HORSE SOLDIERS, by Doug Stanton
Describes the secret mission of a small band of U.S. soldiers who battled against Taliban forces on horseback and capturedthe Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a critical location for further campaigns.From the New York Times-bestselling author of In Harm’s Way comes a true- life story of American soldiers overcoming great odds to achieve a stunning military victory.
SHANGHAI GIRLS, by Lisa See
Forced to leave Shanghai when their father sells them to California suitors, sisters May and Pearl struggle to adapt to life in 1930s Los Angeles while still bound to old customs, as they face discrimination and confront a life-altering secret. For readers of the phenomenal bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love-a stunning new novel from Lisa See about two sisters who leave Shanghai to find new lives in 1930s Los Angeles
RESILIENCE, by Elizabeth Edwards
The author recounts some of the difficulties she has faced, including the death of her son, cancer, and her husband’s public affair, and shares how she has managed to adapt and survive.
THE GIRLS FROM AMES, by Jeffrey Zaslow
Looks at the lives, bonds, and experiences of a group of female friends from Ames, Iowa.
From the coauthor of the million-copy bestseller The Last Lecture comes a moving tribute to female friendships, with the inspiring story of eleven girls and the ten women they became.
THIS IS WATER: SOME THOUGHTS DELIVERED ON A SIGNIFICANT OCCASION, ABOUT LIVING A COMPASSIONATE LIFE, by David Foster Wallace
Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace’s electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.
GONE TOMORROW, by Lee Child
Witnessing a suicide on a Manhattan subway, Jack Reacher finds himself targeted by the federal government and Al Qaeda forhis knowledge of a dangerous secret, a situation that leads to a dangerous chase through the streets of New York City.
BROOKLYN, by Colm Toibin
Leaving her home in post-World War II Ireland to work as a bookkeeper in Brooklyn, Eilis Lacey reluctantly parts with her sister and fragile mother and discovers a new romance in America with a charming blond Italian man before devastating news threatens her happiness. Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Tóibín’s sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.
WICKED PREY, by John Sandford
Lucas Davenport deals with security concerns during preparation for the Republican National Convention, as a criminal from his past targets his fourteen-year-old daughter.
THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE, by Alan Bradley
Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, begins her adventure when a dead bird is found on the doorstep of her family’s mansion in the summer of 1950, thus propelling her into a mystery that involves an investigation into a man’s murder where her father is the main suspect. Original.
THE UNIT, by Ninni Holmqvist
One day in early spring, Dorrit Weger is checked into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. She is promised a nicely furnished apartment inside the Unit, where she will make new friends, enjoy the state of the art recreation facilities, and live the few remaining days of her life in comfort with people who are just like her. Here, women over the age
of fifty and men over sixty-single, childless, and without jobs in progressive industries-are sequestered for their final few years; they are considered outsiders. In the Unit they are expected to contribute themselves for drug and psychological testing, and ultimately donate their organs, little by little, until the final donation. Despite the ruthless nature of this practice, the ethos of this near-future society and the Unit is to take care of others, and Dorrit finds herself living under very pleasant conditions: well-housed, well-fed, and well-attended. She is resigned to her fate and discovers her days there to be rather consoling and peaceful. But when she meets a man inside the Unit and falls in love, the extraordinary becomes a reality and life suddenly turns unbearable. Dorrit is faced with compliance or escape, and… well, then what?
THE UNIT is a gripping exploration of a society in the throes of an experiment, in which the “dispensable” ones are convinced under gentle coercion of the importance of sacrificing for the “necessary” ones. Ninni Holmqvist has created a debut novel of humor, sorrow, and rage about love, the close bonds of friendship, and about a cynical, utilitarian way of thinking disguised as care.
B IS FOR BEER, by Tom Robbins
The newest work of fiction from the author of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which inspired the film of the same name, is described as “A Children’s Book for Grown-Ups.” 100,000 first printing. Original. The story of an adventurous kindergartner named Gracie, her distracted parents, and a magical alien from another world relates how each one is affected by beer.
DUNE ROAD, by Jane Green
A single mom working for a famously reclusive author in a tony Connecticut beach town stumbles on a secret that many of the eccentric and moneyed locals would love to get their hands on. A sparkling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House.
THE MEMORY COLLECTOR, by Meg Gardiner
The second novel in the Jo Beckett series features the forensic psychiatrist trying to decipher the memories and cryptic statements of a patient with anterograde amnesia who holds the key to preventing a biological attack on San Francisco. 50,000 first printing.
STRANGERS, by Anita Bookner
Resigned to bachelorhood in his London flat, retiree Paul Sturgis unexpectedly finds himself in two relationships, including one with a separated woman he met on a holiday trip to Venice and another with an ex-girlfriend, a situation that causeshim to reevaluate his perspectives. Man Booker Prize-winning author Anita Brookner-called “one of the finest novelists of her generation” by The New York Times-returns with an exquisite novel about a man, three women, and a vibrant decision
A SHORT HISTORY OF WOMEN, by Kate Walbert
Inspired by a suffragist ancestor who starved herself to promote the integration of Cambridge University, Evie refuses to marry and Dorothy defies a ban on photographing the bodies of her dead Iraq War soldier sons, a choice that embarrasses Dorothy’s daughters.
National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert’s A Short History of Women is a profoundly moving portrayal of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, chronicling five generations of women from the close of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twenty-first.
RELENTLESS, by Dean Koontz
Unable to let go of a poor review of his latest best-seller, novelist Cubby Greenwich endeavors to track down the reclusive critic only to trigger a terrifying chain of events that reveal the critic’s sociopath tendencies as well as the violent nature of the critic’s mother. 500,000 first printing.
PYGMY, by Chuck Palahniuk
Pygmy–a young adult from a totalitarian state, disguised as an exchange student–plans a terrorist attack and depicts U.S. Midwestern life through the eyes of a hateful, indoctrinated little killer, in this double-edged satire of American xenophobia by the best-selling author of Fight Club.
ROAD DOGS, by Elmore Leonard
A latest work by the author of Get Shortyand LaBrava unites Cuban con man Cundo Rey and gentleman bank robber Jack Foley in a scheme that is marked by the women in their lives and a beautiful psychic. 200,000 first printing. Original.
THE LANGUAGE OF BEES: A MARY RUSSELL NOVEL
Returning home after seven months abroad, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are met with a problem concerning one of Holmes’s beehives and the reappearance of his estranged son, Damien, who needs their help in finding his missing wife and daughter.
Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of nine Mary Russell mysteries, five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, and the acclaimed novels A Darker Place, Folly, Keeping Watch, and Touchstone. She is one of only two novelists to win the Best First Crime Novel awards on both sides of the Atlantic. She lives in northern California where she
is at work on her Russell and Holmes mystery.
THE DARK HORSE, by Craig Johnson
The Sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyo., follows a hunch to free an allegedly self-made widow.Though his jail is housing confessed killer Mary Barsad, Walt Longmire has a feeling the horse-loving lady is innocent. Prescription drugs found in her system have left her with little appetite and even less ability to focus on the here and now. Posing as an insurance adjuster, Walt goes to the Powder River country to sniff around. His welcome is less than warm. On the night of the murder, Wade Barsad’s ranch house and barn were destroyed by fire, along with his wife’s prize cutting horses-all except for Wahoo Sue, Mary’s favorite, whom Barsad claimed to have taken out and shot. The long list of people happy to see Wade dead includes his hired hand Hershel Vanskike, whose hopes of fortune rest in an antique rifle, and just about everybody else in a three-county area. When Walt rents a room in Absalom, only a Guatemalan bartender and her half-Cheyenne son Benjamin are willing to talk to him. Though he tries to keep a low profile, Walt gets pushed into fighting Cliff Cly, king of the local Friday nightfights. It turns out that Barsad was in the witness protection program and had a lot more enemies than the locals he’d antagonized. After a trip with Hershel and Benjamin to Twentymile Butte shows Cly in a new light, only a meeting with Wahoo Sue saves Walt from death.Walt’s fifth (Another Man’s Moccasins, 2008, etc.) is stunningly descriptive and compulsively readable.
THE SIGNAL, by Ron Carlson
Their relationship troubled, Mack and his wife backpack through the woods of Wyoming to say goodbye, but instead receive asignal from a beacon that has fallen from the sky that leads them to an even darker place. A beautifully written and suspenseful tale of love and peril by an award-winning
THE CITY & THE CITY, by China Mieville
When the body of a murdered woman is found in the extraordinary, decaying city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe,it looks like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he probes, the evidence begins to point to conspiracies far stranger, and more deadly, than anything he could have imagined. Soon his work puts himand those he cares for in danger.
Borlú must travel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own, across a border like no other. It is a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen, a journey to Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma.
With shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & The City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.
THE WALKING PEOPLE, by Mary Beth Keane
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a “softheaded goose” by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living. Though she longs to return and show her family what she has made of herself, her decision to spare her children knowledge of a secret in her past forces her to keep her life in New York separate from the life she once loved in Ireland, and tears her apart from the people she is closest to. Even fifty years later, when the Ireland of her memory bears little resemblance to that of present day, she fears that it is still possible to lose all when she discovers that her children-with the best of intentions- have conspired to unite the worlds she’s so carefully kept separate for decades. A beautifully old-fashioned novel, The Walking People is a debut of remarkable range and power.
WANTING, by Richard Flanagan
“Richard Flanagan has now written five great novels including the stunning, highly praised Gould’s Book of Fish. His latest is a simple tale based in history, in which Flanagan takes three sensational events, well-known to Victorian England, and imagines how they were played out by the iconic characters involved: Sir John Franklin, governor of the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land and later a doomed Arctic explorer; Charles Dickens; and Mathinna, a beautiful, charismatic aboriginal child adopted by the Franklins in an infamous experiment. Wanting is about desire, and about lack, and the very real tragedy of colonization. How Flanagan brings these events and themes to life is genius.”
THE STORY SISTERS, by Alice Hoffman
The author of The Third Angel incorporates family drama and erotic longing in this coming of age story of three sisters who create a magical world on their street to escape a tragedy that has changed them forever.
MY FATHER’S TEARS, by John Updike
A collection of short fiction from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author includes tales set in his native Pennsylvania, the New England suburbs, and foreign countries, all depicting different facets of the American experience from the Depression through the aftermath of 9/11.
CRAZY FOR THE STORM, by Norman Ollestad
A personal account set against a backdrop of southern California’s surf culture in the late 1970s describes the author’s struggles with constant fear in the face of his father’s thrill-seeking personality, his forced participation in dangerous ski and surf sports, and his efforts to survive a plane crash that killed his father and stranded him in the Gabriel Mountains. 300,000 first printing.
REAGAN’S SECRET WAR, by Martin Anderson
Describes the former President’s intent from his first days in office to win the Cold War, based on classified documents archived in the Ronald Regan Presidential Library, including minutes from Security Council meetings and secret letters sent to world leaders.
MARTHA STEWART’S CUPCAKES, by Martha Stewart
Features recipes for cupcakes, from classics such as devil’s food to surprises like peanut butter and jelly, as well as frostings, fillings, toppings, and a wide selection of decorating and embellishment ideas, including stencil templates, and an equipment glossary. Original.
THE CHEATER, by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg
Investigating a web site providing alibis for cheating spouses, Lily Forrester is again on the trail of a vicious criminal, and teams up with an FBI agent tracking a murderer who targets unfaithful husbands. Nancy Taylor Rosenberg has constantlybeen praised for her intense, dramatic suspense, breathing real life and trouble into her action-packed thrillers. Her fourteen years in law enforcement have always given her novels great authenticity, often pulling inspiration from the very cases she has worked. Now comes The Cheater.
