True crime, true love, true life
This week’s round-up includes a lost gem from legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie.
Doomed Author: Chuck Palahniuk Publisher: Doubleday, 336 pages, fiction
AFTER journeying across the landscape of the afterlife to confront Satan himself
in Chuck Palahniuk’s first title in
this series, Damned, Madison Spencer, the most active, not to mention the snarkiest, dead girl in the universe, returns to this twisted apocalyptic world – where she finds herself trapped in Purgatory.
Though invisible to the world around her, she can see and hear every detail and pass through doors and walls!
Madison then encounters the ghost of her long-dead grandmother in her parents’ luxurious apartment and soon discovers that Satan has had his eye on her from the very beginning. It was all part of his plans to conjure an era of eternal damnation ... for everyone in the world.
Sutton Author: J.R. Moehringer Publisher: Hyperion, 368 pages, fiction
J.R. Moehringer brings to life one of the most famous criminals in American history in this historic fiction. Willie Sutton was at the prime of his life at an age when banks were out of control. Over three decades, Sutton was so successful in robbing banks that the FBI put him on its first ever Most Wanted list. But the public loved him. He never fired a shot and his victims were those bloodsucking banks.
Sutton is the story of a man driven by love, forever seeking the beautiful woman who led him into a life of crime, then broke his heart and disappeared.
Just One Evil Act Author: Elizabeth George Publisher: Dutton Adult, 736 pages, fiction
ELIZABETH George’s 18th Inspector Lynley novel spotlights Lynley’s partner, Det Sgt Barbara Havers. Barbara has been asked by her friend, Taymullah Azhar, for help in getting his daughter back after the girl’s mother leaves him and takes the girl with her; but Taymullah’s name isn’t on the girl’s birth certificate and Barbara has no recourse to the law – until the mother reappears with shocking news: the little girl has been kidnapped while in Italy. Though the Italian police are investigating, Barbara takes matters into her own hands, and she and Lynley soon discover that the case is far more complex than a typical kidnapping.
House Of Earth Author: Woody Guthrie
Publisher: Harper Perennial, 288 pages, fiction
WOODY Guthrie (1912-1967) was one of America’s most compelling folk musicians who sang about the oppressed; his best-known song is This Land Is Your Land. This book, finished in 1947, was published for the first time this year and tells of Tike and Ella May Hamlin, an ordinary couple struggling to farm the arid land of Texas. They dream of a better life in a corrupt world, longing to move from their flimsy wooden shack into an adobe home, a firm structure, a “house of earth”. But the land on which the farmers live is not theirs and their adobe house remains a dream. In his only novel, Gutherie tackles the hardship and hope of living in a ravaged landscape with the same lyrical power he brought to his songs.
Awakenings Of The Heart Author: Luke Teoh
Publisher: Self-published , 160 pages, non-fiction
FILLED with anecdotes, poems and a plethora of quotations, Awakenings
Of The Heart tracks different moments and incidents from the author’s life that contributed to his writing or changed him as a writer. Teoh finds the wisdom and the lessons in these moments and connects them with wise sayings from philosophers, poets other writers and even the Bible.
Fault Line Author: C. Desir Publisher: Simon Pulse, 240 pages, fiction
MEET Ben and Ani, a couple seemingly fated to be together. Ben could date anyone he wants but he only has eyes for Ani, the sarcastic and free-spirited new girl. And she wants him too. But something happens at a party Ani goes to alone, without Ben. Something terrible and inexplicable. Now, Ani is different, not at all the girl Ben fell in love with and try as he might to help her, she keeps pushing him away. Ben needs to figure out what happened that night and save the girl he loves before it’s too late.