Omnivoracious

Omni Daily News

From Eat, Pray, Love  to Committed:  Mega-bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert has a new book on the way: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (available January 5, 2010).  In an interview with The New York Times, Gilbert said of her new work that “It isn’t a sequel....It’s the same two characters, but it’s a very different setting and emotional backdrop. The second book has more of an academic contemplation and more of my family in it.”   [The New York Times]

DiCamillo's Latest Headed to the Screen:  Kate DiCamillo's new children's book, The Magician's Elephant (releases September 8) has been optioned by Fox.  Two of the bestselling author's earlier books, Because of Winn-Dixie (Newbery Honor book) and The Tale of Despereaux  (Newbery Medal winner) have already made their way to the big screen.  Here's hoping that producer Martin Hynes will capture something of the smoky atmospheric quality of Yoko Tanaka's terrific illustrations for DiCamillo's tale.  [Variety]

Rock Solid YA Reads:  Author, indy-rocker, filmaker, and self-described enfant terrible  Cecil Castellucci strikes the write note with this rawkin' list of YA reads.  Yo, don't miss her and co-editor Holly Black's latest--Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, a treasure trove of a collection of short stories from chart-topping YA authors. [LA Times]

Win Free Signed Copies of The Lost Symbol:  Fans of the DaVinci Code won't want to miss the opportunity to win a free signed copy of Dan Brown's soon-to-be-released The Lost Symbol.  Here's how.

Moving and shaking:  Sleuths including China Mieville, Edmund Crispin, Josephine Tey, and Eliot Pattison have infiltrated Amazon's Movers & Shakers list hot on the heels of celebrity librarian Nancy Pearl's mystery roll-call for NPR.

--Lauren

Omnivoracious Sweepstakes III: Signed Copies of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol

To the many mysteries surrounding The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's years-in-the-making, shrouded-by-secrecy follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, add one more: which Omnivoracious readers will receive a signed copy of The Lost Symbol when it comes out in September? We here at Omni HQ have recently been informed that we will be receiving a box of copies of The Lost Symbol, signed by Dan Brown himself, to dispose of as we see fit. And what we see fit to do is open up our third Omnivoracious sweepstakes and offer them to you, our Omni subscribers.

Here's how it works: just like our previous sweeps, you enter by subscribing to our daily email digest. And as before, if you are already a subscriber (for which we thank you!), you can enter by going to the same page and filling out the little form there, which won't change your subscriber status in any way. What's different about this one, though, is that instead of one prize we have 15. So in early September we'll choose 15 winners, let them know, and then when the box of signed copies arrives here on or around publication day, September 15, we'll send them out. (The signup page has all the official nitty gritty.)

We're taking entries from now until 11:59 a.m. Pacific time on September 1. Worried about ordering the book and then finding out later that you've won a copy? Don't fret, we'll let you know if you're a winner far enough ahead of time that you can cancel your order--although I would expect any true Dan Brown fan would still want another copy for reading, since they would immediately seal off the signed copy in a vacuum pack and deep-six it in a climate-controlled vault.

We think this is pretty cool, and hope you do too. Good luck! --Tom

P.S. We also announced this week that we can now promise Release-Day Delivery on September 15 for The Lost Symbol. Here's our page describing how that works.

Graphic Novel Friday: Rick Geary's Famous Players Murder Mystery

It's hard to be both droll and realistic, and yet Rick Geary manages that tone in Famous Players, an examination of a real-life murder mystery set in 1920s Hollywood. William Desmond Taylor, a successful director at the upscale Famous Players Studio is found shot in his home. Although the crime was never solved, the investigation led to revelations about Taylor's true identity and caused a huge scandal. Geary's achievement in this volume and his other explorations of murder mysteries is to both break down the preamble/event/aftermath into interesting and logical elements and show that a streak of the illogical and absurd runs through this most personal and permanent of crimes.

Geary includes maps of Los Angeles and of the area surrounding Taylor's home. We get a condensed but rich context for the area and the time period, followed by not just the particulars of the murder but also the particulars of those who surrounded the victim. Yet imposing order on what is violent and taboo actually accentuates the irrationality of murder, especially in an unsolved case. Despite all of the information the reader obtains, despite, even, Geary's own slight nudge toward a possible solution, all the structure in the world cannot hide that at the center of the book is a hole, a lack. This sense of order hiding disorder is exacerbated by the questions about the very identity of the victim. Although many people read murder mysteries for escapism, it's hard not to notice, through the mechanism of a book like Geary's, the potentially non-escapist aspects.

I have to confess that I haven't read much of Geary's work, but I really liked the composition of his frames, the careful quality of the illustration, and the way in which the style conveys verisimilitude while containing hints of an almost Gorey-like wink to the reader. Although I cannot gauge the quality of Famous Players against Geary's other books, I found it an engaging and intriguing read.

    

Omni Daily News

Historic Confirmation of Justice Sotomayor:  The New York Times reports that Justice Sonia Sotomayor has been confirmed by the Senate to the U.S. Supreme Court.  She becomes the highest U.S. court's first Hispanic and third female justice.   [The New York Times]

Author and Screenwriter Budd Schulberg (1914-2009):  Legendary Hollywood writer Budd Schulberg died at age 95 in Los Angeles yesterday.  Best known for writing the screenplay for "On the Waterfront"  and "The Harder They Fall" as well as the smash debut novel What Makes Sammy Run?,  he also wrote several other works of fiction and nonfiction.  [LA Times]

Sneak Peek at Lovely Bones Film:  Director Peter Jackson has YouTube'd a trailer for his upcoming movie adaptation of the bestselling novel The Lovely Bones by author Alice Sebold. [GalleyCat]

Cover Controversy for YA Buzz Book: Publisher Bloomsbury Children's Books has responded to the outcry from bloggers and the author herself (Justine Larbalestier) over the cover of the YA novel Liar (available September 29). They are changing the controversial cover.  Although the story's protagonist is an African American female teenager, the original cover design featured a photograph of a caucasian teen. The new cover was unveiled today in Publishers Weekly. [PW]

--Lauren

Best Books of July: "The Defector"

I have never considered myself a spy novel reader. I’ve always been a fan of espionage on the big screen--hooked since the first time I heard the words “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die,” in fact--but I admit to being intimidated by spy novels. I imagined them as too dense and loaded with acronyms for the novice reader, and requiring advanced knowledge at best and homework at worst. So, it was with some trepidation that I prepared for an author visit from Daniel Silva. I nervously cracked open my copy of The Defector--and was promptly lost to the world. I had to force myself to put it down at two in the morning so I could get some sleep. I picked it up first thing in the morning and read as I walked to the office. And in between meetings at work. And on the bus on the way to dinner with the author. When someone at dinner started talking about the ending, I literally stuck my fingers in my ears and hummed to myself. This is all to say that it has been a long time since I’ve been as taken with, or surprised by a book as I was with The Defector. I encourage those of you, like me, who have enjoyed Bond, Bourne, or Bristow on the screen, but never made the leap to the page, to give Silva a shot (I’m sure Fleming or Ludlum fans will have some recommendations as well). Gabriel Allon is one hell of an interesting character (learn more about the artist/assassin in an exclusive essay from Silva), and the best news is that once you are hooked, there are eight other books in the series to keep you occupied for the rest of the summer. I’ll leave you with my review for The Defector, and encourage spy thriller fans out there to please send me recommendations, because I for one, am sold on the genre.

Amazon Best of the Month, July 2009: "If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared." The ninth book in Daniel Silva's smart, fast-paced series about enigmatic assassin and art restorer Gabriel Allon begins with an epigraph courtesy of Machiavelli. A fitting start to a twisty spy thriller chock full of clandestine meetings, tenuous alliances, and ruthless men. The beauty of Silva's series is that it is easy on acronyms and byzantine operations (so you don't have to be a spy novel aficionado to enjoy it), and each book gives you a discreet rundown on familiar characters and back-stories (so you don't have to start at the beginning). In The Defector, the disappearance of Russian defector and dissident Grigori Bulganov draws Gabriel out of semi-retirement and into the path of Ivan Kharkov, the former KGB agent and Russian oligarch from Moscow Rules. Exotic locales, intriguing characters, and a breakneck pace make for a riveting summer read. -- Daphne Durham

Pelecanos, The Pogues, and a Pub

We've raised a glass with an author at a pub (we'll be posting soon on our visit with Colum McCann), and we've interviewed George Pelecanos, with a short video (in the glamorous surroundings of an unmarked booth on a trade show floor). But we've not approached the double bill that recently happened at London's Boogaloo. As any reader of Pelecanos's books knows, he's a big music fan, and The Wire, the show he helped write and produce, featured a number of Pogues songs. A mutual-admiration friendship between Pelecanos and Spider Stacey of the Pogues led to a shared books-and-music event, which turned out to include not only Pelecanos reading from his latest novel, The Way Home, but the Pogues' first pub show in sixteen years.

Much of the set has been posted online by Paul Murff. Here's Pelecanos's reading (followed by a few questions, the first of which, appropriately, is about the Replacements):

And here are the Pogues, performing "The Body of an American" (a Wire favorite) and "Transmetropolitan" (a tour of London that rivals Pelecanos's DC stories for spirited geographical exactitude):

You can also watch them play "Kitty" and "Sally MacLennane." And thanks to another videographer at the show (with not so good a view), you can see them perform, for the first time live according to Pelecanos, "Way Down in the Hole," the theme song to The Wire.

Next time we meet an author in a pub, we're booking a band. --Tom [Via GalleyCat]

Omni Daily News

Ice Cream, You sCream for Books:  Ben & Jerry's is considering a library-themed ice cream flavor thanks to a Facebook petition launched by a New Jersey librarian. The petition has garnered thousands of supporters.  [The Guardian]

Rave Review for Jericho's Fall:  Yale legal scholar-turned bestselling author Stephen L. Carter gets high marks for his latest novel Jericho's Fall.  Reviewer Tim Rutten describes it as "an intricate spy thriller that proceeds at breakneck speed from mystery to revelation and back again."  [LA Times]

Moving and Shaking:  Melanie Gideon's memoir A Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After slides onto our Movers & Shakers list on the heels of yesterday's New York Times review by Motoko Rich.  

--Lauren

Omni Daily News

Vargas Ices Scandinavians for Dagger Hat Trick: French crime writer Fred Vargas (aka Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau) and her translator Sian Reynolds held off a trio of Swedes, one Norwegian and an Icelandic writer to win the Crime Writers' Association's prestigious International Dagger Award for The Chalk Circle Man.  This is Vargas' third win in four years. Colin Cotterill won the CWA's Dagger in the Library which "the author of crime fiction whose work is currently giving the greatest enjoyment to library users." See all the winners on the CWA site and see a very evocative image of Vargas in today's Guardian.  [The Guardian]

Harlem Book Fair:  The 11th annual Harlem Book Fair kicks off tomorrow in New York City.  This year's theme is "Reinventing 21st Century Culture." Check out the full schedule of events.  Book TV on C-Span-2 will be covering many of the weekend events with live telecasts. [Shelf Awareness]

Movers & Shakers:  Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales joyfully jumps onto our Movers & Shakers list after NPR's Morning Edition featured the audiobook which includes celebrity readings of the South African leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate's most beloved tales from all across Africa.  Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Hugh Jackman, LeVar Burton, Helen Mirren and many others actors and actresses lend their voices to this collection.  Proceeds from the book go to Artists for a New South Africa,  a non-profit organization which assists children affected by HIV/AIDS and promotes education and social justice. [NPR]

--Lauren

Omni Podcast: George Pelecanos on "The Way Home"

I'd been wanting to meet George Pelecanos for a long time. I grew up outside of D.C., and since I left I've discovered what Pelecanos was doing in mapping the city and its recent history in more than a dozen crime novels mostly set far away (in class and culture if not in miles) from the marble edifices of the Mall and the polished wingtips of K Street. And the reasons to talk to him continued to pile up, including, of course, his work as one of the main producers and writers of the every-bit-as-good-as-everybody-says HBO series, The Wire, as well as this excellent list of his favorite westerns he did for our Grownup School feature a few years back. (And one more reason, which came up since I talked to him: Hard Rain Falling, Don Carpenter's 1966 novel, which the saints at New York Review Books are bringing back out in September with an intro by Pelecanos. I just read it last week and was wowed by two things--first, what a knockout book it is (expect an upcoming Daily Crush from me on it), and second, what a George Pelecanos book it is, with a similar feeling for straightforward language and a similar sense of moral decision-making in a gray world. And with its story of young men reckoning with the effects of prison, I can't imagine it wasn't in the back of Pelecanos's mind when he worked on his latest novel, The Way Home.)

Which brings me to today's subject: I did get to meet Pelecanos, in my little interview booth at this year's BEA. We talked about The Way Home, which meant talking about young men and prison and writing stories about the decisions they face, and also about the neighborhood in the District where it is mostly set, which is a little closer to my own home suburb than the parts of the city Pelecanos usually writes about. You can listen right here, or read the transcript after the jump. (You can also watch his short tribute to the other current master of D.C. fiction, Edward P. Jones, which I posted last week. And for another--no doubt better--interview with him, see Stop Smiling, which has posted an excerpt from their lengthy, very local back-and-forth with him from their excellent D.C. issue.)

Audio: George Pelecanos on The Way Home

Omni Daily Crush: "Nobody Move"

How strange is it that, within a few months of each other this year, two of the most ambitious novelists around, each coming off a vast, long-in-the-works epic, have made the No Country for Old Men move, writing a lighter, more accessible genre piece that has gotten compared to Elmore Leonard? In May, Denis Johnson, fresh off the 720-page, National Book Award-winning (and beloved by me) Tree of Smoke, released Nobody Move (which I was too timid to keep up with when it was serialized earlier in Playboy). And in August comes the new Thomas Pynchon (a phrase that has in the past sent Godzilla-like shudders through the literary earth), Inherent Vice, complete with a Tim Dorsey-style cover after the more solemn packaging of his previous book, the ambivalently received thousand-pager, Against the Day.

I've just cracked the Pynchon, but so far I'm hearing more Tom Robbins than Leonard. Nobody Move, though? Well, it's a very good Elmore Leonard book--and that's a very good thing. Like Leonard, Johnson's so spare with the words that he often leaves off the subject of a sentence. Starts right in with the verb. And like Leonard, his bad guys (and they're all bad guys) manage to be both bumbling and ingenious, brutal and charming. And best of all, like Leonard, his banter crackles (and is a reminder of how sharp Johnson's dialogue is in anything he writes, whether it's an intricate, dreamy war drama or a lean little crime thriller). Here's the little bit I read out loud to my wife the other day, which made her put down Anna Karenina and pick this one up (and swallow it whole, laughing all the way). The two main bad guys--the ones you root for--are buying a change of clothes at a JCPenney:

    She changed into the pantsuit, gray pinstripe, and made sure she had her shoulders back and her smile on before she swept aside the curtain. "Does it fit?"
    He stared, and then he went for his Camels and put one between his lips, realized where he was, dropped the cigarette into his shopping bag. "It fits."
    "You're sweet," she said, and she sort of meant it. But not as a compliment. "You're homeless, right?"
    "I have a home. I'm just not going back there, is all."
    "So right in that shopping bag is everything you own."
    "Everything I need."
    "And your white canvas bag--what's in that one?"
    "Everything else I need."
    "I know what's in it. A sawed-off shotgun."
    He seemed completely unsurprised. "It's not a sawed-off. It's a pistol grip. And it isn't mine."
    "I peeked in the bag while you were in the shower."
    "You zipped it up real nice," he said. "Good for you."

And on it goes--it goes down easy. --Tom