'Kirkus Reviews' on the Book Sense Picks for February

Earlier this month, Book Sense, the American Booksellers Association program, announced the February 2006 Book Sense Picks: 20 books that Dan Cullen, editor-in-chief of Book Sense Picks, called a "national staff picks presentation."

More than 1,200 independent bookstores will participate in the program, which Cullen said "was designed from the outset [to] give people flexibility and choice."

Here is what Kirkus Reviews said about the February 2006 BookSense Picks:

In The Space Between Us, "[Thrity] Umrigar transcends the specifics of two Bombay women and creates a novel that quietly roars against tyranny."

"World War II Harlem is the setting for the parallel stories of a preacher (invented) and a hustler (the future Malcolm X) in Baker's fourth novel"?Striver's Row?in which "Baker the social historian (he's pretty good) trumps the novelist (not so hot)."

In Frangipani, Célestine Hitiura Vaite "uses words to paint a vivid Tahitian landscape worthy of a Gauguin painting and delivers a memorable story about big dreams on a small island."

A Family Daughter is "a thoroughly original and undeniably brilliant companion piece to [Maile] Meloy's debut novel, Saints and Liars (2003)."

"There are no surprises and a little too much sweet resolution, but [Katrina] Kittle unfurls her tale with absolute devotion" in The Kindness of Strangers.

Whale Season, by N.M. Kelby, is "deep-fried strangeness" with a "wacky, tacky premise: a Jesus-impersonating serial killer [who] rampages through Florida strip clubs and gator swamps."

Judith Lindbergh's The Thrall's Tale is "a grim historical novel of Norse-settled Greenland . . . [and] a long, ill-shaped, bleak but atmospheric take of the Middle Ages."

Carved in Bone is "a neatly done mystery aimed straight at the CSI set. . . . Crime and science slug it out in this second book from writing team Jon Jefferson and Bill Bass."

"Reading the journals of her Harvey Girl ancestor sends a young Texas woman back in time to the New Mexico frontier in [Elizabeth] Crook's warmly drawn novel." The The Night Journal is "a multilayered narrative of impressive historical perspicacity."

"More of the same from [Carol] Goodman," in The Ghost Orchid: "Not half bad, not all that good."

"[Haven] Kimmel's follow-up to her well-received memoir about growing up in a tiny Indiana town," She Got Up Off the Couch, "[is] less zippy . . . but more honest."

In Skinner's Drift, "debut novelist [Lisa] Fugard eloquently weaves family and political upheaval into a compelling post-apartheid tale."

Debra Galant's Rattled is a "broad satire of the nouveau riche suburbs of New Jersey."

"[Alice] Greenway vividly conjures up the fears, passions and fantasies of a teenager against a heart-rending political background" in White Ghost Girls.

"Inspired by the Baker Street genius, a Montana cowboy solves some murders at the cattle ranch where he works," in Steve Hockensmith's Holmes on the Range: "a winning twist on a proven franchise."

"The would-be Alanis Morissette of her generation," Jen Trynin is the author of Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be, "the tale of fading away before getting the chance to burn out."

David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing is "a lively reconstruction of the Continental Army's finest strategic hour."

Not reviewed:

A Strong West Wind, by Gail Caldwell
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, by Ayelet Waldman
Pursuit: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery, by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza