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The golden age of murder: the mystery of the writers who invented the modern detective story
By Martin Edwards. 2015
Study of an elite, mysterious social network of crime writers called the Detection Club, which began in 1930, and the…
group's continuing influence on print and film storytelling. Founding members Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Julian Symons presided over the club for nearly forty years. 2015Talking about detective fiction
By P. D. James. 2009
British author of The Private Patient (DB 67910) and other mysteries examines the genre of detective fiction. Discusses the style,…
plotting techniques, protagonists, and talent of past and current authors, including Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Dashiell Hammett, and Josephine Tey. Also describes her own methods. 2009Twenty-three authors, including Alexander McCall Smith and Robert B. Parker, use various methods to describe the creation of their crime…
series protagonists. Jeffery Deaver provides a lengthy obituary for quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, while Lee Child explains the marketable Jack Reacher. Strong language. 2009City of glass (New York Ser.)
By Paul Auster. 1985
Volume I of the New York trilogy. A wrong number in the middle of the night ensnares Daniel Quinn (once…
a serious poet and essayist, now author of pulps), in a case far more bizarre than any he has invented in his fiction. The caller seeks the Paul Auster Agency, even though Paul Auster is not a detective but a young writer who strongly resembles the Paul Auster who wrote this book. Ultimately, the obsessed Quinn, impersonating Auster, descends into madness. A fast-paced thrillerThe best American essays 2020 (Best American)
By Robert Atwan. 2020
Twenty-four previously published essays spanning a variety of life experiences. Rabih Alameddine discusses living in San Francisco during the height…
of the AIDS crisis, his love of soccer, and working in an English pub-themed diner in "How to Bartend."Strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex. 2020The best American essays 2018 (The best American series)
By Hilton Als, Robert Atwan. 2018
Collection of twenty-four previously published essays exploring different areas of life. Includes authors such as Noam Chomsky, author of Who…
Rules the World? (DB 86717), and Edwidge Danticat, author of The Art of Death (DB 91841). Strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex. 2018The best American essays 2021 (The best American series)
By Kathryn Schulz, Robert Atwan. 2021
Collection of twenty previously published essays covering topics many experienced in some form during 2020. Authors include Gabrielle Hamilton, author…
of Blood, Bones, & Butter (DB 73318); Patricia Lockwood, author of Priestdaddy (DB 88242); and Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones (DB 74033). Violence and strong language. 2021The best American essays 2019 (Best American series)
By Robert Atwan. 2019
Collection of twenty previously published essays featuring works by Rabih Alameddine, Alexander Chee, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Jia Tolentino. In "Obituary…
for Dead Languages," Heather Altfeld reflects on the deaths of languages when the last speaker dies and the impact of their loss. Violence and strong language. 2019The figure of the detective: a literary history and analysis
By Charles Brownson. 2014
"This book begins with a history of the detective genre, coextensive with the novel itself, identifying the attitudes and institutions…
needed for the genre to emerge in its mature form around 1880. The theory of the genre is laid out along with its central theme of the getting and deployment of knowledge. Sherlock Holmes, the English Classic stories and their inheritors are examined in light of this theme and the balance of two forms of knowledge used in fictional detection--cool or rational, and warm or emotional. The evolution of the genre formula is driven by changes in the social climate in which it is embedded. These changes explain the decay of the English Classic and its replacement by noir, hardboiled and spy stories, to end in the cul-de-sac of the thriller and the nostalgic Neo-Classic. Possible new forms of the detective story are suggested." -- Provided by publisherIn Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero
By Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Ed Gorman, Jeremiah Healy, S. J. Rozan, Otto Penzler, Dennis Lehane, Brendan Dubois, Ace Atkins, Parnell Hall, Lyndsay Faye, Reed Farrel Coleman, Gary Phillips, Matthew Clemens, Loren D Estleman. 2012
When Robert B. Parker passed in early 2010, the world lost two great men: Parker himself, iconic American crime writer…
whose books have sold more than 6 million copies worldwide, and his best-known creation, Spenser. Parker's Spenser series not only influenced the work of countless of today's writers, but is also credited with reviving and forever changing the genre.In Pursuit of Spenser offers a look at Parker and to Spenser through the eyes of the writers he influenced. Editor Otto Penzler-- proprietor of one of the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstores in the country, New York's The Mysterious Bookshop, and renowned mystery fiction editor whose credits include series editor for the Best American Crime Writing and Best American Mystery Stories, among many others (and about whom Parker himself once wrote, "Otto Penzler knows more about crime fiction than most people know about anything")-- collects some of today's bestselling mystery authors to discuss Parker, his characters, the series, and their impact on the world.From Hawk to Susan Silverman to Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall, from the series' Boston milieu to Parker's own take on his character, In Pursuit of Spenser pays tribute to Spenser, and Parker, with affection, humor, and a deep appreciation for what both have left behind.The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
By Peter Haining, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 1981
An absolute must-have for Sherlock Holmes fans, this collection is a treasure trove of little-known pieces and rarities featuring the…
world's most famous detective, gathered by expert Peter Haining.Collated with extensive notes and background material, the collection includes twelve unmissable works by Arthur Conan Doyle, ranging from short stories and plays to parodies, poems and commentaries.Haining's appendices add some very rare material, including a revealing interview with Conan Doyle about his inspiration for Holmes - and his reasons for killing him off. This is an outstanding compilation.The Best American Essays 2018 (The Best American Series)
By Hilton Als. 2018
The Pulitzer–Prize winning and Guggenheim-honored Hilton Als curates the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, bringing &“the…
fierce style of street reading and the formal tradition of critical inquiry, reads culture, race, and gender&” (New York Times) to the task. &“The essay, like love, like life, is indefinable, but you know an essay when you see it, and you know a great one when you feel it, because it is concentrated life,&” writes Hilton Als in his introduction. Expertly guided by Als&’s instinct and intellect, The Best American Essays 2018 showcases great essays as well as irresistibly eclectic ones. Go undercover in North Korea, delve into the question of race in the novels of William Faulkner, hang out in the 1970s New York music scene, and take a family road trip cum art pilgrimage. These experiences and more immersive slices of concentrated life await.The Best American Short Stories 2016 (The Best American Series)
By Junot Díaz. 2016
&“The literary &‘Oscars&’ features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories.&” —Shelf Awareness for Readers…
The Best American Short Stories 2016 will be selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz. He brings "one of the most distinctive and magnetic voices in contemporary fiction: limber, streetwise, caffeinated and wonderfully eclectic" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) to the collection.The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 (The Best American Series)
By Sheila Heti. 2018
Sheila Heti, author of the acclaimed How a Person Should Be? and coeditor of the best-selling anthology Women in Clothes,…
along with the students of 826 Valencia writing lab will edit this year&’s anthology. Their compilation includes new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and the category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection.The Best American Series® First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s…
finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 includes Lawrence Block, Brendan DuBois, Loren D. Estleman, Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin, Ed Gorman, Richard Lange, S. J. Rozan, Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, and othersThe Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015 (Best American Ser.)
By Adam Johnson. 2015
For the past year, a group of high school students met at a publishing house in San Francisco every Monday…
night to read literary magazines, chapbooks, graphic novels, and countless articles. This committee was assisted by a group of students that met in the basement of a robot shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Together, and under the guidance of guest editor Adam Johnson, these high schoolers selected the contents of The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015. The writing in this book is very essential, if not required, like visiting the Louvre if you&’re in Paris. In any case, nothing in this book takes place in Paris, as far as we can recall, but it does feature an elephant hunt, the fall of a reality-TV star, a walk through Ethiopia, and much more of what Johnson calls &“the most important examinations in life.&” The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015 includes LESLEY NNEKA ARIMAH, DANIEL ALARCÓN, BOX BROWN, REBECCA CURTIS, VICTOR LODATO, CLAUDIA RANKINE, PAUL SALOPEK, PAUL TOUGH, WELLS TOWER and others Adam Johnson, guest editor, teaches creative writing at Stanford University. He is the author of Fortune Smiles, Emporium, Parasites Likes Us, and The Orphan Master&’s Son, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. He has received a Whiting Writers&’ Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His work has appeared in Esquire, Harper&’s Magazine, Playboy, GQ, the Paris Review, Granta, Tin House, the New York Times, and The Best American Short Stories.The Weeping Buddha
By Heather Dune Macadam. 2002
National Book Award nominee Heather Dune Macadam presents her first mystery--as alluring as a Buddhist Koan. New Year’s Eve: Long…
Island detectives Devon Halsey and Lochwood Brennen, secret lovers, are thrust into mayhem by the grisly murder of Devon’s best friend. What has haunted Devon for years begins to take shape, and as she dissects the file, she learns that the carvings in the victims’ bodies are actually Koans—unanswerable questions that must be meditated upon in order to reach enlightenment. Heather Dune Macadam is a professor at Suffolk County Community College and a former dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. She is the author of Rena’s Promise, a nonfiction memoir about Auschwitz, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 (The Best American Series)
By Otto Penzler, Louise Penny. 2018
#1 New York Times best-selling author of the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels, Louise Penny brings her &“nerve and skill—as…
well as heart&” (Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post) to selecting the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year. Writing short stories takes &“Skill. Discipline. Knowledge of the form while not being formulaic,&” contends Louise Penny in her introduction. &“In a short story there is nowhere to hide. Each must be original, fresh, inspired.&” Originality is just what&’s in store for readers of the twenty clever, creative selections in The Best American Mystery Stories 2018. There&’s no hiding from a Nigerian confidence game, a drug made of dinosaur bones, a bombing at an oil company, a reluctant gunfighter in the Old West, and the many other scams, dangers, and thrills lurking in its suspenseful pages. The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 includes T. C. Boyle, James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Charlaine Harris, Andrew Klavan, Martin Limón, Joyce Carol Oates, and others.The Best American Short Stories 2013 (The Best American Series)
By Elizabeth Strout. 2013
&“As our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch…
location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,&” writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. &“It&’s the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are.&” The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world. In &“Miss Lora,&” Junot Díaz masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles innocence and abuse as a child wanders away from her mother, in thrall to a stranger she believes is the &“Magic Man.&” Kirstin Valdez Quade&’s &“Nemecia&” depicts the after-effects of a secret, violent family trauma. Joan Wickersham&’s &“The Tunnel&” is a tragic love story about a mother&’s declining health and her daughter&’s helplessness as she struggles to balance her responsibility to her mother and her own desires. New author Callan Wink&’s &“Breatharians&” unsettles the reader as a farm boy shoulders a grim chore in the wake of his parents&’ estrangement.&“Elizabeth Strout was a wonderful reader, an author who knows well that the sound of one&’s writing is just as important as and indivisible from the content,&” writes series editor Heidi Pitlor. &“Here are twenty compellingly told, powerfully felt stories about urgent matters with profound consequences.&”The Best American Short Stories 2014 (The Best American Series)
By Heidi Pitlor. 2014
“The literary ‘Oscars’ features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories.” — Shelf Awareness…
for ReadersThe Best American Short Stories 2014 will be selected by national best-selling author Jennifer Egan, who won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for A Visit from the Goon Squad, heralded by Time magazine as “a new classic of American fiction.” Egan “possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart” (New York Times Book Review).