A Snootful of the Overdue and Bookish

I'm taking a vacation from my hiatus, and have, at long last, posted a new review at Mystery Book Spot. As I put it in a post to the multi-Book-Spot pals, I've just grabbed my machete and lopped off a couple of tentacles grabbing my time, so I can be more attentive to my reading, writing, and reviewing. Sometimes, things have long since become a no-fun, no-point, buzz-kill before I think to dump them. But now that I have, my innards feel all floaty and sweet.

My reviewing reprise is Julia Pomeroy's very good debut novel, The Dark End of Town. It was released in hardcover early in 2006, and I have finally written it up a woeful number of months after receiving it this summer from the author her-darned-self. However, the trade paperback is due out in March, 2007, so you will have plenty of opportunity to get your fisties around a copy.

Besides being a delightful dinner companion (I note this, should you happen to find yourself her table neighbor as I did), Julia Pomeroy's got history in Japan, Libya, Somalia, and Italy. After landing in America, she worked as a screen actor, translator, and restauranteur in upstate New York. She doesn't volunteer all this immediately via personal data dump (as I certainly would if I'd ever been interesting), but actually converses, so we'll reference the web for bonus material about her pet baboon.

Here's her interview with Illinois' own Rick the Librarian.
Here's another from the wonderful Julia Buckley's site, Mysterious Musings.

In other news bookish:
2) Douglas Dutton's suggestions for holiday bookgiving.

3) Should novelists be allowed near the screenplay adaptations of their work? The horribly Hollywoody saga of Clive Cussler's Sahara. If I could've been paid like one of those screenwriters without the burden of having my name permanently attached... Oh, boy. For the record, as action-adventure yarns go, I didn't think this popcorn-cruncher was so tragic on film.

4) Radar Reviews Dictator Style: Lifestyles of the World's Most Colorful Despots.
Feast your eyes on details of the idiosycratic strongmen's tales of alien abduction and astrology, not to mention their hunger for teens and cadres of virginal bodyguards, armed and chaste and eager to die for their wackos-in-chief.