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Weekly Words about BooksJUNE 30, 2013
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Celebrate the 4th with a Good Read, Thanks to New Paperbacks
| Just in time for the upcoming long weekend, several bestselling books are arriving in paperback on bookstore shelves. Among those to choose from:
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan. The author of the award-winning Atonement and Amsterdam, among others, here offers up a novel that is more plot  driven and cheerful than is usual for him. It's 1972, and Cambridge student Serena Frome's beauty and intelligence make her the ideal recruit for M15. England's legendary intelligence agency is determined to manipulate the cultural conversation by funding writers whose politics align with those of the government. Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is the perfect candidate to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer named Tom Haley. From there, though, things gets complicated, and McEwan provides a twist at book's end that befits the genre.
The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds by Alexander McCall Smith. Best  known for his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the former English professor (who still favors bow ties) has also had great success with a series of detective stories featuring Isabel Dalhousie, an Edinburgh philosopher and quick-witted amateur sleuth. His latest, the ninth Dalhousie installment, finds her helping an art collector retrieve a stolen painting while dealing with her three-year-old son's budding mathematical abilities. McCall is a master of the contemporary cozy, and he infuses them with gentility and good will.
Back T o Blood by Tom Wolfe. He's not quite the writer who dazzled over 40 years ago with the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or who skewered Wall Street excesses in 1987's Bonfire of the Vanities, but Wolfe can still tell a story and his reporter's eye remains intact. This time, he tackles the melting pot that is modern-day Miami with a plot as fast-paced and messy as the lifestyles of his many characters. It's a story of the new America told by one of our master chroniclers.
Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks. Dr. Sacks has made a career of writing intelligently and engagingly about the human brain and human mind in b ooks like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings, and his latest is more of the same. To many people, hallucinations imply madness, but in fact these sensory distortions are a common part of the human experience. Sacks draws on his own experiences, a wealth of clinical cases, and famous historical examples, ranging from Dostoevsky to Lewis Carroll, to investigate the mystery of hallucinations - what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.
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Summertime, and the Reading is Breezy
| | Janet Evanovich will never win the Pulitzer Prize, but she is one of the most popular and successful writers in America. Her series of mysteries featuring mostly hapless but always endearing Stephanie Plum have sold millions and made Evanovich rich and famous. Her husband and two grown children all work for the family business, which could easily be called Evanovich Inc.
One reason for Evanovich's popularity is her sense of humor, which ranges from silly to sexy. In her online bio, she describes her writing career and how she found early success in the romance genre field. In her words, "I wrote series romance for five years, mostly for Bantam Loveswept. It was a rewarding experience, but after twelve romance novels I ran out of sexual positions and decided to move into the mystery genre."
Now, Evanovich has taken a break from Stephanie Plum and teamed with Lee Goldberg (best known for his writing on the Monk TV series) to create a new series featuring an FBI  agent known for always getting her man and a suave con artist who is her nemesis. The first book is called The Heist, and you'll not be stunned to learn that the two become reluctant partners, teaming up catch a corrupt investment banker, or that sexual chemistry soon intrudes as well. This isn't meant to be anything more than it is - a light, fun summer beach read - but it delivers on that promise, and Evanovich proves she can share the spotlight and still do what she does best.
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WHERE TO FIND A BOOKSTORE
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Many of you already have a favorite local bookstore, but for those of you without such a relationship, this link will take you to a list of Northern California indie bookstores by region.
If you live or work elsewhere, you can click here to find the nearest indie bookstore by simply entering your postal code.
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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
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My name is Hut Landon. I'm a former bookstore owner who now runs the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) in San Francisco.
My goal with this newsletter is to keep readers up to date about new books hitting the shelves, share what booksellers are recommending in their stores, and pass on occasional news about the book world.
I'm not into long, wordy reviews or literary criticism; I'd like HUT'S PLACE to be a quick, fun read for book buyers.If you have any friends who you think might like receiving this column each week, simply click on "Forward this email" below and enter their email address. There is also a box in which to add a short message.
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