Take them to the beach or stuff them in your backpack. These brand new titles will he...

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The March Mystery Madness showdown has now reached its third week. During the last round, 48 books were voted off, leaving 16 behind to duke it out over the coming three weeks....

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As you may already know, we were pretty excited when we found out about March Mystery Madness last week. In fact, after a quick flurry of email conversations, we wound up sponsoring it.

With 64 of the best mystery and thriller novels pitted against each other in a six week competition, the first week of polling is done:

Narrow upsets, crushing defeats and last-second comebacks were all the rage. Blockbuster author Philip Margolin put up a fight, slashing his way to a narrow defeat against Andrew Taylor's Fallen Angel. Taylor now takes on Karin Slaughter, who squeaked out a narrow victory of her own over the beloved Louis Bayard and his The Pale Blue Eye. Will these close victories serve as inspiration or will fans of each author be satisfied just to be in the second round?

You can find the full list of 32 first-round winners here.

Don't forget to go vote for your favourites this week- it could mean a free library of 65 excellent books.

You can find out more about the books here.

HarperCollins Canada has launched a blog/contest called March Mystery Madness:

We're hoping that everyone finds March Mystery Madness blog worthy. It's a massive, really fun online event we're running over the next six weeks: 64 books, 4 conferences, tonnes of "games," and one ultimate winner. Essentially, it's the NCAA basketball tournament only with mystery books.

Battling mystery titles, hype, games and the chance to win 65 great mystery novels. What's not to love?

Link to March Mystery Madness

Thanks, Ragdoll

Bookman Beattie points to the Times pronouncement of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. These lists are always interesting, and most people disagree with them.

The top ten, as per the Times:
1. Philip Larkin
2. George Orwell
3. William Golding
4. Ted Hughes
5. Doris Lessing
6. J. R. R. Tolkien
7. V. S. Naipaul
8. Muriel Spark
9. Kingsley Amis
10. Angela Carter

Anyone care to weigh in on the 10 greatest Canadian writers since 1945?

Penguins, Toni Morrison and Harry Potter most challenged books of 2006

Topping the list was And Tango Makes Three, a tale of two male penguins parenting an egg from a mixed-sex penguin. Toni Morrison's novels Beloved and The Bluest Eye also made the list, but the most challenged books of the 21st century remain J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels