Reviews and Articles in General Publications

The New Yorker Nov. 1, 1999
Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn is briefly reviewed (page 114): ''...most rewarding in this delightfully oddball novel is the way Tourette's is a vehicle for the writer's love of language.''

Entertainment Weekly November 5, 1999
Lewis Shiner's rock & roll novel Say Goodbye (St. Martin's) is reviewed by Laura Morgan and graded B.

§ Salon October 29
Frank Houston gives William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties (Putnam) a moderately favorable review.

(Sat 30 Oct 1999)

§ New York Times October 26
Arthur C. Clarke is interviewed. He was in New York City recently, staying at his beloved Chelsea Hotel, following medical tests in Baltimore. He talks about building a space elevator with Buckminsterfullerene, brainstorming ''2001'' with Stanley Kubrick, and spelling ''Alzheimer''.

§ Salon October 26
Curt Holman reviews Alan Moore's From Hell, a graphic novel about the Jack the Ripper slayings previously serialized and now available in book form from Eddie Campbell Comics. "From Hell" is the only graphic novel since [Art Spiegelman's] "Maus" to rival its ambition and historical depth.

§ San Francisco Chronicle October 24
Michael Berry reviews five books: Lisa Goldstein's Dark Cities Underground (Tor); Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio (Del Rey) -- which delivers the kind of narrative kick that distinguishes such novels as Arthur C. Clarke's ''Childhood's End'' or John Wyndham's ''The Midwich Cuckoos.''; Graham Joyce's Dark Sister (Tor); Peter Straub's Mr. X (Random House) -- ''a dark, disturbing and completely enjoyable riff on both the doppelganger motif and the literary legacy of H.P. Lovecraft''; and Peter S. Beagle's Tamsin (Roc). Also in Sunday's book section: Thomas Christensen reviews Italo Calvino's Why Read the Classics?, and Noah Hawley reviews Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box (Putnam).

§ Washington Post October 24
Michael Dirda reviews Steven Millhauser's novella Enchanted Night (Crown). ''Enchanted Night shows Steven Millhauser at his most daringly lyrical, evoking through words an insubstantial pageant that fades away with the dawn's light. Fiction could hardly be more airy and still tell a story. Of course, some readers may find that this tone poem piles on a little too much moonlight and roses. But for those who respond to Millhauser's wistful sorcery, Enchanted Night is another unlikely masterpiece from one of America's finest yet least known writers.''

§ New York Times Book Review October 24
Several nonfiction reviews: William H. Calvin reviews Antonio Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens (Harcourt Brace) -- ''a must-read book for anyone wanting a neurologist's perspective on one of the greatest unsolved mysteries . . .''; Caroline Knapp reviews Wendy Kaminer's Sleeping with Extra-terrestrials (Pantheon); and Roger Kimball reviews Roger Shattuck's Candor and Perversion: Literature, Education, and the Arts (Norton). The NYT site also has the first chapters of the Kaminer and Shattuck books.

§ London Times October 24
More nonfiction reviews, by Jeremy Gray, of Martin Rees' Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe (Weidenfeld) and Robert Kaplan's The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero (Allen Lane).

Entertainment Weekly October 29
Book reviewer Ty Burr gives William Gibson's new novel All Tomorrow's Parties (Putnam) a grade C. ''In many Gibson novels, the climactic plot turn occurs virtually off stage, and it's not until later that you realize what an immense, mind-blowing event has transpired. All Tomorrow's Parties runs true to form, but for the first time there's no deeper resonance.''

(Tue 26 Oct 1999)

Bestseller Watch, 26 October

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Dune: House Atreides (Bantam Spectra) breaks onto the NYT list at #13 and the LAT list at #10, but drops in SF from #10 last week to #15 this week. It rises one to #9 on the PW list, drops two to #12 on the Amazon fiction hardcover list. It leads Amazon's SF bestsellers, but not the Barnes & Noble SF list, which is headed by Crichton's Timeline and Card's Ender's Shadow.

After a week off, Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn (Doubleday) returns to the LAT list at #13, perhaps reflecting renewed interest in the book slated to become an Edward Norton movie.

Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box has dropped off the LAT list.

The Harry Potter books, Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis, and R.A. Salvatore's The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime (Del Rey) retain their positions on the lists, more or less, from last week.

Notable on the San Francisco Chronicle nonfiction list are several science themed books: Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter at #5, Simon Singh's The Code Book at #8, and Richard Feynman's The Pleasure of Finding Things Out at #15, none of which place on the lists of the other major US newspapers. Singh and Sobel place #9 and #10 on Amazon's hardcover nonfiction list. This week's LAT nonfiction list does have local writer Michael Shermer's book about faith and skepticism, How We Believe (Freeman), at #12.

Leading Amazon's Not-yet-published bestsellers: Crichton's Timeline, with Roger Zelazny's The Great Book of Amber at #9.

In Britain, Terry Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant is #14 on Amazon.uk's Hot 100 list (as of Monday morning), with Peter Hamilton's The Naked God #21.

Links to the Bestseller lists:

LAT | NYT | SF Chronicle | USAT | WP | PW
Amazon | Amazon UK | B&N | Borders | ChatpersGLOBE.com

(Tue 26 Oct 1999)