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This Week in Calendar

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Mick Farren reviews “99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale” by David Wellington.

Martin Rubin reviews “Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa” by Martin Meredith.

Tim Rutten reviews “The Slave Ship: A Human History” by Marcus Rediker.

The following reviews are scheduled:

Emily Green reviews “The Rough Guide to Film: An A-Z of Directors and Their Movies.”

Steve Almond reviews “Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone” by Beth Lisick.

Bernadette Murphy reviews “House Lust: America’s Obsession With Our Homes” by Daniel McGinn.

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On the Web

This week at latimes.com/books:

In Astral Weeks, Ed Park looks at the work of Joe Haldeman, a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop whose 1975 novel, “The Forever War,” has been called “perhaps the only master’s thesis that’s won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards.” Haldeman’s new novel, “The Accidental Time Machine,” is, Park suggests, something of a companion piece to that earlier work; both not only deconstruct time itself but also comment on science fiction’s failure to imagine what’s ahead with any accuracy. “There was no Baedeker for the future,” Haldeman writes. “Science fiction had a really bad record, world peace and personal dirigibles.”

Lists and blog: Look for our expanded bestseller lists and our guide to local literary events, as well as Jacket Copy, our book and publishing information blog, at latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy.

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