Nick Cutter’s The Deep starts out with a very promising premise: a strange plague is afflicting humanity on a global scale. Scientists have stumbled upon a possible cure — at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. In a desperate race to save the human race, governments have come together to build a research station at the bottom of the ocean, eight miles underwater. The… Read more
This one made me laugh – back when I was spending a lot of time in Amsterdam for work, the first place I learned to find on my own (after my office) was the American Book Center on the Spui. Spent a lot of lovely weekend mornings there. “The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of… Read more
I found some cute guys on Flickr with books. A good book makes any man look better. Read more
A Bowl of Olives: On Food and Memory is a lovely little book, beautifully illustrated with tiny watercolor paintings of olives and figs and rabbits and vegetables and wine bottles. The emphasis is on the word little – on some pages, the writing is so small that it is almost impossible to read. The pages are full of tiny watercolors, small-scale photographs, leaves… Read more
I don’t recall requesting this one, but it certainly sounds interesting! Fiercombe Manor by Kate Riordan: In 1933, naive twenty-two year-old Alice—pregnant and unmarried—is in disgrace. Her mother banishes her from London to secluded Fiercombe Manor in rural Gloucestershire, where she can hide under the watchful eye of her mother’s old friend, the housekeeper Mrs. Jelphs. The manor’s owners, the Stantons,… Read more
Man V. Nature: Storiesby Diane Cook is a fascinating book of short stories – the kind that keep you thinking long after you finish reading. The stories present impossible situations — truly impossible situations that you can’t imagine happening in real life. In “The Not-Needed Forest, a 10 year old boy is told he is “not needed” and is sent… Read more
What a great way to start the new year – more new books than I can read! But I will try and make time for them all. Today, it’s The Swimmer by Joakim Zander: A deep-cover CIA agent races across Europe to save the daughter he never knew in this electrifying debut thriller—an international sensation billed as “Homeland meets Stieg Larsson” that… Read more
This is particularly true in this day and age, when you can take your books with you on a pad, on a CD, on your phone, etc. “Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King, one of the most prolific American horror writers of all time Read more
Or, in this case, with newspapers. For those of us shivering in the frozen wastelands, this looks impossibly warm: Read more
This looks like a great historical mystery: The Body Snatchers Affair: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini The Body Snatchers Affair: The latest in the Carpenter and Quincannon historical mystery series from Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. Two missing bodies and two separate investigations take Carpenter and Quincannon from the heights above San Francisco Bay to the depths of… Read more