Check out these biographies recommended by the staff and faculty of the Literary Interest Committee (LIC).

Shadow Mountain is a personal memoir by activist and scientist Renee Askins who was involved with wolves and the Yellowstone reintroduction. [Recommended by Reference Librarian Diana Shelton]

The Lives of Beryl Markham, by Errol Trzebinski, is the story of the real-life “other woman” of Denys Finch-Hatton (of Out of Africa), and of several other men, for that matter. Raised in Africa, she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic east to west, which was just one of her many adventures. [Recommended by Carol Smith, Library Technical Services]

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking is an unsentimental memoir of the year following her husband’s sudden death. Her daughter is facing a life threatening illness at the same time. [Recommended by Reference Librarian Diana Shelton]

Searching for that perfect mystery to while away the hot summer days?

The Literary Interest Committee of Coe Library (LIC) put together a crack team of staff & faculty book reviewers and asked for their favorites. If you can’t find them in the UW Libraries catalog, try ordering them through Prospector — your book will be delivered within days from a Colorado library.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde: Who among us has not wished that we could literally “jump into a book” and join the narrative? This is the first in a series of mysteries starring Thursday Next, a literary detective who polices books from the inside. This book is imaginative and amusing, especially if you’re an avid reader of the classics–it’s full of inside jokes. [recommended by Shannon Person, Coe Library Access Services]

The Moonspinners is a Mary Stewart masterpiece of mystery and romance in the beautiful setting of Crete. If you are looking for an exciting getaway, this is the book for you! [recommended by Brenna Harkins, Coe Library Circulation]

Mike Hammer creator Mickey Spillane died Monday at age 88. His murder mysteries maintained continued popularity, selling over 140 million copies worldwide. Never one to worry about cultivating a literary reputation, Spillane remarked about his popularity and his critics: “Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar.”

Two of my favorite recent films just arrived at the library.

The Squid and the Whale is based on director Noah Baumbach’s parents’ divorce. Rolling Stone says that the film treats the well worn topic of divorce with “fresh and with fierce insight and feeling in a movie where even the laughs cut to the bone.” If you enjoy the Squid and the Whale, watch for Baumbach’s first film, Kicking and Screaming, on Criterion Collection next month. It is also excellent, with great writing and witty characters and a funny look at life after college.

Viggo Mortensen delivers surprises in A History of Violence, a thriller from the twisted mind of director David Cronenberg. Together they remind the audience that even the people closest to you may have dark secrets in their not so distant pasts.

The winner of the 2006 Bulwer-Litton Fiction Contest, a contest to create the worst possible opening line for the worst of all possible novels, comes from Jim Guigli of Carmichael, CA. His winning sentence:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

The annual competition is a whimsical celebration of bad writing and is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who penned the famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night“.

Already being hailed as one of the best books of 2006, Arthur & George offers an imaginative version of a true story: the complicated friendship of Victorian figures Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji. Michael Dirda, reviewing the book for The Washington Post, wrote:

“Barnes’s writing is, as usual, masterly throughout Arthur & George, not only as the pages shift from one man’s consciousness to the other’s but also in the way their author keeps the reader on edge. Facts are interpreted, then reinterpreted; the bigoted speak convincingly; nothing turns out quite as expected; and even the book’s coda delivers a final shock.”

If you are looking for a new book that evokes the richness of the Wyoming landscape, try Augusta Locke by William Haywood Henderson. Heroine Gussie Locke begins the story in 1903 rural Minnesota, and her wanderlust takes her to Greeley, CO and the mountains of Wyoming. Booklist gave it a starred review, noting that

“Henderson’s novel is an extraordinarily beautiful creation, brought to the reader on the wings of the ravens that serve as its protagonist’s familiars. Told in languorous prose virtually encrusted with the details of nature–very reminiscent of Annie Dillard–this story follows Gussie Locke through a lifetime of wandering.”

Already being hailed as one of the best books of 2006, Arthur & George offers an imaginative version of a true story: the complicated friendship of Victorian figures Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji. Michael Dirda, reviewing the book for The Washington Post, wrote:

“Barnes’s writing is, as usual, masterly throughout Arthur & George, not only as the pages shift from one man’s consciousness to the other’s but also in the way their author keeps the reader on edge. Facts are interpreted, then reinterpreted; the bigoted speak convincingly; nothing turns out quite as expected; and even the book’s coda delivers a final shock.”

If you are looking for a new book that evokes the richness of the Wyoming landscape, try Augusta Locke by William Haywood Henderson. Heroine Gussie Locke begins the story in 1903 rural Minnesota, and her wanderlust takes her to Greeley, CO and the mountains of Wyoming. Booklist gave it a starred review, noting that

“Henderson’s novel is an extraordinarily beautiful creation, brought to the reader on the wings of the ravens that serve as its protagonist’s familiars. Told in languorous prose virtually encrusted with the details of nature–very reminiscent of Annie Dillard–this story follows Gussie Locke through a lifetime of wandering.”

The Oxford English Dictionary added the verb form of google to the dictionary this month. Also added: cybrarian, texting, mash-up and more.