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Featured Titles 2004

New titles - selected on the basis of good reviews. Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on these lists. Books for kids and teens (fiction and nonfiction) are also listed.

August 2004

Nonfiction

• The Interrogators: Inside the Secret War Against Al Qaeda
  Author: Mackey, Chris & Greg Miller
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0316871125 Date: 2004
  PW
  Hogan and Miller--senior interrogator in Kandahar and a reporter with access to the interrogations--offer an illuminating examination of the psychology and physiology of lying and determining whether someone is telling the truth.
  Updated 7.19.04
• Assembling My Father: A Daughter's Detective Story
  Author: Oliver, Anna Cypra
  Publisher: Houghton $ 25 ISBN: 0618341528 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  Oliver's father's suicide, committed when she was only five years old, has haunted her all her life. In Assembling My Father, she offers the extraordinary chronicle of her journey of discovery to learn who he was and why he died.
  Updated 6.10.04
• Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey Into the Heart of Fan Mania
  Author: St. John, Warren
  Publisher: Crown $ 24 ISBN: 0609607081 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  New York Times writer and Alabama native Warren St. John presents a rollicking RV ride through a season in the heart of football mania with the world's most obsessive sports fans.
  Updated 7.6.04
• Persepolis 2
  Author: Satrapi, Marjane
  Publisher: Pantheon $ ISBN: Date: 2004
  PW
  Funny and heartbreaking, edgy and searingly observant, Satrapi's tale about the life of one adolescent and about the life of an entire nation continues with the same dazzling combination of singular artistry, insight, and storytelling as her first book.
  Updated 7.26.04
• The Life and Times of Mexico
  Author: Shorris, Earl
  Publisher: Norton $ 29.95 ISBN: 039305926x Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  Driven by 3,000 years of Mexican history and Shorris's original methods of storytelling, this grand narrative offers magnificent scope and profound insight into the divided soul of Mexico.
  Updated 7.6.04
• Borges
  Author: Williamson, Edwin
  Publisher: Viking $ 29.95 ISBN: 0670885797 Date: 2004
  KirkusPWBooklist
  Based on an unprecedented range of interviews and new research, this is the first biography to encompass the entire life of short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges, who revolutionized Latin American literature.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 7.6.04

Fiction

• The Second Life of Samuel Tyne
  Author: Edugyan, Esi
  Publisher: Amistad $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060736038 Date: 2004
  PW
  Haunting and atmospheric, this debut novel portrays the heartbreak, hardship and moments of surprising grace in the life of a man struggling to realize his destiny.
  Updated 7.12.04
• Light
  Author: Harrison, M. John
  Publisher: Spectra $ 16 (paper) ISBN: 0553382950 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  Published in the U.K to rave reviews, M. John Harrison's newest novel takes a stunning foray into the hot subgenre of New Space Opera, as it masterfully weaves together three intertwining strands of narrative that explore the mystery and the meaning of three enigmatic objects.
  Updated 7.8.04
• The Wasp Eater
  Author: Lychak, William
  Publisher: Houghton $ 21 ISBN: 0618302441 Date: 2004
  LJKirkus
  Set in an old New England mill town in 1979, The Wasp Eater is the story of a nine-year-old boy's dream of reuniting his estranged parents, and is a haunting tale of characters caught in the crossfire of their desires and fears.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 7.8.04
• Being Committed
  Author: Maxted, Anna
  Publisher: Regan $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060096691 Date: 2004
  PW
  In this fourth hilarious yet poignant novel, Maxted takes a funny, rueful look at intimacy (and its substitutes), commitment phobia, and the power others have over us.
  Suggested Reading: Chicklit Stars | Funny Fiction
  Updated 7.26.04
• An Evening of Long Goodbyes
  Author: Murray, Paul
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400061164 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklistPW
  Vastly entertaining and outright hilarious, Paul Murray's debut heralds the arrival of a major new Irish talent. His protagonist is endearing and wildly witty-part P. G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster, with a cantankerous dash of A Confederacy of Dunces' Ignatius J. Reilly thrown in. With its rollicking plot and colorful characters, An Evening of Long Goodbyes is a delightful and erudite comedy of epic proportions.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts
  Updated 6.30.04

Mystery & Suspense

• Pyro
  Author: Emerson, Earl
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345462882 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  From the bestselling author of Vertical Burn and Into the Inferno comes a pulse-racing thriller based on startling true events involving arson and murder.
  Suggeested Reading List: On Fire
  Updated 6.30.04
• Dark Voyage
  Author: Furst, Alan
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400060184 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklistPW
  Tangier, April 1941. In the tradition of The Polish Officer and Blood of Victory, Dark Voyage is Alan Furst at his best - a superb adventure of historical espionage at sea and in the waterfron alleys of port cities, as a decent, good-hearted man becomes a fighting hero in an increasingly threatening world. - Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Espionage Stars
  Updated 7.19.04
• Lucifer's Shadow
  Author: Hewson, David
  Publisher: Delacorte $ 21.95 ISBN: 0385337949 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  When Daniel Forster, a young Englishman, arrives in Venice, he is soon drawn into a treacherous game of deception spanning three centuries, from the Venice of Vivaldi and Rousseau to the violence of the present day.
  Suggested Reading: Venice | Music & Fiction
  Updated 5.7.04
• Rift Zone
  Author: Hillhouse, Raelynn
  Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765310139 Date: 2004
  LJ
  Raelynn J. Hillhouse has constructed an engrossing novel of espionage, action, and heart-pounding danger. Told with knowledge andauthenticity, Rift Zone takes you inside the workings of communist East Germany and the Soviet Union. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 7.13.04
• High Country Fall
  Author: Maron, Margaret
  Publisher: Mysterious $ 24 ISBN: 0892968087 Date: 2004
  BooklistPW
  With friends and family overreacting to her announcement that she plans to marry Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, Judge Deborah Knott gratefully seizes the opportunity to work a week on the bench at Cedar Gap. But Deborah's peaceful break is interrupted by murder.
  Updated 6.21.04
• Deceptions
  Author: Mina, Denise
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0316735922 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  Scotland's most exciting up-and-coming mystery novelist offers the story of a man's desperate search for evidence to overturn his wife's murder conviction. As Lachlan searches the forbidden sanctuary of Susie's home office for proof of her innocence, he uncovers evidence of her secret life.
  Updated 7.26.04
• Brimstone
  Author: Preston, Douglas & Lincoln Child
  Publisher: Warner $ 25.95 ISBN: 044653143x Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  Teaming with Police Officer Vincent D'Agosta ( The Relic), Agent Pendergast is determined to solve a case that appears to defy everything except supernatural logic. Has the Devil, in fact, come to collect his due?
  Updated 7.6.04

Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages

• A Crack in the Line
  Author: Lawrence, Michael
  Publisher: Greenwillow $15.99 ISBN: 0060724773 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  This gripping thriller about a boy and a girl who are the same person--but not quite--and who are living the same life takes readers on a journey into the shifting nature of identity, time, space, and the cracks that can appear in a train rail, a lifeline, or a family tree.
  Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction | Speculative Fiction | Suspense
  
• Leaping Beauty
  Author: Maguire, Gregory
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 15.99 ISBN: 0060564172 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  From the bestselling author of the adult novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West comes this unique take on eight classic fairy tales.
  Grades: 3-7 Category: Fiction | Fairy Tales | Humor