overbooked.com or overbooked.org

Featured Titles 2005 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.

July 2005

Nonfiction

• The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal
  Author: Croke, Vicki
  Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375507833 Date: 2005
  PWBooklist
  "Boston Globe" columnist Croke reveals the true story of Ruth Harkness, a bohemian socialite and dress designer who in 1936 took over her dead husband's expedition into Tibet to capture the first live giant panda.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
  Updated 5.16.05

 

• The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad
  Author: Horn, Stacy
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670034193 Date: 2005
  KirkusPWLJ
  Following four cold cases from inception to resolution, Horn depicts the world of the victims and their murderers, along with the scientific advancements that don't always yield hoped for answers, and the harrowing politics and tangled history of the NYPD and its cold case unit.
  Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars | All Stars
  Updated 6.29.05

Fiction

• Adored
  Author: Bagshawe, Tilly
  Publisher: Warner $ 23.95 ISBN: 0446576883 Date: 2005
  KirkusPWLJ
  In the grand tradition of Sidney Sheldon and other masters of epic women's fiction comes a larger-than-life tale of a Hollywood dynasty, written by Tilly Bagshawe, a 31-year-old Cambridge graduate who has brilliantly revived the genre.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 4.19.05
• 72 Hour Hold
  Author: Campbell, Bebe Moore
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400040744 Date: 2005
  KirkusLJPW
  In this novel of family and redemption, Campbell draws on the powerful emotions of her own experience and African-American roots in this story of a mother who struggles to save her 18-year-old daughter from the devastating consequences of mental illness by forcing her to deal with her bipolar disorder.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | African American Stars
  Updated 5.23.05
• Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
  Author: Doctorow, Cory
  Publisher: Tor $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765312786 Date: 2005
  PW
  One of the leading voices of next-generation SF and author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom returns with a miraculous novel of secrets, lies, magic, and Internet connectivity, set on the streets of modern-day Toronto.
  Updated 3.10.05

 

• The Traveler: Book 1: The Fourth Realm Trilogy
  Author: Hawks, John Twelve
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 038551428x Date: 2005
  PW
  In this stunningly suspenseful first novel, reminiscent of George Orwell and Philip Pullman, John Twelve Hawks has created a vividly imagined world that runs parallel to our own. Moving at lightning speed from the back alleys of Prague to the underworld of Los Angeles to a guarded research facility in New York, The Traveler goes beneath the surface to give us new insights on history and our own lives.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 5.9.05

 

• Freddy and Fredericka
  Author: Helprin, Mark
  Publisher: Penguin $ 27.95 ISBN: 1594200548 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  In his latest work, the author of A Dove of the East and Other Stories pens an extraordinarily funny allegory of a most peculiar British royal family--a mocking of contemporary monarchy and yet deeply sympathetic to the individuals caught in its lonely absurdities.
  Updated 3.25.05
• No Country for Old Men
  Author: McCarthy, Cormac
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375406778 Date: 2005
  BooklistPW
  Set along a bloody frontier in our own time, this is McCarthy's first novel since Cities of the Plain completed his acclaimed, bestselling Border Trilogy. Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, instead finds men shot dead, a load of heroin, and over $2 million in cash. Packing the money out, he knows, will change everything.
  Updated 5.23.05

 

• Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
  Author: Millet, Lydia
  Publisher: Soft Skull $ 25 ISBN: 1932360859 Date: 2005
  BooklistPW
  Millet's latest novel is a black-comic tour de force depicting the "second coming" of atomic bomb creators Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard. Despite being dead, these scientists are spotted in Santa Fe by a shy librarian, who joins them on a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C.
  Suggested Reading: Black Humor | Atomc Stars
  Updated 5.19.05

 

Mystery & Suspense

• Cold Granite
  Author: MacBride, Stuart
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 031233995x Date: 2005
  BooklistPWLJ
  DCI Logan McRac returns to his job in Aberdeen CID after recuperating from a gunshot wound and finds himself assigned to a brutal serial killer case.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts | Scottish Crime Fiction
  Updated 6.29.05

 

• Society Girls
  Author: Mason, Sarah
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 12.95 ISBN: 0345469577 Date: 2005
  LJ
  Sisters Holly and Clemmie Colshannon search for a society journalist who disappears right before her wedding date. The drama morphs into a crisis and the whole family must flee to the south of France, with an ex-convict hot on their heels.
  Updated 6.9.05
• Killer Swell
  Author: Shelby, Jeff
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525948805 Date: 2005
  LJ
  Surfing and murder come together in this dazzling debut mystery series featuring San Diego private investigator Noah Braddock.
  Suggested Reading: Surfer Stars | Debuts
  Updated 6.9.05
• The Russian Hill Murders
  Author: Tallman, Shirley
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 031238575 Date: 2005
  PW
  Defying convention, spirited 19th-century lawyer Sarah Woolson sets out to prove herself in her first criminal trial.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 6.13.05

 

Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages

Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.

• Only You Can Save Mankind
  Author: Pratchett, Terry
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 15.99 ISBN: 0060541857 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  The inimitable author of the bestselling Discworld series brings to life a reality-bending tale of aliens, war, and virtual heroism, as 12-year-old Johnny Maxwell discovers that the boundary between war and war games is perilously thin.
  Grades: 3-7 Category: Speculative Fiction
  
• Truth Teller's Tale
  Author: Shinn, Sharon
  Publisher: Viking $ 16.99 ISBN: 0670060003 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  This sequel to the acclaimed The Safe-Keeper's Secret continues the story of the "mirror twins" Adele (a Safe-Keeper) and Eleda (a Truth-Teller). When the twins are 17, a handsome dancing-master and his apprentice come to stay at the inn, and thus begins a chain of romances and mistaken identity.
  Grades: 7-12 Category: Speculative Fiction