Between the Covers

What are you reading now?

"Cotton by Christopher Wilson. In his book he covers nearly three decades of race and gender discord as pertains to the American South. I was first attracted by the beautiful cover and was instantly drawn in by
Wilson's writing. He has a very big imagination, which is complemented by his humor and wit. What impressed me most about Wilson was that he is British born and bred, yet his expert rendition of the southern people, the dialect, sights, sounds and scents were flawless.  . . .  Being able to absorb something in a limited amount of time and then almost perfectly regurgitate it is not a talent … it's a gift.''

BERNICE L. McFADDEN, author of Sugar and the upcoming Glorious

Worst books of 2009?

I haven't compiled a list myself; if something looks dull to me I try to sneakily pass it along to some other hapless reviewer. I can tell you that the worst book I read in 2009 was (no surprise here) Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol.

The Book Maven over at the WETA Book Studio agrees that The Lost Symbol is one of the worst of 2009: "Perhaps it's due to the self-referential nature of Washington, DC as main locale, but Brown's long-awaited book felt downright claustrophobic to me, as if Robert Langdon were shutting me inside of a Masonic tomb." Exactly!

But it's too easy to unleash rage on Brown (or, say, Mitch Albom, another favorite punching bag of literary critics). The Maven gets down and dirty and is brave enough to trash books other critics (including this one) have loved. But while I take issue with her including Lorrie Moore and Stieg Larsson on this list, I cannot help but confess a deep and profound disappointment in Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna. There. I said it.

Her picks (and read the full story here):

The Angel's Game, Carlos Ruis Zafon

Geoff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Geoff Dyer

Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem

The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver

Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger

Twenties Girl, Sophie Kinsella

A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore

Cleaving, Julie Powell

The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson

Amazon: Kindle sales hit a new high

Amazon is apparently already having a merry Christmas of sorts: The Money Times reports that the company's Kindle sales have hit a monthly high - even though the month isn't over.

Apparently cashing in on the deliver problems that have hurt Barnes & Noble and Sony, Amazon has been offering free two-day shipping if you order before Dec. 22

From the story: "Although the official statement from the company did not disclose the actual sale figures, the retailer claims that Kindle was the most gifted item of Amazon customers, breaking sales records for the holiday shopping season."

Read the whole story here.

Miami Herald's best books of 2009

We ask the question annually: What were the best books we read this year? We are, as usual, daunted by the task of deciding, because one person can only read so much and still eat, sleep and keep up with the latest developments on Mad Men.

We read a lot, though. Laughed (at Nick Hornby's delightful Juliet, Naked, deceptively breezy and funny but as sharply observant about gender differences and squabbles as any novel out there). Cried (like babies, at the hard-won wisdom in the final lines of Lorrie Moore's wrenching A Gate at the Stairs). Groaned (at the increasingly ridiculous characters, plot devices and not-so-intriguing secrets of Dan Brown's tiresome The Lost Symbol). And then cried again because so many people bought it anyway.

In lieu of a definitive list -- because even a small group of reviewers can't get to every single book - here are the books Miami Herald reviewers found most intriguing in 2009.

Cheever: A Life, Blake Bailey: This exhaustive biography of the great but flawed American short story writer relies on John Cheever's painstaking journal (more than 4,000 pages) and Bailey's superb balance of sympathy and judgement to flesh out the life of a difficult man.

The Children's Book, A.S. Byatt: This fat novel of family dysfunction stretches from the latter days of Britain's Victorian era to the killing fields of Europe in World War I and explores … deep breath here … secrets, love, innocence, corruption, art, the desire for knowledge, nature, politics, war, sex and power. And puppetry.

Columbine, Dave Cullen: Meticulously researched and deeply compassionate, journalist Cullen's in-depth and sensitive account of the most deadly U.S. high school shooting lays out a timeline, debunks falsehoods, answers questions and even offers plausible explanations for the question that still resounds: How could it happen?

Do Not Deny Me, Jean Thompson: Author of the brilliant collection Throw Like a Girl, the astute Thompson resumes her skillful examination of the pitfalls of contemporary life and love in 11 memorable stories.

A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore: In the aftermath of 9/11, a Midwestern college girl becomes a nanny to a biracial child, falls in love and otherwise comes of age in this comic but ultimately harrowing novel. Moore touches on themes of racism, war and family turbulence, and her final lines will pierce you to the bone.

The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson: The second installment of the late Swedish writer's dark and addictive thrillers delves into the ugly past of computer hacker and anti-heroine Lisbeth Salander - and sets U.S. fans clamoring for the third and final book in the series (due out in the spring of 2010).

How to Leave Hialeah, Jennine Capo Crucet: In her debut collection of short stories, South Floridian Crucet - a "fresh voice in American fiction,'' according to reviewer Ariel Gonzalez - displays the ability to tackle a wide range of themes, moods and subjects. And she understands that wherever you go, you never really leave home.

Love and Summer, William Trevor: The story opens with a funeral. But love and its consequences touch the residents of a small Irish town in the 1950s, in particular a young farmer's wife who has an affair with a traveling photographer.

Without Fidel, Ann Bardach: Reporter and Cuba expert examines the fallout of Fidel Castro's semi-retirement in Havana, Washington, D.C. and Miami, which she calls "the Cuban triangle of capitals.''

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel: This meaty Man Booker Prize-winner chronicles the life of Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith who rose to become Henry VIII's right-hand man (and was especially helpful when Henry decided he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn). In the capable hands of author Mantel, such ancient history is anything but musty.

The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood: In this dystopian nightmare, a biological plague wipes out most of humankind. Two women (that we know of) have survived, both formerly members of the environmental cult God's Gardeners. Atwood's compelling, often ironic narrative jumps back and forth in time and revisits some characters from 2003's Oryx and Crake.

Zeitoun, Dave Eggers: A Syrian immigrant living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hits faces a horrific fate at the hands of authorities, who mistakenly arrest him for looting his own property. In his best book yet, Eggers paints a troubling, unforgettable picture of injustice.

How to turn your blog into a book deal

Great story by Brenna Ehrlich at Mashable about bloggers who managed to make the big leap from blogging to book deal and how they did it. 

My personal gross-out fave is Jessica Amason's Hey America, You're Eating That blog, which has made the leap into the book world as This is Why You're Fat. Just looking at photos of deep fried donut burgers with bacon is enough to make me queasy - and yet I can't look away.

Top book stories of 2009 (from a Miami perspective)

After this busy year, the jury remains out as to whether the publishing industry is still flailing or rebounding with baby steps. Electronic readers haven't saved the literary world just yet, though several companies have released a device, the latest being Barnes & Noble's Nook, with Apple's version looming on the horizon. Who's next, Starbucks?

Still, even as prognosticators wonder what's ahead for an industry still trying not to trip over its sales - do we release the e-book at the same time as the hardback or after? - there are signs that book lovers and sellers aren't quite ready to abandon reading and devote their lives to TiVoing reruns of Scrubs.

TOP FIVE BOOK EVENTS of 2009

1. Dan Brown: The bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code finally published a sequel. The Lost Symbol sold more than a million copies on its first day, 2 million in its first week, and Random House later reported it had boosted the house's e-book sales by 400 percent.

2. Book price wars: Wal-Mart, Amazon and Target drastically dropped prices on bestselling hardcover books to $8.98 in an effort to lure customers. Instead, they drew the ire of the American Booksellers Association, which asked the Department of Justice to investigate what the ABA calls îîillegal predatory pricing.''

3. Sarah Palin: The former Alaska governor and veep hopeful publishes her memoir, faces off with Oprah and Barbara Walters but eschews the usual book-tour cities (New York, Chicago, L.A.) for middle America and keeps Associated Press fact checkers working overtime.

4. Edwidge Danticat: The Haitian-born Miami writer wins a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant.'' That's $500,000 with no strings attached for the author of the award-winning memoir Brother, I'm Dying.

5. Miami Book Fair International: The fair charges admission for its nightly "Evening with .‚.‚.'' events for the first time in 26 years. Crowds still swarm, especially to see Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, who remains significantly less well known at Barnes & Noble than Dan Brown.

NPR chooses best bets for a book club

Lynn Neary of NPR has named her favorite 2009 books to recommend to book clubs. I should take notes here; people are always asking me what their book groups should read next, and I never know what to say. I'm good at picking out books for people I know but less adept at choosing something at random for a group.

In any case, here's what Lynn likes:

Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese

The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? Padgett Powell

Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro

A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Daniel Mueenuddin

Click here to read Lynn's explanations of why she liked these books. I have not read any of them yet, but Herald reviewer Amy Canfield really liked A Reliable Wife. She wrote that the novel was "jam-packed with delicious twists, turns and surprises."

Also worth checking out at the NPR website: Super librarian Nancy Pearl picks her favorite"below the radar" books of 2009 (which include Pete Dexter's Spooner) and Maureen Corrigan's favorite mysteries of the year.

Writes Herald reviewer Fred Grimm about Dexter: "Page after page, like a boxer pummeling an overmatched opponent, Dexter hammers out writing just this side of sanity, revealing the sort of thoughts and inner narrative and bizarre insights other authors might occasionally entertain but wouldn't dare commit to the printed page."

Click here to see all of NPR's top book lists.

Are ads coming to an ebook near you?

Panelists at the MediaBistro eBook Summit agree: the standard price for an ebook title ($9.99) isn't enough to "support content creation and distribution," according to paidContent.org. What does that mean? Panelists say to expect ebooks to eventually start selling ads.

Ads are one thing in magazines and newspapers, but who wants to read a novel with ads in it? One more reason to wait and see what happens in the industry before buying that Nook...

Click here to read the whole story.

Stephen King's favorite books of 2009

He plays a little fast and loose with the unofficial rules of top 10 lists by including books not published in 2009, but Stephen King always provides an intriguing list of favorite reads of the year. As usual, the choices are heavy on suspense, but I have no problem with that.

His top 10, he writes in Entertainment Weekly, are:

1. The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters

2. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates

3. Hollywood Moon, Joseph Wambaugh

4. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie (well, at least one of us read it this year...)

5. 2666, Roberto Bolano

6. Shatter, Michael Robotham

7. Drood, Dan Simmons

8. Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child

9. Ravens, George Dawes Green

10. Rough Country, John Sandford

Nice to see Waters get a bit of hype. I truly enjoyed The Little Stranger and all its creepy, old-fashioned scares. Here's what I said in May, when I reviewed the book: "The drafty corridors and ruined rooms of Hundreds Hall in dreary Warwickshire, England, are the perfect breeding ground for a good-old-fashioned haunting, and that's precisely what Sarah Waters provides in her atmospheric fifth novel. The Little Stranger is a satisfyingly retro ghost story with an extraordinarily sharp dose of psychological terror."

What are you reading now?

"I greatly enjoyed The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of their Greatest Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler. Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, Laura Lippman, Ridley Pearson and 18 others reveal the origins of their series characters plus some inside baseball tidbits about their creative process.''

PAUL LEVINE, author of Illegal and the upcoming Lassiter