Are you stumped on what to get your family members for the holidays? Try giving someone a book! NPR's All Things Considered has several recommendations here in the article "Book Selections to Nourish the Mind at the Holidays."

And while you're on NPR's website, check out their page of holiday recipes too!

Explore social issues in the mid-20th centry of South Africa in , Cry, The Beloved Country, by Alan Paton. Paton, a native white of South Africa explores the power of ideas in this story of a old Zulu parson as he searchs for his son. The murder of a white man, devoted to helping the native South African, results in far reaching changes in both a white and a black family, along with a rural native tribe.

Debra Ginsberg, commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered and the author of three books of memoirs, tries her hands at fiction.

Blind Submission revolves around Angel, a young woman with a passion for books who becomes the assistant to a famously demanding San Francisco literary agent and quickly finds herself overwhelmed in the maelstrom of the office.

Angel has a knack for turning mediocre manuscripts into moneymakers but when an
anonymous email submission takes on alarming similarities to the intimate details of her personal life and carries thinly veiled threats, Angel learns the lengths to which writers - and agents - will go to get a book deal.

“An affectionate skewering of the ludicrous side of the book business and a claws-out send-up of the perversities of power, Ginsberg's blithe blend of mystery, romance, and satire is smart, classy, and fun”. Starred review Booklist.

Sunday, November 9. We were working the night watch out of Robbery Detail.

That's classic radio. It turns out that we've got a recording of some of the original Dragnet programs in the catalog. Sadly, though, we don't have the DVD set with Jack Webb.

What we do have -- and I'm going to mix media here -- is a great collection of Raymond Chandler novels. It's like getting a Dragnet fix in conveneint paper doses. Starting with a set like The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, and The High Window should give you a good introduction to Philip Marlow and the hard detective style.

Anyone else have have any crime noir recomendations?

Giraffe is the debut novel by Economist correspondent J.M.Ledgard that recounts the extermination of the world's largest captive herd of giraffes (49 of them) in a Czechoslovakian zoo in 1975.

The story spans the giraffes' capture in Africa to their deaths behind the Iron Curtain. We see them mainly through the eyes of three individuals whose lives were touched - a haemodynamicist (who studied blood flow in vertical creatures); a factory girl who visited them daily; and the sharpshooter ordered to bring them down one by one.

Ledgard unearthed the truth behind this little-known historic event while researching for the novel. The result is a "magnificent meditation on the quiet ways in which ordinary people become complicit in the crimes committed in their midst; … (and) a fairy tale about the power of other living creatures to enchant us into wakefulness”.

For wildlife enthusiasts, try also The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy. It’s a journey into the minds of African elephants as they struggle to survive years of drought and the deadly ivory trade.

Margherita Dolce Vita* by Stefano Benni.
“An elegant little piece of dark comedy” by a prolific Italian author (FFF in translation). Wise and charismatic 15 yr.-old Margherita and her odd-ball family are transformed by their new neighbors from hell.

Harlem Girl Lost* by Treasure E. Blue.
A bright young woman fights her way out of the mean streets of New York, only to be drawn back in to save her man. A lurid, gripping debut and a self-publishing sensation.

Last Seen Leaving* by Kelly Braffet.
New Age spiritualist searches for her estranged daughter who has not been seen after being picked up by a stranger on a deserted highway, while a serial killer is on the loose. Gripping.

Love in a Fallen City* by Eileen Chang (Ailing Zhang).
Six vibrant stories depict life in post WWII China and bristle with equal parts passion and resentment.

Eifelheim* by Michael Flynn.
Young modern historian obsesses with the mysterious disappearance of a German village from all maps during the Black Death. The story intersects with the heartbreaking saga of stranded aliens from a distant star.

Vince and Joy* by Lisa Jewell.
Tired of all the heavy stuff around? Try this deliciously addictive read filled with London oddballs. First loves reunite after 17 years of miscommunication, disappointments and all the things life throw at you. Romantic.

The Sky People* by S.M. Stirling.
First of a new alternate history series with "broad-brush pulp sensibility". Space colonization and a classic love triangle.

The Orphan's Tales : In the night garden* by Catherynne Valente.
“A beautiful relayed, interlinked fairy tales” of magic, adventure, quests and murder, told by a mysterious young woman with tattoos around her eyelids. Think Sheherezade and the Arabian Nights.

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall* by Bill Willingham.
Re-imagined new lives and backstories for fairyland citizens , the likes of Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf, now living as secret refugees in New York - probably the “smartest mainstream comics going”.

*= Starred Review(s)

A Corpse in the Koryo* introduces, to global mystery fans a new and exciting series starring Inspector O of the Pyongyang Police Department (North Korea).

This hard-boiled, police procedural begins with a seemingly routine surveillance assignment that turns nasty, pitching a pragmatic and honorable detective against the competing military and intelligence hierarchies.

First-time author James Church (pseudonym) is a former intelligence office with decades of experience in Asia. This outstanding crime novel boasts believable characters and situations, and is "richly layered and visually evocative". A must-read.

All-starred reviews in Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

For his Chinese (Shanghai) counterpart, try the latest in the Inspector Chen series (A Case of Two Cities,* 2006) by Qiu Xiaolong - another honest detective struggling to be true under a repressive regime.

*= Starred review.

I know Halloween overshadowed (no pun intended) everything on October 31, but we must also remember John Keats who was born on that day, as well as his cronies Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. John Keats was born on October 31, 1795 and died an untimely death from tuberculosis on February 23, 1821. Shelley and Byron also died young, leaving only William Wordsworth, the father of the Romantic poets to live to a ripe old age.

A new novel, Passion by Jude Morgan looks at the lives of their wives and lovers including Mary Shelley and Fanny Brawne.] Morgan's novel gives us a glimpse of early nineteenth century life where these women flouted the more rigid conventions of the time and created their own identities apart from the men they loved.

When a young girl is murdered and mutilated and another disappears in Wind Gap, Mo., Chicago Daily Post reporter Camille Preaker returns to her hometown to cover the story. She is less than surprised with the cold reception after her long absence, especially at her mother's house.

Fans of Shirley Jackson and Minette Walters will welcome this debut psychological thriller by Gillian Flynn. In Sharp Objects, she writes "fluidly about small-town America", but what distinguishes this gruesome tale is the skills with which she misdirects the reader, allowing secrets to unfold only towards the shocking ending.

Flynn (Author interview) is the lead television critic for Entertainment Weekly, and Sharp has been endorsed by both Stephen King and Harlan Coben. Starred review in Library Journal. Can the film rights be far behind? Stay tuned.

In addition to "The Tempest" brewing at Power Center, there's a storm of wills in Elizabeth Nunez's latest book, Prospero's Daughter. Dr. Peter Gardner has been exiled to Trinidad with his daughter, Virginia, after the discovery of a gruesome experiment he performed on a human subject. In this reworking of Shakespeare's play, Nunez poses questions about race and class. Carlos, a Caliban of sorts, is a mixed race orphan who has been living with the Gardner's. He and Virginia have fallen in love. When Gardner who is depicted as a racist lunatic finds out, he accuses Carlos of attempted rape. At the same time, he sexually abuses his native servant, Ariana. Into this mix comes John Mumsford of the British police who fears an uprising of natives against British rule in Trinidad's quest for independence and uses Carlos as an example of the continued stability of his country's authority.

For other fiction that takes place in Trinidad, try:
A Perfect Pledge by Rabindranath Maharaj and
A Thirst for Rain by Roslyn Carrington.