUNDER BAY

Lefty: Elaine Viets, MURDER WITH RESERVATIONS

Rocky: Margaret Coel, THE GIRL WITH BRAIDED HAIR

Arty: Rhys Bowen, HIS ROYAL SPYNESS

Congratulations to the winners. Onward:

NYTBR: At first, Scott Turow seems an odd choice to review Tony Earley's THE BLUE STAR, and after reading it...I guess because he, too, is writing a sequel to a much-heralded novel makes him the proper choice? Oooookay; Thomas Mallon is a much better choice to give his take on Irene Nemirovsky's novels; Rachel Donadio jumps on the Amis/Eagleton/brouhaha bandwagon months after everyone else; Chelsea Cain wishes PINKERTON'S SECRET had had room for other characters besides the eponymous one; and Marilyn Stasio reviews the latest crime novels by Denise Mina, Will Lavender, Lawrence Goldstone and Robert B. Parker.

WaPo Book World: Tyler Knox calls David Maine's new novel "a genuine horror movie of a book"; Ron Charles wishes Hilary Jordan wasn't so deadly earnest in her prizewinning debut novel MUDBOUND; and Jonathan Yardley is entertained by Josh Kendall's account of Roget and the creation of his thesaurus.

LA Times: Mark Kurlansky is astonished by what Nicholson Baker pulls off in HUMAN SMOKE, which everyone - I repeat, everyone - should read at some point; literary lying gets long shrift from Ruben Martinez, Samantha Dunn and Rita Williams; Denise Hamilton calls for an antidote to the Margaret Seltzers of the world; and Sonja Bolle examines teen fiction with a teacher-student theme.

G&M: Lydia Millet is the perfect person to review Samantha Hunt's fabulous novel THE INVENTION OF EVERYTHING ELSE; Alexandra Fuller wonders at the diminished writerly voices in Zimbabwe as a new election looms; and Carol Off rounds up new histories of fruits.

Guardian Review: Ali Smith makes the case for the work of Carson McCullers; Rebecca Ames admires Melissa Benn's reworking of Greek tragedy; and James Fenton goes to the Met to explore the origin of the world.

Observer: Stephanie Merritt wishes George Saunders wouldn't state the obvious so much; Peter Conrad is endlessly fascinated with NBCC winner Alex Ross's THE REST IS NOISE; and Rafael Behr reads two books that urges people not to panic.

The Times: Joanna Trollope explains her newfound obsession with football; Mo Hayder discusses her odd but excellent new crime novel RITUAL; the battle over THUNDERBALL scuttles another Bond-related book; Peter Millar is impressed with S.J. Bolton's creepy debut thriller SACRIFICE; and Sarah Maslin Nir looks at Budge Wilson's prequel to ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, which is pretty damn good.

The Scotsman: Helen Walsh explains her reinvention to Aidan Smith; Lesley MacDowell is disappointed with Justine Picardie's reimagining of Daphne DuMaurier, while Allan Massie has the same reaction to Philip Kerr's new Bernie Gunther crime novel.

The Rest:

Oline Cogdill generally has a good time with Tom Cain's THE ACCIDENT MAN.

Eddie Muller devotes the most ink to Tom Epperson but also gets a few words in about new crime novels by Louise Ure, Jim Nisbet and Steve Hockensmith.

Adam Woog has room to review new mysteries by Laura Lippman, Benjamin Black, Michael Sherer and Morag Joss, with less space to praise Alex Carr, Dan Fesperman, Dana Stabenow and April Smith.

Susanna Yager is impressed with new crime novels from Tom Rob Smith and Michael Robotham. Also in the Telegraph, Jake Kerridge has his say about new thrillers from Jane Hill, Stieg Larsson, Andy McNab and Karen Rose.

The Calgary Herald's Joanne Sasvari rounds up crime fiction by Linda Richards, Laura Lippman, Sara Paretsky and Robert Majzels.

Regis Behe chats with April Smith about the Ana Grey series, horse-based shenanigans and her not-exactly-book-a-year writing pace.

Laura Lippman opens up to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the impetus for her new novel ANOTHER THING TO FALL. Other reviews of the book appear at the Baltimore Sun, the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal and Entertainment Weekly.

Steve Brewer's latest newspaper column talks up Left Coast Crime and how fans often know books better than their authors.

Nicholson Baker reveals the impetus for HUMAN SMOKE to the WSJ's Robert Hughes.

Oshkosh Northwestern's Pete Bach gives kudos to Bleak House Books and their trifecta of Edgar nominations.

Anna Pavord wrestles with the horror of a deleted manuscript and goes looking for other examples for the Independent.

Chinua Achebe tries to put his novel THINGS FALL APART into perspective 50 years after its publication.

Comic Book Resources has the scoop on Victor Gischler's new comics-related project.

And finally, 8 ridiculous dance crazes. Just because.

Comments

[Patrick Balester]

I always look forward to the NY Times book reviews by Marilyn Stasio, especially since she introduced me to many foreign crime writers I might never have discovered.
But her suggestion that Denise Mina pioneered the "hard-bitten heroine" who is real instead of just being likeable with the Garnethill crime series sounds a bit odd.
Didn't Sara Paretsky break that stereotype twenty years earlier with her introduction of V. I. Warshawski?

[David J. Montgomery]

Splitting hairs, perhaps, but Stasio doesn't say that Mina was the ONLY one to smash the stereotype; merely that she did. We can assume that, since the stereotype (if that's what it is) persists, it could reasonably be smashed more than once.

[Sean Chercover]

I can't believe I watched that whole Hasslehoff video...and he never limboed!