BookPage Magazine locates great books

Thanks to a very generous patron in the Columbus Public Library Discussion Group, the Library is able to provide a wonderful service: we distribute free to our patrons the monthly magazine called “BookPage” (it’s totally devoted to books!)  Not just fiction, but a vast assortment of all different genres.  If your interest is cooking, take heart! There’s always a wonderful array of books on culinary inventiveness.  One of the regular features that I look forward to every month is “Burning Questions”.   As you might imagine, people are wondering when a certain author, or a new book in a series, might become available. Just write to Burning Questions.  Even if your letter doesn’t get published in the monthly magazine, you will be provided the answers you are dying to know.  Stop by the Library and pick up a copy.  All the addresses --- email and snail mail---are in the magazine.  There are some other departments that appear on a regular basis. 

The fall publishing season kicks off in earnest next month, and in the September BookPage, you will find the cream of the crop. Leading off is Alan Alda, the always interesting actor (and writer) who steps into the “Meet the Author" slot to discuss his new collection of philosophical reflections,”Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself”.  You'll also enjoy these September features:

1. • One of the most anticipated nonfiction titles of the season is “The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800” by Jay Winik. Winik's previous book, “April 1896”, was a surprise bestseller, and BookPage reviewer Edward Morris says his latest "has the cliff-hanging pacing of a fictional adventure." In an interview, Winik tells us how he decided on the subject for his latest book and why he would choose Catherine the Great of Russia as a dinner partner over George Washington or Louis XVI.

• Award-winning novelist Valerie Martin has proven herself willing to take on risky subjects that other writers shy away from. Her Orange Prize-winning novel, “Property”, depicted the contentious relationship between a Louisiana plantation owner's wife and a female slave. Her latest, “Trespass”, tackles the difficult subject of immigration through the lens of an American couple disrupted by the arrival of their son's Croatian girlfriend. "I was conscious early on that the book was about both the fear and the attraction of foreignness, which I think Americans feel particularly," Martin tells Alden Mudge in an interview. 

1. • One thriller reaping more than its share of fall buzz is Chelsea Cain's “Heartsick”. Though Cain's villain — a serial killer — isn't new to the genre, the character's gender is a surprise. The killer in “Heartsick” is Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful blonde psychologist with some serious issues. "I was interested in exploring a woman who kills like a man," Cain tells BookPage writer Jay MacDonald.