Annal:2007 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction

Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, Charles Foley

• 2008 Anthony-Critical winner
• 2008 Edgar-Critical/Biography winner
• 2007 Agatha–Nonfiction winner
• 2008 Macavity-Nonfiction nominee
• Score: 36.58

This remarkable annotated collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s previously unpublished private correspondence offers unique insight into one of the world’s most popular authors. For the first time, Conan Doyle emerges from the shadow of Sherlock Holmes, revealing a man whose character and exploits rival that of his famous creation. In particular, Conan Doyle’s correspondence with his mother exposes his endless search for fulfillment and success outside the Holmes stories.

At age sixteen Conan Doyle began studying medicine at Edinburgh University. Just months shy of graduating, he made the adventurous decision to accept a position as a surgeon on a whaling ship heading to the Arctic. He returned to Edinburgh, graduated, and struggled to establish his own medical practice while simultaneously writing and promoting his stories. He suffered years of disappointment as both doctor and author; yet, to his amazement, just two months after the first Sherlock Holmes short stories, he had garnered such a following that he completely abandoned medicine for literature.

As the public clamored…

The Official Nancy Drew Handbook: Skills, Tips, and Life Lessons from Everyone's Favorite Girl Detective

Penny Warner

• 2007 Agatha–Nonfiction nominee
• Score: 6.57

Nancy Drew turned 76 last year, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her: Perfectly coiffed, with Titian hair to die for, an ever-adoring fiancé, and the best sidekicks a girl could want, our intrepid heroine is still finding clues, escaping from villains, solving mysteries, and saving the day all without mussing those gorgeous tresses.

And now, so can you: The Official Nancy Drew Handbook will teach you how to live the Nancy life, with tips on fashion and beauty, romance, relationships, survival, sleuthing, and success. Soon you too will be tapping out Morse code with your high heels, using beauty aids to outsmart evildoers, and packing your pocketbook for every emergency. Girl Detectives need look no further to learn the life lessons of a super sleuth!