January 19
...serving up your daily dish.
In its latest newsletter, Watchung Booksellers reports its top sellers for last year. All books are required reading and will be on the final exam discussed at book clubs and dinner parties.
Local authors are noted with asterisks. (Let us know if we've left any out.)
Fiction, Hardcover
The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
Shem Creek, Dorothea Benton Frank*
The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
Dying in the Dark, Valerie Wilson Wesley*
The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler
The Rule of Four, Ian Caldwell
Nonfiction, Hardcover
Billion Dollar BET: Robert Johnson and the Inside Story of Black Entertainment Television, Brett Pulley
The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Fool-Proof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss, Arthur Agatston
America (The Book), Jon Stewart and the Daily Show Staff
The Dogs of Bedlam Farm: An Adventure with Sixteen Sheep, Three Dogs, Two Donkeys and Me, Jon Katz*
Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss
Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove, Laura Schenone*
Fiction, Paperback
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
Middlesex, Jeffrey Euginides
The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night, Mark Haddon
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenerger
Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Known World, Edward P. Jones
What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
Babes in Captivity, Pam Satran*
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Nonfiction, Paperback
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
The Devil in White City, Erik Larson
The 9/ 11 Commission Report
Yes, Your Teen is Crazy, Loving Your Kid without Losing Your Mind, Michael J. Bradley
Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer
January 19, 2005 in Our Favorite Diversions | Permalink
Jon Katz... never read one of his non-fiction books, but I love "the suburban detective" series! Favorite of the series? Why, "The Last Housewife," of course!
Posted by: gc | Jan 19, 2005 10:53:32 AM
Jon Katz comes off as kind of a wimp in anything he writes. Well-meaning, okay, but not someone I could ever see hanging out with either Philip Marlowe or Lew Archer, or even with Miss Marple. There are "sensitive" detectives and then there are just plain dips, you know? Best book I ever read by a Baristaville author, in case anybody wants to dig it up, was "Wanderer," by the actor Sterling Hayden, who grew up in Montclair and sets a lot of the early pages there.
Posted by: cathar | Jan 19, 2005 11:40:12 AM
So that's what happened to Dot Frank. (I went to high school with her, and we won't discuss the graduation year out of deference to her.)
Well, actually, I should have known some of this, since I've been known to buy her books.
Posted by: CGHill | Jan 19, 2005 4:59:55 PM
So does Dotty actually have more than one book now, or still one? Maybe I should actually read it/them.
Posted by: Marshall | Jan 19, 2005 5:43:53 PM
