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Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of September 23, 2007

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A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
Khaled Hosseini
Cover of A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

by Khaled Hosseini · Riverhead

15 wks at #1 · 16 on list

1 New York Times bestselling author. Main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and Literary Guild. Both born in Afghanistan a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family Mariam and Laila are brought together by war by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them - in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul - they form a bond that will ultimately alter the course of their lives and the lives of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice and that in the end it is love or even the memory of love that is often the key to survival. "Searing ... forceful ... harrowing." - Publishers Weekly starred. "Unimaginably tragic Hosseini's magnificent second novel is a sad and beautiful testament to both Afghani suffering and strength. Readers who lost themselves in The Kite Runner will not want to miss this unforgettable follow-up." - Booklist starred

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BONES TO ASHES
Kathy Reichs
Cover of BONES TO ASHES

BONES TO ASHES

by Kathy Reichs · Scribner

2 wks on list

In her most riveting thriller yet, Reichs--bestselling author, forensic anthropologist, and producer of the television hit Bones, based on her Temperance Brennan books--pits Brennan against an enigma out of her own past.

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DARK POSSESSION
Christine Feehan
Cover of DARK POSSESSION

DARK POSSESSION

by Christine Feehan · Berkley

2 wks on list

#1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan returns to her uniquely sensual Carpathian world in a novel about the nature of true love and the unnatural forces that could destroy it... Manolito De La Cruz knew he was dangerously close to turning into a vampire. The last thing he expected after being called back to his Carpathian homeland by Prince Mikhail was to catch the scent of his destined lifemate in MaryAnn Delaney. MaryAnn is human, but she knows all too well the overwhelmingly aggressive instincts of Carpathian males. And they’re not exactly the kind of men she’d prefer to be bound to for life. A dedicated counselor for battered women, MaryAnn has a fulfilling life with no room for someone like Manolito, born and bred in the Carpathian mountains, a law unto himself. But when MaryAnn agrees to go to South America to offer guidance to a brutalized young woman, she has no idea of the trap that awaits her in the sweltering thick of the jungle. She has been lured there by Manolito himself, who has seductive plans for the unaware, irresistibly human female...

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TREE OF SMOKE
Denis Johnson
Cover of TREE OF SMOKE

TREE OF SMOKE

by Denis Johnson · Farrar, Straus & Giroux

1 wks on list

Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me. This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature. Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date. Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.

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PLAY DIRTY
Sandra Brown
Cover of PLAY DIRTY

PLAY DIRTY

by Sandra Brown · Simon & Schuster

4 wks on list

A man of uncertain character finds his past haunting him when a madman targets him and the people he loves, and he must face his sins in order to protect himself and others.

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HEARTSICK
Chelsea Cain
Cover of HEARTSICK

HEARTSICK

by Chelsea Cain · St. Martin’s Minotaur

1 wks on list

He thinks he sees a flash of emotion in her eyes. Sympathy? Then it's gone. 'Whatever you think this is going to be like,' she whispers, 'it's going to be worse.' When beautiful serial killer Gretchen Lowell captured her last victim - the man in charge of hunting her down - she quickly established who was really in control of the investigation. So why, after ten days of horrifying physical and mental torture, did she release Detective Archie Sheridan from the brink of death and hand herself in? Two years on, Archie now returns to lead the search for a new killer, whose recent attacks on teenage girls have left the city of Portland reeling. Shadowed by vulnerable young reporter Susan Ward, Archie knows that only one person can help him climb into the mind of this psychopath. But can Archie finally manage to confront the demons of his past without being consumed by them? 'Dark, distressing and disturbing . . . Just pray you never meet Gretchen' Val McDermid 'What may be the creepiest serial killer ever created. This is an addictive read!' Tess Gerritsen 'Move over Thomas Harris, there's a new kid on the block . . . Compelling, highly believable and very sexy' Daily Mirror

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AWAY
Amy Bloom
Cover of AWAY

AWAY

by Amy Bloom · Random House

3 wks on list

Amy Bloom's Away revitalizes the American road-trip novel from the perspective of a vulnerable but spirited woman. It paints a vivid, earthy and surprising picture of 1920s America, its smells and textures, its population of drifters and con artists, pimps and prostitutes. Away is storytelling at its finest - epic in sweep, but intimate and psychologically acute, moving but unsentimental. Like the novels of Sarah Waters, it is both richly authentic in its period detail and fresh and contemporary in its style. But, above all, Bloom has created an unforgettable character in Lillian Leyb - her voice, haunted, damaged yet innocent, passionate, witty and unpretentious, is so believable and strong that her presence lingers long after the novel ends.

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LOVING FRANK
Nancy Horan
Cover of LOVING FRANK

LOVING FRANK

by Nancy Horan · Ballantine

4 wks on list

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current. So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives. In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright. Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion. Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Nancy Horan's Under the Wide and Starry Sky. Advance praise for Loving Frank: “Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It’s mesmerizing and fascinating–filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years ago–all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency.” –Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light “This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading.” ——Scott Turow “It takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love affair is vivid and intelligent, unsentimental and compassionate.” ——Jane Hamilton “I admire this novel, adore this novel, for so many reasons: The intelligence and lyricism of the prose. The attention to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story. Mamah Cheney has been in my head and heart and soul since reading this book; I doubt she’ ll ever leave.” –Elizabeth Berg

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POWER PLAY
Joseph Finder
Cover of POWER PLAY

POWER PLAY

by Joseph Finder · St. Martin’s Press

3 wks on list

POWER PLAY is the explosive new novel from Joseph Finder, the CEO of the corporate thriller - reminiscent of the film DIE HARD, this novel is a breathless, near real-time action, high-stakes adventure that you won't want to stop reading. Jake Landry is a junior executive at the Hammond Aerospace corporation - a steady, modest and taciturn man with a gift for keeping his head down, Jake also has a turbulent past that he would rather forget. Ordered to fill in for his boss at the annual company retreat, Jake is out of his element, surrounded by the arrogant, swaggering men who run the company and his only distraction is the CEO's special assistant - his ex-girlfriend. Then a group of local hunters crash the opening-night festivities. Soon the executives of the billion-dollar company are cut off from the rest of the world, trapped by men who have guns and a cunning plan to steal a vast fortune. But the hostage-takers aren't who they appear to be, and neither is Jake Landry. The only question is who is going to win the power play?

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THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO
Junot Díaz
Cover of THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO

THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO

by Junot Díaz · Riverhead

Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, People, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Salon, Baltimore City Paper, The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Public Library, and many more... Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read and named one of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.