The Green-Tinged Weekend Update

There's two, two LA Times pieces for the price of one. First, my newest Dark Passages column on reinventing the private eye novel (or not...) and a print review of Christopher Rice's new novel BLIND FALL. Now, to the Update:

NYTBR: First, yay to Jenny Siler (aka Alex Carr) for getting a standalone review, even if Lorraine Adams has a mixed take on THE PRINCE OF BAGRAM PRISON. Otherwise, Walter Kirn offers his take on LUSH LIFE; Scott McLemee looks at Eric Alterman's examination of liberal-dom; and Keith Gessen's "essay"....sigh.

WaPo Book World: Ron Charles is glad to see Jim the Boy return in a sequel; Mary Karr shares a favorite poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins; and even though it seems, at first glance, to be pretty damn weird that Richard Russo cares about Eliot Spitzer, his op-ed is amazing.

LA Times: David Ulin looks at a book that blurs the boundaries between science and art; Geoff Boucher has his say on David Hajdu's account of the comic-book scare; Susan Salter Reynolds ponders the seeming comeback of Aldous Huxley; and Lynell George discovers a predecessor to Margaret Seltzer's lying ways.

G&M: Patricia Pearson offers up a brief history of anxiety; Emily Schultz marvels at the beauty of Ibi Kaslik's new novel; Anakana Schofield is not the least impressed with John Banville's crime writing incarnation; and Margaret Cannon reviews new mysteries and thrillers by T. Jefferson Parker, Maureen Jennings, Ariana Franklin, Ruth Downie, Will Lavender and Steve Berry.

Guardian Review: John Gray argues that "secular fundamentalists" have it all wrong; Susanna Rustin catches up with Booker Prize winner Anne Enright; and Laura Wilson tackles the latest in crime fiction by Mo Hayder, Maggie Hamand, Dave Zeltserman and Marek Krajewski.

Observer: Adam Mars-Jones doesn't have a lot of use for the collected stories of Amy Hempel; Sebastian Faulks talks with Geraldine Bedell about chucking the literary hat for the James Bond mantle; and Peter Guttridge reviews new crime novels by Mo Hayder, Hitomi Kanehara, Elizabeth Corley, Martin Baker, Kathryn Fox and Laura Wilson (!).

The Times: Julian Barnes talks up his memoir to Susannah Herbert; Alexander McCall Smith reveals why he's starting an opera company in Botswana; and Marcel Berlins focuses his crime fiction column on new books by Reginald Hill, Peter Pringle, Frances Fyfield and Jo Nesbo.

The Scotsman: Hanif Kureshi reveals the 70s influence of his current work; Iain Banks reserves the right to own a sports car; Still more on Alexander McCall Smith and Precious Ramotswe; and Jackie McGlone conducts a chilling interview with Barbara Kuklinski, wife of a notorious hitman.

The Rest:

Oline Cogdill takes a literary spin with Susan Choi's A PERSON OF INTEREST.

Tom & Enid Schantz approve of mysterious selections by Louise Penny, Peter Robinson and Dolores Gordon-Smith.

At the Chicago Sun-Times, Kevin Nance catches up with debut thriller writer Charlie Newton and Jeffrey Westhof raves over David Levien's debut CITY OF THE SUN.

Susanna Yager turns her crime fiction review attention to books by Edward Wilson and Philip Kerr.

The SF Chronicle's Charles Matthews likes Dan Fesperman's THE AMATEUR SPY, though it would have been nice to cut out the genre snobbishness business.

The WSJ's Emily Parker catches up with Doris Lessing, in the midst of the tumultuous year following her Nobel Prize win.

James Lee Burke talks with the Sydney Morning Herald about post-Katrina New Orleans and his short story collection JESUS OUT TO SEA.

Maud Newton reviews Richard Price's LUSH LIFE for the Boston Globe, offering one of the best pieces on the book I might add. Clayton Moore also has interesting things to say about the book for the Rocky Mountain News, as does the Seattle Times' Adam Woog. 

Nicholson Baker gets a rather Haverfordian spin in this Q&A with the dean of his old alma mater. This also wins my occasional, only-in-my-head Obscure Olympics link competition.

"One Book, One Chicago" picks THE LONG GOODBYE by Raymond Chandler as its 14th and latest selection.

And finally, to answer Steve Huff's question, yes, the crane disaster is criminal negligence. And a big fat lawsuit waiting to happen.

Comments

[Charles Ardai]

Criminal negligence or not, it's a disaster whose impact will be felt for a long time, and not just for the obvious reasons. Along with FuBar, in the building that was destroyed, was the office of the agent for three of Hard Case Crime's cover artists. If this had been a weekday rather a weekend, the staff would surely have been there, working; one or more artists might have been there; hell, I might have been there myself (I used to stop by from time to time). Now it's rubble. Anything stored in their office -- gone. Obviously, this pales beside the four deaths and dozen injuries, and I'm thankful as hell it wasn't worse; everyone from the agency has been found and is okay. But my god, what a bolt out of the blue. My friends are alive, so by definition they're the lucky ones -- but how they're going to rebuild their lives, I don't know.

[Cornelia Read]

Very, very happy to hear that your guys are okay, Charles!

And Sarah, loved the Dark Passages column. I did have a moment of confusion when a scratch on my monitor screen made me think you'd written "Hughes, a *rioted* Irish playwright," and then wondered if that had anything to do with karaoke bars in Anchorage last year, etc.

[Declan Hughes]

I don't know. A man gets slung out of a karaoke bar for SWAYING, and six months later, on the eve of St Patrick's Day for heaven's sake, Lady Cornelia drops whatever she's doing - lunching with Dominick Dunne and Polly Bergen in Saratoga, allegedly - to MALIGN and TRADUCE his reputation. Before he has the chance to do so himself on Ruth's Bouchercon blog. Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

[Cornelia Read]

Dude Declan, I *totally* still think the karaoke incident was a case of racial profiling. Besides which, you didn't spill a DROP from those pitchers of Budweiser at that bar Humpie's down the street, mere moments later.

[Declan Hughes]

Humpie's was down the street? I thought we'd travelled to another state. Not that I was there, you understand. Or if I was, I was only holding it for a friend. (Jesus, Humpie's - what were we thinking?)

[Cornelia Read]

It was a long street. And the locals were shooting at each other, if memory serves.