BookOpinion

For those of you suffering a severe melancholy after trudging through your 257-page iPhone bill, here is a reason to rejoice and once again feel smug and self-satisfied about your recent Apple purchase. Publishing giant HarperCollins has created a special Apple iPhone version of their “Browse Inside” feature, which allows consumers the opportunity to read an excerpt of the book before purchasing. Check out this new feature by opening the Safari browser on your iPhone and go to http://iphone.libredigital.com.

Some of the available titles for the Apple iPhone include:
“Winning” by Jack Welch & Suzy Welch
“Now and Forever” by Ray Bradbury
“The Burnt House” by Faye Kellerman
“Love is a Many Trousered Thing” by Louise Rennison
“The Art of Power” by Thich Nhat Hanh
“Sweet Revenge” by Diane Mott Davidson
“Ike, An American Hero” by Michael Korda
“Life On the Refrigerator Door” by Alice Kuipers
“Beyond the Body Farm” by Bill Bass
“A Killer’s Kiss” by William Lashner
“Soul Catcher” by Michael C. White
“Obama” by David Mendell
“The Case for the Real Jesus” by Lee Strobel
“When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box” by John Ortberg

For the rest of us, click here to visit our “Browse Inside” home page on harpercollins.com. You’ll discover thousands of titles ready for browsing on your computer.

BOOKOPINION REVIEW: With a piece of information gleaned from a fisherman, several divers set off to explore a possible sunken wreck in 1991. The allure of the unknown, of finding and discovering something no one else had, was always in the blood of these divers. What they didn’t know before submerging that day was that they would come across a piece of history that no one even knew existed. “Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II” is the account of the discovery these divers made.

Sixty miles off the New Jersey shore, the mystery wreck turned out to be an unknown German U-boat. But which one? And why wasn’t there any written record about a sunken U-boat in this area? Surely a sunken sub so close to the shores of America would have been documented.

The dive was dangerous, but the divers pushed themselves and pushed the limits of recklessness, sometimes with fatal results, to solve the mystery. Dive after dive, they came up empty-handed searching for clues to the name or origin of the U-boat.

For divers John Chatterton and Rich Kohler it became an obsession. Unable to solve the mystery of “U-Who”, Chatterton began pushing himself in other dives, solving other deep sea mysteries and going where no diver had gone before. But it left him empty.

“You just had one of the greatest diving years in history,” Kohler says to Chatterton. “In two summers you conquered the world. In two summers you discovered the universe of shipwrecks…how could you be unhappy at a time like this?”

“The U-boat is different,” Chatterton said. “The U-boat is our moment.”

Not only do the men try to find clues to the submarine’s origin under water, but also through the sometimes murky waters of government and military historians. They find history isn’t always set in stone or clear to those who have tried to document it.

Author Robert Kurson puts you into the heads of the men diving, as well as at the scene 230 feet below the surface, where a number of suspense-filled moments took place. Kurson brings the events to life in a manner that makes “Shadow Divers” read like a novel. And when we do eventually identify the U-boat, he also tells the story of the men aboard it, whose remains now rest in this iron coffin.

While we may not know the entire story of the U-boat, because of these divers, a part of history from World War II has now been brought to light and told in a thrilling manner by Kurson.

“The thing that is most enlightening me about the enitre project,” said Chatterton in an audio interview about the book, “was that history is a work in progress. The thing that I maybe come to realize since identifying the submarine is that there are people who really try and control and direct history.”

– D. Barry

The audio version of this book is also available for instant download at these sites:

Poisoned Pen Press and Bookstore released an interview with Sara Paretsky, the author of the popular V.I. Warshawski mystery novels. The six-part interview is about an hour long and covers a wide variety of topics.

The bestselling author recently published a memoir, “Writing in an Age of Silence,” which covers her politics, activism and art.

“There were no expectations of me, and I think I became a writer by accident,” Paretsky says in the video interview below. “I certainly wrote my whole life a lot, both poetry and short stories as a way of exploring my emotions but I never thought, ‘Oh, I am a writer and I’m doing this.’ So, to be a professional writer I thought was a great accident that happened to me.”

She discusses living in Chicago and how the different parts of the city influenced her books. She also hits on her love for the Cubs, her various jobs outside of writing and a range of other areas.

“One of the fun things that I did in a lot of the earlier books was take a neighborhood for each of the books,” Paretsky says. “And one that I love was Burn Marks, which was the sixth book in the series, where I went down to the old industrial quarter along the shipping canal there. You can create characters that you just fall in love with. And I had someone in there — this woman who was just horrible, but I loved her she was just so bad. She sat on her porch with a fire extinguisher. She was a great heavy woman who was always being taunted by the neighborhood boys. It was a little bit of urban warfare between the two of them and she’d sit there with a fire extinguisher, and if they got too close she would spray at them. She was a dreadful person, but I loved her so much. She was just so real and so part of that community.”

Watch the six-part interview in its entirety with the links below:

Sarah Paretsky Interview - Part 2
Sarah Paretsky Interview - Part 3
Sarah Paretsky Interview - Part 4
Sarah Paretsky Interview - Part 5
Sarah Paretsky Interview - Part 6

Amazon has released an early list of their picks for the Best Books of the Year. Here is their list for Fiction and a few words about each novel:

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

The late Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño was the most influential Spanish-speaking novelist of his generation, and The Savage Detectives, the first of his two giant masterpieces to be translated into English, made a big stateside splash this spring. Hilarious and sexy, meandering and melancholy, Bolaño recklessly spins out tale after tale while always keeping his balance.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is so good he can seemingly do whatever he wants, and with The Yiddish Policemen’s Union he has once again. Chabon concocts a vivid alternative reality (based on FDR’s forgotten suggestion of a Jewish safe haven in Alaska) and wraps it around a Chandleresque who-done-it packed with Hasidic Godfathers, forelocked Fagins, and the obligatory sad-but-noble gumshoe.

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

Coming in at exactly 900 pages, Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games is easily the most ambitious and most inventive thriller of the year (so far). Inspector Sartaj Singh is on the trail of mob boss Ganesh Gaitonde–India’s most wanted criminal–only to find himself pursuing Gaitonde’s murderer as well. Sacred Games is simultaneously a masterful detective story and a mesmerizing portrait of contemporary Mumbai.

Falling Man by Don DeLillo

“By the time the second plane appears … we’re all a little older and wiser.” In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Keith Neudecker appears at the doorstep of his estranged wife, covered in dust and blood, a “fragment of spangled glass on the lid of his eye.” Falling Man returns Don DeLillo to the cool but intense focus of Libra and White Noise, documenting the trials of a man (a city, a country) forced to reckon with his own identity against unimaginable events.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris’s first novel, Then We Came to the End, nails the dynamics of cubicle culture–the deadlines, the gossip, the elaborate pranks to break the boredom, the joy of discovering free food in the breakroom. Arch, achingly funny, and surprisingly heartfelt, it’s a brilliant view of how your work becomes a symbiotic part of your life.

In the Woods by Tana French

A top-notch literary thriller, In the Woods is as enthralling as Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, and as lush and lyrical as the work of Maeve Binchy. Tana French’s rich, multi-layered debut follows the investigation of a murder of 12-year-old Katy Devlin in a suburb of Dublin called Knocknaree.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

The toughest follow-up act of the year became one of the most passionately praised, as Khaled Hosseini, author of the multimillion-selling phenomenon, The Kite Runner, returned with A Thousand Splendid Suns, a novel many readers–including many here–found even more compelling than his first: a tale of two women, weighted equally with despair and grave hope.

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

Miranda July, the multitalented actress, performance artist, and award-winning filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know), delivers a charming and quirky book debut with her story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You, tackling the love and loneliness people share with an uncanny tenderness and wit.

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

Aryn Kyle’s haunting, unforgettable novel, The God of Animals, is the kind of book that you will want to share with everyone you know. Kyle’s irresistible 12-year-old protagonist reminds us of Harper Lee’s Scout–brimming with questions about the world and her place in it, eager to win her father’s love, and filled with the frustrations and longing of youth.

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is understated, beautifully observed, and underscored by the pang of unrequited longing–for love, acceptance, and a place to call home. A young man flees the Ethiopian revolution for America and 17 years later feels like he’s still living in exile, watching the days pass from behind the counter of his rundown storefront in a gentrifying inner-city Washington, D.C., neighborhood.

For the month of August, BookOpinion readers can take 20 percent off every ebook in five popular categories at eBooks.com.

Use the Coupon Code: Categorysalecp at the payment details page to claim your discount on ebooks in any of these categories:

• Education
• Humor
• Law
• Self Help
• Travel

You can use the coupon on books such as “The 4-Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss; “He’s Just Not That Into You” by Greg Behrendt, Liz Tuccillo, Barry David Marcus; “Cruise Vacations for Dummies.” Plus many others.

Click here to go!

BOOKOPINION REVIEW: A young murdered woman in Nashville, Tenn., and the appointment of a new justice of the Supreme Court. What can these two events possibly have in common?

“The Divine Appointment” opens with attorney Eli Faulkner, of Jackson, Tenn., reaching a settlement for a client who has just been ripped off. Neither is satisfied with the agreement but the ordeal has been long and trying, and both are relieved that the episode is over. When Eli leaves Nashville and arrives home, the evening news reveals that a Supreme Court Justice, Martha Doyle Robinson, has just died from a battle with pancreatic cancer…leaving an opening for a very conservative president to appoint a new justice.

But there are definitely breakers ahead…primarily, a very liberal congress; Stella Hanover, president of The National Federation for Abortion Rights and wielder of a very big stick; and Senator Proctor, a man whose power and intimidating personality have cowed more than one senator or congressman into following his lead.

When President Wallace nominates Judge Dunbar Shelton of the Mississippi Supreme Court, the shadowy background figures in the clutches of Proctor and others like him go into action. But the President and Proctor reach an uneasy agreement on Shelton and it seems as if Dunbar Shelton will easily be the next appointed Supreme Court Justice.

Meanwhile, Holland Fletcher, an ambitious, fledgling reporter for the Washington Post, has been receiving frightening but intriguing phone calls from an unnamed woman who urges him to look into the case of Jessica Caldwell, the young woman who was murdered in Nashville. The source intimates that this is a conspiracy that goes very high up…all the way to Washington, D.C., in fact.

When Eli Faulkner is hired by the wife of the man accused of killing Jessica Caldwell, he begins to find conflicting information not only about his client, but also about Jessica Caldwell and her associations with several very powerful people in Washington. And the plot thickens further when an attempt is made on the life of Judge Shelton at his residence in Mississippi.

So, who murdered Jessica Caldwell? Who attempted to murder Judge Shelton? And how are all these events connected? Is President Wallace going to be forced to drop his nomination and try for a less conservative justice?

“The Divine Appointment” is told in short spurts, moving quickly from person to person and location to location. At first, this is a bit disconcerting, but it quickly grows on you and actually becomes a unique way to compose a very complex plot. The characters are great…either really likeable or despicable, depending on your point of view. To be honest, I had a difficult time putting this book down.

If you enjoy a fast-paced thriller with twists and turns that will leave you rooting for the good guys, “The Divine Appointment” is a novel that you are going to love. It’s unusual, well told and definitely earns my seal of approval.

– Elizabeth Channery

With a first printing of 1 million copies, “Eclipse” by Stephenie Meyer is now at No. 2 on Amazon’s bestseller list. The novel, which was released earlier this week, is the third book in Meyer’s vampire series. BookOpinion has found a video interview with Meyer, a recent print interview and an excerpt from Eclipse.

In this four-minute video, Meyer discusses her books and how she became a writer. “Out of the three novels, Eclipse was definitely the most fun to write,” she says. “I’m so excited to have it out so I can talk about it more.”

The Seattle Post Intelligencer recently interviewed Meyer:

When we last spoke with Stephenie Meyer, the Arizona mom who hit paydirt with a lush, teen novel of vampire love, she was puzzling over the irrational zeal she’d unleashed among adolescent girls.

No one could get over it, the way besotted girls would flock from as far away as Hawaii and New Brunswick to attend signings or pay homage to Forks, Wash., where “Twilight” and its sequel, “New Moon,” unfold.

“They’re not the largest group of fans out there,” Meyer said last summer, “but they seem to be the most fanatical.”

Today, that’s only half true. The fanaticism hasn’t died. It has gone global.

Read Full Story

BookOpinion has also found an excerpt of the new book release at ABC News. Here is a portion of Eclipse:

1. Ultimatum

Bella,

I don’t know why you’re making Charlie carry notes to Billy like we’re in second grade. If I wanted to talk to you I would answer the

You made the choice here, okay? You can’t have it both ways when

What part of ‘mortal enemies’ is too complicated for you to

Look, I know I’m being a jerk, but there’s just no way around

We can’t be friends when you’re spending all your time with a bunch of

It just makes it worse when I think about you too much, so don’t write anymore

Yeah, I miss you, too. A lot. Doesn’t change anything. Sorry.

Jacob

I ran my fingers across the page, feeling the dents where he had pressed the pen to the paper so hard that it had nearly broken through. I could picture him writing this, scrawling the angry letters in his rough handwriting, slashing through line after line when the words came out wrong, maybe even snapping the pen in his too-big hand; that would explain the ink splatters. I could imagine the frustration pulling his black eyebrows together and crumpling his forehead. If it’d been there, I might have laughed. Don’t give yourself a brain hemorrhage, Jacob, I would have told him. Just spit it out.

Laughing was the last thing I felt like doing now as I reread the words I’d already memorized. His answer to my pleading note, passed from Charlie to Billy to him, just like second grade, as he’d pointed out, was no surprise. I’d known the essence of what it would say before I’d opened it.

What was surprising was how much each crossed-out line wounded me, as if the points of the letters had cutting edges. More than that, behind each angry beginning lurked a vast pool of hurt; Jacob’s pain cut me deeper than my own.

While I was pondering this, I caught the unmistakable scent of a smoking burner rising from the kitchen. In another house, the fact that someone besides myself was cooking might not be a cause for panicking.

I shoved the wrinkled paper into my back pocket and ran. I made it downstairs in the nick of time.

The jar of spaghetti sauce Charlie’d stuck in the microwave was only on its first revolution when I yanked the door open and pulled it out. “What did I do wrong?” Charlie demanded. “You’re supposed to take the lid off first, Dad. Metal’s bad for microwaves.” I swiftly removed the lid as I spoke, poured half the sauce into a bowl, and then put the bowl inside the microwave and the jar back in the fridge; I fixed the time and pressed start.

Charlie watched my adjustments with pursed lips. “Did I get the noodle’s right?” I looked in the pan on the stove — the source of the smell that had alerted me. “Stirring helps,” I said mildly. I found a spoon and tried to de-clump the mushy hunk that was scalded at the bottom.

Charlie sighed.

“So what’s all this about?” I asked him.

He folded his arms across his chest and glared out the back windows into the sheeting rain. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbled.

I was mystified. Charlie cooking? And what was with the surly attitude? Edward wasn’t here yet; usually my dad reserved this kind of behavior for my boyfriend’s benefit, doing his best to illustrate the theme of “unwelcome” with every word and posture. Charlie’s efforts were unnecessary, Edward knew exactly what my dad was thinking without the show.

The word boyfriend had me chewing on the inside of my cheek with familiar tension while I stirred. It wasn’t the right word, not at all. I needed something more expressive of eternal commitment?. But words like destiny and fate sounded hokey when you used them in casual conversation.

Edward had another word in mind, and that word was the source of the tension I felt. It put my teeth on edge just to think it to myself.
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