"When Madeline Was Young" by Jane Hamilton, author of previous good reads - "Disobedience", "The Book of Ruth". Of course, if this book had been set below the Mason/Dixon line, it would have been labeled Southern Gothic!

"Special Topics in Calamity Physics", also a good read. Judging from the slams some people have taken I think Ms. Pessl gets the Donna Tartt award this year.

Last Tuesday went to meet Mark Childress at the MPL Readers & Writers event. Well worth the time investment, he told us more about his bio and writing and some interesting questions even got asked. He read a chapter from One Mississippi and ( I think ) sold some books.

Carl Hiassen's book Nature Girl just came out - a one day read if it's a weekend.

Just finished reading Lilith by Salamanca. Read it! They made a movie out of it with Warren Beatty that tried to rip off Splendor in the Grass, but its really better than that. The first part the book, about small towns, reminded me of the Hired Girls section of My Antonia.

Also; I just reread The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson, amazingly contemporary. If you leave out the parts about WWII it could have come out last Sept.

Embarrassment of riches -- six holds came in today. Soul Kitchen by Poppy Z Brite, Mission Song by John le Carre', Paint It Black by Janet Fitch (author of White Oleander), and Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood (author of much excellent fiction including Lady Oracle, one of the first books to make me laugh out loud while reading). Also Party of the Century by Deborah Davis, about Truman Capote's famous Black and White ball, and Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni autobiography of young American/Iranian/American woman.

Another first-person booklover book: Literacy and Longing in L.A., by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. This narrator and the one in the Jincy Willet book (Dorcas Mather), both mirror exactly my relationship with reading.

Daniel Woodrell's new book Winter's Bone is out -- Ozark Gothic. His previous book, Tomato Red, would be a good recommend for a high school reader (junior or senior), along with Mercury by Cary Holladay.

Also - Jincy Willet's Winner of the National Book Award - tongue in cheek title, well worth reading and rereading. (First person narrator is a librarian). Skewers many aspects of modern American culture, and FUNNY.

More noir: Scott Wolven's short story collection "Controlled Burn."

Also: Ronald Everett Capp's "Off Magazine Street" for an extremely unusual Pygmalion story.

Mark Childress, the author of Crazy in Alabama, has a new book out now, called "One Mississippi", even better than the first. There are places online where you can read the first chapter, for a little taste.

Adam Johnson has written a novel called "Parasites Like Us" which is very good. His previous book was a collection of short stories called "Emporium", which included one killer good one (no pun intended) called "Teen Sniper", sort of Richie Cunningham meets Day of the Jackal.

For true noir fiction, Andrew Vachss has the next in the Burke series coming out, "Mask Market". These books should be required reading for EVERYONE. Ever wonder where those people you see on the news come from?

Another book of short stories from the South; Brad Vice's "The Bear Bryant Funeral Train". The best one, Tuscaloosa Knights, appeared in AThicket, the online journal.

A writer named Jack Pendarvis, who spent his childhood and much of his adult life in Bayou La Batre, has written a very funny book of short stories called "The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure". Read it when you get a chance.

For Elmore Leonard fans;
"Escape Clause" by James Born
"Citizen Vince" by Jess Walter
"Ethical Assassin" by David Liss
"Suicide Squeeze" by Victor Gischler (this is set in the Mobile/Pensacola area).

Two books everyone should read that didn't get as much publicity as they should have; About the Author by John Colapinto and The Rich Part of Life by Josephine Humphries.

Another good, light novel; Hot Plastic by Peter Craig, who also wrote The Martini Shot. (His mother is the actress Sally Fields).

Also: anything by Haven Kimmel. She wrote two autobiographical (non-fiction) stories, A Girl Named Zippy, and She Got Up Off the Couch, and two novels, The Solace of Leaving Early and Something Rising Light and Swift.

Funniest book I ever read in my life: Transatlantic Blues by Wilfrid Sheed.

Second funniest: Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell

Third funniest: Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

First runner up: After Claude by Iris Owens

Honorable mention: anything else by Wilfrid Sheed, The Belles Lettres Papers by Charles Simpson

Another new title in historical fiction; Sex Wars by Marge Piercy, who also wrote Gone To Soldiers and several seminal titles in the early 60s/70s and women's movement (Woman at the Edge of Time, Vida, Dance the Eagle To Sleep).

If you like between-war (20s and 30s)
novels with a British wit, the prototype for these is Nancy Mitford, especially The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, and The Blessing. Also The Water-Beetle, Highland Fling, and Don't Tell Alfred. She also wrote two regular history books, The Sun King and Frederick The Great. This author's sister is Jessica Mitford who wrote The American Way of Death, among other things. Don't miss any of them!

Poppy Z Brite wrote a book about the restaurant business in NO called Liquor (nothing supernatural in it, no vampires, etc.) She's married to a chef - there was supposed to be another one coming.

Going on a field trip to New Orleans in a couple of weeks, so here are a couple of writers who set stories there (there are a lot, but here are two). Ellen Gilchrist, almost an American Colette, and Patty Friedmann - her latest is Side Effects, but I liked the next-to-last one, Secondhand Smoke, better (I think that neighborhood is flooded out now). The first one is "The Exact Image of Mother"(title alone gets two snaps up). V, v. good.

More thrillers: Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series, obviously; also "A Maiden's Grave", a Deaver that doesn't have LR in it but is still excellent.
Also, for something different; Jeff Lindsay "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" and "Dearly Devoted Dexter", for thrillers with a surprise point of view.

Finally, John Burdett's "Bangkok 8" and "Bangkok Tattoo", both very very good.

If you're not really, really into historical fiction but still consider it an option; Yxta Maya Murray's The Conquest and Margaret Drabble's The Red Queen are both excellent.

Re: Margaret Drabble - If anyone remembers Swinging London, London in the early 60's, her first few books are set in that era: The Garrick Year, A Summer Bird-Cage, Jerusalem the Golden, The Millstone.

If you haven't already read Michael Gruber's Tropic of Night, do so now. Best thriller I've read since Silence of the Lambs. The sequel is Valley of Bones, and the next one is due out this spring, Night of the Jaguar.