Jussim, Estelle (1981). Slave
to Beauty: The Eccentric Life and Controversial Career of F. Holland Day.
"If it was occasionally ludicrous, it was always
sublime."
Gaiman, Neil (2008). The Graveyard Book.
Brady, Kate (2009). One Scream Away.
Written by a high school friend!
Mosse, Kate (2005). Labryinth.
(2008). Sepulchre.
Morton, Kate (2008). The Forgotten Garden.
Nix, Garth. The Abhorsen Trilogy:
(1995).
Sabriel.
(2001).
Lirael.
(2003).
Abhorsen.
Parsell, T.J. (2006). Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison.
Harwood, John (2004). The Ghost Writer.
"So far I had kept well clear of
the planchette: from where I knelt I could just see the vertical stub of pencil, above
the edge of the table. The sight induced
a mental log jam: I know I didn't write those mesages; it couldn't have moved
by itself; the messages did appear;
no one else could have written them..."
(2009). The Seance.
Dennis, Jeffery P. (2007). We Boys Together: Teenagers in Love
Before Girl-Craziness.
Summerscale, Kate (2008). The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher.
The real-life murder of 1860 that fascinated the
Victorians, inspired "detective fever" throughout England, and
forever shaped detective fiction.
Funke, Cornelia. The Inkworld Trilogy:
(2003). Inkheart.
(2005). Inkspell.
(2008). Inkdeath.
Kay, Guy Gavriel (1990). Tigana.
Mallon, Thomas (1997). Dewey Defeats Truman.
(2007). Fellow Travelers.
Boyle, T.C. (2003). The Inner Circle.
Kay, Guy Gavriel. The Fionavar Tapestry:
(1984). The Summer Tree.
(1986). The Wandering Fire.
(1986). The Darkest Road.
Niffenegger, Audrey (2003). The Time Traveler's Wife.
"Tell me a story," says Alba, leaning against
me like cold cooked pasta.
I put my arm around her. "What kind of story?"
"A good story. A story about you and Mama,
when Mama was a little girl."
"Hmmm. Okay. Once upon a time--"
"When was that?"
"All times at once. A long time ago, and right
now."
"Both?"
"Yes, always both."
"How can it be both?"
"Do you want me to tell this story or not?"
"Yeah..."
"All right then. Once upon a time..."
Flanders, Judith (2002). A Circle of Sisters.
Alice Kipling, Georgiana
Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin ... the four victorian sisters who
created the family ties that united writer
Ruydard Kipling (son), painter Edward Burne-Jones (husband),
President of the Royal Academy Edward Poynter
(husband), and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (son).
Kennedy, Harold J. (1978). No Pickle, No Performance: An
Irreverent Theatrical Excursion from Tallulah to
Travolta.
"Sinclair Lewis was a brilliant novelist, but
an actor he certainly was not....
Mr. Lewis decided to appear in summer stock
in a dramatization of one of his own novels.... I was sitting at the bar ...
when a young student very courteously approached
us, explained to Mr. Lewis that he was a great admirer,
and asked most politely for an autograph.
Mr. Lewis took the piece of paper the boy
offered him, wrote something rather lengthy on it and handed the paper
to me. It said simply, 'Why don't you
find a hobby that isn't a nuisance to other people?' and it was unsigned.
The boy was embarrased and so was I, but the
boy got even.
The play opened the following Monday night
and was a disaster. Mr. Lewis was sitting gloomingly in his dressing
room after the curtain had fallen, when a
note was hand delivered by an usher. He opened it and in his own
handwriting he read: 'Why don't you find a
hobby that isn't a nuisance to other people?'"
Brooks, Geraldine (2008). People of the Book.
If you ever found a curious object in an old book
and wondered how it came to rest between the pages ....
Clarke, Susanna (2004). Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
Imagine if Dickens wrote a fantasy novel about magic
in the early nineteenth century....
Leavitt, David (1997). Arkansas.
"Probably the aspect of this story that
puzzles me the most, as I look back, is how word of my 'availability' circulated
so quickly through the halls and dormitories
of UCLA those next months. I don't mean that it became common
knowledge among the student body that David
Leavitt, novelist, was available to write term papers for good-
looking male undergraduates; no articles appeared
in The Daily Bruin, or graffitti (as far as I am aware) on
bathroom walls. Still, in a controlled way,
news got out, and as the spring quarter opened, no less than five
boys called me up with papers to be written."
Connolly, John (2006). The Book of Lost Things.
"The walls were lined with books, although they were not
the books like the ones David read. David thought that he
could hear the books talking among themselves when
he arrived. He couldn't understand most of what they were
saying, but they spoke v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, as if
what they had to impart was very important or the person to whom they
were speaking was very stupid. Some of the books
appeared to be arguing among themselves in blah-blah-blah tones,
the way experts sometimes talked on the wireless
when they were addressing one another, surrounded
by other experts whom they were trying
to impress with their intelligence."
Leavitt, David (1993). While England Sleeps.
A novel loosely inspired by the life of poet
Stephen Spender, the Spanish Civil War, and a fascination with the
London Underground.
White, Edmund (2007). Hotel De Dream.
The final months of Stephen Crane's life (author
of The Red Badge of Courage) as he dictates a never-to-be-published
novel.
Leavitt, David (2007). The Indian Clerk.
G.H. Hardy, Ramanujan, the Riemann Hypothesis, Cambridge
in the 1910s, that restrained but powerful British
sexuality ... what's not to love?!!
Gaiman, Neil (2005). Anansi Boys.
Life can be complicated when your father is a trickster
god.
Moore, Perry (2007). Hero
Thom's father had been one of the greatest and most loved
superheroes before his public disgrace. Thom has
powers and secrets of his own....
Haddon, Mark (2007). A Spot of Bother
"What they failed to teach you at school
was that the whole business of being human just got messier and more
complicated as you got older."
The Canongate Myth Series: "... the idea was to approach
topclass writers from all over the world and invite them
to retell any myth in any way they chose."
- Pelevin, Victor (2006). The Helmet of Horror
(The story of Theseus and the Minotaur)
- Winterson, Jeanette (2005). Weight (The story
of Atlas and Hercules)
- Grossman, David (2005). Lion's Honey (The story of
Samson)
- Atwood, Margaret (2005). The Penelopiad (The
story of Penelope and Odysseus)
- Smith, Alexander McCall (2006). Dream Angus (The story
of the Celtic God of Dreams)
- Tong, Su (2006). Binu and the Great Wall (The story of Meng)
Rowling, J.K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Had to finish the series, of course!
Mary Roach (2005). Spook: Science Tackles The Afterlife
Historical and contemporary investigations into
ectoplasm, mediums, the weight of the soul, near death
experiences, and the hallucinatory effects
of electromagnetic fields.
Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who
Changed the Bible and Why
"The more I reflected on these matters, the more I began
to see that the authors of the New Testament were very
much like the scribes who would later transmit those
authors' writings. The authors too were human beings with
needs, beliefs, worldviews, opinions, loves, hates,
longings, desires, situations, problems--and surely all
these things affected what they wrote."
Iacuzzo, Terry (2004). Small Mediums At Large
"The shufffling helps us let go of control. Pick the
cards, follow the pictures. Read the story and have the courage
to change. The possibilities are endless!"
Thomas, Scarlett (2006). The End of Mr. Y.
"I don't die. But then I didn't really expect to.
How could a book be cursed anyway?..."
Willard, Nancy (1984). Things Invisible To See
"My dad told me if you make a bet
with Death, he has to accept."
"You want to make a bet with me?"
Gallagher, Winifred (2006). House Thinking
Part architectural theory, part psychology,
part social history ... a room-by-room tour of the house,
from basement to ... opps, she forgot about
the attic!
Willard, Nancy (1993). Sister Water
"I leave to children exclusively, but only for the
term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the field
and the
blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely according to the customs
of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns."
Snickett, Lemony (2006). The End
"All day long, everyone in the world is succumbing
to peer pressure, whether it is the pressure of their fourth grade
peers to play dodge ball during recess or the
pressure of their fellow circus perfomers to balance rubber balls
on their noses, and if you try to avoid every instance
of peer pressure you will end up without any peers
whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough
pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much
that you end up in a situation in which you
are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and
most people never master it, and end up dead
or uncomfortable at least once during their lives."
Setterfield, Diane (2006). The Thirteenth Tale
"Lives--dead ones--are just a hobby of mine. My
real work is in the bookshop. My job is not to
sell the books--my father does that--but to
look after them."
Wicker, Christine (2005). Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale
of How Magic is Transforming America
"I don't believe in magic, of course.
Hardly anybody does, but we all live by it."
Glass, Julia (2002). Three Junes
"Never talk yourself out of knowing you're in love
or into thinking that you are."
Sebold, Alice (2002). The Lovely Bones
"... this story of the worst thing a
family can face is transformed into a suspenseful and even funny novel
about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing."
Krosney, Herbert (2006). The Lost Gospel: The Quest for the Gospel
of Judas Iscariot
If you missed this year's National Geographic
Special, read the book! Part history, part theology,
part literary detective story.
Dunning, John (2006). The Bookwoman's Last Fling
The latest Cliff Janeway (ex-cop-turned-antiquarian-bookseller)
mystery.
Haddon, Mark (2003). The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the Night-Time
The world seen through the eyes of a 15-year-old
autistic adolescent.
Gangemi, Joseph (2004). Inamorata
A novel about the 1922 Scientific American
investigations into the paranormal.
Mackay, Helen (1909). Houses of Glass: Stories of Paris
Quaint vignettes of Paris at the turn of the last
century.
Eliot, Stephen (2002). Not the Thing I Was
Growing up in Bettelheim's Orthogenic School
for emotionally disturbed children.
Gaiman, Neil (2001). American Gods
If you liked The
Sandman....
Cruise, Colin (2005). Love Revealed: Simeon Solomon and the
Pre-Raphaelites
Well-illustrated monograph for the exhibition
marking the centenary of the artist's death.
