Book Markers 07.05.12

Furst Reads in Sag

    Ah, September in Paris — the bridges over the glittering Seine, the cafes, and, in Alan Furst’s latest novel of espionage, intrigue, and lust, the impending advance of Nazi tanks across the continent. It’s 1938 in “Mission to Paris,” and caught up in the machinations leading up to war are an Austro-Slovenian Hollywood actor, a German baroness, a Russian actress and spy, and for good measure a Hungarian diplomat or two.

    Mr. Furst, who with his string of popular and critically praised novels is now king of the historical espionage genre, while at the same time surpassing genre fiction, will read from “Mission to Paris” on Saturday at 5 p.m. at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor — the novelist’s home village, it just so happens.

“The Spine of the Continent”

    Mary Ellen Hannibal of the Springs Hannibals has a new book, “The Spine of the Continent,” coming out in September from Lyons Press, and it has already reaped acclaim from the sometimes prickly Kirkus book review journal — you know the one, with the no-frills layout in a plain white wrapper.

    The book tackles a large-scale conservation effort and the scientists and activists behind it. The idea is to connect untamed stretches and pockets of wild or at least nature-friendly land the length of the Rocky Mountains, making an ecosystem and haven for wildlife. To put a fine point on it, the book’s subtitle: “The Most Ambitious Wildlife Conservation Project Ever Undertaken.”

    Ms. Hannibal is the author, most recently, of “Evidence of Evolution.” She has written for The San Francisco Chronicle and lives in the Bay Area.