20 Book Club Picks (Part 2)

book clubsHere’s another batch of favorite books for book clubs.

(If you missed the first batch, here’s the link.)

  1. Wild – Cheryl Strayed
  2. The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield
  3. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
  4. Room – Emma Donoghue
  5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
  6. Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
  7. Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson
  8. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  9. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
  10. Moloka’i – Alan Brennert
  11. The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
  12. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
  13. The Shack – Wm. Paul Young
  14. My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult
  15. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
  16. The Light Between Oceans – M.L. Stedman
  17. The Forgotten Garden – Kate Morton
  18. The Kitchen House – Kathleen Grissom
  19. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – Alan Bradley
  20. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

2013 Edgar Award Winners

Love a good mystery? The Edgar Awards, named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America. They honor the best of the best in the mystery genre, published or produced in the previous year. The 2013 winners were announced in May, and the winners are….

BEST NOVEL:  Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

BEST FIRST NOVEL: The Expats by Chris Pavone

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL:  The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

BEST FACT CRIME (also known as True Crime):  Midnight in Peking:

How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French

BEST YA:  Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Author Johanna Lindsey

johanna lindsey

Johanna Lindsey

June marks a big milestone for New York Times bestselling historical romance author Johanna Lindsey.  Her 50th novel, One Heart To Win, a western set tale, will be released on June 11.

When she was younger, she was such an avid reader, she found she couldn’t get enough historical romances to read.  She decided to write a book for her own enjoyment – Captive Bride.  It wound up being published in 1977 and was an immediate success.

Johanna’s books span various eras of history – Middle Ages, Regency England, American Old West and the Viking era.  Her stories portray vivid adventures to foreign lands and time periods.

One Heart To Win is on order at the Cheshire Library.  You may place a hold on it if you wish.

Book Buzz : Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews

jason matthewsJason Matthews is a 33 year veteran of the CIA, who has turned his considerable knowledge of espionage into a fantastic debut novel.  Reviewers have said it is the best thriller you will read this year.

Jason and his wife (who also worked for the CIA) appeared on CBS This Morning on June 4th.  They gave a fascinating interview recounting their lives as CIA agents.  You can view it here.

Mr. Matthews is the first American spy to take a turn at writing fiction.  Authors John le Carre, John Buchan, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, Ian Fleming and Stella Rimington all worked for the British intelligence community.

Red Sparrow is about a hotheaded rookie spy, Nathaniel Nash, who is pitted against a gorgeous Russian intelligence officer, Dominika Egorova.  The story takes place in Moscow, Helsinki, Athens and Washington.  Mr. Matthews is very skilled with his writing – smart, fluent, great dialogue and extremely knowledgeable.  The book is filled with seemingly classified information –  both American and Russian.  It’s a wonder the manuscript got past the redacting committee at Langley!

If you like thrillers, you’ll want to put Red Sparrow on your summer reading list!

Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander to be a Cable Series on Starz

Fans of the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon have longed for the books to be adapted for the screen since the first novel was published in 1991. The 7 books (with an 8th due later this year) defy genre categorization, containing elements of romance, fantasy/time travel, and historical fiction. Thy are epic in scale, rivaling  George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series for sheer page-count.

Ron Moore, creator of ‘Battlestar Galactica’, is on board to helm the new “Outlander” series for the Starz cable network. Set to unfold over 16 episodes, Outlander tells the story of married World War II combat nurse Claire, who accidentally steps back in time to the year 1743 where she is “immediately thrown into an unknown world of adventure that sends her on the run and threatens her life.” The ‘Outlander’ series of books have sold over 20 million copies.

As a huge fan of these books, I was both thrilled and wary when Ms. Gabaldon announced at BEA 2013 that Outlander would finally  be adapted for the screen. So often, books we love don’t measure up when made into movies or television series. Still, I’ll be watching!