The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith — Fans of Alexander McCall Smith, author of several series, including The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, 44 Scotland Street, and Isabel Dalhousie's novels will enjoy this recent interview by Connie Fletcher in BookList Online (12/01/2011).

It's always good to have options and different sources of information for school reports and assignments. For those kids looking for report information on African Tribes, here are some websites for you. Art and Life in Africa: Peoples Resource and Information on African Tribes and African People. These sites are a quick way to find information on tribes, especially when a book is not available.

Looking to expand your literary choices and discover new authors? Sign up for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge. Created by blogger Dorte Jakobsen with technical assistance from fellow blogger, Kerrie Smith, there are three levels of the challenge: Easy, Medium, and Expert.

For each level you will read writers from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America (includes Central America) and South America within 2010. Each level becomes progressively more difficult (i.e. more books to read to satisfy the requirements). Jakobsen provides a wonderful list of reading suggestions for each continent.

Here is where the landscape, the country, and the people all play a part in forming life-changing experiences in the real and fictional worlds of Africa!

• The challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai
• A beautiful place to die by Malla Nunn
• Ivory's ghosts: the white gold of history and the fate of elephants by John F. Walker
• Playing the enemy: Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation by John Carlin
• Cry, the beloved country by Alan Paton
• A change of altitude by Anita Shreve
• Tea time for the traditionally built by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips
• The laughter of dead kings by Elizabeth Peters
• Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad

This year 39 crime books competed for the Davitt Awards which were set up by Sisters in Crime in 2001 to celebrate the achievements of Australian women crime writers. Justice Betty King presented the awards to a crowd of 140 at the Celtic Club. For the third year running, the awards were sponsored by the Victoria Police Museum.

Beautiful Place To Die (PanMacmillan), the debut novel by Sydney-based filmmaker turned crime writer, Malla Nunn, tonight won Sisters in Crime’s Davitt Awards for the best (adult) crime novel by an Australian woman in 2008.

Blue Mountains writer Catherine Jinks took out the Davitt (young adult) for Genius Squad (Allen & Unwin)

If you like the humor found in Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, may we suggest:

• Murder Grins and Bears It: A Yooper Mystery by Deb Baker
• Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot
• Bubbles Unbound by Sarah Strohmeyer
• Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
• The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith