BOOKFINDS

Jerry O’Connell is Writing His Memoir

According to MediaBistro’s Galleycat, actor and husband of actress Rebecca Romijn will write a memoir about raising twins with one of Hollywood’s most famous moms.

Jerry O’Connell has sold his memoir, “Cry, Feed, (Make Love to Wife), Burp” to Ballantine editorial director of non-fiction Luke Dempsey. The deal was negotiated by Richard Abate at 3Arts. While the memoir pegs O’Connell as a stay-at-home dad, O’Connell has starred in Stand By Me and Crossing Jordan.

Here’s more about the book: “O’Connell will describe life as a very 21st century father in a land of celebrity, the sterile California suburbs, and two-for-one diaper changing — everything from the moment he was told it was time for him to be a father, through the trials and tribulations of conception and childbirth, to the joys and disasters and joys again of staying home to raise two new babies.”

Wolf Hall Takes Home Booker Prize

Hillary Mantel won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall. Mantel was the favorite but she beat out J.M. Coetzee and A.S. Byatt. Wolf Hall is an historical novel about Henry VIII’s court from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell, who was Henry VIII’s executor. This is the first time since 2002, when a favorite won the Booker Prize when it went to Yan Martel for The Life of Pi.

Accepting the award, Ms. Mantel said, “I had to interest the historians, I had to amuse the jaded palate of the critical establishment and most of all I had to capture the imagination of the general reader.”

This was the first time Mantel was nominated for the Booker Prize and she is already working on a sequel to the award winning novel.

2009 National Book Award Finalists

The National Book Award Finalists were announced and there are some surprises in the fiction category. Lydia Millet and Junot Diaz were a part of the judges panel and some big names were absent from the nominations. Richard Russo, Lorrie Moore, Thomas Pynchon, Richard Powers and Jonathan Lethem were absent from the list. Paul Theroux’s son Marcel was nominated as well as Colum McCann. They even nominated a book from a college press: American Salvage  by Bonnie Jo Cambell.

Fiction:

American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

In Other Rooms, Other Wonder by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips

Far North by Marcel Theroux

Let the Great World Spin and Lark and Termite got the best reviews this year, but it will probably be McCann’s year. Far North is an apocalyptic story in a which a woman sheriff patrols a desolate hardened landscape. American Salvage are short stories about tough working class people and Daniyal Mueenuddin’s stories are about modern day Pakistan.

Nonfiction:

Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook by David M. Carroll

Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species by Sean B. Carroll

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin

The Poison King: The Life and legend of Mithridates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy by Adrienne Mayor

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles

Poetry:

Versed by Rae Armantrout

Or to Begin Again by Ann Lauterbach

Speak Low by Carl Phillips

Open Interval by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop

Young People’s Literature:

Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

Snitches by David Small

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia

The Cutting by James Hayman

The Cutting is a dark, gripping debut thriller that is in the vein of Tess Gerritsen’s The Surgeon.

Detective Sargent Michael McCabe is a tough former NYPD cop who moves to Portland, Maine to forget his past and to provide a safe environment for his daughter, Casey. But he never dreamed that he would have to track down a serial killer who cuts the hearts out of young women who are still alive.

Phillip Spencer, a cardiac surgeon, tries to help with the investigation only to become a suspect himself. Michael teams up with detective Maggie Savage, a French medical student and a former Miami reporter to track down the psychopathic killer whose identity might be a friend of Spencer’s from medical school.

Hayman has succeeded  in writing a thriller that rivals the best thriller writers today and one hopes to hear from him for years to come.

Keeper and Kid by Edward Hardy

A funny and charming novel in the vein of Nick Hornby, about an antiques dealer who is forced to grow up when he learns he has a son.

James Keeper fell in love with a pastry chef who was his upstairs neighbor. They got married, got a dog and were living the good life. But then reality set in: they had different schedules, never saw each other and then there was a real estate deal that went sour. Soon they are getting divorced and deciding who gets the potatato masher.

James leaves Boston and heads to Providence to work in an antique shop called Love and Death. He also finds love with a woman named Leah. But then, out of the blue, his ex-mother-in-law calls and informs him that he has a son. Now he has to raise a precocious three year old named Leo (side note: Leo only eats round foods).

James is suddenly forced into being an adult and must take care of a stranger, who just happens to be his son.

This is a great book that is filled with eccentric characters who you will be sad to leave when the book ends.

New Releases

New releases for the Week of October 5th

The Case of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd (Historical Fiction)

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt (Historical Fiction)

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon (Memoir/Essays)

Dearest Creatures by Ann Gerstler (Poems)

Thelonious Monk by Robin D.G. Kelley (Biography)

Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls (Novel/Biography)

National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

The New Valley by Joshua Weil

Blood Kin by Ceridwen Dovey

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing by Lydia Peelle

All the Living by C.E. Morgan

I haven’t read most of these books, but I loved Karen Russell’s book. I think she’s the most inventive writer to come around since George Saunders. I read” Haunting Olivia” in a debut fiction issue of The New Yorker and I was hooked. The story is imaginative, has elements of the fantastic and is a moving story of loss and adolescence. This is an amazing debut collection of stories and I’ve heard she’s working on a novel based on the story “Ava Wrestles the Alligator.”