Nonfiction Book Reviews: Week of 3/30/09

The Management Myth: Management Consulting Past, Present, and Largely Bogus Matthew Stewart . Norton , $27.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-393-06553-4 Stewart (The Courtier and the Heretic) reflects on his unconventional path to becoming a successful management consultant—despite a complete lack of business knowledge or experience, let alone an MBA.

Fiction Book Reviews: Week of 3/30/09

The Story Sisters Alice Hoffman . Crown/Shaye Areheart , $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-307-39386-9 Lyrical but atypically monotonous, bestseller Hoffman's (The Third Angel) latest follows the dark family saga of Elv, Megan and Claire Story, sisters plagued by uncommon sadness. As a child, Elv spun fairy tales of a magical world for her sisters, but a period of savage sexual abuse—information a...

Haunted House: PW's Book of the Week

The Little Stranger Sarah Waters . Riverhead , $26.95 (464p) ISBN 978-1-59448-880-1 Waters (The Night Watch) reflects on the collapse of the British class system after WWII in a stunning haunted house tale whose ghosts are as horrifying as any in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Doctor Faraday, a lonely bachelor, first visited Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked as a pa...

Sustaining for Sustenance: 2009 Gardening Books

Despite publishing's massive layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, many gardening publishers have noted an increase in their annual sales. This is due in large part to a renewed excitement surrounding books on organic gardening and, especially, sustainable gardening techniques. Chelsea Green publisher Margo Baldwin says gardening publishers are releasing titles on sustainability to tap into ...

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/30/2009

Upbeat ComicsPro Confab Generates Optimism

The four day annual ComicsPRO convention brings together about 100 retailers dedicated to uniting the comics retail segment to address issues and solve problems.

First New England Webcomics Weekend a Big Success

Creators, hobbyists, and the intellectually curious came from across the country to participate in Webcomics Weekend, which was held on March 20 - 22 in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Chmakova’s Nightschool is First In Its Class

One of a handful of non-Japanese original manga creators who have achieved both critical and commercial success, Svetlana Chmakova is now releasing the first volume of Nightschool, a new original manga series that will be published by Yen Press in April.

Guibert Revisits War in The Photographer

First Second Books and artist Emmanuel Guibert have again teamed up to bring to the U.S. graphic novel market The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders, another tale of a life shaped by war.

Comics Briefly

DC Launches Wednesday Comics Weekly; New Leadership at CBLDF; Viz Takes Entire NYT List; US, Japan Synch Anime Release; Morning Manga Winners; Spider-Girl Returns Online; Star Trek Movie Comic Goes Mobile; Humbug Comes to The Strand and First Cosplay Party At Japan Society

Panelmania: Planet of Beer

Finding What Matters: PW Talks to Author Binnie Kirshenbaum

Binnie Kirshenbaum's ninth book, The Scenic Route, a wistful love story played out among the cities and byways of Europe, has a digressive road map all its own What was the inspiration for Sylvia, who narrates your novel? There's a picture of my great-grandmother on the wall in my living room, and one day I realized I didn't know her name, and I had no family left who would t...

Sisters with a Secret

Shanghai Girls Lisa See . Random , $25 (320p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6711-4 See (Peony in Love) explores tradition, the ravages of war and the importance of family in her excellent latest. Pearl and her younger sister, May, enjoy an upper-crust life in 1930s Shanghai, until their father reveals that his gambling habit has decimated the family's finances and to make good on his debts, he has sold bo...

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/23/2009

This week's Web: a chorus of modern African Americans, an army chaplain on the field and at home, the true story of fake history, and a "Real Housewife of New York City" (the single one) on uncovering the thin within. Plus: Elizabeth Gilbert gets skewered, Hollis Frampton gets collected, and five new reviews for kids.

A Thriller With a Conscience: A Profile of Greg Rucka

Greg Rucka doesn’t look like the kind of guy who could kill someone with his bare hands. But any of his characters—bodyguard-turned-fugitive Atticus Kodiak, ex-assassin Alena, British Special Intelligence Services spy Tara Chace—could take you out with one well-placed punch. “A few years ago, people would have said that I look like the people I write about,” laughs Rucka over coffee in Portland, Ore., where he lives with his wife and two children.

Children's Book Reviews: Week of 3/23/2009

Picture Books The Secret Circus Johanna Wright . Roaring Brook/Porter , $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-59643-403-5 A charismatic group of French mice enjoy a night out in Wright’s dreamy, muted debut. “Somewhere, deep in the city of Paris, there is a circus that is so small, and so secret... only the mice know how to find it.

Fiction Book Reviews

A Happy Marriage Rafael Yglesias . Scribner , $26 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4391-0230-5 Yglesias (Fearless) delivers his first novel in 13 years, an autobiographical and devastatingly raw appraisal of a nearly 30-year marriage. As the novel opens in 1975, 21-year-old Enrique Sabas, a high school—dropout literary wunderkind, has just met Margaret Cohen, a vivacious, beautiful budding graphic de...

Nonfiction Book Reviews

In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir: One Family in a Changing World Justine Hardy . Free Press , $25 (224p) ISBN 978-1-4391-0289-3 Hardy (The Wonder House) draws on her 12-year relationship with the Dar family to recount the story of modern-day Kashmir—part pastoral idyll, part war zone. Hardy writes, “There is no single casualty of war, no one noun that sums up what has been lost,...

Life After a Plane Crash: PW Talks to Author Robert Sabbag

In Down Around Midnight, Robert Sabbag revisits the plane crash—and the aftermath—he survived 30 years ago.

Harlequin Targets Teens

Harlequin is set to broaden its presence in the young adult market. Harlequin Teen, a fiction line, debuts in August with Rachel Vincent’s My Soul to Take, the first installment of the Soul Screamers series. Another paranormal tale, Intertwined by Gena Showalter, is rolling off press in September. The imprint will initially consist of trade paperbacks, hardcovers and digital publications.